# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
#
# Usage:
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users View list of users and latest twt date.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt View all twts.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri View all mentions for uri.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash View all twts for a conversation subject.
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# offset Start index for quey.
# limit Count of items to return (going back in time).
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# twt range = 1 20930
# self = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://feeds.twtxt.net/slashdot/twtxt.txt&offset=18230
# next = https://watcher.sour.is?uri=https://feeds.twtxt.net/slashdot/twtxt.txt&offset=18330
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Scientists Create DVD-Sized Disk Storing 1 Petabit (125,000 Gigabytes) of Data
Popular Science points out that for encoding data, "optical disks almost always offer just a single, 2D layer — that reflective, silver underside."
"If you could boost a disk's number of available, encodable layers, however, you could hypothetically gain a massive amount of extra space..."
Researchers at the Universi ... ⌘ Read more
The Companies Helping Governments Hack Citizens' Phones: a 'Thriving' Industry
Fast Company notes that "the deadly impacts of Pegasus and other cyberweapons — wielded by governments from Spain to Saudi Arabia against human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and others — is by now well documented. A wave of scrutiny and sanctions have helped expose the secretive, quasi-legal industry behind these t ... ⌘ Read more
AT&T Will Issue $5 Reimbursements For 12-Hour Outage
CNN reports:
AT&T is reimbursing customers for the nearly 12-hour network outage on Thursday, the company announced in a news release. The mobile network will issue a $5 credit to "potentially impacted" AT&T Wireless customers, which it says is the "average cost of a full day of service."
The credit will be applied automatically "within 2 bill cycles," according to an an ... ⌘ Read more
Remembering How Plan 9 Evolved at Bell Labs
jd (Slashdot reader #1,658) writes: The Register has been running a series of articles about the evolution of Unix, from humble beginnings to the transition to Plan9. There is a short discussion of why Plan9 and its successors never really took off (despite being vastly superior to microkernels), along with the ongoing development of 9Front.
From the article:
Plan 9 was in some way a s ... ⌘ Read more
In Netflix's New Sci-Fi Movie 'Spaceman', an Introverted Astronaut Confronts Isolation
Netflix's new sci-fi drama Spaceman centers on Czech astronaut Jakub Procházk, described by Polygon as "painfully introverted, emotionally repressed, and above all, quiet... so muted and compressed, he seems like a trauma victim."
The film, adapted from the 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia written b ... ⌘ Read more
Texas Just Got a New 1.1-Million-Panel Solar Farm
An anonymous reader shared this report from Electrek:
Renewable developer Clearway Energy Group has completed a 452-megawatt (MW) solar farm in West Texas — and it's huge... It's built on around 5,000 acres of land and features over 1.1 million solar panels... Texas Solar Nova will generate enough electricity to power over 190,000 homes annually.
It's got an offtake agre ... ⌘ Read more
Oklahoma Man Hacked US Government Site To Buy Cars At Auction For $1**
A U.S. government auction site was breached by an Oklahoma man, reports NBC News. So when it came time to pay up on his winning bids, he "falsified the true auction price to $1," according to the U.S. attorney's office.
He defrauded the government out of more than $150,000 between Jan. 31 and March 21, 2019, the indictment alleges. Include ... ⌘ Read more
Moon Landing's Payloads Include Archive of Human Knowledge, Lunar Data Center Test, NFTs
In 2019 a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched an Israeli spacecraft carrying a 30-million page archive of human civilization to the moon. Unfortunately, that spacecraft crashed.
But thanks to this week's moon landing by the Odysseus, there's now a 30-million page "Lunar Library" on the moon — according ... ⌘ Read more
What Happened After Peter Thiel Paid 271 Students to Drop Out of College?**
Since 2010, billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has offered to pay about 20 students $100,000 to drop out of school each year "to start companies or nonprofits," reports the Wall Street Journal. His program has now backed 271 people, and this year the applicant pool "is bigger than ever."
So how's it going?
Some big successes ... ⌘ Read more
How 'Smart Keys' Have Fueled a New Wave of Car Thefts
"One London resident watched on CCTV as a thief walked up to his £40,000 car and drove away," reports the Observer. "Now manufacturers say they are being drawn in to a hi-tech 'arms race' with criminals."
[H]i-tech devices disguised as handheld games consoles are being traded online for thousands of pounds and are used by organised crime gangs to mimic the electronic key ... ⌘ Read more
Scientists Pursue Cancer Vaccines Tailored to the Genetic Makeup of an Individual's Tumor
"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which selects Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics, last week awarded Dr. Wu its Sjöberg Prize in honor of 'decisive contributions' to cancer research," reports CNN.
Their profile of the oncologist from Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute notes Dr. ... ⌘ Read more
License Plate-Scanning Company Violates Privacy of Millions of California Drivers, Argues Class Action
"If you drive a car in California, you may be in for a payday thanks to a lawsuit alleging privacy violations by a Texas company," report SFGate:
The 2021 lawsuit, given class-action status in September, alleges that Digital Recognition Network is breaking a California law ... ⌘ Read more
Boeing Removes Head of Its 737 Max Program After January's 'Door Bolts' Incident
On Wednesday Boeing "removed executive Ed Clark, the head of its 737 Max passenger jet program," reports CNN, "after a dramatic — and terrifying — midair blowout in January underscored ongoing problems with the jet."
A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the four bolts that shou ... ⌘ Read more
New York Will Start Requiring Credentials for All CS Teachers
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In 2012, Microsoft President Brad Smith unveiled Microsoft's National Talent Strategy, which called for K-12 Computer Science education for U.S. schoolchildren to address a "talent crisis [that] endangers long-term growth and prosperity". The following year, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org burst onto the scene to ... ⌘ Read more
Covid Death Toll in US Likely 16% Higher Than Official Tally, Study Says
The Guardian reports:
The Covid death toll in the U.S. is likely at least 16% higher than the official tally, according to a new study, and researchers believe the cause of the undercounting goes beyond overloaded health systems to a lack of awareness of Covid and low levels of testing.
The second year of the pandemic also had ne ... ⌘ Read more
Service Mesh Linkerd Moves Its Stable Releases Behind a Paywall
TechTarget notes it was Linkerd's original developers who coined the term "service mesh" — describing their infrastructure layer for communication between microservices.
But "There has to be some way of connecting the businesses that are being built on top of Linkerd back to funding the project," argues Buoyant CEO William Morgan. "If we don't do ... ⌘ Read more
US Court Stalls Energy Dept Demand For Cryptocurrency Mining Data
"Crypto mines will have to start reporting their energy use in the U.S.," wrote the Verge in January, saying America's Energy department would "begin collecting data on crypto mines' electricity use, following criticism from environmental advocates over how energy-hungry those operations are."
But then "constitutional freedoms" group New Civil ... ⌘ Read more
15 Million Toshiba Laptop Adapters Recalled Over Burn and Fire Risks
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:
Dynabook Americas, the company formerly known as Toshiba, has recalled 15.5 million Toshiba laptop AC adapters over potential burn and fire hazards.
The company said it received 679 reports of the recalled AC adapters overheating or catching on fire, melting and burning, including 43 ... ⌘ Read more
'Can a Programming Language Implement Time Travel?'
Stack Overflow's blog reports on a new programming language called Mariposa.
They call it a "toy" programming language, "created as a way to play around with a novel or odd feature, like variable assignment outside of the normal order of execution — more colloquially, time travel."
Computer science has long sought to reason about time in electronic systems, thanks to ... ⌘ Read more
5,000-Pound Satellite Successfully 'Deorbited' Wednesday
On Wednesday afternoon "a European Space Agency satellite reentered Earth's atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean..." reports CNN, "and there have been no reports of damage, according to the agency."
The agency's Space Debris Office, along with an international surveillance network, monitored and tracked the Earth-observing ERS-2 satellite throughout February ... ⌘ Read more
Tinder Owner Inks Deal With OpenAI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In a press release written with help from ChatGPT, Match Group announced an enterprise agreement with the AI chatbot's maker, OpenAI. The new agreement includes over 1,000 enterprise licenses for the dating app giant and home to Tinder, Match, OkCupid, Hinge and others. The AI tech will be used to help Match Group employees with work-related tasks, the compa ... ⌘ Read more
Vending Machine Error Reveals Secret Face Image Database of College Students
Ashley Belanger reports via Ars Technica: Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent. The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid4 ... ⌘ Read more
Odysseus Moon Lander 'Tipped Over On Touchdown'
On Thursday, the Odysseus Moon lander made history by becoming the first ever privately built and operated robot to complete a soft lunar touchdown. While the lander is "alive and well," the CEO of Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which built and flew the lander, said it tipped over during its final descent, coming up to rest propped up sideways on a rock. The BBC reports: Its o ... ⌘ Read more
Air Pollution Could Be Significant Cause of Dementia
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Air pollution from traffic is linked to some of the more severe forms of dementia, and could be a significant cause of the condition among those who are not already genetically predisposed to it, research suggests. Research carried out in Atlanta, Georgia, found that people with higher exposure to traffic-related ... ⌘ Read more
Microplastics Found In Sediment Layers Untouched By Modern Humans
Microplastics have been found in sediment layers that date back as early as the first half of the 1700s, "showing microplastics' pernicious ability to infiltrate even environments untouched by modern humans," reports Futurism. From the report: A team of European researchers made this alarming discovery after studying the sediment layers at thre ... ⌘ Read more
Florida Lawmakers Pass Ban On Social Media For Kids
Florida lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that forces social media companies to keep most minors off their platforms. The Hill reports: The legislation, which passed the state House Thursday after earlier being approved by the Senate, now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) desk, though he says he's not quite ready to sign on. DeSantis told reporters Friday that he thinks t ... ⌘ Read more
Former Gizmodo Writer Changed Name To 'Slackbot,' Stayed Undetected For Months
Tom McKay successfully masqueraded as a "Slackbot" on Slack after leaving Gizmodo in 2022, going unnoticed by the site's management for several months. The Verge reports: If you're not glued to Slack for most of the day like I am, then you might not know that Slackbot is the friendly robot that lives in the messa ... ⌘ Read more
India's Plan To Let 1998 Digital Trade Deal Expire May Worsen Chip Shortage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: India's plan to let a moratorium on imposing customs duties on cross-border digital e-commerce transactions expire may end up hurting India's more ambitious plans to become a global chip leader in the next five years, Reuters reported. It could also worsen the global c ... ⌘ Read more
US Man Accused of Making $1.8 Million From Listening In On Wife's Remote Work Calls
Kalyeena Makortoff reports via The Guardian: US regulators have accused a man of making $1.8 million by trading on confidential information he overheard while his wife was on a remote call, in a case that could fuel arguments against working from home. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it charged ... ⌘ Read more
Google Is Sunsetting the Google Pay App
Google is shutting down the Google Pay app, as the standalone app has largely been replaced by Google Wallet. According to TechCrunch, Google Pay "will only be available in Singapore and India" after its shuts down in the United States. From the report: Users can continue to access the app's most popular features right from Google Wallet, which Google says is used five times more than the Google ... ⌘ Read more
Tyler Perry Puts $800M Studio Expansion On Hold After Seeing OpenAI's Sora
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: Over the past four years, Tyler Perry had been planning an $800 million expansion of his studio in Atlanta, which would have added 12 soundstages to the 330-acre property. Now, however, those ambitions are on hold -- thanks to the rapid developments he's seeing in the r ... ⌘ Read more
Reddit Warns That r/WallStreetBets Could Wreak Havoc on Its Stock Price
An anonymous reader shares a report: Beware the apes, Reddit told the world in its IPO documents, though not in such explicit terms. Put simply, the company warned potential investors that one of its subreddits, the infamous r/WallStreetBets, could make its stock price and volume extremely volatile -- and there's little Reddit can do ... ⌘ Read more
Vision Pro Owners Are Reporting a Mysterious Crack in the Front Glass
An anonymous reader shares a report: Vision Pro owners are posting near-identical reports of a crack appearing on the front glass of their headsets. None of them seem to know how it happened, either. The issue was first spotted by MacRumors, and so far, there have been five separate Redditors who have posted about it in the r/VisionPro ... ⌘ Read more
Staff Say Dell's Return To Office Mandate is a Stealth Layoff
Dell's "return to office" mandate has left employees confused about which offices they can use and the future of their jobs -- and concerned the initiative is a stealth layoff program that will disproportionately harm women at the IT giant. From a report: As El Reg broke this month, Dell told employees they each needed to choose between resuming a hybrid work ... ⌘ Read more
Tech Job Interviews Are Out of Control
Tech companies are famous for coddling their workers, but after mass layoffs the industry's culture has shifted. Engineers say that getting hired can require days of work on unpaid assignments. From a report: Nearly a dozen engineers, hiring managers, and entrepreneurs who spoke with WIRED describe an environment in which technical job applicants are being put through the wringer. Take-home coding ... ⌘ Read more
Google Tests Removing the News Tab From Search Results
An anonymous reader shares a report: News publishers are worried -- with good reason -- about changes coming to Google Search. AI-generated content replacing links on some of the most valuable space on the internet, in particular, has left media types with a lot of questions, starting with "is this going to be a traffic-destroying nightmare?" The News filter disappe ... ⌘ Read more
Ransomware Associated With LockBit Still Spreading 2 Days After Server Takedown
Two days after an international team of authorities struck a major blow to LockBit, one of the Internet's most prolific ransomware syndicates, researchers have detected a new round of attacks that are installing malware associated with the group. From a report: The attacks, detected in the past 24 hours, are exploiting ... ⌘ Read more
Humane's AI Pin is Slightly Delayed
Humane announced that its AI Pin would start shipping in March, but there's been a small delay. From a report: Early adopters are now being told orders will arrive in mid-April at the earliest, according to a video update from Humane staffer Sam Sheffer and emails we saw in Humane's official Discord channel. On the plus side, the company says it'll now throw in three months of its pricy $24-a-month s ... ⌘ Read more
The Sun Just Launched Three Huge Solar Flares in 24 Hours.
Three top-tier X-class solar flares launched off the sun between Wednesday and Thursday. The first two occurred seven hours apart, coming in at X1.9 and X1.6 magnitude respectively. The third, the most powerful of the current 11-year "solar cycle," ranked an impressive X6.3. From a report: Solar flares, or bursts of radiation, are ranked on a scale that goes ... ⌘ Read more
Nvidia Hits $2 Trillion Valuation
Nvidia hit $2 trillion in market value on Friday, riding on an insatiable demand for its chips that made the Silicon Valley firm the pioneer of the generative AI boom. From a report: The milestone followed another bumper revenue forecast from the chip designer that drove up its market value by $277 billion on Thursday - Wall Street's largest one-day gain on record. Its rapid ascent in the past year has led analys ... ⌘ Read more
Leisure Firm in UK Told Scanning Staff Faces is Illegal
Bruce66423 writes: The data watchdog has ordered a leisure centre group to stop using facial recognition tech to monitor its staff. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says Serco Leisure has been unlawfully processing the biometric data of more than 2,000 employees at 38 UK leisure facilities. It did so to check staff attendance - a practice the ICO said w ... ⌘ Read more
UnitedHealth Says Change Healthcare Hacked by Nation State, as US Pharmacy Outages Drag On
U.S. health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group said Thursday in a filing with government regulators that its subsidiary Change Healthcare was compromised likely by government-backed hackers. From a report: In a filing Thursday, UHG blamed the ongoing cybersecurity incident affecting Change Health ... ⌘ Read more
JSTOR is Now Available in 1,000 Prisons
JSTOR: At the end of 2023, JSTOR -- a vast digital library of secondary and primary sources to support teaching and learning -- reached a once unimaginable goal: providing JSTOR access in 1,000 prisons. Spread across four continents, the JSTOR Access in Prison initiative now supports the education and growth of more than 550,000 incarcerated people.
Incarcerated learners have been left behind for ... ⌘ Read more
Stable Diffusion 3.0 Debuts New Architecture To Reinvent Text-To-Image Gen AI
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Stability AI is out today with an early preview of its Stable Diffusion 3.0 next-generation flagship text-to-image generative AI model. The new Stable Diffusion 3.0 model aims to provide improved image quality and better performance in generating images from multi-subject p ... ⌘ Read more
Mercedes-Benz Backs Off Plan To Only Sell EVs By 2030
In its fourth quarter earnings statement on Thursday, Mercedes-Benz said it is backing off its plan to only sell electric vehicles after 2030. Instead, the company said it "only expects 50 percent of its sales to be all-electric -- a significant drop from the once rosier outlook," reports The Verge. "Gas and hybrid vehicles will remain a part of the company's future f ... ⌘ Read more
Switzerland Calls On UN To Explore Possibility of Solar Geoengineering
Switzerland is advocating for a United Nations expert group to explore the merits of solar geoengineering. The proposal seeks to ensure multilateral oversight of solar radiation modification (SRM) research, amidst concerns over its potential implications for food supply, biodiversity, and global inequalities. The Guardian reports: The ... ⌘ Read more
Facial-Recognition System Passes Test On Michelangelo's David
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Facial recognition is a common feature for unlocking smartphones and gaming systems, among other uses. But the technology currently relies upon bulky projectors and lenses, hindering its broader application. Scientists have now developed a new facial recognition system that employs flatter, simpler optics ... ⌘ Read more
Reddit Files To Go Public
Reddit has filed its initial public offering (IPO) with the SEC on Thursday. "The company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 'RDDT,'" reports CNBC. From the report: Its market debut, expected in March, will be the first major tech initial public offering of the year. It's the first social media IPO since Pinterest went public in 2019. Reddit said it had $804 million in annual sales for 20 ... ⌘ Read more
Yale Reinstates Standardized Test Requirement For Admission
Stephanie Saul reports via the New York Times: Yale University will require standardized test scores for admission for students applying to enter for the class entering in the fall of 2025, becoming the second Ivy League university to abandon test-optional policies that had been widely embraced during the Covid pandemic. Yale officials said in an announcem ... ⌘ Read more
US Lands Unmanned 'Odysseus' Spacecraft On Moon
The first privately built spacecraft has successfully landed on the lunar surface on Thursday. "We can confirm, without a doubt, that our equipment is on the surface of the moon," said Stephen Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that operated the Odysseus spacecraft. "Welcome to the moon." From a report: As it approached the surface of the moon, Odysseu ... ⌘ Read more
Snapchat Isn't Liable For Connecting 12-Year-Old To Convicted Sex Offenders
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A judge has dismissed (PDF) a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders. According to the court filing, the abuse that the girl, C.O. ... ⌘ Read more
The Justice Department Gets a Chief AI Officer
Princeton professor and technology law researcher Jonathan Mayer has been appointed as the Justice Department's first chief AI officer. The Verge reports: Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that appointing an AI officer was important for the department to "keep pace with rapidly evolving scientific and technological developments." One of Mayer's responsibilities will b ... ⌘ Read more
Bluesky Now Open To Federation
Longtime Slashdot reader Rei writes: In a blog post today, Bluesky, the social media network founded by Jay Graber, announced that they have finally opened to federation. Users can now operate their own PDS (backend) servers. How to do so is discussed on the developers' blog and a new Discord channel for PDS administrators.
As the blog notes, there are key differences between the AT Protocol/Bluesky federation a ... ⌘ Read more
AT&T Restores Service After Massive, Nationwide Outage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN Business: AT&T's network went down for many of its customers across the United States Thursday morning, leaving customers unable to place calls, text or access the internet. By a little after 3 pm ET, roughly 11 hours after reports of the outage first emerged, the company said that it had restored service to all impac ... ⌘ Read more
Supreme Court Seems Skeptical of EPA's 'Good Neighbor' Rule on Power Plant Pollution
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed skeptical Wednesday as the Environmental Protection Agency sought to continue enforcing an anti-air-pollution rule in 11 states while separate legal challenges proceed around the country. From a report: The EPA's "good neighbor" rule is intended to restrict smok ... ⌘ Read more
GPay App and P2P Payments Will Stop Working in the US This June
An anonymous reader shares a report: When Google Wallet launched in 2022, Google kept the "GPay" app around in a handful of countries. The company announced today that the old Google Pay app is soon going away in the US. That app, which appears as "GPay" on your Android homescreen, was Google's previous vision for mobile payments and finance.
It wa ... ⌘ Read more
FTC To Ban Avast From Selling Browsing Data For Advertising Purposes
The U.S. FTC will order Avast to pay $16.5 million and ban the company from selling the users' web browsing data or licensing it for advertising purposes. From a report: The complaint says Avast violated millions of consumers' rights by collecting, storing, and selling their browsing data without their knowledge and consent while misleadin ... ⌘ Read more
Reddit in AI Content Licensing Deal With Google
Social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant's AI models. Reuters: The contract with Alphabet-owned Google is worth about $60 million per year, according to one of the sources. The deal underscores how Reddit, which is preparing for a high-profile stock market launch, is seeking to generate new reven ... ⌘ Read more
Instacart's AI Recipes Look Literally Impossible
An anonymous reader shares a report: I hate cookbooks without pictures. We eat with our eyes first, as chefs love to say, but what's more important to me is that if I'm making a dish for the first time, I want to see what the final product should look like to know I did it right. It's not so much about presentation as it is about knowing that I browned the chicken skin enough. A ... ⌘ Read more
Windows 11 Users Herded Toward 23H2 Via Automatic Upgrade
Windows 11 users still clinging to the past are to be dragged into a bright, 23H2-shaped future by Microsoft, whether they want to or not. From a report: Microsoft has added a notification to its Release Health dashboard warning Windows 11 users that it is time for the beatings automatic upgrades to begin. "We are starting to update eligible Windows 11 devices ... ⌘ Read more
Amazon Says 'No Changes' Coming To Freevee Despite Reports of the Streamer Shuttering
Amazon is pushing back against reports that its Freevee service is shuttering. The Wrap: AdWeek reported the news, which it said is part of an effort by the tech giant to shift its focus to Prime Video. Sources familiar with the matter told the outlet that sunsetting Freevee could happen sometime w ... ⌘ Read more
Varda Space, Rocket Lab Nail First-of-Its-Kind Spacecraft Landing in Utah
A spacecraft containing pharmaceutical drugs that were grown on orbit has finally returned to Earth today after more than eight months in space. From a report: Varda Space Industries' in-space manufacturing capsule, called Winnebago-1, landed in the Utah desert at around 4:40 p.m. EST. Inside the capsule are crystals of the dr ... ⌘ Read more
US Health Tech Giant Change Healthcare Hit by Cyberattack
U.S. healthcare technology giant Change Healthcare has confirmed a cyberattack on its systems. In a brief statement, the company said it was "experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue." From a report: "Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disc ... ⌘ Read more
Four-day Week Made Permanent For Most UK Firms In World's Biggest Trial
AmiMoJo writes: Most of the UK companies that took part in the world's biggest ever four-day working week trial have made the policy permanent, research shows. Of the 61 organisations that took part in a six-month UK pilot in 2022, 54 (89%) are still operating the policy a year later, and 31 (51%) have made the change permanent. More ... ⌘ Read more
Google Pauses AI Image-generation of People After Diversity Backlash
Google has temporarily stopped its latest AI model, Gemini, from generating images of people (non-paywalled link) , as a backlash erupted over the model's depiction of people from diverse backgrounds. From a report: Gemini creates realistic images based on users' descriptions in a similar manner to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Like other models, it ... ⌘ Read more
Study Finds Anti-Piracy Messages Backfire, Especially For Men
jbmartin6 shares a report from Phys.Org: Threatening messages aimed to prevent digital piracy have the opposite effect if you're a man, a new study from the University of Portsmouth has found. According to the research, women tend to respond positively to this kind of messaging, but men typically increase their piracy behaviors by 18%. [...] This paper s ... ⌘ Read more
Google Pauses AI Image-generation of People After Diversity Backlash
Google has temporarily stopped its latest AI model, Gemini, from generating images of people, as a backlash erupted over the model's depiction of people from diverse backgrounds. From a report: Gemini creates realistic images based on users' descriptions in a similar manner to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Like other models, it is trained not to resp ... ⌘ Read more
Popular Meditation App Must Pay 30% App Store Fee On 'Tips' Sent To Teachers
Sarah Perez reports via TechCrunch: The CEO of meditation app Insight Timer, Christopher Plowman, is frustrated. He doesn't think the teachers who leverage his app's marketplace to reach their students should have to share 30% of their income with Apple -- its commission on in-app purchases -- and for the past 12 months, Apple ... ⌘ Read more
FDA Warns Against Using Smartwatches and Smart Rings To Measure Blood Sugar
In a warning issued Wednesday, the FDA said it has not authorized or approved any smartwatch or smart ring to measure blood glucose levels. The use of these devices can lead to inaccurate measurements and errors in managing diabetes that can be life-threatening, the agency said. From a report: These unauthorized devices a ... ⌘ Read more
Engineers Use AI To Wrangle Fusion Power For the Grid
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Princeton Engineering: In the blink of an eye, the unruly, superheated plasma that drives a fusion reaction can lose its stability and escape the strong magnetic fields confining it within the donut-shaped fusion reactor. These getaways frequently spell the end of the reaction, posing a core challenge to developing fusion as ... ⌘ Read more
University of Alabama Pauses IVF Services After Court Embryo Ruling
Following a recent ruling from the state supreme court, the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system said it is pausing all in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments for fear of criminal prosecution or punitive damages. On Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are "children," entitled to full personhood right ... ⌘ Read more
Google Admits Gemini Is 'Missing the Mark' With Image Generation of Historical People
Google's Gemini AI chatbot is under fire for generating historically inaccurate images, particularly when depicting people from different eras and nationalities. Google acknowledges the issue and is actively working to refine Gemini's accuracy, emphasizing that while diversity in image generation is valued, ... ⌘ Read more
Nvidia Posts Record Revenue Up 265% On Booming AI Business
In its fourth quarter earnings report today, Nvidia beat Wall Street's forecast for earnings and sales, causing shares to rise about 10% in extended trading. CNBC reports: Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting for the quarter ending in January, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:
Earnings per ... ⌘ Read more
Leaked Hacking Files Show Chinese Spying On Citizens and Foreigners Alike
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PBS: Chinese police are investigating an unauthorized and highly unusual online dump of documents from a private security contractor linked to the nation's top policing agency and other parts of its government -- a trove that catalogs apparent hacking activity and tools to spy on both Chine ... ⌘ Read more
Waymo's Application To Expand California Robotaxi Operations Paused By Regulators
The California Public Utilities Commission's Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division (CPED) has suspended Waymo's application to expand its robotaxi service in Los Angeles and San Mateo counties, putting "an abrupt halt to the company's aspirations to expand where it can operate -- at least until June 2024," ... ⌘ Read more
Reddit To Offer Shares In IPO To 75,000 of Its Most Active Users
According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Reddit plans to sell a chunk of its IPO shares to 75,000 of its most loyal users. Reuters reports: It aims to reserve an as-yet-undetermined number of shares for 75,000 of its most prolific so-called redditors when it goes public next month, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
... ⌘ Read more
ChatGPT Goes Temporarily 'Insane' With Unexpected Outputs, Spooking Users
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, ChatGPT users began reporting unexpected outputs from OpenAI's AI assistant, flooding the r/ChatGPT Reddit sub with reports of the AI assistant "having a stroke," "going insane," "rambling," and "losing it." OpenAI has acknowledged the problem and is working on a fix, bu ... ⌘ Read more
China's Rush To Dominate AI Comes With a Twist: It Depends on US Technology
China's tech firms were caught off guard by breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence. Beijing's regulations and a sagging economy aren't helping. From a report: In November, a year after ChatGPT's release, a relatively unknown Chinese start-up leaped to the top of a leaderboard that judged the abilities of open-sour ... ⌘ Read more
Firefly Software Snafu Sends Lockheed Satellite on Short-Lived Space Safari
A software error on the part of Firefly Aerospace doomed Lockheed Martin's Electronic Steerable Antenna (ESA) demonstrator to a shorter-than-expected orbital life following a botched Alpha launch. From a report: According to Firefly's mission update, the error was in the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) software algorithm, ... ⌘ Read more
Microsoft's Gaming CEO Says Xbox Won't Go All-Digital Just Yet
It's no surprise that the broader tech industry has largely moved away from physical disks to digital subscription-based models. But Microsoft's Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says Xbox isn't trying to do away with disks just yet -- even though making disk slots could become challenging in the future. From a report: "Our strategy does not hinge on people movi ... ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Will Use Intel To Manufacture Home-Grown Processor
Intel has landed Microsoft as a customer for its made-to-order chip business, marking a key win for an ambitious turnaround effort under Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger. From a report: Microsoft plans to use Intel's 18A manufacturing technology to make a forthcoming chip that the software maker designed in-house, the two companies said at an event Wedne ... ⌘ Read more
Lives vs. Livelihoods: The Impact of the Great Recession on Mortality and Welfare
Academics have found that the U.S. mortality declines during recessions, with "reductions in air pollution... a quantitatively important mechanism." Abstract of a paper on National Bureau of Economic Research: We leverage spatial variation in the severity of the Great Recession across the United States to examine it ... ⌘ Read more
Apple Says the iPhone 15's Battery Has Double the Promised Lifespan
Apple has updated the iPhone 15's battery lifespan, noting the new handsets can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles -- double the company's previous estimate -- without any new hardware or software updates. From a report: Not so coincidentally, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations t ... ⌘ Read more
Apple Rolls Out iMessage Upgrade To Withstand Decryption By Quantum Computers
Apple is rolling out an upgrade to its iMessage texting platform to defend against future encryption-breaking technologies. From a report: The new protocol, known as PQ3, is another sign that U.S. tech firms are bracing for a potential future breakthrough in quantum computing that could make current methods of protecting u ... ⌘ Read more
Google Launches Two New Open LLMs
Barely a week after launching the latest iteration of its Gemini models, Google today announced the launch of Gemma, a new family of lightweight open-weight models. From a report: Starting with Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, these new models were "inspired by Gemini" and are available for commercial and research usage. Google did not provide us with a detailed paper on how these models perform against similar model ... ⌘ Read more
Google DeepMind Alumni Unveil Bioptimus: Aiming To Build First Universal Biology AI Model
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: As the French startup ecosystem continues to boom -- think Mistral, Poolside, and Adaptive -- today the Paris-based Bioptimus, with a mission to build the first universal AI foundation model for biology, emerged from stealth following a seed fun ... ⌘ Read more
Darwin Online Has Virtually Reassembled the Naturalist's Personal Library
Jennifer Ouellette reports via Ars Technica: Famed naturalist Charles Darwin amassed an impressive personal library over the course of his life, much of which was preserved and cataloged upon his death in 1882. But many other items were lost, including more ephemeral items like unbound volumes, pamphlets, journals, clippings, and ... ⌘ Read more
Disney Strikes Deal For Sony To Take Over Its DVD, Blu-ray Disc Business
Disney is outsourcing its DVD and Blu-ray disc business to Sony Pictures Entertainment. Variety reports: As part of the deal, Sony will market, sell and distribute all Disney's new releases and catalog titles on physical media to consumers through retailers and distributors in the U.S. and Canada. Disney will continue to m ... ⌘ Read more
Frozen Embryos Are 'Children,' According To Alabama's Supreme Court
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday ruled that frozen embryos are "children," entitled to full personhood rights, and anyone who destroys them could be liable in a wrongful death case. The first-of-its-kind ruling throws into question the future use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) i ... ⌘ Read more
YouTube Dominates TV Streaming In US, Per Nielsen's Latest Report
In a new report today, Nielsen found that YouTube is once again the overall top streaming service in the U.S., with 8.6% of viewing on television screens. Netflix was a close second at 7.9% of TV usage. TechCrunch reports: In a blog post celebrating the achievement, the Google-owned streaming service announced that viewers now watch a daily avera ... ⌘ Read more
Zuckerberg: Neural Wristband For AR/VR Input Will Ship 'In the Next Few Years'
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that it's working on a finger tracking neural wristband that will be ready to ship "in the next few years." UploadVR reports: Appearing on the Morning Brew Daily talk show on Friday, Mark Zuckerberg said "we're actually kind of close to having something here that we're going to have in a p ... ⌘ Read more
Cox Communications Wins Order Overturning $1 Billion US Copyright Verdict
Internet service provider Cox Communications has been cleared of a $1 billion jury verdict in favor of several major record labels that had accused it of failing to curb user piracy. "The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled on Tuesday that the amount of damages was not justified and that a federal distri ... ⌘ Read more
Fingerprints Can Be Recreated From the Sounds Made When Swiping On a Touchscreen
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: An interesting new attack on biometric security has been outlined by a group of researchers from China and the US. PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound [PDF] proposes a side-channel attack on th ... ⌘ Read more
Valve Makes All Steam Audio SDK Source Code Available Under Apache 2.0 License
Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: With Valve's release today of the Steam Audio SDK 4.5.2 they have made the software development kit fully open-source under an Apache 2.0 license. Steam Audio 4.5.2 may not sound exciting in the context of a version number but as described in the release announcement is now "the fir ... ⌘ Read more
Vietnam To Collect Biometrics For New ID Cards
Starting in July, the Vietnamese government will begin collecting biometric information from its citizens when issuing new identification cards. The Register reports: Prime minister Pham Minh Chinh instructed the nation's Ministry of Public Security to collect the data in the form of iris scans, voice samples and actual DNA, in accordance with amendments to Vietnam's Law on Citizen ... ⌘ Read more
EU Opens Formal Investigation Into TikTok Over Possible Online Content Breaches
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The European Union will investigate whether ByteDance's TikTok breached online content rules aimed at protecting children and ensuring transparent advertising, an official said on Monday, putting the social media platform at risk of a hefty fine. EU industry chief Thi ... ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Publisher Books Its Retirement Party for 2026
Microsoft is confirming plans to deprecate its Publisher application in 2026. From a report: This writer has fond memories of Microsoft Publisher, which started life in 1991 as a desktop publisher for Windows 3.0. While alternatives existed in the form of Ventura Publisher, Timeworks, and later QuarkXPress, Microsoft Publisher was a useful tool to write newsletters. ... ⌘ Read more
Making Alarms More Musical Can Save Lives
Medical alarms don't have to be louder to be more effective. Scientific American: Beeping alarms in hospitals are a life-or-death matter -- but with so many going off all the time, medical professionals may experience alarm fatigue that impairs care. Researchers now report that changing an alarm's sound to incorporate properties of musical instruments can make it more helpful amid the din ... ⌘ Read more
Microsoft Develops AI Server Gear To Lessen Reliance on Nvidia
Microsoft is developing a new network card that could improve the performance of its Maia AI server chip and potentially reduce the company's reliance on chip designer Nvidia, The Information reported on Tuesday. Reuters: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has tapped Pradeep Sindhu, who co-founded networking gear developer Juniper Networks, to spearhead the ... ⌘ Read more