China-linked spies may still be lurking in U.S. telecommunications networks — but the breach could be much, much wider. In fact, a "couple dozen" countries were hit by the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, citing a top U.S. national security adviser. "Chinese government hackers have compromised telecommunications infrastructure across the globe as part of a massive espionage campaign..."

Speaking during a press briefing Wednesday, Anne Neuberger, President Biden's deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said the so-called Salt Typhoon campaign is ongoing and that at least eight telecommunications firms in the U.S. had been breached... The Journal previously identified Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Lumen Technologies among the victims... [M]etadata grabs appeared to be "regional" in focus, and were likely a means to identify phone lines of valuable senior government officials, which the hackers then targeted to steal encrypted text messages and listen in on some phone calls, the official said... President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, senior congressional staffers and an array of U.S. security officials were among scores of individuals to have their calls and texts directly targeted, an intelligence-collection coup that likely ensnared their private communications with thousands of Americans, the Journal has reported.

The senior administration official said the global tally of countries victimized was currently believed to be in the "low, couple dozen" but didn't give a precise figure. The global campaign of hacking activity dates back at least a year or two, the official said.

"Neuberger, on the press briefing, said that it wasn't believed that classified communications were accessed in the breaches."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/0124213/dozens-of-countries-hit-in-chinese-telecom-hacking-campaign-top-us-official-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The Washington Post details a vision of home security "pitched by Sauron, a Silicon Valley start-up boasting a waiting list of tech CEOs and venture capitalists."

In the future, your home will feel as safe from intruders as a state-of-the-art military base. Cameras and sensors surveil the perimeter, scanning bystanders' faces for potential threats. Drones from a "deterrence pod" scare off trespassers by projecting a searchlight over any suspicious movements. A virtual view of the home is rendered in 3D and updated in real time, just like a Tesla's digital display. And private security agents monitor alerts from a central hub.... By incorporating technology developed for autonomous vehicles, robotics and border security, Sauron has built a supercharged burglar alarm [argued Sauron co-founder Kevin Hartz, a tech entrepreneur and former partner at Peter Thiel's venture firm Founders Fund]...

For many tech elites, security is both a national priority and a growing concern in their personal lives... After the presidential election last month, the start-up incubator Y Combinator put out a request for "public safety technology" companies, such as those that produce tools that facilitate a neighborhood watch or technology that uses computer vision to identify "suspicious activities or people in distress from video feeds...." Sauron has raised $18 million in funding from executives behind Flock Safety and Palantir, the data analytics firm, [and] defense tech investors such as 8VC, a venture firm started by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale... Sauron is targeting homeowners at the high end of the real estate market, beginning with a private event at Abraham's home on Thursday, during Art Basel Miami Beach, the annual art exhibition that attracts collectors from around the world. The company plans to launch in San Francisco early next year, before expanding to Los Angeles and Miami...

Big Tech companies haven't deployed tools such as facial recognition as aggressively as Hartz would like. "If somebody comes onto my property, I feel like I should know who that is," Hartz said... In recent years massive investments have driven down the cost of drones, high-resolution cameras and lidar sensors, which use light detection to create 3D maps. Sauron uses lower-cost hardware and tools like facial recognition, combined with custom-built software adapted for residential use. For facial recognition, it will use a third-party service called Paravision... Sauron is still figuring out how to incorporate drones, but it is already imagining more aggressive countermeasures, Hartz said. "Is it a machine that could take out a bad actor with a bullet or something?"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/034238/drones-surveillance-and-facial-recognition-startup-named-sauron-pitches-military-style-home-security?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Not every tech "advent calendar" involves programming puzzles. Instead the geek tradition of programming-language advent calendars "seems to have started way back in 2000," according to one history, "when London-based programmer Mark Fowler launched a calendar highlighting a different Perl module each day."
So the tradition continues...

Nearly a quarter of a century later, there's still a Perl Advent Calendar, celebrating tips and tricks like "a few special packages waiting under the tree that can give your web applications a little extra pep in their step."
And of course there's a separate advent calendar for Raku programmers.
Since 2009 web performance consultant (and former Yahoo and Facebook engineer) Stoyan Stefanov has been pulling together an annual Web Performance calendar with helpful blog posts.
There's also a JVM Advent calendar with daily helpful hints for Java programmers.
Another advent calendar promises daily posts about C#.
The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites" — is celebrating the season with the "HTMHell Advent Calendar," promising daily articles on security, accessibility, UX, and performance.
There's even an advent calendar with tips for the reverse-engineering framework Radar.
There's still a lovely web-design themed calendar at Designcember.com.

And meanwhile developers at the Svelte frontend framework are actually promising to release something new each day, "whether it's a new feature in Svelte or SvelteKit or an improvement to the website!"

But not every tech advent calendar is about programming...

Adafruit's managing director is publishing a Retrocomputing Advent Calendar — daily looks at the ghosts of computers past.

The Atlantic continues its 17-year tradition of a Space Telescope advent calendar, featuring daily images from both NASA's Hubble telescope and James Webb Space Telescope
The gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun has been counting down their favorite games of 2024...

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/12/04/0143242/the-2024-advent-calendars-offering-programming-language-tips-space-photos-and-memories?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The head of America's FCC "has drafted plans to regulate the cybersecurity of telecommunications companies," reports the Washington Post, and the plans could include financial penalties phone network operators with insufficient security — "the first time the agency has asserted such powers under federal wiretapping law."

Rosenworcel said the FCC's authority in this matter comes from Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [passed in 1994] — a single sentence that stipulates, without elaboration, that telecommunications carriers should ensure systems security "in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Commission." As one of the measures, she is seeking to require network providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC that they are implementing a cybersecurity risk management plan. In addition to imposing fines, the FCC could coordinate with other agencies to pursue criminal penalties against carriers deemed too careless on cybersecurity...

Biden administration officials said voluntary efforts to protect against aggressive Chinese hacking activity have fallen short. "We've had for the last decade voluntary public-private partnership efforts," Neuberger told The Post in a recent interview. "But we continue to see successful breaches, and in many cases, as with ransomware attacks, we continue to see pretty basic cybersecurity practices not being followed." With China's hackers becoming more brazen, pre-positioning themselves in U.S. critical networks, "we need to lock our digital doors," Neuberger said...

Cyber requirements can make a difference, she said. After the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 shut down one of the nation's largest energy pipelines for several days, creating a national security scare, the Transportation Security Administration issued several security directives, and today, all of the country's several dozen critical pipeline companies are in compliance, she said. Similar directives were subsequently issued for rail and aviation sectors, and the compliance rates in those industries are now at 68 and 57 percent respectively, she said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/0157212/americas-phone-networks-could-soon-face-financial---and-criminal---penalties-for-insecure-networks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

This year Marvell's stock rose 95%, giving it a $100 billion market capitalization, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"The latest gains have even put Marvell's market cap ahead of much-beleaguered Intel, which still generates 10 times as much annual revenue."

Marvell's recent trajectory suggests that the revenue gap will continue to narrow. The explosive growth of its data center business has finally reached a point where it can more fully offset weakness in the company's more legacy segments, which sell chips used in goods such as telecommunications gear, cable TV boxes and autos. Data center sales nearly doubled year over year to $1.1 billion in the just-ended quarter, and Marvell's projection for the current period indicates the company will end its fiscal year in January with the data center unit encompassing about 72% of its total revenue, up from 40% in the previous year.

The next year is looking bright as well. Marvell's latest deal with Amazon is a five-year "multigenerational" agreement that has Marvell helping Amazon design its own artificial intelligence chips. Amazon, which runs the world's largest cloud computing service, has been expanding its internal chip efforts significantly, in part to reduce its reliance on Nvidia for crucial AI components. Amazon announced the next generation of its largest AI chip, called Trainium, at its annual developers conference this week. Analysts believe Trainium will play a role in Marvell's AI custom revenue more than doubling in the next fiscal year ending January of 2026.

That is expected to help propel Marvell's annual revenue to more than $8 billion in fiscal 2026, up 40% from what is expected for this year, according to consensus estimates from Visible Alpha. In addition, 20% growth is expected for the following year, when Marvell expects to be in production of custom AI chips for another unnamed big tech customer that analysts believe to be Microsoft. Analyst Mark Lipacis of Evercore ISI projects that the industry for custom AI chips will reach $30 billion to $50 billion in sales by 2030. In a note to clients last week, he said Marvell "has the potential to capture one-third of that market."
Marvell's CEO "has been among the few names floated as potential replacements for the recently ousted Pat Gelsinger at Intel's corner office," the article points out — which meant he had to reassure investors on an earnings call that he was staying at Marvell.

"The company is outstanding. The technology is best-in-class. I can't think of a better place to work than Marvell."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/1753204/small-ai-chip-maker-marvell-is-now-more-valuable-than-intel?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Engadget:

On Saturday, a new image generator called Aurora became available for some Grok users, many of whom shared the tool's results on X touting their photorealism. [One user posted an image of Mickey Mouse fighting Luigi from Super Mario.] But as of Sunday afternoon, Aurora appears to be gone. While it briefly showed up as an option in Grok's model selection menu as "Grok 2 + Aurora (beta)," it's since been replaced with "Grok 2 + Flux (beta)." It looks like Aurora may have gone public before it was meant to. In a tweet replying to one user who shared images of Tesla's Cybertruck created with Aurora, Elon Musk said, "This is our internal image generation system. Still in beta, but it will improve fast."

When it was live, TechCrunch noted that Aurora "appears to have few restrictions," generating images of public and copyrighted figures, while it "seems to excel at photorealistic images, including images of landscapes and still lifes."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/1944206/elon-musks-x-upgrades-grok-ai-chatbot-with-image-generating?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Peter Jackson is co-executive producer of a new animated Lord of the Rings prequel called The War of the Rohirrim. "Set in an epic world 183 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the King of Rohan is forced into a last stand in ancient Hornburg after a sudden attack..." explains The Hollywood Reporter.

But Variety writes that the movie "fizzled" in its overseas debut this weekend:

"Moana 2" has notched $600 million in global ticket sales, standing as the sixth-biggest movie of the year after just two weeks of release. Disney's animated sequel, which was developed as a TV series before pivoting to theaters, has generated $300 million overseas and $300 million domestically... Among new offerings, the Warner Bros. anime fantasy film "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim," faltered with $2 million from 3,410 screens in 31 territories... [The movie] opens in North America and an additional 42 offshore markets on Dec. 13. Top earning territories were Spain with $347,000 followed by Mexico with $239,000 and Thailand with $146,000...

Meanwhile, Paramount's "Gladiator II" collected $17 million in its fourth frame at the international box office, boosting its tally to $235 million overseas and $368.4 million globally. The quarter-century-in-the-making sequel Ridley Scott's Oscar-winning 2000 epic "Gladiator" has been far bigger in offshore markets... There's also "Red One," a Christmas-set action comedy starring the Rock as Santa's head of security, which collected $3.5 million from 4,000 screens in 75 overseas markets. The film, from Amazon MGM, has generated a soft $78.2 million from offshore territories and $164 million globally. "Red One" was originally destined for streaming before the studio opted for a theatrical release, so any coinage from the big screen could be viewed as a win for movie theaters, Amazon MGM and Warner Bros. (which has international rights on Amazon MGM releases). From a strictly theatrical standpoint, though, "Red One" carries a $250 million budget before marketing and stands as one of the year's biggest misfires.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/2033205/disney-beats-tolkein-anime-lord-of-the-rings-prequel-outpaced-by-moana-2?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Generative AI is transforming software development by enabling natural language prompts to generate code, reducing the need for traditional programming skills," argues Analytics India magazine.

Traditionally, coding was the bastion of the select few who had mastered mighty languages like C++, Python, or Java. The idea of programming seemed exclusively reserved for those fluent in syntax and logic. However, the narrative is now being challenged by natural language coding being implemented in AI tools like GitHub Copilot. Andrej Karpathy, senior director of AI at Tesla predicted this trend last year.... English is emerging as the universal coding language.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang believes that English is becoming a new programming language thanks to AI advancements. Speaking at the World Government Summit, Huang explained, "It is our job to create computing technology such that nobody has to program and that the programming language is human"... He calls this a "miracle of AI," emphasising how it closes the technology divide and empowers people from all fields to become effective technologists without traditional coding skills... "In the future, you will tell the computer what you want, and it will do it,"â Huang commented. Large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's GPT-4 and its successors have made this possible...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been equally vocal about the potential of English for coding. Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, an AI code assistant, enables developers to describe their needs in natural language and receive functional code in response. Nadella describes this as part of a broader mission to "empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more".... In a discussion earlier last year, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque claimed, "41% of codes on GitHub are AI-generated"...

In 2024, the ability to program is no longer reserved for a few. It's a skill anyone can wield, thanks to the power of natural language processing and AI

"No longer is the power to create software restricted to those who can decipher programming languages," the article concludes. "Anyone with a problem to solve and a clear enough articulation of that problem can now write software."

Although the article also includes this consoling quote from Nvidia's Huang in March. "There is an artistry to prompt engineering. It's how you fine-tune the instructions to get exactly what you want"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/2154224/thanks-to-ai-the-hottest-new-programming-language-is-english?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

This week a Florida-based Bitcoin-tech company named MARA Holdings announced it had bought a 114-megawatt Texas wind farm, reports Chron.com, "and will subsequently take it off the power grid and use it to energize its mining operations."

MARA's CEO tells the site they're "leveraging renewable resources that would have otherwise been curtailed" while "reducing our bitcoin production costs through vertical integration, and demonstrating MARA's commitment to environmental stewardship."

The wind farms were not a part of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid, but instead they were located within the Southwest Power Pool, which manages the market for the central U.S., including but not limited to most or parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota... A 114-MW facility could power somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 homes, depending on who you ask...

Historically, the facilities use up a lot of power and have generated backlash from neighbors who have complained about the noise of the machines inside. Texas has been a haven for cryptocurrency tech companies, primarily because of the state's space, deregulated power market and friendly business climate. Two weeks ago, the Public Utilities Commission adopted a rule requiring crypto and other virtual currency miners within the ERCOT grid to register their locations, ownership information and electricity demands, to further ensure that they could be watchful of this emerging source of energy consumption.

"Crypto mining operations currently consume around 2.3 percent of US electricity, and it requires roughly 155,000kWh to mine one Bitcoin," notes the site Data Centre Dynamics.

This is the second off-grid power deal MARA has signed over the last few months. In October, it launched a 25MW micro data center operation across oil wellheads in Texas and North Dakota. The data center will be powered exclusively by excess natural gas from oilfield production that would have otherwise been flared. The operation will be distributed across wellheads in Texas and North Dakota, with operational status expected by January 2025.

Some context from Bloomberg:
A few years ago Bitcoin miners took part in a global scramble for electricity to power their specialized computers... But the rise of AI, with its insatiable demand for electricity, dwarfed the needs of crypto and upended energy markets worldwide. Miners must now compete with much-larger tech firms for connections to electrical grids and power contracts. "Bitcoin miners are being forced to go look at marginal generation," said [MARA CEO Fred] Thiel. "The AI guys can afford to pay a much higher amount for energy than a Bitcoin miner"...
MARA's plan to mine only when the wind is blowing makes economic sense because its mine will house last-generation computers that would otherwise have been retired, Thiel said. "Thiel said he'd be interested to potentially buy more wind farms over time."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/08/2345218/bitcoin-miner-purchases-112-megawatt-texas-wind-farm-takes-it-off-the-grid?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google's app store claims that their text-messaging app Google Messages means "conversations are end-to-end encrypted".

"That is some serious bullshit," argues tech blogger John Gruber:
It's shamefully misleading regarding Google Messages's support for end-to-end encryption... Google Messages does support end-to-end encryption, but only over RCS and only if all participants in the chat are using a recent version of Google Messages. But the second screenshot in the Play Store listing flatly declares "Conversations are end-to-end encrypted", full stop...
I realize that "Some conversations are end-to-end encrypted" will naturally spur curiosity regarding which conversations are encrypted and which aren't, but that's the truth. And users of the app should be aware of that. "RCS conversations with other Google Messages users are encrypted" would work.
Then, in the "report card" section of the listing, it states the following:

Data is encrypted in transit
Your data is transferred over a secure connection
Which, again, is only true sometimes. It's downright fraudulent to describe Google Messages's transit security this way.... [D]epending who you communicate with —
iPhone users, Android users with old devices, Android users who use other text messaging apps — it's quite likely most of your messages won't be secure... E2EE is never available for SMS, and never available if a participant in the chat is using any RCS client (on Android or Apple Messages) other than Google Messages. That's an essential distinction that should be made clear, not obfuscated.

Gruber's earlier blog post had pointed out that the RCS standard "has no encryption; E2EE RCS chats in Google Messages use Google's proprietary extension and are exclusive to the Google Messages app, so RCS chats between Google Messages and other apps, most conspicuously Apple Messages, are not encrypted."

And in his newer post, Gruber adds, "While I'm at it, it's also embarrassing that Google Voice has no support for RCS at all. It's Google's own app and service, and Google has been the world's most vocal proponent of RCS messaging."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/014227/google-criticized-for-misleading-encryption-claims-about-its-text-messaging-app?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader prisoninmate shared this report from the blog 9to5Linux

Renowned Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced Thursday that the Linux 6.12 kernel series has been officially marked as LTS (Long Term Support) on the kernel.org website with a predicted life expectancy of at least two years.

Linux kernel 6.12 was released on November 17th, 2024, and introduces new features like real-time "PREEMPT_RT" support, a new scheduler called sched_ext, and DRM panic messages as QR codes, as well as numerous new and updated drivers for better hardware support...

Linux kernel 6.12 joins the many other long-term support kernel branches, namely Linux 6.6 LTS, Linux 6.1 LTS, Linux 5.15 LTS, Linux 5.10 LTS, and Linux 5.4 LTS. Apart from the latter, the rest of them, including Linux kernel 6.12, will be officially supported until the end of December 2026. Hopefully, Linux kernel 6.12 will be supported for more than two years as the kernel maintainers usually aim for four years of support for a new LTS kernel, especially if there's demand from hardware manufacturers and other companies that aim to use a long-term supported kernel in their devices.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/0125219/linux-kernel-612-confirmed-as-lts-will-be-supported-for-multiple-years?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Mercedes-Benz is researching a new type of solar modules that could be seamlessly applied to the bodywork of electric vehicles," according to a recent Mercedes-Benz press release.

They describe the 5-micrometer coating as "similar to a wafer-thin layer of paste... significantly thinner than a human hair" — but creating an active photovoltaic surface with an efficiency of 20%.

An area of 118.4 square feet (equivalent to the surface of a mid-size SUV) could produce energy for up to 7,456 miles per year under ideal conditions [based on daylight conditions from their testing in Stuttgart]. The energy generated by the solar cells is used for driving or fed directly into the high-voltage battery...

Solar paint has a high level of efficiency and contains no rare earths or silicon — only non-toxic, readily available raw materials. It is easy to recycle and considerably cheaper to produce than conventional solar modules. The Mercedes-Benz research department is currently working to enable use of the new solar paint on all exterior vehicle surfaces — regardless of shape or angle.

Solar paint could power 62% of the travel for a typical Stuttgart driver, their announcement notes. But in a sunnier city like Los Angeles, "It could be used for 100% of their driving, on average." (And "the surplus of energy could be fed directly into the home network via bidirectional charging.")

Mercedes-Benz researchers "initially thought the tech had limited scope for mass production," reports EV Central, "until experiments were carried out with prototypes coated with the paint in real-world scenarios.
Instead of just coating the roof and bonnet to form a 1.8-square-metre surface area, one scientist suggested covering an entire car with the new solar paint, ramping up the surface area to more than 11m2. Another difference to the [Mercedes-Benz 2022 Vision EQXX concept] is instead of wiring the body panels to the 12-volt system, scientists hardwired the body panels to the Benz's high-voltage battery and the performance of the paint was well beyond expectations... Available in all colours, engineers admit the solar paint work best in darker shades. When it's launched, the tech should be as durable as regular paint. The photovoltaic surface is protected by at least two protective lacquer finishes to ensure it isn't damaged in daily use.

Mercedes-Benz says the solar paint could mean "increased electric range and fewer charging stops." And this is significant, because "Electric vehicle charging and infrastructure are two major obstacles to EV adoption on a mass scale," writes Autoblog — arguing that Mercedes-Benz "may have a solution... "
Alternative methods of energy harnessing could help alleviate range anxiety, increase an EV's driving distance, and reduce charging costs across the board. Not only that but considering the cost of producing Mercedes' solar coating and the lack of rare earth metals, it could be the leading solution to charging concerns... While the German automaker says the solar paint isn't ready for production on a mass scale, research, and development are progressing at a steady rate. If all goes well, we'll hopefully see solar coating as an accessory EV charging solution within the next decade.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/0242257/solar-paint-being-developed-by-mercedes-benz-could-revolutionize-ev-charging?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Bruce Perens, original co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, has responded to questions from Slashdot readers about a new alternative he's developing that hopefully helps "Post Open" developers get paid.
But first, "One of the things that's clear from the Slashdot patter is that people are not aware of what I've been doing, in general," Perens says. "So, let's start by filling that in..."
Read on for the rest of his wide-ranging answers....

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/0344229/slashdots-interview-with-bruce-perens-how-he-hopes-to-help-post-open-developers-get-paid?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Amazon is offering $25 (one-way) plane tickets to 5,000 students (or young adults between 18 and 24 years old) who have a Prime membership (up to $700 off the ticket's original price). CNET REports:

Last year, Amazon offered the $25 flight deals to Prime Student members, but this holiday season, the retail giant is expanding the limited-time offer to those enrolled in its Prime for Young Adults plan... Once again, Amazon is joining with [travel-booking site] StudentUniverse to offer several thousand $25 flights you can book between December 9, 2024, and January 14, 2025. The offer is for a one-way domestic ticket within the U.S., including Washington, DC, while supply lasts. Amazon said it's making available 1,000 tickets to Prime Student and Young Adult subscribers each day for five days, starting at 10 a.m. PST on December 9.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/05/022253/amazon-offers-25-plane-tickets-for-holiday-travel-to-5000-students-and-young-adults?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Fans post about him on social media. Swag bearing his name sells out on the regular. College professors dedicate class sessions and textbook sections to him. Foreign government officials have been known to express jealousy over his skills, and one prominent economist refers to him as a "national treasure." Meet FRED, a 33-year-old data tool from St. Louis, Mo., and the economics world's most unlikely celebrity.

Even if you have not interacted with FRED yourself, there is a good chance you've encountered him without knowing it. The tool's signature baby blue graphs dot social media and crop up on many of the world's most popular news websites. Many people feel that way about FRED. The website had nearly 15 million users last year, and it is on track for even more in 2024, up from fewer than 400,000 as recently as 2009. Their reasons for clicking are diverse: FRED users are coming for freshly released unemployment data, to check in on egg inflation or to find out whether business is booming in Memphis.

That appeal crosses political lines. Larry Kudlow, who directed the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration, has tweeted and retweeted FRED charts. Groups as disparate as the spending-focused Alaskans for a Sustainable Budget and the pro-worker advocacy organization Employ America have used its charts to back up their arguments. It is even occasionally used by professional and White House economists, who tend to have access to sophisticated data tools, for quick charts. "It is unfathomable for me now, to think of the days before FRED," said Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale and a former chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

When he speaks to foreign government economists, he noted, they are often "jealous" of the data tool, which is more comprehensive and easier to use than what other countries offer. "It's a compliment to FRED," he said. FRED -- whose name stands for Federal Reserve Economic Data -- was born in 1991. But he was a sparkle in the eye of the St. Louis Fed long before that. The story started in the 1960s, with an economist named Homer Jones (now sometimes referred to as the "grandfather of FRED"). Mr. Jones was the director of research at the Fed's branch in St. Louis, and he wanted to make central bank decisions more data-based, so he started to mail typed data reports to Fed officials around the country.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/1312203/everybody-loves-fred?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

AI-powered teams at a major U.S. materials company discovered 44% more new materials and filed 39% more patents compared to teams using standard methods, according to a study by MIT economist Aidan Toner-Rodgers.

The research, conducted at an unnamed corporate laboratory with over 1,000 scientists, tracked the implementation of a custom machine-learning system combining graph neural networks with reinforcement learning. The AI tool, deployed in 2022, was pre-trained on crystal and molecular structure databases. Top-performing scientists showed the greatest gains with AI assistance, while lower-ranked researchers saw minimal benefits. The AI-designed materials demonstrated higher novelty compared to human designs, based on patent text analysis.

The company's secrecy limits independent verification of results, according to University College London chemist Robert Palgrave. Researchers using AI reported lower job satisfaction, citing reduced creative involvement in the discovery process.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/159202/ai-boosts-materials-discovery-by-44-at-major-us-lab?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman predicts conversational AI will become the primary way people interact with technology,
replacing traditional web browsers and search engines within the next few years. In an interview with The Verge, Suleyman, who oversees Microsoft's consumer AI products including Bing and Copilot, called current search interfaces "completely broken" and "a total pain," arguing that voice-based AI interactions will prove "100 times easier" for users. He said: The UI that you experience is going to be automagically produced by an LLM in three or five years, and that is going to be the default. And they'll be representing the brands, businesses, influencers, celebrities, academics, activists, and organizations, just as each one of those stakeholders in society ended up getting a podcast, getting a website, writing a blog, maybe building an app, or using the telephone back in the day.

The technological revolution produces a new interface, which completely shuffles the way that things are distributed. And some organizations adapt really fast and they jump on board and it kind of transforms their businesses and their organizations, and some don't. There will be an adjustment. We'll look back by 2030 and be like, "Oh, that really was the kind of moment when there was this true inflection point because these conversational AIs really are the primary way that we have these interactions." And so, you're absolutely right. A brand and a business are going to use that AI to talk to your personal companion AI because I don't really like doing that kind of shopping. And some people do, and they'll do that kind of direct-to-consumer browsing experience. Many people don't like it, and it's actually super frustrating, hard, and slow.

And so, increasingly you'll come to work with your personal AI companion to go and be that interface, to go and negotiate, find great opportunities, and adapt them to your specific context. That'll just be a much more efficient protocol because AIs can talk to AIs in super real-time. And by the way, let's not fool ourselves. We already have this on the open web today. We have behind-the-scenes, real-time negotiation between buyers and sellers of ad space, or between search ranking algorithms. So, there's already that kind of marketplace of AIs. It's just not explicitly manifested in language. It's operating in vector space.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/1548200/microsoft-ai-chief-says-conversational-ai-will-replace-web-browsers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google has achieved a major breakthrough in quantum error correction that could enable practical quantum computers by 2030, the company announced in a paper published Monday in Nature. The research demonstrated significant error reduction when scaling up from 3x3 to 7x7 grids of quantum bits, with errors dropping by half at each step. The advance addresses quantum computing's core challenge of maintaining stable quantum states, which typically last only microseconds.

Google's new quantum chip, manufactured in-house, maintains quantum states for nearly 100 microseconds -- five times longer than previous versions. The company aims to build a full-scale system with about 1 million qubits, projecting costs around $1 billion by decade's end. IBM, Google's main rival, questioned the scalability of Google's "surface code" error correction approach, claiming it would require billions of qubits. IBM is pursuing an alternative three-dimensional design requiring new connector technology expected by 2026. The breakthrough parallels the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942, according to MIT physics professor William Oliver, who noted that both achievements required years of engineering to realize theoretical predictions from decades earlier.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/1715219/scientific-breakthrough-gives-new-hope-to-building-quantum-computers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI released its AI-generated video tool called Sora for general use by its paying customers Monday. From a report: The company then said it would do wide testing with creatives and red-teaming with security experts before its release to the public. "We don't want the world to just be text," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a live-streamed announcement Monday.

"[Video] is important to our culture," Altman added. The company said in a statement that the latest version of Sora, which will be offered as a standalone product to ChatGPT Plus and Pro customers, is "significantly faster" than the one it previewed. It lets you generate videos up to 20 seconds long.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/2122253/openai-launches-sora-video-generator?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

chiguy writes: In October, a jury in a federal class-action lawsuit returned a verdict that found Cognizant intentionally discriminated against more than 2,000 non-Indian employees between 2013 and 2022. The verdict, which echoed a previously undisclosed finding from a 2020 US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation, centered on discrimination claims based on race and national origin. Cognizant, based in Teaneck, New Jersey, was found to have preferred workers from India, most of whom joined the firm's US workforce of about 32,000 using skilled-worker visas called H-1Bs.

The case is part of a wave of recent discrimination claims against IT outsourcing companies that underscore growing concerns that these firms have exploited a broken employment-visa system to secure a cheaper, more malleable workforce. In the process, US workers say they've been disadvantaged. The industry, which provides computer services to other companies, makes extensive use of H-1Bs; over the past decade and a half, no employer has obtained more of them than Cognizant, federal records show.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/2131229/it-giant-favored-indian-h-1b-workers-over-us-employees?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Over 300 musicians have signed an open letter defending the Internet Archive against a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its preservation of 78 rpm records. The letter, organized by Fight for the Future, opposes the lawsuit filed by major record labels including Universal Music Group and Sony Music.

The labels claim the Archive's Great 78 Project, which digitizes shellac discs from the 1890s-1950s, amounts to widespread copyright infringement. Musicians argue the lawsuit prioritizes corporate profits over artists' interests.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/2218212/musicians-rally-behind-internet-archive-in-621-million-music-label-battle?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Scientific advisers to the European Commission are calling for a moratorium across the EU on efforts to artificially cool Earth through solar geoengineering. That includes controversial technologies used to reflect sunlight back into space, primarily by sending reflective particles into the atmosphere or by brightening clouds.

Proponents argue that this can help in the fight against climate change, especially as planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. But small-scale experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than good. The European Commission asked its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) and European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) to write up their opinions on solar geoengineering, which were published today alongside a report synthesizing what little we know about how these technologies might work.

There's "insufficient scientific evidence" to show that solar geoengineering can actually prevent climate change, says the opinion written by the GCSA. "Given the currently very high levels of scientific and technical uncertainty ... as well as the potential harmful uses, we advocate for a moratorium on all large-scale [solar geoengineering] experimentation and deployment," writes the EGE in the second highly anticipated opinion.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/2258234/scientists-advise-eu-to-halt-solar-geoengineering?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Malaysian lawmakers voted in favor of broadening the government's control over the internet, unmoved by criticism that the law risks suppressing dissent and free speech. From a report: Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil told parliament Monday that the government needed to amend existing laws to tackle online harm including scams, cyber-bullying, and more. "Freedom of speech does exist, but we are also given power through parliament to impose any necessary restrictions for the safety of the public," said Fahmi.

The bill imposes stricter penalties on content violations and grants sweeping powers to law enforcement, such as the right of any authorized officer to search and seize without a warrant. Service providers may also be held liable under the law, and compelled to disclose user data to authorities during investigations of alleged violations. More than 20 consultation sessions were held with stakeholders in the drafting of the bill, Fahmi said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/0255200/malaysian-lawmakers-approve-bill-to-broaden-internet-control?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An area of land nearly a third larger than India has turned from humid conditions to dryland -- arid areas where agriculture is difficult -- in the past three decades, research has found. From a report: Drylands now make up 40% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. Three-quarters of the world's land suffered drier conditions in the past 30 years, which is likely to be permanent, according to the study by the UN Science Policy Interface, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations.

Africa lost about 12% of its GDP owing to the increasing aridity between 1990 and 2015, the report found. Even worse losses are forecast: Africa will lose about 16% of its GDP, and Asia close to 7%, in the next half decade. Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UN convention to combat desertification (UNCCD), said: "Unlike droughts -- temporary periods of low rainfall -- aridity represents a permanent, unrelenting transformation. Droughts end. When an area's climate becomes drier, however, the ability to return to previous conditions is lost. The drier climates now affecting vast lands across the globe will not return to how they were, and this change is redefining life on Earth."

Some crops will be particularly at risk: maize yields are projected to halve in Kenya by 2050, if current trends continue. Drylands are areas where 90% of the rainfall is lost to evaporation, leaving only 10% for vegetation. Two-thirds of land globally will store less water by mid-century, according to the report published on Monday.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/0357259/drylands-now-make-up-40-of-land-on-earth-excluding-antarctica-study-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China's high-speed rail network, which has tripled to nearly 30,000 miles under President Xi Jinping's leadership, faces mounting financial challenges amid aggressive expansion plans. China State Railway Group, the national operator, has accumulated nearly $1 trillion in debt and liabilities, requiring $25 billion annually for debt service.

Despite this, plans call for adding 15,000 more miles by 2035. While flagship routes between major cities like Beijing and Shanghai remain profitable, newer lines into rural regions are struggling with low ridership. In Sichuan province's Fushun County, which received high-speed rail service in 2021, stations built for thousands sit largely empty despite having 12 high-speed rail stops within a 40-mile radius.

The expansion has become a symbol of China's technological advancement but raises concerns about economic viability. Ticket prices are maintained at about one-quarter of global averages to ensure public access, limiting profit potential. The railway operator turned a modest $460 million profit in 2023, aided by government subsidies, after three years of losses during the pandemic.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/0634232/chinas-trillion-dollar-bet-on-high-speed-rail-transformation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

As tech giants struggle to profit from AI, a growing industry of specialized AI training firms is emerging by hiring doctors, radiologists and other experts to develop commercially viable applications. The $20 billion data services sector, projected to grow 20% annually, is attracting major investment by focusing on high-value, specialized AI applications.

Companies like iMerit and Centaur Labs are recruiting specialists worldwide, from radiologists in Kazakhstan to agricultural experts in Bhutan, paying premium rates for domain expertise rather than basic data processing. While Microsoft and Alphabet post losses on AI development, this specialized sector is finding profitability by bridging the gap between raw AI capabilities and practical business applications.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/103244/secret-to-ai-profitability-is-hiring-a-lot-more-doctorates?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon on Tuesday said it is piloting a quick commerce service in India that will see the U.S. tech giant delivering grocery and other items in 15 minutes or less.

[...] The quick-commerce model -- delivering items to customers within 10 to 15 minutes -- hasn't worked in most parts of the world, but it's increasingly finding success in India, where a range of retailers and internet firms, from food delivery giant Swiggy to online cosmetics platform Nykaa, are gearing up their supply chain ecosystems to accommodate for faster deliveries.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/1143218/amazon-pilots-15-minute-delivery-in-india?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

China should focus on developing original technologies and scientific knowledge and leverage the expertise of scientists returning from the United States, according to a top Chinese-American mathematician. From a report: Yau Shing-Tung retired from Harvard University in 2022 to teach at Tsinghua University and help China become a maths powerhouse.
He said many ethnic Chinese students had been driven away from the US by discrimination from the government, including accusations of misusing American research funds for China's benefit.

"Chinese scientists have no choice but to leave the US because they work best under a supportive research environment," he said. "This exodus is unfortunate for the US as it could diminish its research capabilities. For China, the return of these scientists means it is gaining top talent, but it also results in weakened ties with the US and a loss of first-hand knowledge of advanced technologies."

An increasing number of leading scientists are leaving the West for Chinese institutions. Yau's maths centre at Tsinghua in Beijing is one example where top foreign mathematicians have been recruited.
In a survey of 1,300 US-based scientists of Chinese descent conducted between late 2021 and early 2022, 72 per cent of respondents said they did not feel safe as academic researchers. And 61 per cent said they had thought about leaving the United States for either Asian or non-Asian countries.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/1339251/chinese-scientists-have-no-choice-but-to-leave-us-top-mathematician-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft, trying to mitigate the climate impact of its data center building boom, is starting to roll out a new design that uses zero water to cool the facilities' chips and servers. From a report: Launched in August, the new design will eliminate the more than 125 million liters of water each data center typically uses per year, the company said in a statement. The new system use a "closed loop" to recycle water; liquid is added during construction and continually circulated -- obviating the need for fresh supplies. Data centers will still require fresh water for worker facilities like bathrooms and kitchens.

Microsoft spent more than $50 billion on capital expenditures in the fiscal year ended June 30, the vast majority related to data center construction fueled by demand for artificial intelligence services. It plans to top that figure in the current year, requiring rapidly rising amounts of energy to run the networks and water to cool equipment. Many of latest facilities are going up in hot, dry areas like Arizona and Texas, making it even more critical to find ways to conserve water. Microsoft's existing data centers will continue to use a mix of older technologies, but new projects in Phoenix and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, will begin using the zero-water designs in 2026.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/1351222/microsoft-unveils-zero-water-data-centers-to-reduce-ai-climate-impact?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Cable industry lobbyists have urged the Federal Communications Commission to avoid regulating data caps and overage charges, comparing broadband plans to restaurant menus in a filing last week.

NCTA - The Internet & Television Association argued that usage-based pricing benefits low-income consumers by providing cheaper options, pushing back against advocacy groups who say data caps disproportionately harm price-sensitive users. The group likened different pricing models to restaurants offering tasting menus, buffets, or unlimited soup and salad.

Consumer advocates, including Public Knowledge and Free Press, countered that low-income households often have no choice but to accept data caps since lower-priced plans typically include usage limits. They cited examples of users like Gloria Simmons, a Georgia retiree who pays $60 monthly for internet service plus $10 for every 50 gigabytes over her data allowance.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/1527234/cable-groups-fight-data-cap-regulation-with-restaurant-analogies?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli writes: Linux Mint has reclaimed its position as the top-ranked Linux distribution on DistroWatch, dethroning MX Linux. The latest page hit rankings, which reflect the popularity of distributions among DistroWatch users, place Linux Mint in first place with 2,412 hits per day. MX Linux, previously the reigning champ, now sits in second with 2,280 hits.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/1754230/linux-mint-dethrones-mx-linux-as-the-most-popular-distro-on-distrowatch?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

After spending more than $10 billion on its robotaxi unit, General Motors
is abandoning its Cruise driverless ride-hailing service. From a report: The Detroit automaker on Tuesday said it will no longer fund its Cruise division's robotaxi development and will instead fold the unit into its broader tech team. "Cruise was well on its way to a robotaxi business -- but when you look at the fact you're deploying a fleet, there's a whole operations piece of doing that," GM CEO Mary Barra said on a call Tuesday.

Barra said GM would instead focus on the development of autonomous systems for use in personal vehicles. GM cited the increasingly competitive robotaxi market, capital allocation priorities and the considerable time and resources necessary to grow the business as reasons for its decision.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/2318201/gm-exits-robotaxi-market?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Global antibiotic use in livestock varies dramatically across regions, with some Asian countries using up to 80 times more antibiotics per kilogram of meat than European nations, according to new research published by Our World in Data. Thailand leads global antibiotic consumption in livestock, while Norway reports the lowest usage rates.

The study found that around 70% of global antibiotics are administered to farm animals rather than humans, raising concerns about antimicrobial resistance. Several European countries have successfully reduced veterinary antibiotic sales by more than half between 2011 and 2022 through stricter regulations, including requiring prescriptions and imposing taxes on sales.

The Netherlands saw a 54% decrease in pig farm antibiotic use between 2004 and 2016 without negative impacts on animal welfare or farm economics. Researchers suggest global livestock antibiotic use could fall by two-thirds if consumption were reduced to 50 milligrams per kilogram of meat produced.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/2330228/livestock-antibiotic-use-in-asia-dwarfs-european-levels-amid-resistance-fears?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Software vulnerability submissions generated by AI models have ushered in a "new era of slop security reports for open source" -- and the devs maintaining these projects wish bug hunters would rely less on results produced by machine learning assistants. Seth Larson, security developer-in-residence at the Python Software Foundation, raised the issue in a blog post last week, urging those reporting bugs not to use AI systems for bug hunting.

"Recently I've noticed an uptick in extremely low-quality, spammy, and LLM-hallucinated security reports to open source projects," he wrote, pointing to similar findings from the Curl project in January. "These reports appear at first glance to be potentially legitimate and thus require time to refute." Larson argued that low-quality reports should be treated as if they're malicious.

As if to underscore the persistence of these concerns, a Curl project bug report posted on December 8 shows that nearly a year after maintainer Daniel Stenberg raised the issue, he's still confronted by "AI slop" -- and wasting his time arguing with a bug submitter who may be partially or entirely automated.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/2334221/open-source-maintainers-are-drowning-in-junk-bug-reports-written-by-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Nearly 100 live samples of the deadly Hendra virus have been lost in a biosecurity bungle at a state-run Queensland laboratory. An investigation has been launched after it was revealed 323 virus samples went missing from Virology Laboratory in 2021 in a "major breach" of biosecurity protocol, Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced on Monday.

The material, which included samples of Hendra virus, lyssavirus and hantavirus, appears to have gone missing after a freezer storing the samples broke down. Mr Nicholls said the breach was uncovered in August 2023. The lab has been unable to say whether the materials were removed or destroyed. "It's this part of the transfer of those materials that is causing concern," Mr Nicholls said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/0242221/investigation-launched-into-queensland-lab-breach-with-vials-of-deadly-viruses-missing?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Amazon expanded Tuesday into online car sales with the launch of Amazon Autos, an e-commerce business that lets customers find, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs from dealerships. From a report: Amazon is kicking off the new endeavor with Hyundai in 48 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. The launch comes a little more than a year since the e-commerce giant announced plans to start selling vehicles on its website in the second half of 2024. Amazon said it will add more cities and additional auto manufacturers in 2025.

Amazon Autos will function, in many ways, like the rest of the broader Amazon e-commerce ecosystem. Shoppers will be able to search for available vehicles from participating dealers by model, trim, color, and features. Notably, customers will also be able to secure financing and e-sign paperwork via the Amazon Autos site. Once the payment is finalized, customers can schedule when to pick up their vehicle from that dealership. When vehicles go on sale at Amazon, the local dealer (for now just Hyundai dealers) will be the seller of record. Amazon Autos will even handle trade ins.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/0250222/amazon-is-officially-in-the-online-car-sales-business?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google recently asked the U.S. government to break up Microsoft's exclusive agreement to host OpenAI's technology on its cloud servers, according to a person who has been directly involved in the effort. The conversation took place after the Federal Trade Commission, one of the primary federal antitrust enforcement agencies, asked Google about Microsoft's business practices as part of a broader investigation, this person said.

Firms that compete with Microsoft in renting out cloud servers, including Google and Amazon, want to host OpenAI's artificial intelligence themselves so their cloud customers don't need to also tap Microsoft servers to get access to the startup's technology, this person said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/0254257/google-asks-ftc-to-kill-microsofts-exclusive-cloud-deal-with-openai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com parent company Automattic. On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins. From a report: The preliminary injunction comes after WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, filed a lawsuit that accused Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, of "multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm." It later asked the court to stop Mullenweg from restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org.

Mullenweg waged a public campaign against WP Engine in September, accusing the service of misusing the WordPress trademark and not contributing enough to the WordPress community. After blocking WP Engine from WordPress.org's servers, Automattic took control of WP Engine's ACF Plugin.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/0258231/wordpress-parent-company-must-stop-blocking-wp-engine-judge-rules?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The news came by Slack message. Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top post in June, posted a message Tuesday afternoon in the company's announcements channel along with a link to a press release entitled "GM to refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles."

GM, which acquired the self-driving car startup in 2016, would no longer fund the company, ending a mission that hundreds of Cruise engineers had worked on for years. Minutes later, during an all-hands meeting, Cruise employees learned a few more details. The self-driving car company would be absorbed into parent company GM and combined with the automaker's own efforts to develop driver assistance features -- and eventually fully autonomous personal vehicles. Whether their jobs would be safe or cut was, and still is, unclear.

That meeting was short and unsatisfactory, according to one source, who noted that the senior leadership team was also surprised by this turn of events. Whitten, president and chief technology officer Mo Elshenawy, and chief administrative officer Craig Glidden, led the all-hands. Several Cruise employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity said they were "surprised" and "blindsided" by the decision. One source told TechCrunch that employees learned about GM's plans the same time the media did.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/0852242/cruise-employees-blindsided-by-gms-plan-to-end-robotaxi-program?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

AI-powered apps have flooded Apple's App Store, with AI-branded tools dominating top rankings across multiple categories, particularly in graphics and design. An investigation by The Verge reveals significant quality concerns among these applications.

Turkey-based developer HUBX controls three of the top 10 graphics apps, including DaVinci AI, which offers limited free features while charging up to $30 annually for full access. The app produces low-quality images and forces watermarks on paid users' downloads, The Verge writes. According to Sensor Tower data, four of the top 10 most downloaded iOS graphics apps in the U.S. this year include "AI" in their titles.

While established photo editing apps like Photoshop Express saw downloads drop 21%, AI-focused app Photoroom's downloads surged 160% year-over-year. Professional creative apps continue to dominate iPad and paid iPhone categories, suggesting the AI app trend primarily targets casual users seeking free alternatives to paid creative services.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/1223213/ai-app-gold-rush-floods-apple-store-with-low-quality-offerings?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Rising renewables, low demand and cheaper power imports all helped reduce fossil fuel use in the UK power system to record lows. From a report: For the first full year wind, solar, and hydropower will generate more electricity than all fossil fuels combined. Homegrown UK renewable power will cross a significant threshold in 2024, overtaking fossil fuel generation for the first full year. Wind, solar and hydropower are set to generate a combined 37% of UK electricity in 2024 (103 TWh), compared to 35% from fossil fuels (97 TWh). Just 3 years ago, in 2021, fossil fuels generated 46% of UK electricity, while low-carbon renewables generated 27%.

Including biomass, renewables overtook fossil fuels in the UK in 2020, fell below fossil power the following year as biomass production fell, and again overtook in 2023. However, Ember's analysis raises concerns about biomass being categorised as clean power in the UK, given the significant emissions risks and lack of domestic pellet production. Bioenergy, which includes biomass and biogas power, is set to provide 14% of UK electricity in 2024.

Fossil generation in 2024 has fallen by two-thirds since 2000, with the long awaited phase-out of coal power, and gas increasingly displaced by cheaper, cleaner power sources. Coal started to decline rapidly from 2012 and since 2020, coal power has made up only 2% of generation in the UK, dropping to zero by October 2024. Gas has seen a gradual decline since 2016. Across 2024 there has been a large decrease in fossil gas power, which provided 30% of electricity in 2024 (85 TWh), down from 34% in 2023 (98 TWh).

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/1334206/uk-low-carbon-renewable-power-set-to-overtake-fossil-fuels-for-first-time?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Security researchers have uncovered a new surveillance tool that they say has been used by Chinese law enforcement to collect sensitive information from Android devices in China. From a report: The tool, named "EagleMsgSpy," was discovered by researchers at U.S. cybersecurity firm Lookout. The company said at the Black Hat Europe conference on Wednesday that it had acquired several variants of the spyware, which it says has been operational since "at least 2017."

Kristina Balaam, a senior intelligence researcher at Lookout, told TechCrunch the spyware has been used by "many" public security bureaus in mainland China to collect "extensive" information from mobile devices. This includes call logs, contacts, GPS coordinates, bookmarks, and messages from third-party apps including Telegram and WhatsApp. EagleMsgSpy is also capable of initiating screen recordings on smartphones, and can capture audio recordings of the device while in use, according to research Lookout shared with TechCrunch.

A manual obtained by Lookout describes the app as a "comprehensive mobile phone judicial monitoring product" that can obtain "real-time mobile phone information of suspects through network control without the suspect's knowledge, monitor all mobile phone activities of criminals and summarize them."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/156219/researchers-uncover-chinese-spyware-used-to-target-android-devices?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Software has become essential for winning modern wars, a senior Palantir executive told a defense conference in Israel this week. "Modern war cannot be won without software," said Noam Perski, executive vice president at the data analytics company.

"Seeing software as a defense system, as a weapon system, and the most malleable weapon system we have, is really important as we build the next generation's capabilities." Speaking at Tel Aviv University's first DefenseTech Summit, Perski said human factors still determine military success.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/1534256/modern-war-cannot-be-won-without-software-palantir-executive-says?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google today unveiled Project Mariner, its first AI agent capable of autonomously navigating web browsers, operating through a Chrome extension that controls cursor movements and form-filling to replicate human interactions online.

The Gemini-powered prototype, developed by Google's DeepMind division, is initially available to a select group of testers. During demos, the agent performed tasks like creating shopping carts on grocery websites, though with noticeable five-second delays between actions. The system captures browser screenshots and processes them through Gemini in the cloud to generate navigation commands.

It operates only in Chrome's active tab, requiring users to observe its actions rather than running in the background. Project Mariner achieved an 83.5% success rate on the WebVoyager benchmark for web-based tasks. The agent has built-in limitations, including inability to complete purchases, accept cookies, or agree to terms of service. Google Labs Director Jaclyn Konzelmann described the project as a "fundamentally new UX paradigm shift" that could transform how users interact with websites. The company said it is engaging with web ecosystem stakeholders as development continues.

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An international research team has for the first time imaged and controlled a type of magnetic flow called altermagnetism, which physicists say could be used to develop faster and more reliable electronic devices. Financial Times: A groundbreaking experiment at a powerful X-ray microscope in Sweden provides direct proof of the existence of altermagnetism, according to a paper published in Nature on Wednesday. Altermagnetic materials can sustain magnetic activity without themselves being magnetic.

The team from the UK's Nottingham university that led the research said the discovery has revolutionary potential for the electronics industry. "Altermagnets have the potential to lead to a thousand-fold increase in the speed of microelectronic components and digital memory, while being more robust and energy-efficient," said senior author Peter Wadley, Royal Society research fellow at Nottingham.

Hard disks and other components underpinning the modern computers industry process data in ferromagnetic materials, whose intrinsic magnetism limits their speed and packing density. Using altermagnetic materials will allow current to flow in non-magnetic products.

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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg abruptly left a key WordPress community platform after a federal court ordered his company to restore rival WP Engine's access to WordPress.org and remove a controversial login requirement. The preliminary injunction mandates Automattic eliminate a checkbox that forced users to declare they had no connection to WP Engine before accessing the platform.

Mullenweg departed the Post Status Slack forum following the ruling, writing he was "sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor" to WP Engine, according to 404 Media. "It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," he added. The order gives Automattic 72 hours to comply, including reinstating WP Engine's employee credentials and plugin access. The ruling marks a significant development in an escalating dispute between the WordPress parent company and the web hosting provider.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/1841225/wordpress-chief-quits-community-forum-after-court-loss?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google has announced an experimental AI-powered code agent called "Jules" that can automatically fix coding errors for developers. From a report: Jules was introduced today alongside Gemini 2.0, and uses the updated Google AI model to create multi-step plans to address issues, modify multiple files, and prepare pull requests for Python and Javascript coding tasks in GitHub workflows.

Microsoft introduced a similar experience for GitHub Copilot last year that can recognize and explain code, alongside recommending changes and fixing bugs. Jules will compete against Microsoft's offering, and also against tools like Cursor and even Claude and ChatGPT's coding abilities. Google's launch of a coding-focused AI assistant is no surprise -- CEO Sundar Pichai said in October that more than a quarter of all new code at the company is now generated by AI.

"Jules handles bug fixes and other time-consuming tasks while you focus on what you actually want to build," Google says in its blog post. "This effort is part of our long-term goal of building AI agents that are helpful in all domains, including coding."

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Paul Knopp, KPMG US CEO, writing in an op-ed on WSJ: According to a United Nations estimate, 230 languages went extinct between 1950 and 2010. If my profession doesn't act, the language of business -- accounting -- could vanish too. The number of students who took the exam to become certified public accountants in 2022 hit a 17-year low. From 2020 to 2022, bachelor's degrees in accounting dropped 7.8% after steady declines since 2018.

While the shortage isn't yet an issue for the country's largest firms, it's beginning to affect our economy and capital markets. In the first half of 2024, nearly 600 U.S.-listed companies reported material weaknesses related to personnel. S&P Global analysts last year warned that many municipalities were at risk of having their credit ratings downgraded or withdrawn due to delayed financial disclosures.

Our profession must remove hurdles to learning the accounting language while preserving quality. In October, KPMG became the first large accounting firm to advocate developing alternate paths to CPA licensing. We want pathways that emphasize experience, not academic credits, after college. Most people today must earn 30 credits after their bachelor's degrees -- the so-called 150-hour rule -- work under a licensed CPA for a year, and pass the CPA exam to become licensed.

Research by the Center for Audit Quality finds that the 150-hour rule is among the top reasons people don't pursue CPA licensure. A December 2023 study found that the requirement causes a 26% drop in interest among minorities. There is a consensus for change, but we can't waste time. Many state CPA societies are working on legislation to create an alternative path to licensure. State boards of accountancy should replace the extra academic requirement with more on-the-job experience. A person who is licensed in one state should be able to practice in another even if reforms create different licensing requirements.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/1825252/the-dying-language-of-accounting?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Russia has reportedly cut some regions of the country off from the rest of the world's internet for a day, effectively siloing them, according to reports from European and Russian news outlets reshared by the US nonprofit Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Western news outlets.

Russia's communications authority, Roskomnadzor, blocked residents in Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, which have majority-Muslim populations, ISW says. The three regions are in southwest Russia near its borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan. People in those areas couldn't access Google, YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp, or other foreign websites or apps -- even if they used VPNs, according to a local Russian news site.

Russian digital rights NGO Roskomsvoboda told TechRadar that most VPNs didn't work during the shutdown, but some apparently did. It's unclear which ones or how many actually worked, though. Russia has been increasingly blocking VPNs more broadly, and Apple has helped the country's censorship efforts by taking down VPN apps on its Russian App Store. At least 197 VPNs are currently blocked in Russia, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/1725205/russia-tests-cutting-off-access-to-global-web-and-vpns-cant-get-around-it?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users' photos -- including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans -- to companies training generative AI models. From a report: The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users' data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply with strict privacy laws in states like Illinois, New York, and California by claiming it can't reliably determine users' geolocation.

Two separate classes could be protected by the litigation. The first includes anyone who ever uploaded a photo between 2003 -- when Photobucket was founded -- and May 1, 2024. Another potentially even larger class includes any non-users depicted in photographs uploaded to Photobucket, whose biometric data has also allegedly been sold without consent.

Photobucket risks huge fines if a jury agrees with Photobucket users that the photo-storing site unjustly enriched itself by breaching its user contracts and illegally seizing biometric data without consent. As many as 100 million users could be awarded untold punitive damages, as well as up to $5,000 per "willful or reckless violation" of various statutes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/12/11/2330207/photobucket-sued-over-plans-to-sell-user-photos-biometric-identifiers-to-ai-companies?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.