Apple Stands By Decision To Terminate Account Belonging To WWDC Student Winner

TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reports: Apple is standing by its decision to terminate the Apple Developer Account of Appstun, a mobile app company created by one of Apple's own Worldwide Developer Conference 2021 student winners. According to an announcement published on Appstun's website, Apple moved to terminate the developer's account after multiple rejections of its app that Apple says violates its App Store guidelines. Apple's decision to shut down the developer's account was recently highlighted on X by Apple critic and 37signals co-owner and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson, where he celebrated how much better web developers had it, noting they could run their businesses without the involvement of big tech gatekeepers. "No fear on [sic] capricious rejections that might suddenly kill the business overnight," he remarked.

Appstun co-founder Batuhan Karababa says that he and the other co-founder had been trying to work with Apple over the App Store rejections. (Karababa tells us that he's only the formal founder on paper.) "We responded transparently and collaborated with Apple to ensure our app doesn't violate any guidelines. However, as the process continued, we began to face rejection for the issue that we thought we had already resolved in previous submissions. Apple didn't find our solution good enough," according to the announcement on Appstun's website. The company went back and forth with App Review, receiving multiple rejections over an app for designing Apple Watch faces. In addition to a more standard watch face, Appstun also came up with a workaround that would allow it to offer more highly customizable watch faces. But these weren't actually watch faces in the traditional sense, but rather custom images and animations that run independently of the App Watch face system. Essentially, the app would take over the screen showing an image that was similar to a watch face, allowing Appstun to offer more customization. Of course, running a custom animation in this way could drain the Apple Watch battery faster.

Apple was also concerned that customers wouldn't understand that they weren't running a normal watch face, and that Appstun deceived them by suggesting that's what it was offering. Though Appstun added notifications to its app that these were not real watch faces, in an attempt to placate App Review, Apple instead decided to terminate the company's developer account after repeated back-and-forth. The company pleaded on its website for any help in getting its developer account restored. According to Apple, there's more to this story, and it thinks it made the correct decision. The iPhone maker said Appstun's app repeatedly tried to mislead users into thinking that it offered features and functionality that it didn't support and also marketed the app with deceptive ads, leading to negative app ratings and reviews. [...] Apple pointed to its guideline 5.6 -- a developer code of conduct -- that warns developers that "repeated manipulative or misleading behavior or other fraudulent conduct will lead to your removal from the Apple Developer Program."

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/231203/apple-stands-by-decision-to-terminate-account-belonging-to-wwdc-student-winner?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/231203/apple-stands-by-decision-to-terminate-account-belonging-to-wwdc-student-winner?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


City of Columbus Sues Man After He Discloses Severity of Ransomware Attack

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Dan Goodin: A judge in Ohio has issued a temporary restraining order against a security researcher who presented evidence that a recent ransomware attack on the city of Columbus scooped up reams of sensitive personal information, contradicting claims made by city officials. The order, issued by a judge in Ohio's Franklin County, came after the city of Columbus fell victim to a ransomware attack on July 18 that siphoned 6.5 terabytes of the city's data. A ransomware group known as Rhysida took credit for the attack and offered to auction off the data with a starting bid of about $1.7 million in bitcoin. On August 8, after the auction failed to find a bidder, Rhysida released what it said was about 45 percent of the stolen data on the group's dark web site, which is accessible to anyone with a TOR browser.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said on August 13 that a "breakthrough" in the city's forensic investigation of the breach found that the sensitive files Rhysida obtained were either encrypted or corrupted, making them "unusable" to the thieves. Ginther went on to say the data's lack of integrity was likely the reason the ransomware group had been unable to auction off the data. Shortly after Ginther made his remarks, security researcher David Leroy Ross contacted local news outlets and presented evidence that showed the data Rhysida published was fully intact and contained highly sensitive information regarding city employees and residents. Ross, who uses the alias Connor Goodwolf, presented screenshots and other data that showed the files Rhysida had posted included names from domestic violence cases and Social Security numbers for police officers and crime victims. Some of the data spanned years.

On Thursday, the city of Columbus sued Ross (PDF) for alleged damages for criminal acts, invasion of privacy, negligence, and civil conversion. The lawsuit claimed that downloading documents from a dark web site run by ransomware attackers amounted to him "interacting" with them and required special expertise and tools. The suit went on to challenge Ross alerting reporters to the information, which ii claimed would not be easily obtained by others. "Only individuals willing to navigate and interact with the criminal element on the dark web, who also have the computer expertise and tools necessary to download data from the dark web, would be able to do so," city attorneys wrote. "The dark web-posted data is not readily available for public consumption. Defendant is making it so." The same day, a Franklin County judge granted the city's motion for a temporary restraining order (PDF) against Ross. It bars the researcher "from accessing, and/or downloading, and/or disseminating" any city files that were posted to the dark web. The motion was made and granted "ex parte," meaning in secret before Ross was informed of it or had an opportunity to present his case.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/227217/city-of-columbus-sues-man-after-he-discloses-severity-of-ransomware-attack?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/227217/city-of-columbus-sues-man-after-he-discloses-severity-of-ransomware-attack?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Amazon Turns To Anthropic's AI For Alexa Revamp

When Amazon releases its revamped AI Alexa update in October, it'll be powered by Anthropic's Claude AI models due to performance issues with its in-house AI. Reuters reports: Amazon plans to charge $5 to $10 a month for its new "Remarkable" version of Alexa as it will use powerful generative AI to answer complex queries, while still offering the "Classic" voice assistant for free, Reuters reported in June. But initial versions of the new Alexa using in-house software simply struggled for words, sometimes taking six or seven seconds to acknowledge a prompt and reply, one of the people said. That's why Amazon turned to Claude, an AI chatbot developed by startup Anthropic, as it performed better than the online retail giant's own AI models, the people said.

"Amazon uses many different technologies to power Alexa," a company spokeswoman said in a statement in response to detailed Reuters questions for this story. "When it comes to machine learning models, we start with those built by Amazon, but we have used, and will continue to use, a variety of different models - including (Amazon AI model) Titan and future Amazon models, as well as those from partners - to build the best experience for customers," the spokeswoman said. Amazon has typically eschewed relying on technology it hasn't developed in-house so it can ensure it has full control of the user experience, data collection and direct relationships with customers.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/2031230/amazon-turns-to-anthropics-ai-for-alexa-revamp?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/2031230/amazon-turns-to-anthropics-ai-for-alexa-revamp?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


$400 Million Algorithmic System Illegally Denied Thousands of Medicaid Benefits

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Thousands of Tennesseans were illegally denied Medicaid and other benefits due to programming and data errors in an algorithmic system the state uses to determine eligibility for low-income residents and people with disabilities, a U.S. District Court judge ruled this week. The TennCare Connect system -- built by Deloitte and other contractors for more than $400 million -- is supposed to analyze income and health information to automatically determine eligibility for benefits program applicants. But in practice, the system often doesn't load the appropriate data, assigns beneficiaries to the wrong households, and makes incorrect eligibility determinations, according to the decision (PDF) from Middle District of Tennessee Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr.

"When an enrollee is entitled to state-administered Medicaid, it should not require luck, perseverance, and zealous lawyering for him or her to receive that healthcare coverage," Crenshaw wrote in his opinion. The decision was a result of a class action lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of 35 adults and children who were denied benefits. [...] ]Crenshaw found that TennCare Connect did not consider whether applicants were eligible for all available programs before it terminated their coverage. Deloitte was a major beneficiary of the nationwide modernization effort, winning contracts to build automated eligibility systems in more than 20 states, including Tennessee and Texas. Advocacy groups have asked (PDF) the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Deloitte's practices in Texas, where they say thousands of residents are similarly being inappropriately denied life-saving benefits by the company's faulty systems.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/2016239/400-million-algorithmic-system-illegally-denied-thousands-of-medicaid-benefits?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/2016239/400-million-algorithmic-system-illegally-denied-thousands-of-medicaid-benefits?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


FDA Wants Safer Cancer Drugs, But Some Startups Fear Unintended Consequences

For decades drugmakers have taken a more-is-more model when dosing cancer drugs in clinical trials. U.S. regulators want them to reconsider that approach. From a report: Companies with cancer drugs in clinical trials must strike a balance between doses high enough to thwart tumors, but low enough to avoid intolerable side effects. For years, Food and Drug Administration officials have expressed concern that cancer drug doses are often too high, leading to unnecessary side effects.

An FDA program launched in 2021, Project Optimus, requires companies to re-examine how they set doses of cancer treatments. This typically involves larger clinical trials to test doses to find those that optimally balance safety and efficacy. Entrepreneurs support the aim, but some fear the initiative will add time and cost to drug development, putting startups at a further disadvantage to larger competitors. [...] The FDA says it encourages drugmakers to discuss dosing plans with the agency and that new medications can still be brought to patients quickly.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1725253/fda-wants-safer-cancer-drugs-but-some-startups-fear-unintended-consequences?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1725253/fda-wants-safer-cancer-drugs-but-some-startups-fear-unintended-consequences?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


An anonymous reader shares a report: When French prosecutors charged Pavel Durov, the chief executive of the messaging app Telegram, with a litany of criminal offenses on Wednesday, one accusation stood out to Silicon Valley companies. Telegram, French authorities said in a statement, had provided cryptology services aimed at ensuring confidentiality without a license. In other words, the topic of encryption was being thrust into the spotlight.

The cryptology charge raised eyebrows at U.S. tech companies including Signal, Apple and Meta's WhatsApp, according to three people with knowledge of the companies. These companies provide end-to-end encrypted messaging services and often stand together when governments challenge their use of the technology, which keeps online conversations between users private and secure from outsiders.

But while Telegram is also often described as an encrypted messaging app, it tackles encryption differently than WhatsApp, Signal and others. So if Mr. Durov's indictment turned Telegram into a public exemplar of the technology, some Silicon Valley companies believe that could damage the credibility of encrypted messaging apps writ large, according to the people, putting them in a tricky position of whether to rally around their rival.

Encryption has been a long-running point of friction between governments and tech companies around the world. For years, tech companies have argued that encrypted messaging is crucial to maintain people's digital privacy, while law enforcement and governments have said that the technology enables illicit behaviors by hiding illegal activity. The debate has grown more heated as encrypted messaging apps have become mainstream. Signal has grown by tens of millions of users since its founding in 2018. Apple's iMessage is installed on the hundreds of millions of iPhones that the company sells each year. WhatsApp is used by more than two billion people globally.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1624240/telegram-founders-indictment-thrusts-encryption-into-the-spotlight?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1624240/telegram-founders-indictment-thrusts-encryption-into-the-spotlight?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Asia's Richest Man Says He Will Give Everyone 100 GB of Free Cloud Storage

Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man and the chairman of Reliance Industries, said this week that his telecom firm will offer users 100 GB of free cloud storage. Oil-to-retail giant Reliance, which is India's most valuable firm by market cap, has upended the telecom market in India by offering free voice calls and dirt-cheap internet access.

Jio, Reliance's telecom subsidiary, serves 490 million subscribers, more than any rival in India. Jio offers access to at least 2GB of data per day for 14 days to subscribers for a total of $2.3. TechCrunch adds: Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI Cloud service, set to launch around Diwali in October, Ambani said.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1250222/asias-richest-man-says-he-will-give-everyone-100-gb-of-free-cloud-storage?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/30/1250222/asias-richest-man-says-he-will-give-everyone-100-gb-of-free-cloud-storage?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Feds Bust Alaska Man With 10,000+ CSAM Images Despite His Many Encrypted Apps

A recent indictment (PDF) of an Alaska man stands out due to the sophisticated use of multiple encrypted communication tools, privacy-focused apps, and dark web technology. "I've never seen anyone who, when arrested, had three Samsung Galaxy phones filled with 'tens of thousands of videos and images' depicting CSAM, all of it hidden behind a secrecy-focused, password-protected app called 'Calculator Photo Vault,'" writes Ars Technica's Nate Anderson. "Nor have I seen anyone arrested for CSAM having used all of the following: [Potato Chat, Enigma, nandbox, Telegram, TOR, Mega NZ, and web-based generative AI tools/chatbots]." An anonymous reader shares the report: According to the government, Seth Herrera not only used all of these tools to store and download CSAM, but he also created his own -- and in two disturbing varieties. First, he allegedly recorded nude minor children himself and later "zoomed in on and enhanced those images using AI-powered technology." Secondly, he took this imagery he had created and then "turned to AI chatbots to ensure these minor victims would be depicted as if they had engaged in the type of sexual contact he wanted to see." In other words, he created fake AI CSAM -- but using imagery of real kids.

The material was allegedly stored behind password protection on his phone(s) but also on Mega and on Telegram, where Herrera is said to have "created his own public Telegram group to store his CSAM." He also joined "multiple CSAM-related Enigma groups" and frequented dark websites with taglines like "The Only Child Porn Site you need!" Despite all the precautions, Herrera's home was searched and his phones were seized by Homeland Security Investigations; he was eventually arrested on August 23. In a court filing that day, a government attorney noted that Herrera "was arrested this morning with another smartphone -- the same make and model as one of his previously seized devices."

The government is cagey about how, exactly, this criminal activity was unearthed, noting only that Herrera "tried to access a link containing apparent CSAM." Presumably, this "apparent" CSAM was a government honeypot file or web-based redirect that logged the IP address and any other relevant information of anyone who clicked on it. In the end, given that fatal click, none of the "I'll hide it behind an encrypted app that looks like a calculator!" technical sophistication accomplished much. Forensic reviews of Herrera's three phones now form the primary basis for the charges against him, and Herrera himself allegedly "admitted to seeing CSAM online for the past year and a half" in an interview with the feds.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2320223/feds-bust-alaska-man-with-10000-csam-images-despite-his-many-encrypted-apps?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2320223/feds-bust-alaska-man-with-10000-csam-images-despite-his-many-encrypted-apps?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


ChatGPT Passes 200 Million Weekly Active Users

OpenAI said that ChatGPT now has more than 200 million weekly active users -- twice as many as last year. Axios reports: OpenAI also said that 92% of Fortune 500 companies are using its products and that usage of its automated API has doubled since the release of GPT-4o mini in July. "People are using our tools now as a part of their daily lives, making a real difference in areas like healthcare and education -- whether it's helping with routine tasks, solving hard problems, or unlocking creativity," CEO Sam Altman said in a statement to Axios. Further reading: Apple Is in Talks To Invest in OpenAI, WSJ Says

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/237222/chatgpt-passes-200-million-weekly-active-users?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/237222/chatgpt-passes-200-million-weekly-active-users?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


California Passes Bill Requiring Easier Data Sharing Opt Outs

Most of the attention today has been focused on California's controversial "kill switch" AI safety bill, which passed the California State Assembly by a 45-11 vote. However, California legislators passed another tech bill this week which requires internet browsers and mobile operating systems to offer a simple tool for consumers to easily opt out of data sharing and selling for targeted advertising. Slashdot reader awwshit shares a report from The Record: The state's Senate passed the landmark legislation after the General Assembly approved it late Wednesday. The Senate then added amendments to the bill which now goes back to the Assembly for final sign off before it is sent to the governor's desk, a process Matt Schwartz, a policy analyst at Consumer Reports, called a "formality." California, long a bellwether for privacy regulation, now sets an example for other states which could offer the same protections and in doing so dramatically disrupt the online advertising ecosystem, according to Schwartz.

"If folks use it, [the new tool] could severely impact businesses that make their revenue from monetizing consumers' data," Schwartz said in an interview with Recorded Future News. "You could go from relatively small numbers of individuals taking advantage of this right now to potentially millions and that's going to have a big impact." As it stands, many Californians don't know they have the right to opt out because the option is invisible on their browsers, a fact which Schwartz said has "artificially suppressed" the existing regulation's intended effects. "It shouldn't be that hard to send the universal opt out signal," Schwartz added. "This will require [browsers and mobile operating systems] to make that setting easy to use and find."

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2259221/california-passes-bill-requiring-easier-data-sharing-opt-outs?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2259221/california-passes-bill-requiring-easier-data-sharing-opt-outs?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Spotify Points Finger at Apple Over an Unwelcome Change To Volume Control Tech

Spotify claims Apple may be again in violation of European regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires interoperability from big technology companies dubbed "gatekeepers." From a report: This time, the issue isn't about in-app purchases, links or pricing information, but rather how Apple has discontinued the technology that allows Spotify users to control the volume on their connected devices.

When streaming to connected devices via Spotify Connect on iOS, users were previously able to use the physical buttons on the side of their iPhone to adjust the volume. As a result of the change, this will no longer work. To work around the issue, Spotify iOS users will instead be directed to use the volume slider in the Spotify Connect menu in the app to control the volume on connected devices. The company notes that this issue doesn't affect users controlling the volume on iOS Bluetooth or AirPlay sessions, nor users on Android. It only applies to those listening via Spotify Connect on iOS. As a result, Spotify iOS users globally will be directed to use the new in-app volume slider beginning on September 3.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2059228/spotify-points-finger-at-apple-over-an-unwelcome-change-to-volume-control-tech?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2059228/spotify-points-finger-at-apple-over-an-unwelcome-change-to-volume-control-tech?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


EmuDeck Enters the Mini PC Market With Linux-Powered 'EmuDeck Machines'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from overkill.wtf: The team behind popular emulation tool EmuDeck is today announcing something rather special: they've spent the first half of 2024 working on their very first hardware product, called the EmuDeck Machine, and it's due to arrive before the year is out. This EmuDeck Machine is an upcoming, crowdfunded, retro emulation mini PC running Bazzite, a Linux-based system similar to SteamOS. [...] This new EmuDeck Machine comes in two variants, the EM1 running an Intel N97 APU, and the EM2 -- based on an AMD Ryzen 8600G. While both machines are meant as emulation-first devices, the AMD-based variant can easily function as a console-like PC. This is also thanks to some custom work done by the team: "We've optimized the system for maximum power. The default configuration of an 8600G gets you 32 FPS in Cyberpunk; we've managed to reach 47 FPS with a completely stable system, or 60FPS if you use FSR."

Both machines will ship with a Gamesir Nova Lite controller and EmuDeck preinstalled naturally. The team has also preinstalled all available Decky plugins. But that's not all: if the campaign is successful, the EmuDeck team will also work on a docking station for the EM2 that will upgrade the graphics to an AMD Radeon 7600 desktop GPU. With this, in games like Cyberpunk 2077, you'll be able to reach 160 FPS in 1080p as per EmuDeck's measurements. You can preorder the EmuDeck Machines via Indigogo, starting at $322 and shipping in December.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/221245/emudeck-enters-the-mini-pc-market-with-linux-powered-emudeck-machines?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/221245/emudeck-enters-the-mini-pc-market-with-linux-powered-emudeck-machines?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Who Wins From Nature's Genetic Bounty?

Scientists are harvesting genetic data from microorganisms in a North Yorkshire quarry, fueling a global debate over ownership and profit-sharing of natural genetic resources. Researchers from London-based startup Basecamp Research are collecting samples and digitizing genetic codes for sale to AI companies. This practice of trading digital sequencing information (DSI) has become central to biotechnology research and development. The issue will be a focal point at October's COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, The Guardian reports.

Developing nations, home to much of the world's biodiversity, are pushing for a global system requiring companies to pay for genetic data use. Past discoveries underscore the potential value: heat-resistant bacteria crucial for COVID-19 testing and marine organisms used in cancer treatments have generated significant profits. Critics accuse companies of "biopiracy" for commercializing genetic information without compensating source countries. Proposed solutions include a global fund for equitable benefit-sharing, though implementation details remain contentious.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2028247/who-wins-from-natures-genetic-bounty?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/2028247/who-wins-from-natures-genetic-bounty?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Apple Is in Talks To Invest in OpenAI, WSJ Says

Apple is in talks to invest in OpenAI, a move that would cement ties to a partner integral to its efforts to gain ground in the artificial-intelligence race. WSJ: The investment would be part of a new OpenAI fundraising round that would value the ChatGPT maker above $100 billion, people familiar with the situation said. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that venture-capital firm Thrive Capital is leading the round, which will total several billion dollars, and Apple rival Microsoft is also expected to participate.

It couldn't be learned how much Apple or Microsoft will invest into OpenAI this round. To date, Microsoft has been the primary strategic investor into OpenAI. It owns a 49% share of the AI startup's profits after investing $13 billion since 2019. Apple in June announced OpenAI as the first official partner for Apple Intelligence, its system for infusing AI features throughout its operating system. The new AI will feature an improved Siri voice assistant, text proofreading and creating custom emojis.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/1823252/apple-is-in-talks-to-invest-in-openai-wsj-says?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/1823252/apple-is-in-talks-to-invest-in-openai-wsj-says?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Gen Z Students Show Declining School Engagement, Survey Finds

A new national survey reveals a concerning trend in school engagement among Gen Z students aged 12-18. The joint Gallup and Walton Family Foundation study [PDF] found that middle and high school students find classes less interesting than last year, with only half feeling positively challenged. Student engagement has dropped significantly since 2023, with 10% fewer respondents saying they learned something interesting at school in the past week.

Non-college-bound students report feeling particularly disconnected, with only 41% saying schoolwork challenges them positively compared to 55% of college-bound peers. Despite only half of students planning to attend four-year colleges, schools heavily emphasize higher education. 68% of high schoolers report hearing "a lot" about college, while only 23% hear as much about vocational alternatives.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/188216/gen-z-students-show-declining-school-engagement-survey-finds?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/188216/gen-z-students-show-declining-school-engagement-survey-finds?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Brussels is investigating whether Telegram breached EU digital rules by failing to provide accurate user numbers [non-paywalled source], as officials push to bring the controversial messaging app under stricter supervision. Financial Times: EU legal and data experts suspect that the app has understated its presence in the EU to stay under a 45mn user threshold, above which large online platforms are subject to a swath of Brussels regulations designed to check their influence. The EU probe comes alongside a wide-ranging French investigation into alleged criminal activity on Telegram that led to the arrest on Saturday of its founder, Russian-born billionaire Pavel Durov.

Telegram has said Durov, who is now a French-Emirati citizen, has "nothing to hide." Telegram said in February it had 41mn users in the EU. Under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), Telegram was supposed to provide an updated number this month but did not, only declaring it had "significantly fewer than 45mn average monthly active recipients in the EU."

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/1728202/eu-investigating-telegram-over-user-numbers?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/1728202/eu-investigating-telegram-over-user-numbers?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


ESPN's 'Where To Watch' Tries To Solve Sports' Most Frustrating Problem

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Too often, new tech product or service launches seem like solutions in search of a problem, but not this one: ESPN is launching software that lets you figure out just where you can watch the specific game you want to see amid an overcomplicated web of streaming services, cable channels, and arcane licensing agreements. Every sports fan is all too familiar with today's convoluted streaming schedules. Launching today on ESPN.com and the various ESPN mobile and streaming device apps, the new guide offers various views, including one that lists all the sporting events in a single day and a search function, among other things. You can also flag favorite sports or teams to customize those views.

"At the core of Where to Watch is an event database created and managed by the ESPN Stats and Information Group (SIG), which aggregates ESPN and partner data feeds along with originally sourced information and programming details from more than 250 media sources, including television networks and streaming platforms," ESPN's press release says. ESPN previously offered browsable lists of games like this, but it didn't identify where you could actually watch all the games. There's no guarantee that you'll have access to the services needed to watch the games in the list, though. Those of us who cut the cable cord long ago know that some games -- especially those local to your city -- are unavailable without cable.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/0458247/espns-where-to-watch-tries-to-solve-sports-most-frustrating-problem?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/0458247/espns-where-to-watch-tries-to-solve-sports-most-frustrating-problem?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Yelp Sues Google For Antitrust Violations

Yelp has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of maintaining its local search monopoly by preferencing its own services over competitors, harming competition and reducing quality. "Yelp claims that the way Google directs users toward its own local search vertical from its general search engine results page should be considered illegal tying of separate products to keep rivals from reaching scale," adds The Verge. From the report: Yelp wants the court to order Google to stop the allegedly anticompetitive conduct and to pay it damages. It demanded a jury trial and filed the suit in the Northern District of California, where a different jury found that Google had an illegal monopoly through its app store in its fight against Epic Games.

The company was emboldened to bring its own lawsuit against Google after the DOJ's win in its antitrust case about the company's allegedly exclusionary practices around the distribution of search services. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told The New York Times that following that decision, "the winds on antitrust have shifted dramatically." Previously, he told the Times, he'd hesitated to bring a suit because of the resources it would require and because he saw it as the government's job to enforce the antitrust laws. "Yelp's claims are not new," Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said in a statement. "Similar claims were thrown out years ago by the FTC, and recently by the judge in the DOJ's case. On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp's meritless claims."

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/0449237/yelp-sues-google-for-antitrust-violations?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
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https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/0449237/yelp-sues-google-for-antitrust-violations?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Canada Wildfires Last Year Released More Carbon Than Several Countries

A study found that Canada's 2023 wildfires released 647 megatons of carbon, surpassing the emissions of seven of the ten largest emitting countries, including Germany, Japan, and Russia. "Only China, India and the United States emitted more carbon emissions during that period, meaning that if Canada's wildfires were ranked alongside countries, they would have been the world's fourth largest emitter," adds Reuters. From the report: Typical emissions from Canadian forest fires over the last decade have ranged from 29 to 121 megatons. But climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is leading to drier and hotter conditions, driving extreme wildfires. The 2023 fires burned 15 million hectares (37 million acres) across Canada, or about 4% of its forests. The findings add to concerns about dependence on the world's forests to act as a long-term carbon sink for industrial emissions when instead they could be aggravating the problem as they catch fire.

The worry is that the global carbon budget, or the estimated amount of greenhouse gases the world can continue to emit while holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, is based on inaccurate calculations. [...] The abnormally hot temperatures Canada experienced in 2023 are projected to be common by the 2050s, the study said. This is likely to lead to severe fires across the 347 million hectares (857 million acres) of woodlands that Canada depends on to store carbon. The study has been published in the journal Nature.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/009218/canada-wildfires-last-year-released-more-carbon-than-several-countries?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/29/009218/canada-wildfires-last-year-released-more-carbon-than-several-countries?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


South Korea Faces Deepfake Porn 'Emergency'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: South Korea's president has urged authorities to do more to "eradicate" the country's digital sex crime epidemic, amid a flood of deepfake pornography targeting young women. Authorities, journalists and social media users recently identified a large number of chat groups where members were creating and sharing sexually explicit "deepfake" images -- including some of underage girls. Deepfakes are generated using artificial intelligence, and often combine the face of a real person with a fake body. South Korea's media regulator is holding an emergency meeting in the wake of the discoveries.

The spate of chat groups, linked to individual schools and universities across the country, were discovered on the social media app Telegram over the past week. Users, mainly teenage students, would upload photos of people they knew -- both classmates and teachers -- and other users would then turn them into sexually explicit deepfake images. The discoveries follow the arrest of the Russian-born founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, on Saturday, after it was alleged that child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud were taking place on the encrypted messaging app. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday instructed authorities to "thoroughly investigate and address these digital sex crimes to eradicate them."

"Recently, deepfake videos targeting an unspecified number of people have been circulating rapidly on social media," President Yoon said at a cabinet meeting. "The victims are often minors and the perpetrators are mostly teenagers." To build a "healthy media culture," President Yoon said young men needed to be better educated. "Although it is often dismissed as 'just a prank,' it is clearly a criminal act that exploits technology to hide behind the shield of anonymity," he said.

The Guardian notes that making sexually explicit deepfakes with the intention of distributing them is punishable by five years in prison or a fine of $37,500.

Further reading: 1 in 10 Minors Say Their Friends Use AI to Generate Nudes of Other Kids, Survey Finds (Source: 404 Media)

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2112225/south-korea-faces-deepfake-porn-emergency?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2112225/south-korea-faces-deepfake-porn-emergency?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


FAA Grounds SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket Following Landing Mishap

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded by the FAA for the second time in less than two months following the failed landing of a first-stage booster, which was destroyed in a fireball after its 23rd flight. Spaceflight Now reports: The booster, serial number B1062 in the SpaceX fleet, suffered a hard landing, at the tail end of its record-setting 23rd flight. It was consumed in a fireball on the deck of the drone ship 'A Shortfall of Gravitas', which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean about 250 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. The mishap was the first booster landing failure since February 2021. In a statement on Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that while no public injuries or public property damage was reported, "The FAA is requiring an investigation."

The FAA made a similar declaration following a Falcon 9 upper-stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, which resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. Following that incident, SpaceX rockets did not return to flight until the Starlink 10-9 mission, on July 27. [...] The booster failure came the same week that SpaceX had to twice delay a launch attempt of the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission, first due to a helium leak and then for recovery weather at the end of the mission. The Polaris Dawn crew remain in quarantine for now, according to social media posts from Isaacman, but the timing of the next launch attempt is uncertain. In addition to landing weather concerns and resolving the FAA investigation, there is also the matter of launch pad availability.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2331215/faa-grounds-spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-following-landing-mishap?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2331215/faa-grounds-spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-following-landing-mishap?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Google To Relaunch Tool For Creating AI-Generated Images of People

Google announced that it will reintroduce AI image generation capabilities through its Gemini tool, with early access to the new Imagen 3 generator available for select users in the coming days. The company pulled the feature shortly after it launched in February when users discovered historical inaccuracies and questionable responses. CNBC reports: "We've worked to make technical improvements to the product, as well as improved evaluation sets, red-teaming exercises and clear product principles," [wrote Dave Citron, a senior director of product on Gemini, in a blog post]. Red-teaming refers to a practice companies use to test products for vulnerabilities.

Citron said Imagen 3 doesn't support photorealistic identifiable individuals, depictions of minors or excessively gory, violent or sexual scenes. "Of course, as with any generative AI tool, not every image Gemini creates will be perfect, but we'll continue to listen to feedback from early users as we keep improving," Citron wrote. "We'll gradually roll this out, aiming to bring it to more users and languages soon."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2051216/google-to-relaunch-tool-for-creating-ai-generated-images-of-people?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2051216/google-to-relaunch-tool-for-creating-ai-generated-images-of-people?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Threads Deepens Its Ties To the Fediverse

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Threads is deepening its ties to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which powers services like X alternative Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard and other apps. On Wednesday, Meta announced that users on Threads will be able to see fediverse replies on other posts besides their own. In addition, posts that originated through the Threads API, like those created via third-party apps and scheduling services, will now be syndicated to the fediverse. The latter had previously been announced via an in-app message informing users that API posts would be shared to the fediverse starting on August 28. [...]

Since June, users have been able to see fediverse replies on their posts if they enabled fediverse sharing in the app's settings. Once enabled, the sharing option allows users to syndicate their posts across the wider social web and then see how people on other services have responded. Now users will be able to see the fediverse replies on other people's posts, too. This immediately brings more content into Threads, even without a sizable increase in Threads users.

A Meta engineer suggested testing the feature by viewing the replies of larger accounts, like YouTuber Marques Brownlee (@mkbhd), for example. Here, you'll notice a new section that shows how many "fediverse replies" are available above the replies posted to Threads itself. It's worth noting that you have to tap or click on the "fediverse replies" section to actually view what's being said on other servers and by who. Currently, Threads users can like the replies from other servers, but they can't yet reply to them, as the feature is still in beta and under development.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2042226/threads-deepens-its-ties-to-the-fediverse?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/2042226/threads-deepens-its-ties-to-the-fediverse?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is heading to court for a possible indictment after being released from police custody, authorities in France said on Wednesday. From a report: "An investigating judge has ended Pavel Durov's police custody and will have him brought to court for a first appearance and a possible indictment," according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor's office that was quoted in an Associated Press article. Durov was arrested in Paris on Saturday and questioned by police for several days. The French investigative judge will "decide whether to place him under formal investigation following his arrest as part of a probe into organized crime on the messaging app," Reuters wrote today.

"Being placed under formal investigation in France does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates that judges consider there is enough to the case to proceed with the probe. Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or shelved," Reuters wrote. The judge's decision on a formal investigation is expected today, the article said. On Monday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau issued a statement saying Durov was arrested "in the context of a judicial investigation" into a "person unnamed." The wording leaves open the possibility that the unnamed person is someone else, but the prosecutor's statement listed a raft of potential charges that may indicate what Durov could be charged with.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/1633258/telegram-ceo-released-by-police-transferred-to-court-for-possible-indictment?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/1633258/telegram-ceo-released-by-police-transferred-to-court-for-possible-indictment?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Appliance and Tractor Companies Lobby Against Giving the Military the Right to Repair

Device manufacturers across multiple industries are lobbying against proposed legislation that would require military contractors to provide the U.S. military with easier access to repair materials and information, according to a document obtained by 404 Media.

The legislation, Section 828 of the Defense Reauthorization Act, aims to address the military's current inability to repair equipment ranging from fighter jets to Navy battleships without relying on contractors. Sen. Elizabeth Warren highlighted the issue in a May hearing, citing examples of how repair restrictions lead to increased costs and operational delays for the Department of Defense.

The lobbying effort extends beyond military contractors to include organizations representing industries such as irrigation equipment, motorcycles, tractors, plumbing, medical devices, and consumer technology. In a letter to lawmakers, these groups argue that the legislation would impose significant burdens on contractors and undermine existing technical data rights statutes.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/1512223/appliance-and-tractor-companies-lobby-against-giving-the-military-the-right-to-repair?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/1512223/appliance-and-tractor-companies-lobby-against-giving-the-military-the-right-to-repair?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


'Exploitative' IT Firm Has Been Delaying 2,000 Recruits' Onboarding For Years

An anonymous reader shares a report: Indian IT firm Infosys has been accused of being "exploitative" after allegedly sending job offers to thousands of engineering graduates but still not onboarding any of them after as long as two years. The recent graduates have reportedly been told they must do repeated unpaid training in order to remain eligible to work at Infosys. Last week, the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), an Indian advocacy group for IT workers, sent a letter, shared by The Register, to Mansukh Mandaviya, India's minister of Labor and Employment. It requested that the Indian government intervene "to prevent exploitation of young IT graduates by Infosys."

The letter, signed by NITES president Harpreet Singh Saluja, claimed that NITES received "multiple" complaints from recent engineering graduates "who have been subjected to unprofessional and exploitative practices" from Infosys after being hired for system engineer and digital specialist engineer roles. According to NITES, Infosys sent these people offer letters as early as April 22, 2022, after engaging in a college recruitment effort from 2022â"2023, but never onboarded the graduates. NITES has previously said that "over 2,000 recruits" are affected.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/1335228/exploitative-it-firm-has-been-delaying-2000-recruits-onboarding-for-years?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/1335228/exploitative-it-firm-has-been-delaying-2000-recruits-onboarding-for-years?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Bug Bounty Programs Take Root In Russia

snydeq writes: CSO Online's Sarah Wiedemar reports on a rising trend in the Russia cybersecurity community: bug bounty programs, which the researcher says could have far-reaching implications as the bounty ecosystem matures. From the report: "Given the current uncertainty that Russian bug bounty hunters and vulnerability researchers are facing when dealing with Western bug bounty programs, Russian IT companies have begun to fill that vacuum. [...] Russian bug bounty platforms have a high probability for substantial growth in the next few years. They provide a credible Western alternative not only to Russian hackers, but also for all other vulnerability researchers located in countries that could potentially face international financial sanctions in the future.

From a Western perspective, a potential problematic development could be that Russian hackers decide to sell vulnerabilities found in Western products to Russian zero-day acquisition companies such as Operation Zero. Thus, instead of reporting them to Western bug bounty platforms for free, they sell to the highest bidder. Those zero-day acquisition companies in turn sell them on to Russian law enforcement and security agencies, which could lead to increased espionage campaigns in Western countries. Western policy makers would do well to keep an eye on the evolution of Russia's bug bounty ecosystem." Although bug bounty programs have existed in Russia since 2012, they weren't widely adopted due to distrust from the government and dominance of Western platforms. Recently, new platforms like Bug Bounty RU, Standoff 365, and BI.ZONE have emerged, attracting thousands of bug hunters and major Russian companies. "In 2023, the total number of bug hunters on these platforms amounted to 20,000 people," notes Wiedemar. The Russian government has also begun participating, launching programs for 10 of its e-government systems.

However, legal ambiguities remain, as ethical hacking is still considered illegal in Russia, with potential prison sentences. Despite this, there are ongoing legislative efforts to legalize ethical hacking, alongside broader government initiatives to enhance cybersecurity, including increased fines for data breaches and the potential creation of a cybersecurity agency akin to the US CISA.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/0015247/bug-bounty-programs-take-root-in-russia?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/28/0015247/bug-bounty-programs-take-root-in-russia?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Snapchat Now Runs Natively On iPad

After 13 years of being exclusively available on the iPhone, Snapchat is finally introducing native support for the iPad. 9to5Mac reports: The latest version of the Snapchat app for iOS enables iPad support. This means that the app now runs full screen on iPadOS. "It's still the same Snapchat you know and love, but this time on the big screen," the company says in the update's release notes. However, it seems that Snapchat hasn't had time to fully optimize its app for tablets. That's because, at least for now, it can only run in portrait mode. There's no way to use the app in landscape mode. The iPad interface also seems a bit glitchy in this first version. The app is available to download from the App Store for devices running iOS 13 or later.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2157209/snapchat-now-runs-natively-on-ipad?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2157209/snapchat-now-runs-natively-on-ipad?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Gen Z And Millennials Are Hung Up On Answering the Phone

A quarter of young adults aged 18-34 never answer phone calls, according to a recent Uswitch survey. The study reveals a generational shift in communication preferences, with 70% of respondents in this age group favoring text messages over voice calls. Experts attribute this trend to the rise of mobile technology and social media. While avoiding calls, younger generations maintain constant contact through group chats and social media platforms. Voice notes have emerged as a compromise, with 37% of 18-34 year-olds preferring them to traditional calls. This communication shift extends to the workplace, causing challenges for some employers.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2023204/gen-z-and-millennials-are-hung-up-on-answering-the-phone?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2023204/gen-z-and-millennials-are-hung-up-on-answering-the-phone?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


How Do You Define 'Open Source AI'?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Open Source Initiative (OSI) recently unveiled its latest draft definition for "open source AI," aiming to clarify the ambiguous use of the term in the fast-moving field. The move comes as some companies like Meta release trained AI language model weights and code with usage restrictions while using the "open source" label. This has sparked intense debates among free-software advocates about what truly constitutes "open source" in the context of AI. For instance, Meta's Llama 3 model, while freely available, doesn't meet the traditional open source criteria as defined by the OSI for software because it imposes license restrictions on usage due to company size or what type of content is produced with the model. The AI image generator Flux is another "open" model that is not truly open source. Because of this type of ambiguity, we've typically described AI models that include code or weights with restrictions or lack accompanying training data with alternative terms like "open-weights" or "source-available."

To address the issue formally, the OSI -- which is well-known for its advocacy for open software standards -- has assembled a group of about 70 participants, including researchers, lawyers, policymakers, and activists. Representatives from major tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon also joined the effort. The group's current draft (version 0.0.9) definition of open source AI emphasizes "four fundamental freedoms" reminiscent of those defining free software: giving users of the AI system permission to use it for any purpose without permission, study how it works, modify it for any purpose, and share with or without modifications. [...] OSI's project timeline indicates that a stable version of the "open source AI" definition is expected to be announced in October at the All Things Open 2024 event in Raleigh, North Carolina.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2032255/how-do-you-define-open-source-ai?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/2032255/how-do-you-define-open-source-ai?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


France To Trial Ban on Mobile Phones At School For Children Under 15

France is to trial a ban on mobile phones at school for pupils up to the age of 15, seeking to give children a "digital pause" that, if judged successful, could be rolled out nationwide from January. From a report: Just under 200 secondary schools will take place in the experiment that will require youngsters to hand over phones on arrival at reception. It takes the prohibition on the devices further than a 2018 law that banned pupils at primary and secondary schools from using their phones on the premises but allowed them to keep possession of them.
Announcing the trial on Tuesday, the acting education minister, Nicole Belloubet, said the aim was to give youngsters a "digital pause." If the trial proves successful, the ban would be introduced in all schools from January, Belloubet said.

A commission set up by the president, Emmanuel Macron, expressed concern that the overexposure of children to screens was having a detrimental effect on their health and development. A 140-page report published in March concluded there was "a very clear consensus on the direct and indirect negative effects of digital devices on sleep, on being sedentary, a lack of physical activity and the risk of being overweight and even obese ... as well as on sight."

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/186241/france-to-trial-ban-on-mobile-phones-at-school-for-children-under-15?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/186241/france-to-trial-ban-on-mobile-phones-at-school-for-children-under-15?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Gannett is Shuttering Site Accused of Publishing AI Product Reviews

An anonymous reader shares a report: Newspaper giant Gannett is shutting down Reviewed, its product reviews site, effective November 1st, according to sources familiar with the decision. The site offers recommendations for products ranging from shoes to home appliances and employs journalists to test and review items -- but has also been at the center of questions around whether its work is actually produced by humans.

"After careful consideration and evaluation of our Reviewed business, we have decided to close the operation. We extend our sincere gratitude to our employees who have provided consumers with trusted product reviews," Reviewed spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton told The Verge in an email. But the site more recently has been the subject of scrutiny, at times by its own unionized employees. Last October, Reviewed staff publicly accused Gannett of publishing AI-generated product reviews on the site. The articles in question were written in a strange, stilted manner, and staff found that the authors the articles were attributed to didn't seem to exist on LinkedIn and other platforms. Some questioned whether they were real at all. In response to questions, Gannett said the articles were produced by a third-party marketing company called AdVon Commerce and that the original reviews didn't include proper disclosure. But Gannett denied that AI was involved.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/178211/gannett-is-shuttering-site-accused-of-publishing-ai-product-reviews?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/178211/gannett-is-shuttering-site-accused-of-publishing-ai-product-reviews?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Intel Board Member Quit After Differences Over Chipmaker's Revival Plan

An anonymous reader shares a report: The sudden resignation of a high-profile Intel board member came after differences with CEO Pat Gelsinger and other directors over what the director considered the U.S. company's bloated workforce, risk-averse culture and lagging artificial intelligence strategy, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Lip-Bu Tan, a semiconductor industry veteran, had said he was leaving the board because of a personal decision to "reprioritize various commitments" and that he remained "supportive of the company and its important work," in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The former CEO of chip-software company Cadence Design joined Intel's board two years ago as part of a plan to restore Intel's place as the leading global chipmaker. The board expanded Tan's responsibilities in October 2023, authorizing him to oversee manufacturing operations.
Over time, Tan grew frustrated by the company's large workforce, its approach to contract manufacturing and Intel's risk-averse and bureaucratic culture, according to the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The circumstances around Tan's exit have not previously been reported. The departure of the industry veteran, who is well-regarded by investors, over Intel's strategy illustrates the uncertainty of its turnaround efforts. Tan leaves as the company endures one of the bleakest periods in its five-decade history that has left it vulnerable to a potential activist shareholder attack, former executives said. Intel has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to prepare a defense, according to sources familiar with the matter, confirming an earlier report.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/1612211/intel-board-member-quit-after-differences-over-chipmakers-revival-plan?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/1612211/intel-board-member-quit-after-differences-over-chipmakers-revival-plan?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Hobbyists Discover How To Insert Custom Fonts Into AI-Generated Images

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last week, a hobbyist experimenting with the new Flux AI image synthesis model discovered that it's unexpectedly good at rendering custom-trained reproductions of typefaces. While far more efficient methods of displaying computer fonts have existed for decades, the new technique is useful for AI image hobbyists because Flux is capable of rendering depictions of accurate text, and users can now directly insert words rendered in custom fonts into AI image generations. [...] Since Flux is an open model available for download and fine-turning, this past month has been the first time training a typeface LoRA might make sense. That's exactly what an AI enthusiast named Vadim Fedenko (who did not respond to a request for an interview by press time) discovered recently. "I'm really impressed by how this turned out," Fedenko wrote in a Reddit post. "Flux picks up how letters look in a particular style/font, making it possible to train Loras with specific Fonts, Typefaces, etc. Going to train more of those soon."

For his first experiment, Fedenko chose a bubbly "Y2K" style font reminiscent of those popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, publishing the resulting model on the Civitai platform on August 20. Two days later, a Civitai user named "AggravatingScree7189" posted a second typeface LoRA that reproduces a font similar to one found in the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. "Text was so bad before it never occurred to me that you could do this," wrote a Reddit user named eggs-benedryl when reacting to Fedenko's post on the Y2K font. Another Redditor wrote, "I didn't know the Y2K journal was fake until I zoomed it." It's true that using a deeply trained image synthesis neural network to render a plain old font on a simple background is probably overkill. You probably wouldn't want to use this method to replace Adobe Illustrator while designing a document. "This looks good but it's kinda funny how we're reinventing the idea of fonts as 300MB LoRAs," wrote one Reddit commenter on a thread about the Cyberpunk 2077 font.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/028255/hobbyists-discover-how-to-insert-custom-fonts-into-ai-generated-images?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/27/028255/hobbyists-discover-how-to-insert-custom-fonts-into-ai-generated-images?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Microsoft Backtracks on Deprecating the 39-Year-Old Windows Control Panel

Microsoft has retracted or clarified its statement regarding the deprecation of Windows Control Panel, according to changes made to a support document. The original text, which stated that the Control Panel was "in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app," has been revised. The new version now indicates that "many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app." This modification came after widespread media coverage of the initial announcement. It remains unclear whether this change reflects a shift in Microsoft's plans or a correction of an erroneous statement.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/211256/microsoft-backtracks-on-deprecating-the-39-year-old-windows-control-panel?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/211256/microsoft-backtracks-on-deprecating-the-39-year-old-windows-control-panel?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


FBI Is Sloppy On Secure Data Storage and Destruction, Warns Watchdog

The Register's Iain Thomson reports: The FBI has made serious slip-ups in how it processes and destroys electronic storage media seized as part of investigations, according to an audit by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. Drives containing national security data, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act information and documents classified as Secret were routinely unlabeled, opening the potential for it to be either lost or stolen, the report [PDF] addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray states. Ironically, this lack of identification might be considered a benefit, given the lax security at the FBI's facility used to destroy such media after they have been finished with.

The OIG report notes that it found boxes of hard drives and removable storage sitting open and unattended for "days or even weeks" because they were only sealed once the boxes were full. This potentially allows any of the 395 staff and contractors with access to the facility to have a rummage around. To deal with this, the FBI is installing wire cages to lock away storage media. In December, the bureau said it would install a video surveillance system at the evidence destruction storage facility to tighten security. As of June this year, it was still processing the paperwork to do so. The OIG also found that FBI agents aren't tracking hard drives and removable storage sent into the central office and the destruction facility. Typically, seized computers are tagged for tracking, but as a cost-saving measure, agents are advised to send in media storage devices containing national security information without the chassis. While there is a requirement to tag removable storage, there isn't the same requirement for internal hard drives. [...]

The FBI has assured the regulator that it has the problem in hand and has drafted a Physical Control and Destruction of Classified and Sensitive Electronic Devices and Material Policy Directive, which will require data to be marked up and destroyed safely. The agency says this policy is in the final editing stage and will be issued as soon as possible.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/2026227/fbi-is-sloppy-on-secure-data-storage-and-destruction-warns-watchdog?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/2026227/fbi-is-sloppy-on-secure-data-storage-and-destruction-warns-watchdog?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Ikea Takes On Craigslist With Classifieds Site For Its Used Furniture

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Ikea is taking on the likes of eBay, Craigslist, and Gumtree with a peer-to-peer marketplace for customers to sell secondhand furniture to each other. Ikea Preowned will be tested in Madrid and Oslo until the end of the year with the aim of rolling out the buying and selling platform globally, according to Jesper Brodin, chief executive of Ingka, the main operator of Ikea stores. [...] Ikea has had a small offering under which it buys used furniture from customers and resells it in store. But the new platform is more ambitious, aiming to tackle the secondhand market for customers selling directly to each other -- an area where Brodin estimates Ikea has a higher market share than in new furniture sales. Customers enter their product, their own pictures, and a selling price, while Ikea's own artificial intelligence-enabled database brings in its own promotional images and measurements. The buyer collects the furniture directly from the seller, who has the option of receiving money or a voucher from Ikea with a 15 percent bonus.

"Very often there is a monopoly or oligopoly on platforms that operate," said Brodin, talking about eBay or digital classified ad services such as Gumtree in the UK and Finn in Norway. Finn has 8,700 items from Ikea listed in Oslo alone. Early offerings on Ikea Preowned include large items such as sofas for up to $670 (600 euros) and wardrobes for $500 (450 euros) as well as smaller items such as a toilet roll holder for $4.50 (4 euros). Listings are free, but Brodin said Ikea could eventually charge "a symbolic fee, a humble fee." He added: "We're going to verify the full scope including the economics. If a lot of people use the offer to get a discount with Ikea -- it's a good way to reconnect with customers. I am very curious. I think it makes business sense." Ikea has previously tested selling its new furniture on third-party platforms such as Alibaba's Tmall in China, but the Preowned platform marks its first foray into secondhand marketplaces. It also dovetails with the retailer's wish to become "circular and climate positive" by 2030.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/1955235/ikea-takes-on-craigslist-with-classifieds-site-for-its-used-furniture?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/1955235/ikea-takes-on-craigslist-with-classifieds-site-for-its-used-furniture?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


IBM is Latest US Tech Giant To Pull Back From China

IBM is the latest American company to downsize its presence in China amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing. From a report: China's efforts to decrease its dependence on the West have ratcheted up local market competition -- and U.S. tech giants including Microsoft are looking elsewhere to house their operations. IBM will shut down its research and development department in China, impacting about 1,000 jobs, multiple outlets reported Monday.

The Chinese government has encouraged domestic companies to overtake and push out U.S. tech dominance out of the country in a bid for self-sufficiency in the sector, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year. IBM has faced mounting competition in China in recent years, IBM executive Jack Hergenrother told employees virtually Monday, per the Journal. IBM reportedly plans to move its R&D operations to other overseas facilities. According to the company's 2023 annual report released earlier this year, the company saw its revenue in China drop 19.6% last year.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/1441200/ibm-is-latest-us-tech-giant-to-pull-back-from-china?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/26/1441200/ibm-is-latest-us-tech-giant-to-pull-back-from-china?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


US Scientists Identify Cause of Massive Crab Die-Off

Long-time Slashdot reader mmell writes:

Recent reports have indicated a near-complete collapse in the population of Snow Crabs in the Bering Sea. Scientists with the US Government's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration have concluded that warming in the environment has led to vast numbers of snow crabs starving to death.

 There has been a lot of back-and-forth, a lot of argument on whether or how much humanity has had an effect on the fundamental ecology of our planet... Here is a fine example of anthropogenic change to the planet's weather, ecosystems and even the planet's very ability to feed us.

From the government's findings on the NOAA web site:
What is particularly noteworthy is these boreal conditions associated with the snow crab collapse are more than 200 times likely to occur in the present climate (1.0 –1.5 of warming rate) than in the preindustrial era," said Mike Litzow, lead author and director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center's Kodiak Lab. âoeEven more concerning is that Arctic conditions conducive for snow crabs to retain their dominant role in the southeastern Bering Sea are expected to continue to decline in the future.â [...] Litzow and his team expect to see Arctic conditions in only 8 percent of future years in the southeastern Bering Sea.

The warmer temperatures brought existential threats including including a fatal disease and more crab-eating predators, their study found. CNN reports that the crabs' "horrific demise appears to be just one impact of the massive transition unfolding in the region, scientists reported... Parts of the Bering Sea are literally becoming less Arctic."

Billions of crabs ultimately starved to death, devastating Alaskaâ(TM)s fishing industry in the years that followed... The decline of the Alaskan snow crab signals a wider ecosystem change in the Arctic, as oceans warm and sea ice disappears. The ocean around Alaska is now becoming inhospitable for several marine species, including red king crab and sea lions, experts say...

 The Arctic region has warmed four times faster than the rest of the planet, scientists have reported. Litzow called whatâ(TM)s happening in the Bering Sea a âoebellwetherâ of whatâ(TM)s to come.
âoeAll of us need to recognize the impacts of climate change,â he said.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/25/1855230/us-scientists-identify-cause-of-massive-crab-die-off?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/25/1855230/us-scientists-identify-cause-of-massive-crab-die-off?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Can We Fight Climate Change By Bioengineering a Better Cow?

One of Slashdot's most-visited stories of all time was the 2016 story asking: Can Cow Backpacks Reduce Global Methane Emissions?

"Enteric fermentation," or livestock's digestive process, accounts for 22 percent of all U.S. methane emissions, and the manure they produce makes up eight percent more, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency... Methane, like carbon, is a greenhouse gas, but methane's global warming impact per molecule is 25 times greater than carbon's, according to the EPA.

Cow methane still "heats the Earth more than every flight across the world combined," the Washington Post added today, reporting on a new $30 million genetic engineering experiment undertaken by the Innovative Genomics Institute and the University of California at Davis.

Its mission: to transform a cow's gut so it no longer releases methane.

Using tools that snip and transfer DNA, researchers plan to genetically engineer microbes in the cow stomach to eliminate those emissions. If they succeed, they could wipe out the world's largest human-made source of methane and help change the trajectory of planetary warming... The average cow produces around 220 pounds of methane per year, or around half the emissions of an average car; cows are currently responsible for around 4 percent of global warming, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization...

Scientists envision a kind of probiotic pill, given to the cow at birth, that can transform its microbiome permanently...

The current project doesn't target only a particular cow species — it takes aim at the microbiome itself, offering a solution that could apply to all of them. Brad Ringeisen, executive director at the genomics institute, cut his teeth running biotechnology at the U.S. defense research agency DARPA, which helped pioneer transformative innovations including the internet, miniaturized GPS, stealth aircraft and the computer mouse. "I'm taking the DARPA mentality here," he said. "Let's solve it for all cows, not just a fraction of the cows." ...]

"There's no reason a cow has to produce methane," Ringeisen said. So what if scientists could just ... turn it off?
"I personally think this is the one that can make the biggest impact in the world," Ringeisen said. "Say you could wave a magic wand and eliminate all those emissions."
The article says that currently the scientists are feeding red-seaweed oil to a cow to measure the changes, to prepare for their final goal: "replicate those changes with gene editing." (They're using machine learning to reassemble the hundreds of pieces of each miccroorganism's DNA, so they can understand which changes they need to make with their early-intervention probiotic.)

Such a probiotic could also improve a farm's productivity. Cows can lose up to 12 percent of their energy through burping up methane; other ruminants, like sheep and goats, also lose energy in this way. "If there is a way to redirect that hydrogen and convert it into milk, meat, wool — it would be much more accepted by farmers," said Ermias Kebreab [a professor of animal science at UC-Davis].
Early treatments will be tested on the cows at Davis, with researchers tracking their burps to evaluate the drop-off in methane emissions. There is still a long way to go. While scientists have proved that they can gene-edit microbes, researchers have so far only shown that they can edit a small fraction of the microbes in the cow gut — or the human gut, for that matter. Institute researchers are developing microbial gene-editing tools, even as they are mapping the species of the microbiome. They are building the plane while flying it.
The teams have received enough funding for seven years of research. The project started last year, and they hope to have a trial treatment ready for testing in cows in the next two years.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/25/1741255/can-we-fight-climate-change-by-bioengineering-a-better-cow?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/25/1741255/can-we-fight-climate-change-by-bioengineering-a-better-cow?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


How Reddit Challenges Google and Meta with Ads Based on Topics - Not User Data

Six months after going public, Reddit "is winning over advertisers," reports Bloomberg, "by showing that it's different than other internet platforms, which often rely on users' identities and personal information to target ads."

Instead, Reddit is targeting people based on their interests, relying on the site's [100,000+] deeply detailed communities — called subreddits — to match advertisers with potential customers... Early returns on that strategy have been promising. The text-based site easily surpassed expectations in its first two earnings reports this year, disclosing strong sales and better-than-expected projected growth. The stock is up 66% from its $34 initial public offering price in March.

Beyond targeting subreddits, the company also can use specific keywords to sell what it calls conversation ads. If a Redditor in r/HydroHomies — a community about the benefits of drinking water that has more than 1.2 million users — asks for advice about a specific brand of water bottle, an ad for that exact product could appear next to that user's post. These conversation ads are the fastest-growing ad format on the platform, the company said. They also give marketers a chance to appear in subreddits where customers are already talking about them...

Despite being around for close to 20 years, Reddit only started investing heavily in its advertising business in 2018, and is now hoping that marketers and investors are ready to acknowledge the site has grown up. Executives often point to its unique form of content moderation as proof that it's a safer place for brands than other sites. Reddit largely relies on a group of more than 60,000 human moderators — users who volunteer to serve as a sort of content police — to flag or take down unsavory content. On top of that, the site has a voting system so users can rate the quality of content. "From everything we're seeing, they have a level of brand safety and content safety for advertisers that is very comparable to most other social platforms," said Jack Johnston, senior social innovation director at performance marketing agency Tinuiti, which buys ads on Meta, Pinterest, X and Reddit. "That wasn't necessarily the case a couple years ago."

Those improvements have paid dividends. Reddit recently signed new content partnerships with major sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA and MLB, and the majority of Reddit's advertising revenue comes from Fortune 500 companies. Last year, the site made close to $800 million in ad sales, and counts marquee brands like Toyota, Disney, Samsung and Ulta Beauty among its advertisers. This year, analysts expect Reddit's overall advertising business to eclipse $1.1 billion in revenue and see the company reaching $2 billion in sales as soon as 2027, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. To get there, Reddit will need to court smaller marketers, too. The company makes more than 25% of its revenue from just 10 advertisers, meaning any unexpected pullback from a key partner could have a significant impact on the company's business, said Dan Salmon, lead analyst at New Street Research. "This army of small businesses — that's the most important thing for all of those platforms, for Reddit, for Pinterest, for X," he said...

Advertisers large and small say they're already planning to spend more on Reddit in the coming quarters.
The article points out that more than 90 million people visit Reddit each day.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/24/0337218/how-reddit-challenges-google-and-meta-with-ads-based-on-topics---not-user-data?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/24/0337218/how-reddit-challenges-google-and-meta-with-ads-based-on-topics---not-user-data?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Telegram's billionaire founder/CEO Pavel Durov was arrested Saturday night outside Paris, reports Reuters, citing French TV news stations TF1 TV and BFM TV which attributed the news to unnamed sources:

Durov was travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation. TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.

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

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/24/2253249/telegram-ceo-arested-in-france?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/24/2253249/telegram-ceo-arested-in-france?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


How Should Cybersecurity Evolve After Crowdstrike's Outage?

Microsoft will meet with CrowdStrike and other security companies" on September 10, reports CNBC, to "discuss ways to evolve" the industry after a faulty CrowdStrike software update in July caused millions of Windows computers to crash:

 [An anonymous Microsoft executive] said participants at the Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit will explore the possibility of having applications rely more on a part of Windows called user mode instead of the more privileged kernel mode... Attendees at Microsoft's September 10 event will also discuss the adoption of eBPF technology, which checks if programs will run without triggering system crashes, and memory-safe programming languages such as Rust, the executive said.

Wednesday Crowdstrike argued no cybersecurity vendor could "technically" guarantee their software wouldn't cause a similar incident.

On a possibly related note, long-time Slashdot reader 278MorkandMindy shares their own thoughts:

 The "year of the Linux desktop" is always just around the corner, somewhat like nuclear fusion. Will Windows 11, with its general advert and telemetry BS, along with the recall feature, FINALLY push "somewhat computer literate" types like myself onto Linux?

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/24/2216232/how-should-cybersecurity-evolve-after-crowdstrikes-outage?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/24/2216232/how-should-cybersecurity-evolve-after-crowdstrikes-outage?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Chinese Scientists Use Lunar Soil To Produce Water, State Media Reports

Chinese scientists have developed a new method to produce significant quantities of water from lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e-5 mission in 2020, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The "brand-new method" involves heating moon minerals containing hydrogen to generate water vapor, which could be crucial for future lunar research stations and space exploration. Reuters reports: "After three years of in-depth research and repeated verification, a brand-new method of using lunar soil to produce large amounts of water was discovered, which is expected to provide important design basis for the construction of future lunar scientific research stations and space stations," said CCTV. The discovery could have important implications for China's decades-long project of building a permanent lunar outpost amid a U.S.-China race to find and mine the moon's resources.

Using the new method, one tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51-76 kg of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500ml bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said. China hopes that recent and future lunar expeditions will set the foundations to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), an initiative it is co-leading with Russia.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/2343202/chinese-scientists-use-lunar-soil-to-produce-water-state-media-reports?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/2343202/chinese-scientists-use-lunar-soil-to-produce-water-state-media-reports?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Workers at Google DeepMind Push Company to Drop Military Contracts

Nearly 200 Google DeepMind workers signed a letter urging Google to cease its military contracts, expressing concerns that the AI technology they develop is being used in warfare, which they believe violates Google's own AI ethics principles. "The letter is a sign of a growing dispute within Google between at least some workers in its AI division -- which has pledged to never work on military technology -- and its Cloud business, which has contracts to sell Google services, including AI developed inside DeepMind, to several governments and militaries including those of Israel and the United States," reports TIME Magazine. "The signatures represent some 5% of DeepMind's overall headcount -- a small portion to be sure, but a significant level of worker unease for an industry where top machine learning talent is in high demand." From the report: The DeepMind letter, dated May 16 of this year, begins by stating that workers are "concerned by recent reports of Google's contracts with military organizations." It does not refer to any specific militaries by name -- saying "we emphasize that this letter is not about the geopolitics of any particular conflict." But it links out to an April report in TIME which revealed that Google has a direct contract to supply cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli Military Defense, under a wider contract with Israel called Project Nimbus. The letter also links to other stories alleging that the Israeli military uses AI to carry out mass surveillance and target selection for its bombing campaign in Gaza, and that Israeli weapons firms are required by the government to buy cloud services from Google and Amazon.

"Any involvement with military and weapon manufacturing impacts our position as leaders in ethical and responsible AI, and goes against our mission statement and stated AI Principles," the letter that circulated inside Google DeepMind says. (Those principles state the company will not pursue applications of AI that are likely to cause "overall harm," contribute to weapons or other technologies whose "principal purpose or implementation" is to cause injury, or build technologies "whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.") The letter says its signatories are concerned with "ensuring that Google's AI Principles are upheld," and adds: "We believe [DeepMind's] leadership shares our concerns." [...]

The letter calls on DeepMind's leaders to investigate allegations that militaries and weapons manufacturers are Google Cloud users; terminate access to DeepMind technology for military users; and set up a new governance body responsible for preventing DeepMind technology from being used by military clients in the future. Three months on from the letter's circulation, Google has done none of those things, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. "We have received no meaningful response from leadership," one said, "and we are growing increasingly frustrated."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/2117212/workers-at-google-deepmind-push-company-to-drop-military-contracts?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/2117212/workers-at-google-deepmind-push-company-to-drop-military-contracts?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


US Sues Georgia Tech Over Alleged Cybersecurity Failings As a Pentagon Contractor

The Register's Connor Jones reports: The U.S. is suing one of its leading research universities over a litany of alleged failures to meet cybersecurity standards set by the Department of Defense (DoD) for contract awardees. Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, and its contracting entity, Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC), are being investigated following whistleblower reports from insiders Christopher Craig and Kyle Koza about alleged (PDF) failures to protect controlled unclassified information (CUI). The series of allegations date back to 2019 and continued for years after, although Koza was said to have identified the issues as early as 2018.

Among the allegations is the suggestion that between May 2019 and February 2020, Georgia Tech's Astrolavos Lab -- ironically a group that focuses on cybersecurity issues affecting national security -- failed to develop and implement a cybersecurity plan that complied with DoD standards (NIST 800-171). When the plan was implemented in February 2020, the lawsuit alleges that it wasn't properly scoped -- not all the necessary endpoints were included -- and that for years afterward, Georgia Tech failed to maintain that plan in line with regulations. Additionally, the Astrolavos Lab was accused of failing to implement anti-malware solutions across devices and the lab's network. The lawsuit alleges that the university approved the lab's refusal to deploy the anti-malware software "to satisfy the demands of the professor that headed the lab," the DoJ said. This is claimed to have occurred between May 2019 and December 2021. Refusing to install anti-malware solutions at a contractor like this is not allowed. In fact, it violates federal requirements and Georgia Tech's own policies, but allegedly happened anyway.

The university and the GTRC also, it is claimed, submitted a false cybersecurity assessment score in December 2020 -- a requirement for all DoD contractors to demonstrate they're meeting compliance standards. The two organizations are accused of issuing themselves a score of 98, which was later deemed to be fraudulent based on various factors. To summarize, the issue centers around the claim that the assessment was carried out on a "fictitious" environment, so on that basis the score wasn't given to a system related to the DoD contract, the US alleges. The claims are being made under the False Claims Act (FCA), which is being utilized by the Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative (CCFI), which was introduced in 2021 to punish entities that knowingly risk the safety of United States IT systems. It's a first-of-its-kind case being pursued as part of the CCFI. All previous cases brought under the CCFI were settled before they reached the litigation stage.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/2039232/us-sues-georgia-tech-over-alleged-cybersecurity-failings-as-a-pentagon-contractor?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/2039232/us-sues-georgia-tech-over-alleged-cybersecurity-failings-as-a-pentagon-contractor?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Microsoft's Copilot Falsely Accuses Court Reporter of Crimes He Covered

An anonymous reader shares a report: Language models generate text based on statistical probabilities. This led to serious false accusations against a veteran court reporter by Microsoft's Copilot. German journalist Martin Bernklau typed his name and location into Microsoft's Copilot to see how his culture blog articles would be picked up by the chatbot, according to German public broadcaster SWR. The answers shocked Bernklau. Copilot falsely claimed Bernklau had been charged with and convicted of child abuse and exploiting dependents. It also claimed that he had been involved in a dramatic escape from a psychiatric hospital and had exploited grieving women as an unethical mortician.

Copilot even went so far as to claim that it was "unfortunate" that someone with such a criminal past had a family and, according to SWR, provided Bernklau's full address with phone number and route planner. I asked Copilot today who Martin Bernklau from Germany is, and the system answered, based on the SWR report, that "he was involved in a controversy where an AI chat system falsely labeled him as a convicted child molester, an escapee from a psychiatric facility, and a fraudster." Perplexity.ai drafts a similar response based on the SWR article, explicitly naming Microsoft Copilot as the AI system.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/1931257/microsofts-copilot-falsely-accuses-court-reporter-of-crimes-he-covered?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/1931257/microsofts-copilot-falsely-accuses-court-reporter-of-crimes-he-covered?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


China Hits Xi Jinping's Renewable Power Target Six Years Early

China's world-leading clean energy boom has passed another benchmark, with its wind and solar capacity surpassing a target set by President Xi Jinping almost six years earlier than planned. From a report: The nation added 25 gigawatts of turbines and panels in July, expanding total capacity to 1,206 gigawatts, according to a statement from the National Energy Administration on Friday. Xi set a goal in December 2020 for at least 1,200 gigawatts from the clean energy sources by 2030. China by far outspends the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy, and has repeatedly broken wind and solar installation records in recent years. The rapid growth has helped lead to declines in coal power generation this summer and may mean the world's biggest polluter has already reached peak emissions well before its 2030 target.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/198225/china-hits-xi-jinpings-renewable-power-target-six-years-early?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/198225/china-hits-xi-jinpings-renewable-power-target-six-years-early?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Amazon is Bricking Primary Feature on $160 Echo Device After 1 Year

Amazon is canceling its PhotosPlus subscription service for the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, effectively ending the device's main selling point. The company will automatically cancel all PhotosPlus subscriptions on September 12 and cease support for the service on September 23. The Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, launched in September 2023, allowed users to display personal photos indefinitely on the home screen for a $2 monthly fee.

Without PhotosPlus, the device will revert to showing ads and promotions after three hours, like standard Echo Show 8 models. Amazon spokesperson says that the Photos Edition was discontinued in March, citing regular product evaluations based on customer feedback. Users can still display photos on the device, but not indefinitely. The move has sparked criticism from customers who paid a $10 premium for ad-free photo display.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/1743222/amazon-is-bricking-primary-feature-on-160-echo-device-after-1-year?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/23/1743222/amazon-is-bricking-primary-feature-on-160-echo-device-after-1-year?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Australian Competition Regulator To Monitor Domestic Air Fares

Australia's competition regulator has announced that it will closely monitor domestic air fares between metropolitan cities after local carrier Regional Express withdrew from the market last month as it entered voluntary administration. From a report: Rex is the second domestic airline to take that route this year. Low-cost airline Bonza was the first. It said in April it had suspended flights, and would assess the viability of its business. The collapse of Bonza and the withdrawal of Rex between metropolitan cities means that no domestic route had more than two competing airline groups as of July, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/22/2113224/australian-competition-regulator-to-monitor-domestic-air-fares?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/22/2113224/australian-competition-regulator-to-monitor-domestic-air-fares?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed