https://idec.foxears.su/echo/eAcHEM7cQXgklvwusuHe fox :: echo/eAcHEM7cQXgklvwusuHe ru DKVt1uMvZCKInCceeFLW2026-06-30 00:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/DKVt1uMvZCKInCceeFLW#DKVt1uMvZCKInCceeFLW "Amid growing public anger over A.I. and a debate over how to regulate it, a group of employers, state governors and foundations has raised $500 million to try to answer some of those questions themselves," reports the New York Times. "Just how many jobs will AI upend?" asks th... All

"Amid growing public anger over A.I. and a debate over how to regulate it, a group of employers, state governors and foundations has raised $500 million to try to answer some of those questions themselves," reports the New York Times.

"Just how many jobs will AI upend?" asks the Wall Street Journal, reporting that the new coalition says it's time to ready the U.S. workforce for a "major" disruption — no matter how large it turns out to be. The coalition "has so far raised more than $500 million — about half of its multiyear goal — from companies and nonprofit groups. It will initially work with state governments in Arkansas, Maryland, Utah and Connecticut. OpenAI and Anthropic are also involved, and academics including MIT economist David Autor sit on an advisory board."

[The new "RAISE US" coalition] will be led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who served under former President Joe Biden, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican. Its mandate, they said, isn't just to build retraining programs but also to reconsider decades-old policies such as unemployment insurance and act as a working lab for testing the most effective ways to transition workers to new fields. The group will explore corporate incentives for employers to hold on to workers whose jobs are disrupted by AI and prep them for new roles... The mission of the group is to "pull all the levers at once," Raimondo said. That means teaming up with employers to find ways to help workers gain skills or new roles and joining with educators to roll out different types of training. It also plans to propose policy changes such as tweaking unemployment benefits to let displaced workers continue to get them while they, for instance, start new businesses with AI... In Maryland, the group plans to expand a service-year option in the state to help people gain exposure to such growing fields as healthcare. An effort in Arkansas will focus on supporting "an AI-powered career navigation platform."

More from New York Times:

The organization will work primarily with governors... The theory: States generally control their community college systems, which can translate work force policy through course offerings and industry partnerships. The bulk of the budget will fund pilot programs overseen by about 15 staff members and consultants. For example, Maryland will expand a "service year" for recent high school graduates to provide experience in fields where there are shortages, such as health care. In other states, Raise Us hopes to offer "wage insurance" for workers who take lower-paying jobs rather than dropping out of the work force entirely.

The group plans to furnish technical assistance for companies that want to retain workers as A.I. changes their roles, rather than eliminating them. Microsoft, one of the companies backing the organization, said it had already found a promising model: cross-training its entry-level lawyers in different parts of the organization and equipping them with A.I. skills in order for them to be repositioned as technology evolves. "You can think of doing that with almost any job we have," said Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft. "It creates an opportunity to transfer people from jobs that are being eliminated to jobs that are being created...."

Ms. Raimondo and her colleagues are not fans of a universal basic income, an idea that has gained popularity in Silicon Valley as an answer to job disruption. They emphasize that work provides more than just wages, and plan to focus on helping people find pathways to new jobs. But it's unclear whether A.I. will create jobs at the rate that it will destroy them. Jack Malde studied work force policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center and is now going to work for the Windfall Trust, another A.I.-focused think tank. He said long-term income support might be necessary, even if better models for transitioning workers were found. "The truth is, there's still a lot of uncertainty," Mr. Malde said. "What we think is resilient now might not be resilient later. We're not going to get everything right, so we're going to need those strong safety-net programs."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:
If you think you've seen this movie before, prior to "partnering with governors, employers, and training partners to help the American workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy" with RAISE US, Raimondo and Holcomb partnered with governors, employers and training partners to help U.S. K-12 students make a successful transition to a CS economy with the Governors for Computer Science coalition.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/29/0548210/ex-governors-big-tech-launch-coalition-to-help-workers-navigate-the-ai-economy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> XqTWixHz0N5tYFhVFrv62026-06-29 19:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/XqTWixHz0N5tYFhVFrv6#XqTWixHz0N5tYFhVFrv6 IBM has unveiled "what it says is the world's first sub-1-nanometer chip technology," reports ZDNet, "designed to pack nearly 100 billion transistors on a fingernail-size die, roughly doubling the density of IBM's earlier 2-nm test chip, first shown in 2021... Today, the smallest... All

IBM has unveiled "what it says is the world's first sub-1-nanometer chip technology," reports ZDNet, "designed to pack nearly 100 billion transistors on a fingernail-size die, roughly doubling the density of IBM's earlier 2-nm test chip, first shown in 2021... Today, the smallest, most powerful chips top out at about 80 billion transistors."

At the heart of the announcement is NanoStack. This is a three-dimensional, nanosheet-based transistor design that scales vertically, or along the z-axis, by stacking and staggering CMOS devices. Unlike today's nanosheet architectures, which IBM also pioneered and which are being adopted by leading foundries at 3 nm and 2 nm, NanoStack bonds two nanosheet transistors into a single vertical structure, with each tier optimized independently and contacted from opposite sides. Each transistor in the demonstrated structure uses three sub-5 nm-thick nanosheets, about "15 silicon atoms" across, separated by roughly 9 nm spacers. Two such devices are then bonded vertically using an ultra-thin dielectric process IBM describes as a key innovation. Because the top and bottom devices can use different channel materials, dielectrics, and metals, IBM argues NanoStack is less a single trick and more a transistor platform that can be extended through multiple generations: 7 angstrom (Å), 5 Å, 3 Å, and potentially down to 1 Å in its internal roadmap.

An angstrom, by the by, is one ten-billionth of a meter. In terms of chips, an angstrom is a tenth of a nanometer. "This is the world's first sub-1 nanometer chip technology with a new transistor architecture," said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow, during a press briefing. "We're not just making smaller transistors, we're reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency...." Based on internal benchmarking against its 2 nm node, the company said its new chips will deliver up to 50% higher performance at the same power, or up to 70% lower power for the same performance. Big Blue also highlighted a 40% improvement in the scaling of static random-access memory (SRAM) cell area relative to its 2 nm technology.

This is a change IBM described as a "step the industry hasn't seen in over a decade" and one that could be particularly important for AI accelerators that live or die on on-chip memory bandwidth... According to Huiming Bu, IBM's VP of silicon technology R&D, NanoStack is a new paradigm. It's moving chips to scaling fully into three dimensions and giving the industry at least "another decade" of logic advances as it crosses from nanometers into angstroms... The 40% SRAM density bump could also help architects push caches and on-die memory closer to compute units, cutting data movement overhead in training and inference workloads.

IBM sees a path to production use "in as early as the next 5 years", according to the article, and "expects NanoStack to eventually underpin CPUs, GPUs, mobile SoCs, and SRAM arrays."

IBM's VP of silicon technology R&D says the new innovation "can improve performance by 50% compared to the best available chip today, and at the same time can reduce power by 70%."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/29/0049218/ibm-says-it-can-fit-nearly-100-billion-transistors-on-a-chip?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> TgoivQSghn0wANenvfDV2026-06-29 14:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/TgoivQSghn0wANenvfDV#TgoivQSghn0wANenvfDV The planets Neptune and Uranus may be better described as "magma-ocean giants" rather than "ice giants," according to a team of researchers from the University of California. Gizmodo reports: While the Voyager flyby confirmed the planets' classification as ice giants... [a]s the... All

The planets Neptune and Uranus may be better described as "magma-ocean giants" rather than "ice giants," according to a team of researchers from the University of California. Gizmodo reports:

While the Voyager flyby confirmed the planets' classification as ice giants... [a]s the least explored planets in the solar system, the two planets have never been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, scientists aren't sure where the planets originally formed in the early solar system or the reason for their wildly chaotic magnetic fields. A long-standing hypothesis suggests that both worlds have a hydrogen/helium atmosphere that covers a vast mantle of ices, made primarily of water, ammonia, and methane, with a rocky core. The new study, however, notes that the three-layer model of an ice giant's interior structure is not the only way to explain the properties of the two planets.

The researchers also point out that objects found in the Kuiper Belt, which are thought to preserve evidence of the material in the outer Solar System where Uranus and Neptune formed, are primarily composed of rock rather than ice. For the recent study, the researchers simulated different models for the interior processes and composition of Uranus and Neptune. The model that best fits Uranus's and Neptune's different properties suggests the two planets have a well-mixed magma ocean with dissolved hydrogen at the bottom and a hydrogen-dominated envelope at the top. The model suggests that at high pressures, hydrogen gas can dissolve into magma, forming a well-mixed fluid. This mixing might help explain Uranus's and Neptune's density, which has traditionally been interpreted as evidence for an ice-rich interior.
The article notes that the theory "could also help scientists understand the interior structure of sub-Neptune planets in the Milky Way, which have thus far remained a mystery."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/29/0135220/scientists-think-neptune-and-uranus-may-not-be-the-ice-giants-we-imagined?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> PHz0gjk1Exr3cSDyM9TE2026-06-29 09:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/PHz0gjk1Exr3cSDyM9TE#PHz0gjk1Exr3cSDyM9TE Donald Trump shuttered the web site Climate.gov in 2025, cutting off public access to climate information from America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But "former members of the site's team have brought much of it back at a new domain," reports The Reg... All

Donald Trump shuttered the web site Climate.gov in 2025, cutting off public access to climate information from America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But "former members of the site's team have brought much of it back at a new domain," reports The Register:

"Trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change," Climate.us managing director Rebecca Lindsey said of the new platform in a press release. Lindsey, who previously served as the Climate.gov program manager and lead editor, told The Register in an email that she and one of the web developers responsible for the site were the first to be caught up in government purges when DOGE swept through the department in late February 2025... Created in cooperation with sustainability nonprofit accelerator Multiplier, Climate.us aims to be an independent alternative to its old .gov, and many of the former NOAA crew behind the previous website have teamed up for the new initiative to "keep climate information accurate, accessible, scientifically rigorous, and useful for the people who rely on it."

Climate.gov, which now redirects to a NOAA page about climate but which hosts none of the data the shuttered site used to contain, was taken offline in July 2025 following a Trump executive order prioritizing "gold standard science...." arguing that prior climate science models relied on worst-case scenarios, which somehow meant the public availability of 15 years of climate data and reporting ought to change...

All of the content that was purged from the .gov is now back, along with blogs from experts, climate status reports, maps and data pathways, and national assessments of climate change as well.
Lindsey told us that rapidly changing political winds have led her to believe that the government isn't the right place for that mission to continue, and that she would have concerns about returning the site to federal management if a future administration changed its position on climate change... Lindsey said that the Climate.us team will continue with the same mission it had before the Trump administration attempted to quash it: Getting climate science in front of the public in a manner that's understandable so they can make their own decisions about how to respond.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/29/0115229/trump-shuttered-climate-change-site-now-back-online-in-nonprofit-hands?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> T3Ag0FY1gevBL04CDTss2026-06-29 04:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/T3Ag0FY1gevBL04CDTss#T3Ag0FY1gevBL04CDTss The New York Times alleges Microsoft actively encouraged OpenAI to steal its copyrighted work, reports Ars Technica, citing a new (and heavily redacted) court filing Thursday: NYT's motion comes after the [U.S.] Supreme Court sided with Cox Communications in a case where Sony tr... All

The New York Times alleges Microsoft actively encouraged OpenAI to steal its copyrighted work, reports Ars Technica, citing a new (and heavily redacted) court filing Thursday:

NYT's motion comes after the [U.S.] Supreme Court sided with Cox Communications in a case where Sony tried and failed to claim that Cox was contributing to music piracy as an Internet service provider, which set a new standard for contributory infringement. Moving forward, plaintiffs will have to prove that parties intentionally acted to induce illegal conduct. Recognizing that the legal precedent has changed, the NYT now wants to amend its complaint to align its contributory infringement claim against Microsoft with that new standard... A Microsoft spokesperson told Ars that the company views the amended complaint as "a last-ditch effort by the plaintiff to save its claim from unfavorable precedent set in other recent rulings..."

The updated complaint seeks to specify that [Microsoft's] supercomputer was tailor-made to help OpenAI infringe and allege that it was built for the explicit purpose of training AI on copyrighted works without permission. And as the NYT alleged, its articles were more heavily weighted by this system, as both firms hoped to train models on the highest-quality journalism possible, so that level of writing could be confidently mimicked in outputs. By building this "unusually complex" machine, Microsoft not only helped select the works that were infringed but also provided a means to seize copyrighted works without permission, the NYT alleged. "Microsoft specifically designed it for the purpose of using essentially the whole Internet — curated to disproportionately feature Times Works — to train the most capable LLM in history," the NYT alleged... Similarly as problematic for the NYT are hallucinations where Microsoft and OpenAI models falsely cite the NYT for content that they never published... "Users who ask a search engine what The Times has written on a subject should be provided with neither an unauthorized copy nor an inaccurate forgery of a Times article, but a link to the article itself," the NYT alleged...

In a statement provided to Ars, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri reiterated the AI firm's often-repeated claims that AI training on copyrighted works is indisputably fair use... OpenAI has argued that "ChatGPT is not a substitute for a Times subscription," the NYT reported, partly because "they transformed the material for a different use."

An OpenAI spokesperson told Ars Technica that OpenAI's models "empower innovation," while a New York Times spokesperson insisted that Microsoft "actively encouraged OpenAI to steal our copyrighted works... [O]ur core claims remain the same from the day we filed this lawsuit — that Microsoft and OpenAI stole millions of The Times's copyrighted works to compete with our products and illegally enrich themselves."

The article speculates that the case's most extreme outcome "could require OpenAI and Microsoft to wipe models and start over. The NYT has also asked for permanent injunctive relief to prevent future infringement, as well as extensive damages..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/2256226/microsoft-slammed-for-building-copyright-infringing-supercomputer-for-openai-in-new-court-filing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> KeNr1COJqyWBtN1LKWlR2026-06-29 02:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/KeNr1COJqyWBtN1LKWlR#KeNr1COJqyWBtN1LKWlR Spanish startup FOSSA Systems "has raised about $10.5 million to expand its connectivity constellation," reports Space News, noting some funding is backed by Spain's government: The support from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT) comes a year after the f... All

Spanish startup FOSSA Systems "has raised about $10.5 million to expand its connectivity constellation," reports Space News, noting some funding is backed by Spain's government:

The support from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT) comes a year after the fund injected 14 million euros into Spain's Sateliot , which is also developing a satellite connectivity network with security and defense applications. Spanish private investment firm Kibo Ventures led FOSSA's funding round, the six-year-old venture announced June 24, bringing its total raised to date to nearly 20 million euros.

The proceeds will help fuel FOSSA's push beyond the tiny picosatellites it once used to connect low-power monitoring devices toward larger cubesats in low Earth orbit, enabling additional sovereign communications and space-based intelligence capabilities... The company's funding round follows a wave of investments this year in European ventures planning to develop sovereign space capabilities, including Austrian propulsion startup Gate Space, which secured 6.3 million euros earlier this month from a European Commission-backed accelerator program.

"Our goal is to establish FOSSA as a European benchmark in sovereign space infrastructure," said Julián Fernández, FOSSA's CEO and cofounder.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/222254/spain-backed-fund-joins-fossas-sovereign-satellite-communications-push?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> iSI8PAUhZENNXNvKaIEJ2026-06-29 01:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/iSI8PAUhZENNXNvKaIEJ#iSI8PAUhZENNXNvKaIEJ Chinese AI systems "have matched the performance of Anthropic's powerful model Mythos in some cybersecurity scenarios," reports the Wall Street Journal. They call it "a development poised to reset the global tech race and pressure the White House in its overhaul of U.S. AI polic... All

Chinese AI systems "have matched the performance of Anthropic's powerful model Mythos in some cybersecurity scenarios," reports the Wall Street Journal.
They call it "a development poised to reset the global tech race and pressure the White House in its overhaul of U.S. AI policy."

Security researchers said that a new AI model, released this month by China's Zhipu AI, also known as Z.ai, can match the latest U.S. models when it comes to finding security bugs, although it still lags behind Anthropic's and OpenAI's products in other tasks. Overall, the capability gap between top U.S. models and those built by Chinese companies has narrowed significantly, and use of Chinese AI systems has surged as businesses seek to rein in runaway costs. A host of companies, including Microsoft, are weighing how they can offer Chinese models on their platforms, a development that is set to alter the balance of power among tech companies...

Unlike models from Anthropic or OpenAI, Zhipu's GLM-5.2 is open-weight. That means it can be downloaded and run on hardware operated by anybody and can be modified and used without supervision. Open-weight models are ideal for users who want unfettered access to systems they control, but they are also ideal for hackers, who can run them in the shadows. GLM-5.2 has ranked as one of the 10 most-used AI models, according to data from OpenRouter, a company that provides access to more than 400 AI models. In some benchmarking tests, according to the cybersecurity company Semgrep, GLM-5.2 bested Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 model, which was released in May. When given further instructions, Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.2 can match Mythos in bug-finding ability, according to researchers...

"Banning Fable while selling chips China needs to develop its own version is a gift to China," said Saif Khan, a distinguished technology fellow at the Institute for Progress think tank who worked on export restrictions in the Biden administration. The U.S. needs to maximize the use of Mythos and comparable models to harden its cyber defenses while it can, he added. Among the Mythos 5 and Fable 5 users that had lost access before Friday's decision to restore Mythos 5 access for some trusted entities: the National Security Agency, which had been testing the tools and found them impressive in trials, according to people familiar with the matter... "It is incentivizing companies across the globe to use cheaper but very capable Chinese open-weight models, while at the same time undermining the U.S. AI industry," said Niels Provos, a researcher who led security teams at Google and Stripe. "I don't understand it."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/1922225/chinas-ai-matches-anthropic-in-cybersecurity-causing-worry-over-us-restrictions?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> eBZV4VnujHvIsm4GPp4z2026-06-29 00:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/eBZV4VnujHvIsm4GPp4z#eBZV4VnujHvIsm4GPp4z The New York Times tells the story of a 63-year-old retiree who wrote a check for several thousand dollaras to pay her taxes. But she discovered much later that her taxes were never paid because that check had been intercepted and then altered to be payable to someone else: In s... All

The New York Times tells the story of a 63-year-old retiree who wrote a check for several thousand dollaras to pay her taxes. But she discovered much later that her taxes were never paid because that check had been intercepted and then altered to be payable to someone else:

In some cases, thieves may pilfer one or more checks from local mailboxes. Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, said thieves sometimes "fish" for checks at free-standing drop boxes, using long tools with sticky pads on the ends to grab letters. In other cases, more sophisticated criminals may steal large batches of checks, copy them and then sell them on the internet. Often, the purloined checks are chemically altered in what's known as "check washing" to remove the name of the recipient. The thief replaces it with a fraudulent name, and often increases the amount of the check, before cashing or depositing it.

The 63-year-old retiree's bank told her she'd waited too long to recover the funds:

Schwab's "security guarantee," outlined on its website , says that "Schwab will cover losses in any of your Schwab accounts due to unauthorized activity." But fine print at the bottom of the page notes that reimbursement "requires your timely reporting of unauthorized activity to Schwab," and that Schwab "will not be liable for additional or increased losses resulting from a failure to report unauthorized activity in a timely manner." It notes that more details are available in account agreements... Notify your bank as soon as possible, said Scott Anchin, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and policy at the independent bankers association. Banks generally allow at least 30 days and sometimes up to 90 days from the time your statement is made available to you to report suspected check fraud, he said.

So how can you avoid check fraud? Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, just suggests that "No one should ever mail a check."

If you must write a check, he said, try to deliver it in person or take it inside a post office to mail rather than relying on your own mailbox or public drop boxes. The American Bankers Association recommends using permanent "gel" ink pens when you do write checks to reduce the risk of tampering... And if you don't already, consider using your bank's online bill payment service.

The article notes that even the U.S. federal government "has been moving away from paper checks for things like benefit payments and income tax refunds, saying digital payment methods are more secure."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/1016244/are-checks-sent-through-the-mail-vulnerable-to-theft?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> WCjusMAp06JzdDc5yzrl2026-06-28 22:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/WCjusMAp06JzdDc5yzrl#WCjusMAp06JzdDc5yzrl America's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has "canceled its contract for a surveillance tool that enables warrantless tracking of mobile devices," reports the Associated Press. They note the move comes "after lawmakers, a prosecutor and a judge raised concer... All

America's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has "canceled its contract for a surveillance tool that enables warrantless tracking of mobile devices," reports the Associated Press.

They note the move comes "after lawmakers, a prosecutor and a judge raised concerns about the legality of the tool in criminal investigations."

ATF, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation's gun laws, told The Associated Press that it discontinued what it called a "pilot" program using a tool called Webloc after Rep. Michael Cloud, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, expressed reservations about the agency's use of bulk commercial location data. Webloc, which is made by a vendor called Penlink, sources data from consumer apps and advertising networks, which collect the location of mobile devices from consumers who download apps or browse the web...

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that police needed a warrant to obtain historic movement data from cellphone companies on a criminal suspect. But it has never addressed the growing practice of commercially acquired data.

Other users of Webloc include the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement but also local law enforcement agencies such as police in places like Elk Grove, Calif. and Durham, N.C. The technology has also expanded around the world, with the national police in El Salvador and Hungarian intelligence agencies as customers, according to a report from earlier this year from Citizen Lab, a group of researchers at the University of Toronto who investigate digital threats to civil society.

The article notes that other U.S. law enforcement agencies continue to buy commercial geolocation data, "including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/0546256/us-agency-cancels-contract-for-warrantless-tracking-of-mobile-devices?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> CDPLA2amI2BFtVlWnsfN2026-06-28 21:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/CDPLA2amI2BFtVlWnsfN#CDPLA2amI2BFtVlWnsfN Students are using AI-powered smart glasses to cheat on tests, reports CNN. "And in East Asia's test-obsessed societies, where a single exam could impact the trajectory of a student's future career and social status, educators are scrambling to get ahead of the problem." Already... All

Students are using AI-powered smart glasses to cheat on tests, reports CNN. "And in East Asia's test-obsessed societies, where a single exam could impact the trajectory of a student's future career and social status, educators are scrambling to get ahead of the problem."

Already, countries are stepping up inspections for test-takers. For China's grueling annual college entrance exam earlier this month — which more than 10 million hopefuls take each year — authorities required screening of all glasses. In the United Kingdom, the head of England's exam watchdog warned earlier this month that AI glasses and smart devices like earpieces could worsen cheating in exams... [T]wo incidents in South Korea were the country's first reported cases of cheating with AI glasses... In Taiwan, the university where a prospective student was caught cheating is now reviewing rules and standard operating procedures for AI eyewears during examinations.

But experts worry these individual cases point to a more widespread issue. "If we're seeing a few cases being reported, we're seeing a lot more cases not being reported," said Thomas Corbin, lecturer at Deakin University in Australia, who has conducted research around the usage of AI-powered glasses and other smart devices in academic assessment. With the rapid development of AI technology, however, smart glasses are becoming slimmer, less noticeable, while integrating AI models that can operate independently with connectivity, raising concerns not only about exam integrity, but also about broader privacy risks... "Wearable AI is as much of a challenge to exams as ChatGPT was to essays in 2022 and I just don't think there is any real way that we can reliably have exam practices moving forward," Corbin said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/1926233/students-around-the-world-are-using-ai-powered-smart-glasses-to-cheat-on-tests?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> QYCnM5oGKrSz0njN93AJ2026-06-28 20:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/QYCnM5oGKrSz0njN93AJ#QYCnM5oGKrSz0njN93AJ The Onion joked the new movie Supergirl is about a hero who must single-handedly save the world "after the catastrophic collapse of interest in the genre." Unfortunately, The Hollywood Reporter says the film's reviews "range from negative to tepid praise (averaging a 58 percent... All

The Onion joked the new movie Supergirl is about a hero who must single-handedly save the world "after the catastrophic collapse of interest in the genre."

Unfortunately, The Hollywood Reporter says the film's reviews "range from negative to tepid praise (averaging a 58 percent Rotten Tomatoes score)."

Many point fingers at the film's script, with Variety's line — "a comic-book movie with the worst script I can remember" — going viral... Not to pile on, but there's another recurring gripe from the reviews that stood out: Critics bashed the film as being murky, dark and gray, with poor VFX: "Muddy CG sludge" wrote one. Another said the film was full of "sludgy browns and grays" and "the visual murkiness of the settings makes it hard to follow the already unintelligible action sequences." A third wrote the "VFX is so rough it makes The Flash look like Avatar." Moviegoers increasingly despise murky, dark visuals (often used to hide weak effects), along with obvious CGI and incoherent action. They've seen it so many times they've become allergic.

The Bulwark agreesterribly lit, incoherently staged, and just generally weightless and ugly... [I]t's reminiscent of the disaster that was The Flash: It's just very obvious during certain sequences that everyone was in a big green-screen warehouse and the camera was whipping around with the knowledge that everything would be painted in later, so who really gives a crap how anything looks on the day of." They call the movie "a tremendous slog of a film, a real step backwards for the James Gunn-overseen DC Universe of movies and TV shows" that's "neither fun nor exciting" and "feels empty."

The film does have one bright spot: Lobo, who is played by Jason Momoa as something like Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice by way of Jason Momoa's Aquaman. He's blustery and cantankerous and saucy and just a little menacing; it's a perfect piece of casting and a really nice performance. Unfortunately, it's the only spark of life in what is otherwise a deeply dour, deeply boring piece of filmmaking... Supergirl is just a misfire on nearly every level, one that lacks the sincerity and fun of last year's reboot of this universe or the comic pathos present in Gunn's Peacemaker series on HBO Max.

Reason calls it "dark, depressive, and dull" and "a downer of a movie in nearly every way."
It's not fun. It's barely even righteous. It's just miserable. At one point, Supergirl flat-out murders a guy by pushing a giant sword through his neck. Somehow, I suspect even Zack Snyder would be appalled.

Time argued fans of last decade's superhero movies "should be demanding more, not less." Though "Will there be rioting in the streets once audiences get some idea of how lousy Supergirl is? Probably not."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/0420250/supergirl-movie-criticized-for-script-poor-visual-effects?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> gJDPhQcfzqpBHoXHACJp2026-06-28 16:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/gJDPhQcfzqpBHoXHACJp#gJDPhQcfzqpBHoXHACJp "Enterprises may soon be paying as much for their developers' AI token usage as they do for their salaries," writes InfoWorld: According to Gartner, these costs will meet, or even exceed, the typical software engineer's monthly salary within the next two years. This is not only ... All

"Enterprises may soon be paying as much for their developers' AI token usage as they do for their salaries," writes InfoWorld:

According to Gartner, these costs will meet, or even exceed, the typical software engineer's monthly salary within the next two years. This is not only because developers are increasingly adopting generative AI and agentic tools, it reflects a trend toward consumption-based licensing models as vendors balance infrastructure investments with profitability...
Gartner senior principal analyst Nitish Tyagi explained that it's important to note that Gartner's prediction is based on a global average salary of $2,000 per month; it doesn't mean AI token usage will exceed all salaries. For instance, in the US, yearly pay rates can be six digits or more. However, that kind of spend is not out of the realm of possibility, Tyagi emphasized. "I have heard scary numbers like 'My developer consumed $20K last month,' or 'A business user consumed $32K'."

If these amounts sound shocking, that's the point. "The goal is to alarm the industry about the impact of token cost if it is not governed and controlled," he said... AI coding vendors have yet to deliver "mature, built-in cost optimization capabilities," Tyagi said, and prices will likely only continue to rise as vendors further build out their models while at the same time trying to remain profitable. Thus, enterprises struggle to forecast and control costs, and, because AI is moving so fast, many organizations lack the "maturity and frameworks" to determine ROI, he noted. Agent-driven workflows are difficult to govern, context windows become bloated, budgets are wiped out earlier than anticipated, and token spend becomes hard to justify....

"Without a governed engineering operating model, costs can escalate faster than the productivity gains these tools are designed to deliver," Tyagi said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/0519223/developer-ai-token-costs-could-exceed-their-salaries-in-two-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> se0iUMWyhNmaBKSW3AS32026-06-28 12:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/se0iUMWyhNmaBKSW3AS3#se0iUMWyhNmaBKSW3AS3 Jack Nekhala had a business selling on Amazon — and in December he received an unusual offer, reports Bloomberg. A woman said she could bribe an Amazon employee "to help him retrieve $90,000 in funds that the e-commerce giant had frozen after suspending him over an alleged violat... All

Jack Nekhala had a business selling on Amazon — and in December he received an unusual offer, reports Bloomberg. A woman said she could bribe an Amazon employee "to help him retrieve $90,000 in funds that the e-commerce giant had frozen after suspending him over an alleged violation of review policy."

Hoping to ingratiate himself with the company and restart his business, Nekhala offered to provide evidence, including recorded conversations and screen shots, that he said proved Amazon personnel were peddling inside information and influence. The smoking gun, Nekhala told the representative: information about his seller account. Only certain Amazon employees are supposed to have access to such details, but Nekhala had received them from the woman on WeChat, the Chinese messaging app. Nekhala's experience, which he documented and shared with Bloomberg, provides a rare glimpse into an international black market that has been a persistent scourge of Amazon's online store. On one side are sellers looking for a variety of favors: a competitive edge over their rivals, information on how to boost sales, a way to get themselves unsuspended. On the other are middlemen who lurk on message apps like Telegram, WeChat and WhatsApp offering access to people inside Amazon who can get things done for a price...

It's impossible to determine the scope of the illicit activity, but it's an open secret among Amazon sellers and consultants, who are frequently approached on social-media platforms and messaging apps. "The message is always the same: 'I'm going to show you screenshots to prove I have inside access,'" said Chris McCabe, a former Amazon employee who runs a seller consulting firm... In 2020, federal prosecutors exposed an international bribery scheme involving Amazon sellers and employees. The ring allegedly extracted about $100 million in unfair advantages by bribing Amazon employees in Asia to help them sell more products and sabotage their competitors. Five people in the US were convicted and received jail terms or probation. Last year, law enforcement officials in India began investigating more than 20 former Amazon employees suspected of accepting bribes from trucking companies in exchange for routes, according to The Times of India.

After Nekhala reported his own experience to Amazon, the representative committed to "do some digging" and to email him instructions on how his evidence could be shared, according to a recording of the conversation. But Nekhala said he never heard back. The employee who leaked his personal information had already been fired for unrelated misconduct, according to Amazon.

Amazon told Bloomberg employee involvement was "very rare," and that "We invest heavily in this area and have dedicated teams and systems in place to prevent all types of fraud, including by our own employees."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/0459214/an-amazon-seller-says-they-were-offered-a-way-to-bribe-an-amazon-employee?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> ASssfTs5uJqMEyqnayD92026-06-28 09:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/ASssfTs5uJqMEyqnayD9#ASssfTs5uJqMEyqnayD9 IBM spent a decade "building, testing and improving" quantum computing, reports the Wall Street Journal. "This year, the company is laying the groundwork to turn that technology into a fully-fledged, scalable business from an expensive science project." IBM said last month it ... All

IBM spent a decade "building, testing and improving" quantum computing, reports the Wall Street Journal.

"This year, the company is laying the groundwork to turn that technology into a fully-fledged, scalable business from an expensive science project."

IBM said last month it plans to form a new independent subsidiary called Anderon, a foundry to produce the silicon wafers needed to make quantum-computing processors. The venture is seeded by a $1 billion investment from the Trump administration and another $1 billion of IBM's own cash.
Anderon will give the company a new line of business in selling wafers to other quantum-computing companies. It will also provide a steady stream of wafers to continue developing its own quantum technology, positioning IBM to capture part of what the Boston Consulting Group projects will be a $90 billion to $170 billion market for quantum-computing providers by 2040...

The company also plans to spend an additional $9 billion over five years to advance the final stages of its quest to build a quantum-mechanics-powered computer capable and reliable enough for widespread use, a goal known as fault tolerance. That computer, named Starling, is being targeted for 2029. With Anderon, IBM is thinking beyond Starling, or even a more powerful quantum computer planned for 2033.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/032226/ibm-is-getting-ready-to-scale-quantum-computing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> NIrFiwBhKvQ7oAqNNOc42026-06-28 06:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/NIrFiwBhKvQ7oAqNNOc4#NIrFiwBhKvQ7oAqNNOc4 America generated 10.06% more energy with renewables in the first four months of 2026 than it did in the same period the year before. That's according to new figures from America's Energy Information Administration, cited in this report from Electrek: The growth was led by utili... All

America generated 10.06% more energy with renewables in the first four months of 2026 than it did in the same period the year before. That's according to new figures from America's Energy Information Administration, cited in this report from Electrek:

The growth was led by utility-scale solar (+21.3%), hydropower (+15.7%), small-scale solar

In April alone, wind and solar each produced more electricity than US coal plants, while the combination of solar and wind produced 57.0% more electricity than nuclear power.

The mix of all renewables, including biomass and geothermal, accounted for 30.0% of total US electrical generation during the first third of 2026 — up from 27.8% a year earlier... EIA reported that, in April, utility-scale solar capacity surpassed wind capacity for the first time (160,208.1 MW vs. 160,100.6 MW). Further, utility-scale battery energy storage capacity increased by 17,703.5 MW, or 58.1%. Nuclear added just 18.4 MW.

The combined capacity growth of all utility-scale renewable energy sources for the 12-month period (55,980.3 MW) is two-thirds more (i.e., 67.6%) than that added during the previous 12 months (33,392.0 MW).

"EIA projects no new nuclear generating capacity and a net decline of 5,200.5 MW in fossil fuel capacity."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/0020230/renewable-energy-just-hit-30-of-americas-electricity-generation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 1Bwbfp10ACRqjgf6JaEc2026-06-28 03:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/1Bwbfp10ACRqjgf6JaEc#1Bwbfp10ACRqjgf6JaEc Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: Florida International University researchers have developed a technique called JaiLIP (Jailbreaking with Loss-guided Image Perturbation) that uses subtle image modifications to bypass AI safety guardrails. Unlike traditional jailbreaks that re... All

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: Florida International University researchers have developed a technique called JaiLIP (Jailbreaking with Loss-guided Image Perturbation) that uses subtle image modifications to bypass AI safety guardrails. Unlike traditional jailbreaks that rely on carefully crafted prompts, the attack works through images that appear normal to human viewers. The researchers tested the technique against BLIP-2, a multimodal AI model, and found that manipulated images significantly increased the likelihood of harmful responses. According to the study, the approach outperformed previous image-based jailbreak methods and nearly doubled the number of unsafe outputs generated during testing. The findings highlight a potential security risk for businesses deploying AI systems that process both images and text. While most discussions about AI safety focus on prompts, the research suggests that seemingly harmless images may also serve as an attack vector.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/2249212/how-a-seemingly-harmless-image-can-jailbreak-vision-language-ai-models?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> SWVMlEQ1UqPOZv0NKMlZ2026-06-28 02:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/SWVMlEQ1UqPOZv0NKMlZ#SWVMlEQ1UqPOZv0NKMlZ There's a deadly, record-breaking heat wave spreading east across Europe, reports the Washington Post — and it's even worse than a dire earlier forecast: The forecast was recorded in 2014 as part of a campaign coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that invit... All

There's a deadly, record-breaking heat wave spreading east across Europe, reports the Washington Post — and it's even worse than a dire earlier forecast:

The forecast was recorded in 2014 as part of a campaign coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that invited about 60 presenters worldwide to imagine a weather report from the year 2050. In one clip, Ãvelyne Dhéliat from French television network TF1 presented a hypothetical scenario of high temperatures 36 years into the future — during a heat wave in a warmer climate in 2050... One of the maps that Dhéliat shared was lit up in shades of orange, filled with temperature predictions of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), reaching as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
But it turns out, it didn't take 36 years for those imagined temperatures to be reached — and even exceeded. The heat on Wednesday alone, when the temperature soared as high as 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit (44.3 degrees Celsius), exceeded the 2050 projections in 19 out of 34 locations across mainland France — far sooner than some may have expected. Some places surpassed those hypothetical future temperatures by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit. It's part of a dramatic shift in heat wave frequency across the country. Half of the heat waves observed since 1947 have occurred since 2010. "By 2100, heat waves could last up to two months continuously," the country's weather agency, Météo-France, said this week.

It was hotter in France on Wednesday than in Las Vegas and Phoenix and just two degrees Fahrenheit shy of what was observed in Death Valley, California. An estimated less than one percent of the planet was hotter than France's hottest place... [T]he heat dome, which will linger into early next week, is only part of the story. This type of extreme heat is becoming more common as the planet warms, especially in Europe.
Climate scientist Robert Rohde said in a post explaining the heat wave's causes that France and Western Europe should expect many more heat waves like this over the coming decades. "This isn't a fluke, but simply part of the new normal," he said.

Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the news.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/2146244/frances-heat-this-week-was-worse-than-a-dire-scenario-imagined-for-2050?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 3AeKAeeqldeo4zN7cCzH2026-06-28 01:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/3AeKAeeqldeo4zN7cCzH#3AeKAeeqldeo4zN7cCzH Max Planck won 1918's Nobel Prize for physics. Yet two of his papers were retracted — a move now being criticized by Yves Gingras, a historian of physics at the University of Quebec and Mahdi Khelfaoui, a fellow historian of science at UQ Trois-Rivières. Science reports: The pap... All

Max Planck won 1918's Nobel Prize for physics. Yet two of his papers were retracted — a move now being criticized by Yves Gingras, a historian of physics at the University of Quebec and Mahdi Khelfaoui, a fellow historian of science at UQ Trois-Rivières. Science reports:

The papers, both quietly retracted in 2011, originally appeared in the early 1940s in Naturwissenschaften, a German journal now owned by publishing giant Springer Nature. After some sleuthing, Khelfaoui determined one of the Planck pieces, a philosophical essay from 1942 titled "Sinn und Grenzen der exakten Wissenschaft" ("Meaning and Limits of Exact Science"), about how to achieve certainty in scientific knowledge, had also appeared in two other journals and been reprinted twice in books. Repackaging the same work multiple times is considered "self-plagiarism" and frowned upon today — the practice produces copyright conflicts and inflates scholars' publication records. The Naturwissenschaften site gives "copyright violation" as the reason for the retraction.

Yet publishing identical material in multiple journals was widespread before the internet. "Science was more fragmented" then, Khelfaoui says. "You wanted different audiences ... to have access to your work." The practice was especially common for luminaries like Planck. Albert Einstein did the same (but escaped retractions). Springer Nature's "anachronistic" application of modern standards to a 1942 paper "distort[s] the historical record," Gingras and Khelfaoui argue in a preprint posted last month on arXiv. Any concerns about copyright violations are largely moot anyway: Because Planck died in 1947, his works are in the public domain in most countries.

Gingras was especially incensed that Springer Nature deviated from the normal practice of merely slapping the word RETRACTED across the digital version of the paper while still allowing scholars to read the text. Instead, the publisher posted a blank white page with the cryptic phrase, "This article has been withdrawn due to article violation." Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95. Suzanne Scarlata, a chemist and biochemist at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and editor-in-chief of The Science of Nature, as Naturwissenschaften is now known, had not heard about the retractions before being contacted for this story... Scarlata suspects Springer Nature's internal policing software removed the paper and posted the retraction notice unilaterally, without human supervision: "I think it just happened with their algorithm," she says. "It's a mistake they should probably rectify."

A second Planck paper was apparently removed because its response to a 1940 paper had used an identical title.

Thanks to our long-time Slashdot reader He Who Has No Name for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/2042204/max-planck-slapped-with-two-paper-retractions-by-suspected-rogue-algorithm?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> r4eoWrsNfFkU6ZqU4e6G2026-06-28 00:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/r4eoWrsNfFkU6ZqU4e6G#r4eoWrsNfFkU6ZqU4e6G When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried hundreds of papyrus scrolls. They were rediscovered in the mid-1700s, remembers Smithsonian magazine, "the only surviving collection of its kind from the Greco-Roman world..." "But when scholars tried to unroll them, the carbonize... All

When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried hundreds of papyrus
scrolls. They were rediscovered in the mid-1700s, remembers Smithsonian magazine, "the only
surviving collection of its kind from the Greco-Roman
world..."

"But when scholars tried to unroll them, the carbonized manuscripts
crumbled to dust."

Every generation that followed faced the same dilemma: They could wait for
technology to advance, abandoning hope of reading the ancient texts
in their own lifetime. Or they could try to open the scrolls
themselves — and risk destroying them.

In recent years, researchers have settled on a third option. Using
advanced imaging and artificial intelligence, they're deciphering
the scrolls without needing to unroll them at all.

The Vesuvius Challenge
has accelerated the process by turning it into a public competition,
complete with cash prizes. In 2023, a student won $40,000 for
deciphering a
single word — "purple" — from an unopened scroll. Later,
contestants would identify 2,000 Greek characters from one scroll ($700,000) and the title of another ($60,000). Now, for the very first time,
researchers have recovered all
surviving text from a single scroll. The nearly five-foot-long
segment includes roughly 20 columns of ancient Greek philosophy,
accessible for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.

"The tech actually does look like magic, but it's not," Brent
Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, said
at a press
conference. (The article points out that Seales partnered with two Silicon Valley investors in 2023 to launch the Vesuvius Challenge, and is now hailing "the restoration of lost voices from the ancient world."

Seales has been working on virtually unwrapping the
scrolls since the early 2000s. The process involved imaging the
bundles of papyrus using technology similar to CT scanners, isolating
thin layers and then stitching them together.... "We've developed
a systematic and a repeatable approach," Seales told the audience.
"Now it's only a matter of time until we read all of the
scrolls."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/1825220/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> ooTFd1HCNeTh9zAeqnAQ2026-06-27 23:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/ooTFd1HCNeTh9zAeqnAQ#ooTFd1HCNeTh9zAeqnAQ The Los Angeles Police Department says about 1,500 police agencies across America have drone programs, reports SFGate, and 58 of those drone-using police agencies are in California. The Sacramento County sheriff's office recently posted drone footage on Instagram set to theme f... All

The Los Angeles Police Department says about 1,500 police agencies across America have drone programs, reports SFGate, and 58 of those drone-using police agencies are in California.

The Sacramento County sheriff's office recently posted drone footage on Instagram set to theme from "Mission: Impossible," claiming "a nationwide first" where their drone successfully disarmed a felon "seen earlier with a firearm" (though now not moving, but holding a knife while lying face down in a garage). In the video the "not responding" suspect continues not moving as the drone dangles a magnet which catches on the knife. The drone then pulls multiple times until it comes out of the unmoving suspect's hand. The sheriff's office says their footage shows their drone "disarm an armed suspect, helping bring the incident to a safe resolution," in their post on Instagram, "rather than rush into a potentially deadly encounter..."

Was he pretending to be dead or simply lying in wait for deputies to approach...? It's also worth noting that our drones are labeled as "military equipment" (even though anyone can purchase them at their local Walmart), but are really just another piece of technology helping deputies resolve dangerous situations safely. Their use protects both law enforcement personnel and suspects.
SFGate offers more reports from around California:
In Yucaipa, officials launched a Drone as First Responder (DFR) pilot program on May 28, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department announced this month. According to the release, drones have already been used to respond to over 100 calls for service, arriving before deputies for 71% of them. "The drones also contributed to 12 arrests, assisted in locating persons of interest on 37 occasions, and provided aerial overwatch during 44 incidents," it continues, though details on how they assisted the police are unclear. The drones, manufactured by Skydio, were also used to locate a young person experiencing a mental health crisis and another person launching illegal fireworks.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/0635220/california-sheriff-says-their-drone-disarmed-a-suspect-shares-video-on-instagram?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> VAW9TSBHy90H8eqDuRsd2026-06-27 22:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/VAW9TSBHy90H8eqDuRsd#VAW9TSBHy90H8eqDuRsd The Jerusalem Post reports that doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus "have successfully treated their first Israeli opioid addiction patient using an experimental noninvasive brain technology, easing him through withdrawal in just 20 minutes..." [T]he team of specialists... All

The Jerusalem Post reports that doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus "have successfully treated their first Israeli opioid addiction patient using an experimental noninvasive brain technology, easing him through withdrawal in just 20 minutes..."

[T]he team of specialists at the Haifa medical center intervened in the electrical activity of an area of the patient's brain called the nucleus accumbens, the core of the brain system responsible for feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, and reward. The treatment, based on technology from the Israeli company Insightec, is similar to the one used to treat symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinsonian tremor, under MRI control. In this case, the treatment was carried out with the help of a new technology that performs noninvasive neuromodulation, without heating or burning tissue, and allows stimulation in the same area of the brain to increase or suppress activity...

"Tests carried out a week later produced negative results for opioids and other substances," [said Dr. Lior Lev-Tov, director of the functional neurosurgery unit in Rambam's neurosurgery division and the one leading the new study at the medical center.] "The patient himself reported a craving score of zero out of 10 for using the drug, and even another side effect, a drastic drop in the desire for cigarettes, from three packs a day to just a few cigarettes, and with no urge to use alcohol. In other words, in a treatment that lasted about 20 minutes net, our patient was completely freed from an extreme dependence that had accompanied him every day for years. This is nothing less than a medical and therapeutic revolution."

Dr. Lev-Tov added that "This experience opens doors for us to treat a wide range of very serious illnesses such as PTSD, OCD, eating disorders, other addictions, severe depression, severe pain disorders, and I hope we will also be able to reach cognitive areas and treat attention deficit disorders, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and more."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/26/221205/non-invasive-stimulation-of-the-brain-ended-opioid-addiction-cigarette-craving?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 8AbDhXZeV5w4WHAQIS9G2026-06-27 21:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/8AbDhXZeV5w4WHAQIS9G#8AbDhXZeV5w4WHAQIS9G Thursday the Free Software Foundation blogged about this year's 47 'LibreLocal 2026' meetups, highlighting 10 that took place in Australia, Mexico, the United States, New Zealand, Cameroon, Switzerland, Spain, Argentina, China, and Iran. "Far from each other in many parts of the ... All

Thursday the Free Software Foundation blogged about this year's 47 'LibreLocal 2026' meetups, highlighting 10 that took place in Australia, Mexico, the United States, New Zealand, Cameroon, Switzerland, Spain, Argentina, China, and Iran. "Far from each other in many parts of the world, they came together around one unifying belief: free software."

We envisioned LibreLocal as a collage of in-person community meetups that would bring people together to swap ideas, learn from each other, and celebrate free software. When we asked the free software community to organize LibreLocals last year, the response was very inspirational: 29 different meetups were hosted. After we made the global call this year, we were greeted with an even more enthusiastic response... Organizers hosted LibreLocals in cafes, bars, restaurants, libraries, universities, a computer repair shop, and even as part of a field trip to the System Source Museum, a museum dedicated to the history of computing in Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA.

We also learned that a LibreLocal was organized inside Vakil Abad Prison in Mashhad, Iran by a free software supporter. Originally planned to be held in Shiraz, we were informed of this change in location on the LibreLocal wiki page set up for listing all LibreLocals. The updated entry, by another free software supporter in Iran, reads:
"This year, one of our dedicated activists organized a LibrePlanet event from within prison in Iran. Currently serving a sentence for "cyber-crimes" related to his promotion of free software, he continues to introduce the principles of software freedom to his fellow inmates. We have placed this banner to honor his resilience and the community of individuals in prison who continue to stand for technological freedom. His identity will be revealed when it is safe to do so."
Advocating for user freedom should never result in a prison sentence. We especially admire and respect the bravery and strength of those who fight for software freedom in the most dangerous and oppressive of environments.
50 people attended the LibreLocal meetup in Switzerland, according to one of the organizers, "forging connections between several local free software stakeholders and strengthening their cohesion." But the FSF's blog post stresses these are "ten stories among many more of free software supporters from across the globe... We also thank you our donors and associate members for the support that makes such meetups possible."

The GNU Press Shop is now open through July 19 for their biannual fundraiser, offering a variety of freedom-respecting novelties including an FSF-branded antisurveillance webcam guard and both technical and philosophical books, like Richard Stallman's Free as in Freedom (which allegedly has turned up in Anthropic's training data). Other items include a slick new FSF logo sticker, a brass and zinc GNU "emblem" pin with real gold plating, and a cheeky sticker reminding everyone that "There is no cloud." And there's even a plush GNU toy.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/0538246/fsf-librelocal-organized-from-prison-by-iranian-man-jailed-for-cyber-crimes-after-promoting-free-software?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> QSPwJ6EAnOhmwtLtKk5t2026-06-27 20:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/QSPwJ6EAnOhmwtLtKk5t#QSPwJ6EAnOhmwtLtKk5t An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: For the most powerful voices in AI, it's all about being in the loop. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny recently said he doesn't write his own AI prompts much anymore. Thanks to loops, he doesn't have to. "It's an agent th... All

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: For the most powerful voices in AI, it's all about being in the loop. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny recently said he doesn't write his own AI prompts much anymore. Thanks to loops, he doesn't have to. "It's an agent that prompts Claude," Cherny recently told CNBC, adding, "I don't write the prompt anymore. Claude writes the prompt, and now I'm talking to that new Claude that is kind of coordinating." In the same interview, Cherny said that loops and a similar feature were examples of the kind of work he would be proudest of in a decade.

Cherny isn't the only one embracing "loop engineering." OpenAI engineer Peter Steinberger, the creator of the viral OpenClaw project, wrote a public reminder to users who are still writing out prompts for AI agents. "Here's your monthly reminder that you shouldn't be prompting coding agents anymore," Steinberger wrote recently on X. "You should be designing loops that prompt your agents." [...] Steinberger shared an example of a loop he uses: "Tell codex to maintain your repos, wake up every 5 minutes and direct work to threads. That makes it easy to parallelize+steer work as needed." Claire Vo, founder of ChatPRD and host of the "How I AI," said, "it's really just reminding people that you don't have to use your human fingers to type in a prompt in order for your agent to do work on your behalf."

The days of directly prompting generative AI coding tools are "kind of over, or at least some think it's going to be," Addy Osmani, director of Google Cloud, wrote in his post explaining the concept.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/0546238/forget-prompt-engineering-loop-engineering-is-all-the-rage-now?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> ftN23KHAAoxMoqWglQ4Q2026-06-27 16:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/ftN23KHAAoxMoqWglQ4Q#ftN23KHAAoxMoqWglQ4Q SpaceX plans to begin building an eight-mile natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" next month to supply its Starbase launch site with fuel for a much higher cadence of Starship launches. The pipeline is expected to enter service in January 2027. Reuters reports: The pipeline pla... All

SpaceX plans to begin building an eight-mile natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" next month to supply its Starbase launch site with fuel for a much higher cadence of Starship launches. The pipeline is expected to enter service in January 2027. Reuters reports: The pipeline plan, previously reported by Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, signals Musk's intent to accelerate Starship's development and lay the groundwork for a faster flight rate. The 40-story rocket is central to SpaceX's push to expand its Starlink broadband network, deploy orbital AI data center satellites, and eventually carry astronauts to the moon and Mars.

Designed to be fully reusable, Starship uses about 630,000 gallons (2.4 million liters) of liquid methane per launch, currently delivered by hundreds of tanker trucks in an hours-long process incompatible with Musk's expansion plans. Starship has completed 12 test launches since 2023, but Musk aims to ramp up to dozens, hundreds and eventually thousands of launches a year.

Though it is unusual for a space company to build its own natural gas pipeline for launchpad fuel, Starpipe might only be an initial step in a longer-term plan for SpaceX, which has spent years exploring its own drilling operations near Starbase and throughout Texas, according to a Reuters review of Cameron County land records. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC on June 12, when the company went public, that the company planned to build pipelines and process its own propellant, and was looking into drilling its own natural gas.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/26/0037206/spacex-plans-to-build-starpipe-natural-gas-pipeline-to-fuel-starship-rockets?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> uk71f17iz6qDymA10ron2026-06-27 12:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/uk71f17iz6qDymA10ron#uk71f17iz6qDymA10ron Friday Bitcoin closed at just $59,948 — dropping 19% just for June and more than 50% lower than its record high in October of $124,310. To commemorate the occasion CNBC interviewed long-time bitcoin skeptic Jeremy Grantham, reporting that the 87-year-old cofounder/chief investm... All

Friday Bitcoin closed at just $59,948 — dropping 19% just for June and more than 50% lower than its record high in October of $124,310.

To commemorate the occasion CNBC interviewed long-time bitcoin skeptic Jeremy Grantham, reporting that the 87-year-old cofounder/chief investment strategist of the massive asset-management firm GMO is "predicting it will gradually fade into irrelevance over decades."

[The] longtime market commentator known for his calls on asset bubbles said bitcoin is a "useless, speculative" asset without intrinsic value, speaking on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday. He also said bitcoin hasn't outperformed during a bull market and questioned its practical use. "[Over] years and years, decades and decades, it will dwindle away, I suspect — not with a bang, but a whimper," he said. "It's not a stable form of value — it just halved ... for no particular reason in a strong economy, so you can't depend on it in that way."

He added that gold has still delivered solid gains over the same period, even after pulling back from its highs. Bitcoin not only hasn't proved itself as a useful asset to speculate on, it doesn't provide any real world utility either, Grantham argued. "People don't use it to make serious trades, they don't use it to buy their dinner and pay at the supermarket. ... What it does is allows crooks to move money around," he said.

Bitcoin has become notorious over the years for its dramatic bear market crashes, which has taken it down at least 70% from its peak in every cycle.

The article adds that "many investors believe the current price slump could drag on for several more months."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/0257237/bitcoin-drops-again-skeptical-investment-strategist-calls-it-useless?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> hCfurEeITcr3YMvGYtAF2026-06-27 09:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/hCfurEeITcr3YMvGYtAF#hCfurEeITcr3YMvGYtAF Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest known worlds of their size. The rare "super-puffs," located about 1,110 light-years away, are likely composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with follow-up ob... All

Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest known worlds of their size. The rare "super-puffs," located about 1,110 light-years away, are likely composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope expected to probe their atmospheres. The Associated Press reports: [University of Oxford's George Dransfield] suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, depending on whether the skies there are cloudy -- no shades of cotton-candy pink. The planets are probably mostly hydrogen and helium, although it will take follow-up observations by NASA's Webb Space Telescope to confirm their chemical makeup.

Detected by NASA's Tess satellite over the past decade, these two especially puffy-puffs orbit a star in the southern constellation Volans, known as the flying fish. The researchers studied the planets' orbits using telescopes on Earth to determine their density, from 1,110 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers). Jupiter, by comparison, is as much as 35 times denser than these two lightweights.

Considered rare in the cosmos, super-puffs are thought to form around the disk of gas and dust around a newborn star where there is more gas than dust. They shed much of the material over time, stripping down even more. NASA's tally of worlds outside our solar system currently stands at nearly 6,300 confirmed. Fewer than 40 are super-puffs, according to Dransfield. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/0525240/astronomers-find-biggest-super-puff-planets-yet-that-are-lighter-than-cotton-candy?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> KBJlIqZcOZ4275SnISyc2026-06-27 06:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/KBJlIqZcOZ4275SnISyc#KBJlIqZcOZ4275SnISyc "The US government has allowed Anthropic to release its powerful Mythos AI model to select companies and organizations," reports CNN, "revising license requirements after ordering an export block earlier this month in the wake of national security fears." Since the export ban ea... All

"The US government has allowed Anthropic to release its powerful Mythos AI model to select companies and organizations," reports CNN, "revising license requirements after ordering an export block earlier this month in the wake of national security fears."

Since the export ban earlier in June, "Anthropic has worked with the US government to address risks associated with the Covered Models," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to the company in a letter dated Friday. In light of progress in that work, Lutnick wrote, "I have determined that appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 Model."

The letter does not include permission for Anthropic to release Fable, a less powerful version of Mythos. "We received notice from the US government that Mythos 5, our strongest cybersecurity model, can be redeployed to a small group of cyber defenders and infrastructure providers," Anthropic said in a statement...

Conversations between Anthropic and the government are expected to continue into the weekend, with an eye to restoring access to Fable, as well, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/0159230/us-government-allows-anthropic-limited-release-of-mythos-ai-model-saying-appropriate-safeguards-are-in-place?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> avP7V2jziDkDD9mcyniP2026-06-27 00:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/avP7V2jziDkDD9mcyniP#avP7V2jziDkDD9mcyniP Microsoft has quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates for consumers by another year, pushing the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program's end date from October 12, 2026, to October 12, 2027. "The ESU support page was updated with that date, and Microsoft's blog post on... All

Microsoft has quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates for consumers by another year, pushing the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program's end date from October 12, 2026, to October 12, 2027. "The ESU support page was updated with that date, and Microsoft's blog post on the program has a new editor's note confirming the change," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The prevalence of Windows across so many devices and form factors has given Microsoft a massive customer base for decades, but it has also stymied the company's efforts to roll out new operating systems. Microsoft famously extended the support window for Windows XP numerous times throughout the 2010s as it became apparent that millions of PCs would never be updated. Windows 10 isn't quite as entrenched as XP was, but it has still been a slog getting people to upgrade to Windows 11 even nearly five years after release.

Unlike many past Windows updates, Windows 11 required some users to buy new PCs with specific CPU technologies and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Microsoft was widely criticized for excluding perfectly serviceable PCs, and that's turning into a problem in 2026. The AI-driven shortage of storage and memory has made system upgrades vastly more expensive, potentially slowing upgrades. Some have also avoided Windows 11 due to Microsoft's intense focus on AI features.

The result is that Windows 10 remains stubbornly popular. According to StatCounter data, Windows 10 is still running on about 26 percent of PCs, while Windows 11 sits at 72 percent. That means there are still hundreds of millions of active Windows 10 installs, but those machines will be up to date for at least an additional year.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/26/0029235/microsoft-adds-another-year-to-windows-10-extended-update-program?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 9J5VGrAiqbuMnuD0ubFl2026-06-26 19:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/9J5VGrAiqbuMnuD0ubFl#9J5VGrAiqbuMnuD0ubFl schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered (PDF) urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft (source paywalled; alternati... All

schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered (PDF) urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft (source paywalled; alternative source).. Cracks were found during earlier inspections of the wing spars structure, a key component of the wing, EASA said in a directive effective Wednesday. EASA determined that they "could reduce the structural integrity of the wing."

"To address this potential unsafe condition, Airbus determined that an additional special detailed inspection has to be accomplished," EASA said. The first group of five aircraft, operated by Emirates, need to be inspected immediately, while the second group of 11 aircraft can be inspected later but within 25 flight cycles, EASA said in a separate statement. From the second group, 10 are operated by Emirates and one by Qantas, the aviation safety agency said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/2113249/airbus-is-ordered-to-inspect-16-jets-after-cracks-are-found-in-wings?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> C6O5OXV1eQpGmp6GLHdu2026-06-26 15:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/C6O5OXV1eQpGmp6GLHdu#C6O5OXV1eQpGmp6GLHdu Notion announced that it will shut down its email client on September 22. The company says more than half of users already manage email through Notion's AI agents without opening their inbox, so it is shifting its focus from a traditional email client to agent-run workflows. Enga... All

Notion announced that it will shut down its email client on September 22. The company says more than half of users already manage email through Notion's AI agents without opening their inbox, so it is shifting its focus from a traditional email client to agent-run workflows. Engadget reports: It has published an FAQ for users to make sure that they don't lose any messages or data in the transition. Most emails will still exist in a Gmail inbox, but customers will need to manually export their drafts, scheduled emails, snippets and auto label instructions. Notion first began offering Notion Mail after acquiring startup Skiff in 2024.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/2038233/notion-mail-is-shutting-down?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> EdpvwCRrU77doTonqIWu2026-06-26 11:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/EdpvwCRrU77doTonqIWu#EdpvwCRrU77doTonqIWu Researchers say they detected the first gravitational-wave "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon by analyzing the final moments of the powerful GW250114 merger. The findings support Einstein's general relativity and may eventually help probe frame dragging and quantum fl... All

Researchers say they detected the first gravitational-wave "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon by analyzing the final moments of the powerful GW250114 merger. The findings support Einstein's general relativity and may eventually help probe frame dragging and quantum fluctuations near black holes. Phys.org reports: For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detected by the LIGO observatory in January 2025. By isolating the last burst of waves -- known as "direct waves" -- from this black hole merger, the scientists said they were able to extract information from closer to an event horizon than ever before. "This black hole horizon concept normally appears in science fiction," lead study author Sizheng Ma of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada told AFP. "But now we are really able to touch the region around the horizon with gravitational data," he added. "Sometimes I cannot believe this is really happening."

The last stage of two black holes merging is like a spoon stirring a glass of water, Ma explained. The resulting swirl in space creates the ripple of gravitational waves that travel at the speed of light in all directions. If the metaphorical spoon is stirring close enough to the black hole's event horizon, "this offers us a chance to decode the physics around that region," Ma said. By supporting the theory of general relativity, the results "proved that Einstein was correct again," he added.

The scientists emphasized that more research was needed to decipher what can be gleaned about event horizons using this method. But they did detect information about how black holes twist space around themselves as they rotate -- a phenomenon known as "frame dragging." "This is similar to pushing a glass into a table and twisting it, so that the tablecloth winds up around it," Maximiliano Isi, a gravitational wave astrophysicist at Columbia University, told AFP. In the future, the scientists hope to find signs of tiny changes known as quantum fluctuations. "In this way, we can really probe this near-horizon region to look for new physics," including searching for a deviation from general relativity, Ma said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/2123205/fingerprints-of-black-holes-event-horizon-detected-for-first-time?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 2KeE8en8IzAcAUC7VdhQ2026-06-26 08:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/2KeE8en8IzAcAUC7VdhQ#2KeE8en8IzAcAUC7VdhQ An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spain will require mobile networks to have backup systems that maintain connectivity when power outages occur. Per a royal decree that will be approved by the end of 2026, mobile network operators (MNOs) and infrastructure compani... All

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spain will require mobile networks to have backup systems that maintain connectivity when power outages occur. Per a royal decree that will be approved by the end of 2026, mobile network operators (MNOs) and infrastructure companies will need to install batteries or other backups to keep service active for at least four hours during a blackout.

The mobile network rules will apply to businesses that serve at least 500,000 users or generate upwards of 50 million euros ($56.9 million) in annual revenue. The decree will stipulate that half of the population will need to be covered by this failsafe within the first year, then 65 percent in the second year and three quarters in the third.

[...] The decree will require other key infrastructure elements to remain up and running for a certain period after a power outage. For instance, control centers that could impact all of Spain if they were to go offline will need to remain in service for at least 24 hours. Emergency call centers will also need to have plans in place to maintain operations, as Reuters notes. The move is in response to the widespread blackout across the Iberian peninsula in 2025, which left more than 50 million people without power. Experts called it "the most severe and unprecedented blackout that had occurred in Europe in the past 20 years."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/2056248/spain-to-require-carriers-to-keep-mobile-networks-live-during-power-outages?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 6c9yN9eidK8zWIMMy3hq2026-06-26 03:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/6c9yN9eidK8zWIMMy3hq#6c9yN9eidK8zWIMMy3hq Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from autoevolution: The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security denied Polestar an authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule. Polestar will continue to sell its existing inventory of Polestar 3 and 4 cros... All

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from autoevolution: The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security denied Polestar an authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule. Polestar will continue to sell its existing inventory of Polestar 3 and 4 crossovers in the United States and will continue to offer support to customers and access to its service network. But no new 2027 models will set wheels on American soil.

The Connected Vehicle Rule is a regulation that restricts the import and sale of vehicles equipped with Vehicle Connectivity Systems (VCS) and Automated Driving Systems (ADS) tied to foreign adversaries, primarily from China and Russia. Polestar is owned by Chinese auto giant Geely, which has also been the parent company of Swedish brand Volvo since 2010. However, Volvo has recently been granted authorization to sell connected vehicles in the United States.

The rule, set out by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), classifies modern vehicles as mobile data centers and is designed to protect national security by keeping sensitive driver data and vehicle control systems out of the hands of foreign governments. Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO, confirms that the company is well aware that the automotive industry is entering a new phase, based on regional dynamics. So, Polestar will shift its strategy to its biggest market as it is preparing its exit from the U.S. market. The report notes that Polestar sold 5,384 cars in the U.S. in 2025, with 60,119 units sold globally.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/2046248/polestar-banned-from-selling-cars-in-us-from-model-year-2027?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> tpT2IcTvXY4R9gPhgfrM2026-06-26 02:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/tpT2IcTvXY4R9gPhgfrM#tpT2IcTvXY4R9gPhgfrM The Trump administration has reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns. The model will initially be offered to a small group of partners, with the government "approving access customer by customer during this preview period," reports The Inf... All

The Trump administration has reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns. The model will initially be offered to a small group of partners, with the government "approving access customer by customer during this preview period," reports The Information. The request came from conversations with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the report said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/215241/trump-administration-asks-openai-to-stagger-release-of-new-model?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> srQbjiQjivD16PNPN8Kh2026-06-26 01:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/srQbjiQjivD16PNPN8Kh#srQbjiQjivD16PNPN8Kh BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation has announced Akrites, a new initiative to coordinate vulnerability disclosure and remediation for critical open source software as AI dramatically speeds up vulnerability discovery. Founding members include AWS, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI... All

BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation has announced Akrites, a new initiative to coordinate vulnerability disclosure and remediation for critical open source software as AI dramatically speeds up vulnerability discovery. Founding members include AWS, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Red Hat, NVIDIA, IBM, Cisco, JPMorganChase, and others. Akrites will provide a shared Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), a standardized coordinated vulnerability disclosure process, and act as a "maintainer of last resort" for abandoned but widely used packages.

The goal is to reduce duplicate reports, avoid conflicting patches, and help upstream maintainers address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. As AI makes it easier to find security flaws, can a coordinated industry effort help protect open source, or does it risk giving large corporations too much influence over the ecosystem? "Akrites is the largest coordinated effort in history to create systems and deploy tooling that leverages the collective power of the community to make everyone safer," the Linux Foundation said in an open letter. "Akrites participants will contribute engineering resources; work to build and ship fixes; or fund the engineers who do. Some companies have contributed mightily already. The reality is, collectively, we need to contribute more."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/2031228/linux-foundation-launches-akrites-to-coordinate-ai-driven-open-source-security?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> QQgLpeHfBXUrpiBDKS3S2026-06-26 00:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/QQgLpeHfBXUrpiBDKS3S#QQgLpeHfBXUrpiBDKS3S Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying effort... All

Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacBook Air will jump to $1,299 from $1,099, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an increase as well, going from $1,699 to $1,999. Meanwhile, the iPad Air will now start at $749 instead of $599, while the iPad Pro is increasing to $1,199 from $999.

As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/1821255/apple-raises-prices-on-macs-ipads-and-more-by-hundreds-of-dollars?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 3K2jx3Mfp1cVFctzKiAD2026-06-25 23:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/3K2jx3Mfp1cVFctzKiAD#3K2jx3Mfp1cVFctzKiAD LastPass says hackers stole customers' personal information, support case records, and sales data by breaching market research partner Klue. The password manager told TechCrunch that its own systems and password vaults were unaffected. However, the hackers used their access to ob... All

LastPass says hackers stole customers' personal information, support case records, and sales data by breaching market research partner Klue. The password manager told TechCrunch that its own systems and password vaults were unaffected. However, the hackers used their access to obtain "reams of data about LastPass customers," the report says. From the report: In a blog post that shared information about the incident, LastPass said the hackers took customers' names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses, as well as customer support case data and sales-related data. It's not yet known what was in the contents of customer support tickets, although they likely contain fragments of potentially private or sensitive information. Customers typically contact customer service when they are having a billing issue or need assistance in gaining access to their accounts. Past incidents involving customer support tickets have included credentials and government-issued identity documents. The last data breach LastPass reported was in 2022, when hackers stole the company's entire store of customer password vaults.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/1816247/lastpass-says-hackers-stole-customer-support-case-data-during-klue-breach?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> BD16Y3kFczPfLhU72Oq62026-06-25 22:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/BD16Y3kFczPfLhU72Oq6#BD16Y3kFczPfLhU72Oq6 An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent res... All

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent restriction from foreign markets. Ars obtained a June 10 letter sent to Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) one day ahead of a Senate committee hearing on "AI and the American Dream." In the letter, Anthropic shared "new, confidential evidence of the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities we have ever measured."

The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5, when "operators afliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab" allegedly generated "more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts," Anthropic said. Violating Claude's terms of service and access restrictions, this campaign "targeted some of Claude's most valuable capabilities, such as agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon tasks." According to Anthropic, Alibaba evaded detection by "using obfuscation techniques and proxy networks." As Chinese demand for reliable obfuscation techniques increases, Anthropic warned there's already "a growing circumvention economy" to fuel an ever-expanding web of future distillation attacks. [...]

"Alibaba is governed by an independent board, none of whom has any military affiliation," Alibaba said. "Its products and services are built for retail, logistics, and enterprise information technology -- not weapons, defense, or intelligence." Anthropic appears unconvinced, however, that Alibaba isn't working with the Chinese government. In the letter, Anthropic warned that without stronger interventions, these distillation attacks will "help China reach Mythos Preview-level capabilities sooner."

To keep the US ahead of China, Anthropic recommended that Congress pass legislation with three objectives. First, antitrust laws must be updated to allow AI firms to share information about evolving Chinese tactics to deter more threats. Second, the US needs more export controls on chips to hamstring Chinese access to advanced compute so that they simply can't train on US model outputs. That could make conducting distillation attacks pointless, Anthropic suggested. Finally, Congress should pass laws penalizing Chinese labs' "bad behavior" so that it's "more difficult and costly" to rely on distillation attacks to advance Chinese models. Penalties could include limiting Chinese firms from accessing US models or advanced US chips or from relying on data centers outside of China, Anthropic suggested.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/1810226/anthropic-says-alibaba-must-be-punished-for-largest-claude-cloning-attack?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 9qEUAzQ961zkofgKAjaq2026-06-25 21:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/9qEUAzQ961zkofgKAjaq#9qEUAzQ961zkofgKAjaq After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as... All

After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles." Bloomberg reports: Those engineers were "at the heart" of Ford's efforts to turn around quality problems, said Kumar Galhotra, chief operating officer. They now run mandatory meetings that rigorously troubleshoot quality problems and they have reprogrammed AI tools to head off glitches before they happen. "We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems" and not getting the desired results, Galhotra said. "We brought back technical specialists" and "they hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor."

The return of the veteran engineers at Ford cuts against the prevailing wisdom -- and fear -- that AI will replace all kinds of knowledge workers. But Ford found the machines couldn't replace experience. "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product," Poon said. But "we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals."

As a result of the efforts of the old hands, Ford vaulted above quality stalwarts such as Toyota and Honda on JD Power's bellwether survey that measures the quality of a car during the first three months of ownership. Only luxury brands Porsche and Genesis topped Ford this year.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/1624241/ford-rehires-350-engineers-after-ai-fails-to-preserve-expertise-or-train-juniors?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 3mLwzSwnfZahnCODBlrK2026-06-25 20:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/3mLwzSwnfZahnCODBlrK#3mLwzSwnfZahnCODBlrK Micron has signed 16 "strategic customer agreements" (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with "a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle." Most of the deals run through 2030 and cover about 40% of Micron's ... All

Micron has signed 16 "strategic customer agreements" (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with "a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle." Most of the deals run through 2030 and cover about 40% of Micron's revenue. The Register reports: Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company's Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher.

The CEO said 16 customers have signed SCAs and then explained why it's worth locking into the deals even though they bake in such high margins. "Our customers are recognizing that supply shortages in memory and storage will take considerable time to improve," he said. "Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand."

Even massive efforts to build new chip fabs aren't much help, he said, because the increasing complexity of new memory types means it takes longer to build factories -- and when they come online there still won't be enough capacity to build both the high-bandwidth memory needed for AI and other types of NAND and DRAM. "Supply is structurally constrained in its growth and ability to meet industry demand, despite our comprehensive efforts to increase supply," he said.

Don't assume that SCAs mean your suppliers get price certainty, because Mehrotra said the deals will account for 40 percent of Micron revenue -- meaning the company is reserving most of its inventory to sell at prices it can negotiate. The CEO did have a little good news in the form of predictions that Micron's DRAM output in 2026 will "grow in the low- to mid-20s percentage range, slightly above our prior outlook." He also revealed that the SCAs see customers pay up front, which helps Micron to fund its fab expansions.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/0559247/micron-locks-in-historically-high-memory-prices-for-five-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> HoVbR0fH7xGraH38DlFe2026-06-25 19:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/HoVbR0fH7xGraH38DlFe#HoVbR0fH7xGraH38DlFe An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google's stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning t... All

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google's stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning to implement app store changes as agreed in its settlement with Epic. The lower developer fees and new payment options that Google promised are rolling out in select markets this month before expanding. [...] Starting on June 30, developers in Europe, the UK, and the US will have access to the new fee structure. This system will split the commission into two components: billing and service fees.

The biggest win for small developers is the new flat 10 percent service fee for the first $1 million in earnings every year. Above that, the rate for various transaction types may reach 25 percent on existing installs. Apps installed after June 30 will top out at 20 percent. Developers will finally be allowed to send users outside the Play Store to complete a transaction, too. Google says they can design a choice screen "in accordance with our UX guidelines" to direct users to these external options. Devs pay the standard service fee on these purchases, but they'll avoid the billing fee. All transactions that run through Google's Play Store platform add a 5 percent billing fee -- even the base rate for publishers earning less than $1 million. Google notes that the billing fee is set at 5 percent in the initial markets, but it could be different in other regions. Google will expand the new fee structure globally through September 2027, while also offering reduced fees through updated developer programs.

Although the changes may let developers retain more revenue, Google will continue controlling Android distribution and collecting a share of sales as it works toward allowing certified third-party app stores to operate more like the Play Store.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/0554234/google-starts-lowering-play-store-fees-making-good-on-epic-games-settlement?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> VOm5h7OGKeQ4kZIJGL542026-06-25 15:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/VOm5h7OGKeQ4kZIJGL54#VOm5h7OGKeQ4kZIJGL54 joshuark shares a report from Car and Driver: A new study conducted by the New York Times shows that the increase in vehicle hood height seen over the last two and a half decades, mainly due to the rise in popularity of large SUVs and trucks, has resulted in several thousand deat... All

joshuark shares a report from Car and Driver: A new study conducted by the New York Times shows that the increase in vehicle hood height seen over the last two and a half decades, mainly due to the rise in popularity of large SUVs and trucks, has resulted in several thousand deaths that otherwise may not have happened. The study shows that while automakers and regulators have focused on occupant safety, they have turned a blind eye to pedestrian safety, which has fallen since around 2009. Researchers looked at four main datasets in their investigation: crash test data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) from 2016 to 2024; NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); vehicle measurement data from Expert AutoStats; and vehicle registration data from S&P Global from 2002 to 2024. The researchers concluded that the increased danger to pedestrians is caused by two main culprits.

First, large SUVs and trucks have taller hoods, raising the point of impact above most people's center of gravity and pushing them to the ground, typically hard asphalt, rather than up and onto the hood, which is designed to absorb impacts. Second, with larger A-pillars designed to protect occupants in rollover crashes, modern cars tend to have larger blind spots than cars sold at the turn of the century (presuming the 21st century). The shift toward vehicles with taller hoods led to roughly 3000 deaths between 2016 and 2024. This number is conservative because it does not include crashes that take place in parking lots, driveways, or private roads, which aren't part of the federal database.

The data also showed an estimated 2.8 percent increase in the odds of a pedestrian fatality for every one-inch increase in vehicle hood height. Between two different scenarios, one decreasing the hood height of every vehicle in the dataset by 3 inches, and the second using a random sampling of hood heights from 2002 across 10,000 simulated crashes, between 2624 (for scenario two) and 3077 (for scenario one) lives could have been saved from 2016 to 2024.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/0531201/new-study-shows-that-tall-vehicle-hoods-cause-hundreds-more-deaths-per-year?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> v3uylioWiqnfo3xkyzGE2026-06-25 11:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/v3uylioWiqnfo3xkyzGE#v3uylioWiqnfo3xkyzGE NASA's Perseverance rover has detected complex organic carbon in ancient Martian mudstones. The measurements were taken by the rover's Sherloc instrument and the organic carbon that was identified was from the Bright Angel outcrop, "a dried-up river that carried water into the pl... All

NASA's Perseverance rover has detected complex organic carbon in ancient Martian mudstones. The measurements were taken by the rover's Sherloc instrument and the organic carbon that was identified was from the Bright Angel outcrop, "a dried-up river that carried water into the planet's Jezero crater billions of years ago," notes The Guardian. From the report: The form of carbon detected, known as macromolecular carbon or MMC, can originate from living organisms. Geological processes can also produce the material, meaning its detection does not amount to proof of past Martian life. Dr Ashley Murphy at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona said MMC can be found in different settings and types of rocks. "It may originate from biological sources such as fossilized organic matter found in microbial mats and coal," she said, but could also form in reactions between rocks and water or arrive on impacting meteorites.

The mudstone rocks from the Bright Angel outcrop caused a stir in 2024 when the Perseverance rover discovered intriguing surface spots and nodules that resemble features produced by fossilized microbes on Earth. When the scientific details were published last year, Sean Duffy, the former acting head of Nasa, said: "This very well could be the clearest sign of life that we've ever found on Mars." [...] The discovery means Nasa rovers have now found organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on Mars. The others were reported by the Curiosity rover which is exploring the planet's Gale crater. It "indicates that the habitability of Mars, and the availability of organics, may have been widespread across the planet billions of years ago," the authors write in Science Advances.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/25/0516211/nasa-rover-detects-potential-signatures-of-ancient-microbial-life-on-mars?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> NGkb9VRbqobsGYMTTao62026-06-25 08:22:02robothttps://idec.foxears.su/NGkb9VRbqobsGYMTTao6#NGkb9VRbqobsGYMTTao6 An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: [T]he payment company Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, says it will fund a new $500 million nonprofit whose goal is preventing both the common cold and the flu. Its eventual aim is to get rid of... All

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: [T]he payment company Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, says it will fund a new $500 million nonprofit whose goal is preventing both the common cold and the flu. Its eventual aim is to get rid of respiratory viruses altogether. The new organization, called Intercept, will use grants and investments to back prevention approaches, including vaccines, as well as large-scale air-cleaning systems for schools, offices, and other public spaces. In addition to Stripe, other funders include Anthropic, Flu Lab, and the OpenAI Foundation, as well as Bill Gates and several traders at the quantitative investing fund Jane Street Capital, according to an Intercept spokesperson.

"I think we treat respiratory infections as a minor nuisance, but have really underweighted the burden that they impose on society," says Nan Ransohoff, the Stripe executive leading the initiative along with Charlie Petty, a venture capitalist who joined Stripe this year. On average, people spend 5% of their lifetime fighting a cold or the flu, according to Ransohoff. Despite that, drug companies put relatively little effort into preventing colds. Part of the problem is that the sniffles are caused by more than 200 different viruses, according to the American Lung Association, with rhinoviruses being the most common culprits. There are so many that it typically doesn't pay to try to stop any one of them with a vaccine. "When pharma companies look at it, it's not as attractive as other things they could work on," says Ransohoff. "So it hasn't attracted the resources."

[...] The project takes inspiration from efforts to fight the covid-19 virus, where Veesler's group was among those involved in the speedy development of vaccines, antiviral drugs, and antibodies. According to Ransohoff, Intercept's advisors will include Peter Marks, a former top FDA official, as well as Moncef Slaoui, the pharmaceutical executive who led the US coronavirus vaccine effort, Operation Warp Speed. A key challenge for Intercept will be coming up with ways to counter many viruses at one time. That accounts for the interest in air-cleaning technology, such as using strong ultraviolet light to inactivate viruses. The idea, the group says, is to remove them from the air in the same way municipalities remove impurities from the water supply before it's piped to people's homes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/1710253/stripe-anthropic-and-openai-are-backing-effort-to-stop-respiratory-infections?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> 7FLG4bHn2I3AoKPoKrgc2026-06-25 03:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/7FLG4bHn2I3AoKPoKrgc#7FLG4bHn2I3AoKPoKrgc Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model's estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. "The aggressive pricing -- half the average cost of a new car i... All

Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model's estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. "The aggressive pricing -- half the average cost of a new car in the United States -- puts Slate in position to capture a share of the lowest end of the new car market, which has few gas and fewer electric options these days," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The price reveal comes more than a year after Slate Auto emerged from stealth. Since then, the company has been steadily detailing the extremely basic, transforming EV, which starts as a two-seater pickup truck, but can be modified into a five-seater SUV. The SUV version will start at $29,950, Slate said Wednesday. Slate has said the conversion can be done by professionals or by owners themselves. On Wednesday, it finally showed off some of the first of its "Slate University" how-to videos, which guide people through the steps for doing everything from the SUV conversion to adding headlight covers.

Everything else about the truck is bare, though it's customizable. It has hand-crank windows, lacks an infotainment system, and all orders start with the same gray composite material, with no paint options, as Slate plans to let buyers order customizable wraps for the vehicle. That likely helps cut out a major cost center, as factory paint shops can run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The company did not offer more details about the buying process. Slate has said it "won't have traditional dealerships," and plans to sell directly to customers, similar to other EV companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid Motors.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/2113207/slate-autos-radically-simple-electric-truck-starts-at-24950?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> Won6ujvR5cdfngzhkAPL2026-06-25 02:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/Won6ujvR5cdfngzhkAPL#Won6ujvR5cdfngzhkAPL Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative that tracked employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screen content to train AI agents, after some of its collected data became accessible to more employees than intended. Meta says it has no evidence the information wa... All

Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative that tracked employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screen content to train AI agents, after some of its collected data became accessible to more employees than intended. Meta says it has no evidence the information was improperly accessed and will not restart the program until it is confident in its safeguards. Wired reports: Meta rolled out the Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI) tool in April to US employees. The tool "collects computer inputs such as mouse movements, click locations and keystrokes, as well as screen content," according to workers who have been petitioning against it over privacy, security, and personal liberty concerns. When MCI launched, employees couldn't opt out, but that changed to a limited degree after workers protested. Meta executives have repeatedly defended the data-gathering project, saying it was necessary to train AI systems to operate computer software the way humans do and that employees were the best examples for the artificial intelligence to learn from.

On Monday, a Meta engineer issued an internal security notice stating that databases filled with information gathered by MCI had been exposed to anyone inside the company. A former employee actively involved in pushing back against MCI describes the lapse as "a mess" -- and one that employees had expected would occur. "When workers raised concerns, leadership doubled down and failed to acknowledge the risks workers raised about the safety and privacy of worker and customer data," the person says. "Leadership has clearly created an authoritarian environment where workers are no longer respected or heard."

But after critical comments poured into internal forums on Monday expressing frustration about the security issue, Meta shocked some of its staff by pausing MCI altogether, telling WIRED about the development several hours before announcing it to employees. A few workers told WIRED they were confused in the meantime because the tool was continuing to run on their laptops. Late on Monday, Stephane Kasriel, a Meta vice president overseeing AI research, announced the pause and told staff that the security issue had been discovered on June 18 and addressed within four hours. But the initial fix didn't stick and access to the data had to be further locked down. The issue made "some MCI-derived data" accessible to more people than intended, he wrote, without elaborating.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/216239/meta-pauses-employee-tracking-program-following-internal-data-leak?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> pW567FJ3hWAZWJecQich2026-06-25 01:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/pW567FJ3hWAZWJecQich#pW567FJ3hWAZWJecQich Rockstar Games has revealed the price of Grand Theft Auto VI to be $79.99, and confirmed that the physical versions of the game won't include a disc. Instead, they'll contain a one-time download code when it launches November 19. "Not only is that a disappointing decision for peo... All

Rockstar Games has revealed the price of Grand Theft Auto VI to be $79.99, and confirmed that the physical versions of the game won't include a disc. Instead, they'll contain a one-time download code when it launches November 19. "Not only is that a disappointing decision for people who like to own physical games, but given the scale of the next GTA, it also sets a bad precedent for the rest of the industry," reports The Verge. From the report: There are a lot of advantages to buying digital. You can start a download from your couch. You can store multiple games on one hard drive so you don't have to get up to play something else. Storefronts like Steam or the PlayStation Store don't run out of inventory of the newest game you're interested in, and you can often get games at a cheaper price thanks to frequent sales.

But it's becoming increasingly clear that digital ownership has significant disadvantages, too. If a game you don't own digitally is removed from a storefront, whether that's for things like licensing, artificially limited availability, or even the store eventually closing down, your only option is to hope you can find a physical version. If your account on a platform is banned, even if that ban isn't warranted, you might be locked out of your digital library with no way to play those games unless you buy them again or hope your account gets restored. You can't sell or trade digital games you've purchased, and while there are ways to share digital games, they require some work and are usually intended just for families.

It's also much harder to preserve digital games because they only "exist" on the hard drive of a console, PC, or device they were downloaded to. This is an issue across many industries, not just console games; there are multiple examples of things like mobile games and streaming shows becoming lost for good when they don't have a physical version. Without physical versions, you also can't find a used version of a game at a garage sale or a local game shop. It's unclear whether Rockstar will ever release a physical version of the game. As for why, The Verge suspects the decision was made in part to prevent leaks; "by only being available digitally, Rockstar can ensure that GTA VI unlocks at the same exact time for everyone."

"The digital-only choice might also indicate that the game has a massive file size that's too big for PlayStation and Xbox game discs."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/2053235/gta-vi-is-a-worrying-sign-for-the-future-of-physical-games?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> SQrcPnYR2RW3Q9qECiHu2026-06-25 00:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/SQrcPnYR2RW3Q9qECiHu#SQrcPnYR2RW3Q9qECiHu OpenAI and Broadcom have unveiled Jalapeno, OpenAI's first custom AI chip, designed primarily to handle inference for ChatGPT and other services. It's a major step in OpenAI's plan to "build the full stack behind its models and products," says OpenAI. "By designing more of the st... All

OpenAI and Broadcom have unveiled Jalapeno, OpenAI's first custom AI chip, designed primarily to handle inference for ChatGPT and other services. It's a major step in OpenAI's plan to "build the full stack behind its models and products," says OpenAI. "By designing more of the stack ourselves, we can serve more intelligence with greater efficiency and keep pushing advanced AI toward broader access." CNBC reports: The chip with Broadcom is an ASIC, which industry experts say is less flexible than Nvidia's GPU, but is also less expensive and can be designed for specific AI tasks. OpenAI said that it designed the chip in nine months, and that it also crafted large parts of the computer system where it will be used.

The companies are calling the chip an "Intelligence Processor" and describe it as the first "AI accelerator" in a platform they're building "to make advanced AI faster, more reliable, and more accessible to more people." [...] A physical sample of the new chip will be delivered to OpenAI on Wednesday. The companies said they're aiming for initial deployment of the Jalapeno chips by the end of 2026, "expanding in the years ahead."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/1755203/openai-unveils-first-chip-as-part-of-broadcom-deal?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> kMloyzGpXPAlJGmNari62026-06-24 23:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/kMloyzGpXPAlJGmNari6#kMloyzGpXPAlJGmNari6 An anonymous reader quotes a report from Barron's: Walmart is signing a long-term contract to buy nuclear power for the first time ever, a promising sign that the industry's future is supported by more than just the AI data center boom. The retail giant agreed on Tuesday to buy p... All

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Barron's: Walmart is signing a long-term contract to buy nuclear power for the first time ever, a promising sign that the industry's future is supported by more than just the AI data center boom. The retail giant agreed on Tuesday to buy power from a nuclear plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy for its operations in the area, including its stores and a high-tech warehouse in Illinois that stores and sorts perishable food.

Walmart will buy 176 megawatts of power from the plant over a 15-year period, or enough power to serve around 150,000 homes. The Walmart deal will allow Constellation to expand the capacity of the Illinois plant by 30 megawatts, a process known as an uprate, which can involve replacing older equipment and improving efficiency. Walmart, which has pledged to eliminate net carbon emissions from its U.S. operations by 2040, will also receive the environmental attributes associated with the nuclear energy, which generates electricity without carbon emissions. Further reading: Trump Admin Announces $17.5 Billion In Loans For 10 New Large Nuclear Reactors

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/175214/walmarts-first-nuclear-deal-shows-demand-beyond-ai-data-centers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
]]> tfEBFmyYTibuIZJK5g4c2026-06-24 22:22:01robothttps://idec.foxears.su/tfEBFmyYTibuIZJK5g4c#tfEBFmyYTibuIZJK5g4c In an exit interview with The Financial Times (paywalled), former Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company seriously considered buying Twitter, explored a potential merger with Apple, and pursued the James Bond franchise during his tenure. The Verge reports: According to Iger, Disney... All

In an exit interview with The Financial Times (paywalled), former Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company seriously considered buying Twitter, explored a potential merger with Apple, and pursued the James Bond franchise during his tenure. The Verge reports: According to Iger, Disney came close to buying Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey "at a very attractive price," sometime prior to Elon Musk buying the social media platform in 2022 and changing its name to X. Iger had plans to turn Twitter into a global distribution platform for Disney, but walked away on the morning of the deal over concerns that it would be "a horrible distraction."

Disney was also at one point involved in early conversations regarding a potential merger with Apple, something Iger thinks would have been "truly transformational." In the end, Iger says these conversations "never went anywhere," and that "Apple didn't show that much interest." The two companies have a mixed history -- Iger was an Apple board member from 2011 to 2019, and notably a driving force behind Disney acquiring Pixar in 2006, which was led by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs at the time. According to Iger, his first call with Jobs resulted in an almost immediate deal to put Disney content on the first video iPod. "All of a sudden, I'm now someone Steve likes and respects," Iger told The Financial Times. "The old Disney that he knew was lumbering in terms of bureaucracy. And so he thought, this is a new day."

The Pixar acquisition spurred Iger to find more companies to bring under Disney's wing, though not every attempt was successful. "We felt unstoppable. We put together a list of acquisition targets," said Iger. "Marvel was one, Star Wars was another, James Bond was one. We had a list and I figured let's just tick them off and buy them all." Iger provides no details about Disney's attempt to buy the James Bond franchise, but we know it obviously failed -- Amazon bought the 007 distribution rights when it acquired MGM in 2022, and later paid more than $1 billion to take full creative control of the franchise in February 2025.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/26/06/24/170227/bob-igers-disney-wanted-apple-twitter-and-007?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
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