Replika CEO Says It's OK If We Marry AI Chatbots

In an interview with The Verge's Nilay Patel, Replika founder and CEO Eugenia Kuyda discusses the role AI will play in the future of human relationships. Replika is an AI-powered chatbot that offers personalized, empathetic conversations to users, serving as a virtual companion for emotional support, mental health, and social interaction. It allows users to engage in meaningful, human-like conversations, enhancing their well-being through AI-driven companionship. Here is an excerpt from the interview: Where have you landed with Replika now? Is it still sort of romantic? Is it mostly friendly? Have you gotten the user base to stop thinking of it as dating in that way?

It's mostly friendship and a long-term one-on-one connection, and that's been the case forever for Replika. That's what our users come for. That's how they find Replika. That's what they do there. They're looking for that connection. My belief is that there will be a lot of flavors of AI. People will have assistants, they will have agents that are helping them at work, and then, at the same time, there will be agents or AIs that are there for you outside of work. People want to spend quality time together, they want to talk to someone, they want to watch TV with someone, they want to play video games with someone, they want to go for walks with someone, and that's what Replika is for.

You've said "someone" several times now. Is that how you think of a Replika AI avatar -- as a person? Is it how users think of it? Is it meant to replace a person?

It's a virtual being, and I don't think it's meant to replace a person. We're very particular about that. For us, the most important thing is that Replika becomes a complement to your social interactions, not a substitute. The best way to think about it is just like you might a pet dog. That's a separate being, a separate type of relationship, but you don't think that your dog is replacing your human friends. It's just a completely different type of being, a virtual being. Or, at the same time, you can have a therapist, and you're not thinking that a therapist is replacing your human friends. In a way, Replika is just another type of relationship. It's not just like your human friends. It's not just like your therapist. It's something in between those things.

With an AI that kind of feels like a person and is meant to complement your friends, the boundaries of that relationship are still pretty fuzzy. In the culture, I don't think we quite understand them. You've been running Replika for a while. Where do you think those boundaries are with an AI companion?

I actually think, just like a therapist has agency to fire you, the dog has agency to run away or bite or shit all over your carpet. It's not really that you're getting this subservient, subordinate thing. I think, actually, we're all used to different types of relationships, and we understand these new types of relationships pretty easily. People don't have a lot of confusion that their therapist is not their friend. I mean, some people do project and so on, but at the same time, we understand that, yes, the therapist is there, and he or she is providing this service of listening and being empathetic. That's not because they love you or want to live with you. So we actually already have very different relationships in our lives. We have empathy for hire with therapists, for instance, and we don't think that's weird. AI friends are just another type of that -- a completely different type. People understand boundaries. At the end of the day, it's a work in progress, but I think people understand quickly like, 'Okay, well, that's an AI friend, so I can text or interact with it anytime I want.' But, for example, a real friend is not available 24/7. That boundary is very different. You know these things ahead of time, and that creates a different setup and a different boundary than, say, with your real friend. In the case of a therapist, you know a therapist will not hurt you. They're not meant to hurt you. Replika probably won't disappoint you or leave you. So there's also that. We already have relationships with certain rules that are different from just human friendships. The full transcript can be read here. You can also listen to the interview on the latest episode of Decoder with Nilay Patel.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/2042234/replika-ceo-says-its-ok-if-we-marry-ai-chatbots?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/2042234/replika-ceo-says-its-ok-if-we-marry-ai-chatbots?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Canceling Subscriptions Should Be As Easy As Signing Up, Newly Proposed federal Rule Says

In an effort to beef up protections for consumers against corporations, the Biden administration on Monday announced a handful of policies to crack down on "headaches and hassles that waste Americans' time and money." From a report: Through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the administration will ask companies to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions and memberships as it is to sign up for them, and through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new rule will require companies to let customers cut through automated customer service "doom loops" by pressing a single button to reach a real person.

"For a lot of services, it takes one or two clicks on your phone to sign up. It should take one or two clicks on your phone to end the service," White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said on a call with reporters to discuss the new policies. Consumers could see the new rule applied to gym memberships or subscriptions with phone and internet companies. The administration will also call on health insurance companies to allow claims to be submitted online, rather than requiring insured customers to print out and mail forms in for coverage.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/1950257/canceling-subscriptions-should-be-as-easy-as-signing-up-newly-proposed-federal-rule-says?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

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US Colleges Slash Majors in Effort To Cut Costs

St. Cloud State University announced plans to eliminate its music department and cut 42 degree programs and 50 minors, as part of a broader trend of U.S. colleges slashing offerings amid financial pressures. The Minnesota school's decision, driven by a $32 million budget shortfall over two years, reflects challenges facing higher education institutions nationwide. Similar program cuts have been announced at universities across the country, including in North Carolina, Arkansas, and New York. Some smaller institutions have closed entirely, unable to weather the financial storm, reports CBS News.

Federal COVID relief funds have dried up, operational costs are rising, and fewer high school graduates are pursuing college degrees. St. Cloud State's enrollment plummeted from 18,300 students in fall 2020 to about 10,000 in fall 2023, mirroring national trends. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports a decline in four-year college enrollment, despite a slight rebound in community college numbers.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/1940232/us-colleges-slash-majors-in-effort-to-cut-costs?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

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Apple Approves iDOS 3 Following Emulator Rule Change

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple recently rejected DOS emulator iDOS 3 from the App Store, but following App Store rule changes that look to have cleared the way for PC emulator apps, iDOS 3 is now available for download, developer Chaoji Li announced. In June, Li said that Apple had rejected iDOS 3 because it violated App Store guideline 4.7.

At the time, that rule was what allowed retro game console emulator apps to appear on the store, but Apple was only allowing retro game console emulators under the rule -- not PC emulators; UTM SE, another PC emulator app, had also said it was rejected for violating the rule.

But in July, Apple reversed course and approved UTM SE, and earlier this month, it added the words "PC emulator" to guideline 4.7, which is seemingly why iDOS 3 has now been allowed on the App Store.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/1844235/apple-approves-idos-3-following-emulator-rule-change?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/1844235/apple-approves-idos-3-following-emulator-rule-change?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Google's Osterloh Looks To Get Jump on Apple With Earlier Launch

With its hardware event on Tuesday, Alphabet's Google is trying to outshine Apple's annual iPhone launch -- and is letting longtime executive Rick Osterloh take center stage. Bloomberg: Osterloh, the former president of Motorola who joined Google in 2016, will helm the first major product launch after the company this year unified under his leadership the teams developing hardware and the Android operating system. The reorganization expanded Osterloh's influence in the company and signaled that Google intends to compete in hardware for the long term.

In a sign of a more aggressive push into consumer devices, Google moved up its annual flagship Pixel smartphone launch to August from October, preempting the next Apple. iPhone debut and seizing attention during a typically quiet period for the industry. [...] By holding its hardware showcase a month ahead of the iPhone maker's largest annual event, Google is "frontrunning Apple and also making a statement that we are likely way ahead of what Apple will show for iPhone 16 at least," said Mandeep Singh, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

Google has at least a six-month head start on Apple, which has invested less in AI over the years than some of its Big Tech peers, he added. Google's strategy -- tying together the development of hardware, software and services -- carries echoes of Apple's successful approach to designing devices. Yet, as Osterloh seeks to capitalize on the opportunity presented by AI, he faces a perennial challenge for Google: bringing the fight to Apple without threatening key relationships with hardware giants such as Xiaomi that rely on the Android operating system.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/1743256/googles-osterloh-looks-to-get-jump-on-apple-with-earlier-launch?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/1743256/googles-osterloh-looks-to-get-jump-on-apple-with-earlier-launch?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Apple Threatens To Remove Patreon From App Store Over Billing Dispute

Apple has threatened to remove crowdfunding app Patreon from the App Store if creators continue to use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS, instead of using Apple's own in-app purchasing system. From a report: In a blog post and email to Patreon creators about upcoming changes to membership in the iOS app, the company says it's begun a 16-month-long migration process to move all creators to Apple's subscription billing by November 2025. Patreon also informed creators it will switch them over to subscription billing as of November 2024, but they will be able to decide whether to price their memberships at a higher fee to cover Apple's commission or decide if they want to absorb the fee themselves. In addition, creators can opt to delay the migration in their Patreon settings to November 2025, the company said. However, if creators choose the latter option, they won't be able to offer memberships in the iOS app until they adopt Apple's subscription billing, as Apple rules will apply as of this November.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/169246/apple-threatens-to-remove-patreon-from-app-store-over-billing-dispute?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/169246/apple-threatens-to-remove-patreon-from-app-store-over-billing-dispute?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Microsoft To Retire Paint 3D

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft Paint isn't one of Windows' best photo editing apps, but in the recent past, the software giant introduced some exciting features, such as layer support, to make the app more viable for Windows users. While Microsoft was pouring the Paint app with new features, the Paint 3D app was dying a slow death. The app will finally be delisted from the Microsoft Store in November this year.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/152226/microsoft-to-retire-paint-3d?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/12/152226/microsoft-to-retire-paint-3d?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Alcohol Researcher Says Alcohol-Industry Lobbyists are Attacking His Work

"Last year, a major meta-analysis that re-examined 107 studies over 40 years came to the conclusion that no amount of alcohol improves health," the New York Times reported this June, citing a study co-authored by Tim Stockwell, an epidemiologist at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. Dr. Stockwell (and other scientists he's collaborated with) "are overhauling decades-worth of scientific evidence — and newspaper headlines — that backed the health benefits of alcohol," writes the Telegraph, "or what is known in the scientific community as the J-curve. The J-curve is the theory that, like a capital J, the negative health consequences of drinking dip slightly into positive territory with moderate drinking — as it benefits such things as the heart — before rising sharply back into negative territory the more someone drinks."

But Stockwell's study prompted at least one scientist to accuse Stockwell of "cherry picking" evidence to suit an agenda — while a think-tank executive suggests he's a front for a worldwide temperance lobby:

 Dr Stockwell denies this. Speaking to The Telegraph, he in turn accused his detractors of being funded by the alcohol lobby and said his links to temperance societies were fleeting. He was the president of the Kettil Bruun Society (a think tank born out of what was the international temperance congresses) [from 2005 to 2007] and he has been reimbursed for addressing temperance movements and admits attending their meetings, but, he says, not as a member...

Former British government scientist Richard Harding, who gave evidence on safe drinking to the House of Commons select committee on science and technology in 2011, told The Telegraph that Dr Stockwell had wrongly taken a correlation to be causal. "Dr Stockwell's research is essentially epidemiology, which is the study of populations," Dr Harding said. "You record people's lifestyle and then see what diseases they get and try to correlate the disease with some aspect of their lifestyle. But it is just a correlation, it's just an association. Epidemiology can never establish causality on its own. And in this particular case, Dr Stockwell selected six studies out of 107 to focus on. You could say he cherry picked them. Really, the important thing is not the epidemiology, it's the effect that alcohol actually has on the body. We know the reasons why the curve is J-shaped; it's because of the protective effect moderate consumption has on heart disease and a number of other diseases."

Dr Stockwell rejects Dr Harding's criticism of his study, telling The Telegraph that Dr Harding "doesn't appear to have read it" and accusing him of being in the pocket of the alcohol industry. "We identified six high-quality studies out of 107 and they didn't find any J-shaped curve," Dr Stockwell said. "In fact, since our recent paper, we've now got genetic studies which are showing there's no benefits of low-level alcohol use. I personally think there might still be small benefits, but the point of our work is that, if there are benefits, they've been exaggerating them."

The article notes that Stockwell's research "has been published in The Lancet, among other esteemed organs," and that "scientists he has collaborated with on research highlighting the dangers of alcohol are in positions of power at major institutions, such as the World Health Organisation."

And honestly, the opposing viewpoint seems to be thinly-sourced. Besides Harding (the former British government scientist), the article cites:

The head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs (which Wikipedia describes as "a right-wing, free market think tank")

An alcohol policy specialist at Brock University in Ontario (who argues rather unconvincingly that "you can't measure when someone didn't hurt themselves because a friend invited them for a drink.")
On the basis of that, the article writes "respected peers say it is far from settled science and have cast doubt on his research". (And that "fellow academics and experts" told The Telegraph "they read the report in disbelief.") Did the Telegraph speak to others who just aren't mentioned in the story? Or are they extrapolating, in that famous British tabloid journalism sort of way?

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/2349217/alcohol-researcher-says-alcohol-industry-lobbyists-are-attacking-his-work?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/2349217/alcohol-researcher-says-alcohol-industry-lobbyists-are-attacking-his-work?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


AT&T Rebuked Over 'Misleading' Ad Showing Satellite Phone Calling It Doesn't Offer Yet

"AT&T has been told to stop running ads that claim the carrier is already offering cellular coverage from space," reports Ars Technica:

AT&T intends to offer Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) and has a deal with AST SpaceMobile, a Starlink competitor that plans a smartphone service from low-Earth-orbit satellites. But AST SpaceMobile's first batch of five satellites isn't scheduled to launch until September.

T-Mobile was annoyed by AT&T running an ad indicating that its satellite-to-cellular service was already available, and filed a challenge with the advertising industry's self-regulatory system run by BBB National Programs. The BBB National Advertising Division (NAD) ruled against AT&T last month and the carrier appealed to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), which has now also ruled against AT&T...

AT&T, which is also famous for renaming its 4G service "5GE," reluctantly agreed to comply with the recommendation and released a new version of the satellite-calling commercial with more specific disclaimers.

The 30-second ad — titled "Epic Bad Golf Day" — featured Ben Stiller golfing chasing a badly-hit golf ball all the way into the desert (accompanied by the Pixies' song "Where is My Mind").

But according to the article, T-Mobile filed an official complaint with the advertising review board that "the use of humor does not shield an advertiser from its obligation to ensure that claims are truthful and non-misleading."

The ad originally included small text that described the depicted satellite call as a "demonstration of evolving technology." The text was changed this week to say that "satellite calling is not currently available...."

The original version also had text that said, "the future of help is an AT&T satellite call away." The NARB concluded that this "statement can be interpreted reasonably as stating that 'future' technology has now arrived... In the updated version of the ad, AT&T changed the text to say that "the future of help will be an AT&T satellite call away."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/1941219/att-rebuked-over-misleading-ad-showing-satellite-phone-calling-it-doesnt-offer-yet?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/1941219/att-rebuked-over-misleading-ad-showing-satellite-phone-calling-it-doesnt-offer-yet?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Mozilla Wants You To Love Firefox Again

Mozilla's interim CEO Laura Chambers "says the company is reinvesting in Firefox after letting it languish in recent years," reports Fast Company, "hoping to reestablish the browser as independent alternative to the likes of Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari.

"But some of those investments, which also include forays into generative AI, may further upset the community that's been sticking with Firefox all these years..."

Chambers acknowledges that Mozilla lost sight of Firefox in recent years as it chased opportunities outside the browser, such as VPN service and email masking. When she replaced Mitchell Baker as CEO in February, the company scaled back those other efforts and made Firefox a priority again. 	"Yes, Mozilla is refocusing on Firefox," she says. "Obviously, it's our core product, so it's an important piece of the business for us, but we think it's also really an important part of the internet."

Some of that focus involves adding features that have become table-stakes in other browsers. In June, Mozilla added vertical tab support in Firefox's experimental branch, echoing a feature that Microsoft's Edge browser helped popularize three years ago. It's also working on tab grouping features and an easier way to switch between user profiles. Mozilla is even revisiting the concept of web apps, in which users can install websites as freestanding desktop applications. Mozilla abandoned work on Progressive Web Apps in Firefox a few years ago to the dismay of many power users, but now it's talking with community members about a potential path forward.
"We haven't always prioritized those features as highly as we should have," Chambers says. "That's been a real shift that's been very felt in the community, that the things they're asking for . . . are really being prioritized and brought to life."

Firefox was criticized for testing a more private alternative to tracking cookies which could make summaries of aggregated data available to advertisers. (Though it was only tested on a few sites, "Privacy-Preserving Attribution" was enabled by default.) But EFF staff technologist Lena Cohen tells Fast Company that approach was "much more privacy-preserving" than Google's proposal for a "Privacy Sandbox." And according to the article, "Mozilla's system only measures the success rate of ads — it doesn't help companies target those ads in the first place — and it's less susceptible to abuse due to limits on how much data is stored and which parties are allowed to access it."
In June, Mozilla also announced its acquisition of Anonym, a startup led by former Meta executives that has its own privacy-focused ad measurement system. While Mozilla has no plans to integrate Anonym's tech in Firefox, the move led to even more anxiety about the kind of company Mozilla was becoming. The tension around Firefox stems in part from Mozilla's precarious financial position, which is heavily dependent on royalty payments from Google. In 2022, nearly 86% of Mozilla's revenue came from Google, which paid $510 million to be Firefox's default search engine. Its attempts to diversify, through VPN service and other subscriptions, haven't gained much traction.

Chambers says that becoming less dependent on Google is "absolutely a priority," and acknowledges that building an ad-tech business is one way of doing that. Mozilla is hoping that emerging privacy regulations and wider adoption of anti-tracking tools in web browsers will increase demand for services like Anonym and for systems like Firefox's privacy-preserving ad measurements. Other revenue-generating ideas are forthcoming. Chambers says Mozilla plans to launch new products outside of Firefox under a "design sprint" model, aimed at quickly figuring out what works and what doesn't. It's also making forays into generative AI in Firefox, starting with a chatbot sidebar in the browser's experimental branch.
Chambers "says to expect a bigger marketing push for Firefox in the United States soon, echoing a 'Challenge the default' ad campaign that was successful in Germany last summer. Mozilla's nonprofit ownership structure, and the idea that it's not beholden to corporate interests, figures heavily into those plans."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/1635254/mozilla-wants-you-to-love-firefox-again?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/1635254/mozilla-wants-you-to-love-firefox-again?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Scientists Slam 'Indefensible' Axing of NASA's $450 Million Viper Moon Rover

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Observer:

Thousands of scientists have protested to the US Congress over the "unprecedented and indefensible" decision by Nasa to cancel its Viper lunar rover mission. In an open letter to Capitol Hill, they have denounced the move, which was revealed last month, and heavily criticised the space agency over a decision that has shocked astronomers and astrophysicists across the globe.

The car-sized rover has already been constructed at a cost of $450 million and was scheduled to be sent to the moon next year, when it would have used a one-metre drill to prospect for ice below the lunar surface in soil at the moon's south pole. Ice is considered to be vital to plans to build a lunar colony, not just to supply astronauts with water but also to provide them with hydrogen and oxygen that could be used as fuels... "Quite frankly, the agency's decision beggars belief," said Prof Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana. "Viper is a fundamental mission on so many fronts and its cancellation basically undermines Nasa's entire lunar exploration programme for the next decade. It is as straightforward as that. Cancelling Viper makes no sense whatsoever."
This view was backed by Ben Fernando of Johns Hopkins University, who was one of the organisers of the open letter to Congress. "A team of 500 people dedicated years of their careers to construct Viper and now it has been cancelled for no good reason whatsoever," he told the Observer last week. "Fortunately I think Congress is taking this issue very seriously and they have the power to tell Nasa that it has to go ahead with the project. Hopefully they will intervene."

"When Nasa announced its decision to abandon Viper, the space agency said it planned to disassemble and reuse its components for other moon missions — unless other space companies or agencies offered to take over the project. More than a dozen groups have since expressed an interest in taking over Viper, a Nasa spokesperson told the Observer last week."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/0428253/scientists-slam-indefensible-axing-of-nasas-450-million-viper-moon-rover?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/11/0428253/scientists-slam-indefensible-axing-of-nasas-450-million-viper-moon-rover?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Samsung's New EV Battery Tech:  600-Mile Ranges, and 9-Minute Charges?

"Samsung's latest solid-state battery technology will power up premium EVs first, giving them up to 621 miles of range," writes PC Magazine:

The new batteries — which promise to improve vehicle range, decrease charging times, and eliminate risk of battery fires — could go into mass production as soon as 2027. Multiple automakers have been reportedly testing samples. Samsung did not list any by name but it's worked with Hyundai, Stellantis, and General Motors, among others. "We supplied samples to customers from the end of last year to the beginning of this year and are receiving positive feedback," Samsung SDI VP Koh Joo-young said at SNE Battery Day 2024 in Seoul, according to Korean outlet The Elec and translated by Google.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the batteries won't be cheap. They will initially go in "super premium EVs" and will offer 900 to 1,000 kilometers (559-621 miles) of range and improved safety... Samsung's presentation also reiterated previously announced plans to create batteries that can charge in nine minutes and last 20 years by 2029.

More details from Notebookcheck:

According to Samsung SDI's VP, automakers are interested in its solid-state battery packs because they are smaller, lighter, and much safer than what's in current electric cars. Apparently, they are also rather expensive to produce, since it warns that they will first go into the "super premium" EV segment. Those Samsung defines as luxury electric cars that can cover more than 600 miles on a charge.
Samsung's oxide solid-state battery technology is rated for an energy density of about 500 Wh/kg, which is about double the density of mainstream EV batteries. Those have capacities that already allow more than 300 miles on a charge, so 600 miles of range in a similar footprint is not out of the question, but the issue is production costs.
Thanks to Slashdot reader npetrov for sharing the news.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/10/1944235/samsungs-new-ev-battery-tech-600-mile-ranges-and-9-minute-charges?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/10/1944235/samsungs-new-ev-battery-tech-600-mile-ranges-and-9-minute-charges?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


China's Long March 6A Rocket Is Making a Mess In Low-Earth Orbit.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: The upper stage from a Chinese rocket that launched a batch of Internet satellites Tuesday has broken apart in space, creating a debris field of at least 700 objects in one of the most heavily-trafficked zones in low-Earth orbit. US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military's ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches). Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said. The culprit is the second stage of China's Long March 6A rocket, which lifted off Tuesday with the first batch of 18 satellites for a planned Chinese megaconstellation that could eventually number thousands of spacecraft. The Long March 6A's second stage apparently disintegrated after placing its payload of 18 satellites into a polar orbit.

Space Command said in a statement it has "observed no immediate threats" and "continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain." According to LeoLabs, radar data indicated the rocket broke apart at an altitude of 503 miles (810 kilometers) at approximately 4:10 pm EDT (20:10 UTC) on Tuesday, around 13-and-a-half hours after it lifted off from northern China. At this altitude, it will take decades or centuries for the wispy effect of aerodynamic drag to pull the debris back into the atmosphere. As the objects drift lower, their orbits will cross paths with SpaceX's Starlink Internet satellites, the International Space Station and other crew spacecraft, and thousands more pieces of orbital debris, putting commercial and government satellites at risk of collision.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/10/0146227/chinas-long-march-6a-rocket-is-making-a-mess-in-low-earth-orbit?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/08/10/0146227/chinas-long-march-6a-rocket-is-making-a-mess-in-low-earth-orbit?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


DARPA Wants To Bypass the Thermal Middleman In Nuclear Power Systems

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is exploring the possibility of directly converting radiation from nuclear reactors into electricity using radiovoltaics, a technology that could potentially revolutionize nuclear power generation by moving beyond traditional steam turbine methods. The agency is requesting information and suggestions on this topic in an RFI released on August 1st. Nuclear News reports: There's got to be a better way": Methods to convert the energy of nuclear fission reactions and the decay of radioisotopes into electricity have not evolved since the invention of radioisotope power systems and fission reactors over 70 years ago and remain unoptimized," the RFI says. They rely on thermal heat transfer, and "in each step of this indirect conversion method neutrons, heat, and energy are lost to the shielding material, working fluid, and other system materials." Advanced reactor designs that use alternative coolants, including helium, sodium, and salts, would still use what DARPA calls "heritage nuclear power conversion technology" with water and steam as the working fluids, as would the fusion power plants being planned today.

Why now? Tabitha Dodson, the program manager for DARPA DSO, which is launching the RFI, told Nuclear News that "two big things" are driving the interest. "One is the extreme surge of investment in small and advanced nuclear technologies, such as in fusion and space reactors, which do not have a concurrent pairing of advanced power generation methods that doesn't involve liquid-based heat transfer," she said. "Next, there has been an order of magnitude improvement in radiation tolerance and efficiency for voltaics in recent years with encouraging performance that indicates radiovoltaics could scale up as an array usable in nuclear reactors." [...]

What is the ask?: The RFI asks: "Is it possible to achieve [a] direct energy conversion nuclear power system, ranging in power from 10s of watts electric (We) to 100s of kWe?" DARPA wants information "on the potential to improve specific power greater than 1 We/kg conversion from watts-thermal per radiation emission product," and information on the potential to improve damage tolerance of the voltaic to nuclear radiation to reach an operating lifetime comparable to the life of its nuclear source, on the scale of decades. "We will learn what our boundary conditions are when respondents tell us what technologies in the field of voltaics are possible, and we'll use that to see if there is sufficient scientific rationale make a case to present for further DARPA investment," Dodson said. "I also hope people are going to start thinking about nuclear systems that use electromagnetic versus thermal-kinetic methods to harvest nuclear energetic reactions."

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/10/0157258/darpa-wants-to-bypass-the-thermal-middleman-in-nuclear-power-systems?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/10/0157258/darpa-wants-to-bypass-the-thermal-middleman-in-nuclear-power-systems?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Japan Issues First Ever 'Megaquake' Warning

After a 7.1 tremor struck southwestern Japan on Thursday, the country's meteorological agency issued its first-ever alert for a possible "megaquake." It marks the first time the warning has been issued under new rules drawn up after a 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster killed almost 20,000 people. Phys.org reports: The JMA's "megaquake advisory" warns that "if a major earthquake were to occur in the future, strong shaking and large tsunamis would be generated." "The likelihood of a new major earthquake is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a major earthquake will definitely occur during a specific period of time," it added. The advisory concerns the Nankai Trough "subduction zone" between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, where massive earthquakes have hit in the past. [...]

Japan's government has previously said the next magnitude 8-9 megaquake along the Nankai Trough has a roughly 70 percent probability of striking within the next 30 years. In the worst-case scenario 300,000 lives could be lost, experts estimate, with some engineers saying the damage could reach $13 trillion with infrastructure wiped out. "The history of great earthquakes at Nankai is convincingly scary," geologists Kyle Bradley and Judith A Hubbard wrote in their Earthquake Insights newsletter. And "while earthquake prediction is impossible, the occurrence of one earthquake usually does raise the likelihood of another", they explained. "A future great Nankai earthquake is surely the most long-anticipated earthquake in history -- it is the original definition of the 'Big One'."

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/2339254/japan-issues-first-ever-megaquake-warning?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/2339254/japan-issues-first-ever-megaquake-warning?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


'Sinkclose' Flaw in Hundreds of Millions of AMD Chips Allows Deep, Virtually Unfixable Infections

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Security flaws in your computer's firmware, the deep-seated code that loads first when you turn the machine on and controls even how its operating system boots up, have long been a target for hackers looking for a stealthy foothold. But only rarely does that kind of vulnerability appear not in the firmware of any particular computer maker, but in the chips found across hundreds of millions of PCs and servers. Now security researchers have found one such flaw that has persisted in AMD processors for decades, and that would allow malware to burrow deep enough into a computer's memory that, in many cases, it may be easier to discard a machine than to disinfect it. At the Defcon hacker conference tomorrow, Enrique Nissim and Krzysztof Okupski, researchers from the security firm IOActive, plan to present a vulnerability in AMD chips they're calling Sinkclose. The flaw would allow hackers to run their own code in one of the most privileged modes of an AMD processor, known as System Management Mode, designed to be reserved only for a specific, protected portion of its firmware. IOActive's researchers warn that it affects virtually all AMD chips dating back to 2006, or possibly even earlier.

Nissim and Okupski note that exploiting the bug would require hackers to already have obtained relatively deep access to an AMD-based PC or server, but that the Sinkclose flaw would then allow them to plant their malicious code far deeper still. In fact, for any machine with one of the vulnerable AMD chips, the IOActive researchers warn that an attacker could infect the computer with malware known as a "bootkit" that evades antivirus tools and is potentially invisible to the operating system, while offering a hacker full access to tamper with the machine and surveil its activity. For systems with certain faulty configurations in how a computer maker implemented AMD's security feature known as Platform Secure Boot -- which the researchers warn encompasses the large majority of the systems they tested -- a malware infection installed via Sinkclose could be harder yet to detect or remediate, they say, surviving even a reinstallation of the operating system. Only opening a computer's case, physically connecting directly to a certain portion of its memory chips with a hardware-based programming tool known as SPI Flash programmer and meticulously scouring the memory would allow the malware to be removed, Okupski says. Nissim sums up that worst-case scenario in more practical terms: "You basically have to throw your computer away." In a statement shared with WIRED, AMD said it "released mitigation options for its AMD EPYC datacenter products and AMD Ryzen PC products, with mitigations for AMD embedded products coming soon."

The company also noted that it released patches for its EPYC processors earlier this year. It did not answer questions about how it intends to fix the Sinkclose vulnerability.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/2054225/sinkclose-flaw-in-hundreds-of-millions-of-amd-chips-allows-deep-virtually-unfixable-infections?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/2054225/sinkclose-flaw-in-hundreds-of-millions-of-amd-chips-allows-deep-virtually-unfixable-infections?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Cisco To Lay Off Thousands More in Second Job Cut This Year

Cisco will cut thousands of jobs in a second round of layoffs this year as the U.S. networking equipment maker shifts focus to higher-growth areas, including cybersecurity and AI, Reuters reported Friday, citing sources. From the report: The number of people affected could be similar to or slightly higher than the 4,000 employees Cisco laid off in February, and will likely be announced as early as Wednesday with the company's fourth-quarter results, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/2045240/cisco-to-lay-off-thousands-more-in-second-job-cut-this-year?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/2045240/cisco-to-lay-off-thousands-more-in-second-job-cut-this-year?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Nova Launcher, Savior of Cruft-Filled Android Phones, Is On Life Support

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Back in July 2022, when mobile app metrics firm Branch acquired the popular and well-regarded Nova Launcher for Android, the app's site put up one of those self-directed FAQ posts about it. Under the question heading "What does Branch want with Nova?," Nova founder and creator Kevin Barry started his response with, "Not to mess it up, don't worry!" Branch (formerly/sometimes Branch Metrics) is a firm concerned with helping businesses track the links that lead into their apps, whether from SMS, email, marketing, or inside other apps. Nova, with its Sesame Search tool that helped users find and access deeper links -- like heading straight to calling a car, rather than just opening a rideshare app -- seemed like a reasonable fit. Barry wrote that he had received a number of acquisition offers over the years, but he didn't want to be swallowed by a giant corporation, an OEM, or a volatile startup. "Branch is different," he wrote then, because they wanted to add staff to Nova, keep it available to the public, and mostly leave it alone.

Two years later, Branch has left Nova Launcher a bit too alone. As documented on Nova's official X (formerly Twitter) account, and transcripts from its Discord, as of Thursday Nova had "gone from a team of around a dozen people" to just Barry, the founder, working alone. The Nova cuts were part of "a massive layoff" of purportedly more than 100 people across all of Branch, according to now-former Nova workers. Barry wrote that he would keep working on Nova, "However I have less resources." He would need to "cut scope" on an upcoming Nova release, he wrote. Other employees noted that customer support, marketing, and even correspondence would likely be strained or disappear. "While Nova is not dead (despite mine and others' eulogistic tones), it's certainly not positioned to launch bold new features or plot new futures," writes Ars' Kevin Purdy, in closing. "Here's hoping Barry can make a go of Nova Launcher for as long as it's viable for him."

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1950237/nova-launcher-savior-of-cruft-filled-android-phones-is-on-life-support?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1950237/nova-launcher-savior-of-cruft-filled-android-phones-is-on-life-support?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


A Crackdown Is Coming for People Hanging On To Student Discounts

Major U.S. companies are tightening eligibility requirements for student discounts, cracking down on graduates who continue to claim benefits years after leaving school. Amazon, Spotify, and other firms are partnering with verification services like SheerID to validate student status, ending an era of lax enforcement that allowed many to exploit discounts long after graduation.

While companies aim to build brand loyalty among young consumers, they're also guarding against fraud. SheerID claims it helped clients avoid $2 billion in fraudulent discounts last year. Most streaming services retain over 90% of student customers after graduation, according to SheerID CEO Stephanie Copeland Weber. "They're building trust and loyalty with those consumers," she told WSJ.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1425207/a-crackdown-is-coming-for-people-hanging-on-to-student-discounts?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1425207/a-crackdown-is-coming-for-people-hanging-on-to-student-discounts?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


OpenAI Finds That GPT-4o Does Some Truly Bizarre Stuff Sometimes

OpenAI's latest AI model, GPT-4o, exhibits unusual behaviors, including voice cloning and random shouting, according to a new "red teaming" report. The model, which powers ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode alpha, is OpenAI's first trained on voice, text, and image data. In high-noise environments, GPT-4o occasionally mimics users' voices, a quirk OpenAI attributes to difficulties processing distorted speech. The company said it has implemented a "system-level mitigation" to address this issue. The report also reveals GPT-4o's tendency to generate inappropriate vocalizations and sound effects when prompted.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1359220/openai-finds-that-gpt-4o-does-some-truly-bizarre-stuff-sometimes?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1359220/openai-finds-that-gpt-4o-does-some-truly-bizarre-stuff-sometimes?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


US Landfills Are Major Source of Toxic PFAS Pollution, Study Finds

Toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution. Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air. From a report: PFAS gas that emits from landfill waste ends up highly concentrated in the facilities' gas treatment systems, but the systems are not designed to manage or destroy the chemicals, and much of them probably end up in the environment.

The findings, which showed up to three times as much PFAS in landfill gas as in leachate, are "definitely an alarming thing for us to see," said Ashley Lin, a University of Florida researcher and the lead author of the study. "These findings suggest that landfill gas, a less scrutinized byproduct, serves as a major pathway for the mobility of PFAS from landfills," the paper's authors wrote.

PFAS are a class of about 16,000 compounds used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called "forever chemicals" because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems. As researchers have begun to understand the chemicals' dangers in recent years, the focus has largely been on water pollution, and regulators have said virtually all leachate from the nation's 200 landfills contain PFAS. But scientists are beginning to understand that PFAS air pollution is also a significant threat.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1328250/us-landfills-are-major-source-of-toxic-pfas-pollution-study-finds?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/1328250/us-landfills-are-major-source-of-toxic-pfas-pollution-study-finds?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


USPS Text Scammers Duped His Wife, So He Hacked Their Operation

Security researcher Grant Smith uncovered a large-scale smishing scam where scammers posing as the USPS tricked victims into providing their credit card details through fake websites. Smith hacked into the scammers' systems, gathered evidence, and collaborated with the USPS and a US bank to protect over 438,000 unique credit cards from fraudulent activity. Wired reports: The flood of text messages started arriving early this year. They carried a similar thrust: The United States Postal Service is trying to deliver a parcel but needs more details, including your credit card number. All the messages pointed to websites where the information could be entered. Like thousands of others, security researcher Grant Smith got a USPS package message. Many of his friends had received similar texts. A couple of days earlier, he says, his wife called him and said she'd inadvertently entered her credit card details. With little going on after the holidays, Smith began a mission: Hunt down the scammers. Over the course of a few weeks, Smith tracked down the Chinese-language group behind the mass-smishing campaign, hacked into their systems, collected evidence of their activities, and started a months-long process of gathering victim data and handing it to USPS investigators and a US bank, allowing people's cards to be protected from fraudulent activity.

In total, people entered 438,669 unique credit cards into 1,133 domains used by the scammers, says Smith, a red team engineer and the founder of offensive cybersecurity firm Phantom Security. Many people entered multiple cards each, he says. More than 50,000 email addresses were logged, including hundreds of university email addresses and 20 military or government email domains. The victims were spread across the United States -- California, the state with the most, had 141,000 entries -- with more than 1.2 million pieces of information being entered in total. "This shows the mass scale of the problem," says Smith, who is presenting his findings at the Defcon security conference this weekend and previously published some details of the work. But the scale of the scamming is likely to be much larger, Smith says, as he didn't manage to track down all of the fraudulent USPS websites, and the group behind the efforts have been linked to similar scams in at least half a dozen other countries.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/0032216/usps-text-scammers-duped-his-wife-so-he-hacked-their-operation?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/0032216/usps-text-scammers-duped-his-wife-so-he-hacked-their-operation?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


String of Record Hot Months Came To an End In July

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The past several years have been absolute scorchers, with 2023 being the warmest year ever recorded. And things did not slow down in 2024. As a result, we entered a stretch where every month set a new record as the warmest iteration of that month that we've ever recorded. Last month, that pattern stretched out for a full 12 months, as June of 2024 once again became the warmest June ever recorded. But, despite some exceptional temperatures in July, it fell just short of last July's monthly temperature record, bringing the streak to a close.

Europe's Copernicus system was first to announce that July of 2024 was ever so slightly cooler than July of 2023, missing out on setting a new record by just 0.04 degrees C. So far, none of the other major climate trackers, such as Berkeley Earth or NASA GISS, have come out with data for July. These each have slightly different approaches to tracking temperatures, and, with a margin that small, it's possible we'll see one of them register last month as warmer or statistically indistinguishable. According to the Copernicus system, July 2024 was 0.68 degrees above the average temperature for July from 1991 to 2020. It also included the warmest day ever recorded.

In terms of anomalies, July 2024 also represents the first time in a year that a month was less than 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial temperatures (defined as the average from 1850-1900).

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/224215/string-of-record-hot-months-came-to-an-end-in-july?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/224215/string-of-record-hot-months-came-to-an-end-in-july?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


FTX Ordered To Pay $12.7 Billion To Customers, US CFTC Says

FTX has been ordered to pay $12.7 billion in relief to its customers, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In a statement, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam said the crypto exchange drew customers in with "an illusion that it was a safe and secure place to access crypto markets," then misappropriated their customer deposits to make its own risky investments. Reuters reports: The repayment order implements a settlement between the CFTC and the bankrupt crypto exchange, which has committed to a bankruptcy liquidation that will repay customers whose deposits were locked during its late 2022 collapse. FTX has said that its customers will receive 100% recovery on their claims against the company, based on the value of their accounts at the time it filed for bankruptcy. The CFTC agreement resolves a potential roadblock to that repayment, ensuring that the government's lawsuit against FTX will not reduce the funds available to its customers. The CFTC agreed not to collect any payment from FTX until all its customers are repaid, with interest.

The CFTC settlement requires FTX to pay $8.7 billion in restitution and $4 billion in disgorgement, which will be used to further compensate victims for losses suffered during the exchange's collapse. [...] FTX is currently soliciting votes on its bankruptcy proposal but faces opposition from some customers who feel short-changed by the decision to repay them based on much-lower cryptocurrency prices from November 2022. Votes are due on Aug. 16, and FTX intends to seek final approval of its wind-down plan on Oct. 7.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/0022231/ftx-ordered-to-pay-127-billion-to-customers-us-cftc-says?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://slashdot.org/story/24/08/09/0022231/ftx-ordered-to-pay-127-billion-to-customers-us-cftc-says?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Sonos Delays Two New Products As It Races To Fix Buggy App

"Sonos is delaying two hardware releases originally planned for later this year as it deploys an all-hands-on-deck approach to fixing the app," writes The Verge's Chris Welch. The company released a redesigned mobile app on May 7th that has been riddled with flaws and missing features. Sonos also entered the crowded headphone market in May with the launch of its Ace headphones, but it was immediately "overshadowed" by problems with the new Sonos app, according to Sonos CEO Patrick Spence. The Verge reports: "I will not rest until we're in a position where we've addressed the issues and have customers raving about Sonos again," Spence said during the afternoon earnings call. "We believe our focus needs to be addressing the app ahead of everything else," he continued."This means delaying the two major new product releases we had planned for Q4 until our app experience meets the level of quality that we, our customers, and our partners expect from Sonos." One of those two products is almost certainly Sonos' next flagship soundbar, codenamed Lasso, which I revealed last month. "These products were ready to ship in Q4," Spence said in response to a question on the call.

He also went in-depth on the app issues and how Sonos plans to fix them. Spence remains adamant that overhauling the app and its underlying infrastructure "was the right thing to do" for the company's future; the new app "has a modular developer platform based on modern programming languages that will allow us to drive more innovation faster," he said. But Spence also now acknowledges that the project was rushed. "With the app, my push for speed backfired," he said. "As we rolled out the new software to more and more users, it became evident that there were stubborn bugs we had not discovered in our testing. As a result, far too many of our customers are having an experience that is worse than what they previously had." [...]

For now, Sonos is turning to some longtime experts for help. "I've asked Nick Millington, the original software architect of the Sonos experience, to do whatever it takes to address the issues with our new app," Spence said. Sonos board member Tom Conrad is helping to oversee the app improvement effort and "ensure" things stay on the right track.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/2054229/sonos-delays-two-new-products-as-it-races-to-fix-buggy-app?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/2054229/sonos-delays-two-new-products-as-it-races-to-fix-buggy-app?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


World's Largest 3D-Printed Neighborhood Nears Completion in Texas

ICON, a construction technology company, is nearing completion of 100 3D-printed homes in Wolf Ranch, Texas, using a massive robotic printer. The 45-foot-wide, 4.75-ton Vulcan printer began constructing the walls of what ICON claims is the world's largest 3D-printed community in November 2022. The printer extrudes a concrete mixture layer by layer, creating corduroy-textured walls. ICON senior project manager Conner Jenkins told Reuters the process is faster and more efficient than traditional construction, requiring fewer workers and reducing material waste.

The single-story homes, priced between $450,000 and $600,000, feature concrete walls resistant to water, mold, termites, and extreme weather. However, homeowners reported weak wireless signals due to the thick walls, necessitating mesh internet routers. ICON, which printed its first home in Austin in 2018, is also developing lunar construction systems for NASA's Artemis program.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/1715247/worlds-largest-3d-printed-neighborhood-nears-completion-in-texas?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/1715247/worlds-largest-3d-printed-neighborhood-nears-completion-in-texas?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


macOS Sequoia Adds Weekly Permission Prompt For Screenshot and Screen Recording Apps

Apple is set to implement stricter controls on screen recording permissions in its upcoming macOS Sequoia release this fall. Users will be required to grant explicit permission weekly and after each reboot for apps needing screen access, 9to5Mac reports. From the report: Multiple developers who spoke to 9to5Mac say that they've received confirmation from Apple that this is not a bug. Instead, Apple is indeed adding a new system prompt reminding users when an app has permission to access their computer's screen and audio.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/172201/macos-sequoia-adds-weekly-permission-prompt-for-screenshot-and-screen-recording-apps?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/172201/macos-sequoia-adds-weekly-permission-prompt-for-screenshot-and-screen-recording-apps?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Palantir CTO Urges Pentagon To Prioritize Speed in Defense Spending

Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar has called for faster defense spending, arguing the Pentagon should focus on rapid deployment over higher budgets. "The biggest challenge is speed," Sankar told Axios in an interview. "The Department of Defense would be better off spending half as much money twice as quickly."

The U.S. military has "lost our ability to value time," he said. The Denver-based software company, known for its work in areas ranging from vaccine logistics to Ukraine demining efforts, has positioned itself as a "software prime" in the defense sector.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/1519207/palantir-cto-urges-pentagon-to-prioritize-speed-in-defense-spending?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/1519207/palantir-cto-urges-pentagon-to-prioritize-speed-in-defense-spending?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Video Game Adaptation 'Borderlands' Hits Theaters With Rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes

An anonymous reader shares a report: I'm not sure I knew of anyone, Borderlands fan or not, who believed that the movie adaptation of the game was going to be good, based on everything from casting to trailers. Now as reviews come in ahead of its release tomorrow, those fears have been validated. And then some. As I write this, the Borderlands movie has a flat 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. No positive reviews whatsoever, and the ones that are in are not just negative, but brutal.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/1525213/video-game-adaptation-borderlands-hits-theaters-with-rare-0-on-rotten-tomatoes?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/1525213/video-game-adaptation-borderlands-hits-theaters-with-rare-0-on-rotten-tomatoes?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


ICANN Reserves<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.Internal For Private Use at the DNS Level

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has agreed to reserve the .internal top-level domain so it can become the equivalent to using the 10.0.0.0, 172.16.0.0 and 192.168.0.0 IPv4 address blocks for internal networks. From a report: Those blocks are reserved for private use by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which requires they never appear on the public internet. As The Register reported when we spotted the proposal last January, ICANN wanted something similar but for DNS, by defining a top-level domain that would never be delegated in the global domain name system (DNS) root.

Doing so would mean the TLD could never be accessed on the open internet -- achieving the org's goal of delivering a domain that could be used for internal networks without fear of conflict or confusion. ICANN suggested such a domain could be useful, because some orgs had already started making up and using their own domain names for private internal use only. Networking equipment vendor D-Link, for example, made the web interface for its products available on internal networks at .dlink. ICANN didn't like that because the org thought ad hoc TLD creation could see netizens assume the TLDs had wider use -- creating traffic that busy DNS servers would have to handle. Picking a string dedicated to internal networks was the alternative. After years of consultation about whether it was a good idea -- and which string should be selected -- ICANN last week decided on .internal. Any future applications to register it as a global TLD won't be allowed.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/145223/icann-reserves-internal-for-private-use-at-the-dns-level?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/145223/icann-reserves-internal-for-private-use-at-the-dns-level?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Mayor Shows Pirated Movie On Town Square Big Screen In Brazil

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In Brazil, there was a [...] unbelievable display of public piracy last week that went on to make national headlines. The mayor of the municipality Acopiara, in the north-east of the country, invited citizens of the small town Trussu to join a screening of the blockbuster "Inside Out 2" at the local town square. With little more than a thousand inhabitants, many of whom have limited means, this appeared to be a kind gesture. The mayor, Anthony Almeida Neto, could use some positive marks too; he was removed from office three times on suspicion of being involved in corruption schemes, and was most recently reinstated in March. The mayor officially announced the public screening of 'Inside Out 2' via Instagram and Facebook, inviting people to join him. That worked well as a sizable crowd showed up, allowing the controversial mayor to proudly boast the event's popularity in public through his social media channels.

Taking place in an outside theater created just for this occasion, the screening was a unique opportunity for the small town's residents. There are no official movie theaters nearby, so locals would normally have to travel for several hours to see a film that's still in cinemas. Thanks to the mayor, people could see 'Inside Out 2' in their hometown instead. The mayor was pleased with the turnout too and proudly broadcasted it through a livestream on Instagram. Amidst all this joy, however, people started to notice a watermark on the film that was clearly associated with piracy. In addition, it was apparent that the copy had been sourced from pirate streaming site, Obaflix. All signs indicate that the public event wasn't authorized or licensed. Instead, it appeared to be an improvised screening of a low-quality TS release of the film, which is widely available through pirate sites. When this 'revelation' was picked up in the Brazilian press, mayor Anthony Almeida was quick to respond with assurances that he only had honest intentions.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/001240/mayor-shows-pirated-movie-on-town-square-big-screen-in-brazil?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/08/08/001240/mayor-shows-pirated-movie-on-town-square-big-screen-in-brazil?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


China Launches Satellites For Major Network To Rival Starlink

An anonymous reader quotes a report originally published by Business Insider: A Chinese state-backed company has launched its first 18 satellites in its bid to build a vast orbital network aimed at rivaling Starlink, according to local media. The launch on Monday by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology involved 18 satellites and one rocket, per The China Securities Journal, which is run by state news agency Xinhua. According to the outlet, the rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan satellite and missile launch center in Shanxi province.

These satellites mark the first step in the company's effort to create a 15,000-strong network of Low Earth Orbit satellites, which the firm has dubbed the "Thousand Sails Constellation." The company said it plans to reach that final tally by 2030, per The China Securities Journal. Domestic media has widely called the project the Chinese version of Starlink, which runs about 6,000 satellites. Elon Musk has said that he plans to eventually host a network of 42,000 satellites.

The Thousand Sails Constellation, also known as the G60 project, is one of three planned major satellite networks in the country. Each is expected to field 10,000 or more satellites. Most are anticipated to orbit between 200 and 1,200 miles above the Earth's surface, which is also where Starlink satellites are generally found. The three constellations, along with dozens of ambitious space projects from other Chinese firms, have been fueled by a recent push from the central government to loop the private sector into its science and technology goals.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/2243221/china-launches-satellites-for-major-network-to-rival-starlink?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/2243221/china-launches-satellites-for-major-network-to-rival-starlink?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Australian State Orders Public Servants To Stop Remote Working After a Newspaper Campaign Against It

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The government of Australia's most populous state ordered all public employees to work from their offices by default beginning Tuesday and urged stricter limits on remote work, after news outlets provoked a fraught debate about work-from-home habits established during the pandemic. Chris Minns, the New South Wales premier, said in a notice to agencies Monday that jobs could be made flexible by means other than remote working, such as part-time positions and role sharing, and that "building and replenishing public institutions" required "being physically present." His remarks were welcomed by business and real estate groups in the state's largest city, Sydney, who have decried falling office occupancy rates since 2020, but denounced by unions, who pledged to challenge the initiative if it was invoked unnecessarily.

The instruction made the state's government, Australia's largest employer with more than 400,000 staff, the latest among a growing number of firms and institutions worldwide to attempt a reversal of remote working arrangements introduced as the coronavirus spread. But it defied an embrace of remote work by the governments of some other Australian states, said some analysts, who suggested lobbying by a major newspaper prompted the change. "It seems that the Rupert Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney has been trying to get the New South Wales government to mandate essentially that workers go back to the office," said Chris F. Wright, an associate professor in the discipline of work at the University of Sydney. The newspaper cited prospective economic boons for struggling businesses.

The newspaper wrote Tuesday that the premier's decision "ending the work from home era" followed its urging, although Minns did not name it as a factor. But the union representing public servants said there was scant evidence for the change and warned the state government could struggle to fill positions. "Throughout the New South Wales public sector, they're trying to retain people," said Stewart Little, the General Secretary of the Public Service Association. "In some critical agencies like child protection we're looking at 20% vacancy rates, you're talking about hundreds of jobs." Little added that government offices have shrunk since 2020 and agencies would be unable to physically accommodate every employee on site. Minns said the state would lease more space, according to the Daily Telegraph. Further reading: Ordered Back To the Office, Top Tech Talent Left Instead, Study Finds

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/2139213/australian-state-orders-public-servants-to-stop-remote-working-after-a-newspaper-campaign-against-it?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/2139213/australian-state-orders-public-servants-to-stop-remote-working-after-a-newspaper-campaign-against-it?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Morgan Stanley Tells Wealth Advisors They Can Pitch Bitcoin ETFs

Starting today, Morgan Stanley's advisors are allowed to offer bitcoin ETFs to some clients -- a first among major Wall Street banks. "Those funds are BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund," reports CNBC. From the report: Morgan Stanley made the move in response to demand from clients and in an attempt to follow an evolving marketplace for digital assets [...].The bank is still striking a note of caution, however, in the rollout: Only clients with a net worth of at least $1.5 million, an aggressive risk tolerance and the desire to make speculative investments are suitable for bitcoin ETF solicitation, said the people. The investments are for taxable brokerage accounts, not retirement accounts, they added. The bank will monitor clients' crypto holdings to make sure they don't end up with excessive exposure to the volatile asset class, according to the sources.

The only crypto investments approved for solicited purchase at Morgan Stanley are the pair of bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity; private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that the bank made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year. Morgan Stanley is watching how the market for newly approved ether ETFs develops and hasn't committed to whether it would provide access to those, the people said.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/2124230/morgan-stanley-tells-wealth-advisors-they-can-pitch-bitcoin-etfs?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/2124230/morgan-stanley-tells-wealth-advisors-they-can-pitch-bitcoin-etfs?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Your Windows Updates Can All Be Downgraded, Says Security Researcher

Security researchers from SafeBreach have found what they say is a Windows downgrade attack
 that's invisible, persistent, irreversible and maybe even more dangerous than last year's BlackLotus UEFI bootkit. From a report: After seeing the damage that UEFI bootkit could do by bypassing secure boot processes in Windows, SafeBreach's Alon Leviev became curious whether there were any other fundamental Windows components that could be abused in a similar manner. He hit the jackpot in one of the most unlikely places: The Windows update process.

"I found a way to take over Windows updates to update the system, but with control over all of the actual update contents," Leviev told us in an interview ahead of his Black Hat USA conference presentation today detailing his findings. Using his technique, having compromised a machine so that he could get in as a normal user, Leviev was able to control which files get updated, which registry keys are changed, which installers get used, and the like. And he was able to do all of it while side-stepping every single integrity verification implemented in the Windows update process. After that, "I was able to downgrade the OS kernel, DLLs, drivers ... basically everything that I wanted." To make matters worse, Leviev said that poking and prodding around the vulnerabilities he found enabled him to attack the entire Windows virtualization stack, including virtualization-based security (VBS) features that are supposed to isolate the kernel and make attacker access less valuable.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1845258/your-windows-updates-can-all-be-downgraded-says-security-researcher?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1845258/your-windows-updates-can-all-be-downgraded-says-security-researcher?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Humane's Daily Returns Are Outpacing Sales

Things aren't working out well for Humane, a heavily-funded startup that launched an eponymous AI device earlier this year. Despite significant funding from prominent Silicon Valley figures, the product has been grappling with negative reviews -- and now more pressing issues are emerging. An anonymous reader shares a report: Shortly after Humane released its $699 AI Pin in April, the returns started flowing in. Between May and August, more AI Pins were returned than purchased, according to internal sales data obtained by The Verge. By June, only around 8,000 units hadn't been returned, a source with direct knowledge of sales and return data told me. As of today, the number of units still in customer hands had fallen closer to 7,000, a source with direct knowledge said.

At launch, the AI Pin was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews. Our own David Pierce said it "just doesn't work," and Marques Brownlee called it "the worst product" he's ever reviewed. Now, Humane is attempting to stabilize its operations and maintain confidence among staff and potential acquirers. The New York Times reported in June that HP is considering purchasing the company, and The Information reported last week that Humane is negotiating with its current investors to raise debt, which could later be converted into equity.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1739206/humanes-daily-returns-are-outpacing-sales?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1739206/humanes-daily-returns-are-outpacing-sales?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Logitech Says the 'Forever Mouse' Was Just an Idea

Logitech has quashed its earlier remarks about building a subscription-based mouse, following widespread backlash to comments made by CEO Hanneke Faber. The Swiss-American computer peripherals maker clarified that the "forever mouse" concept, mentioned by Faber in a recent podcast interview, was merely speculative internal discussion and not a planned product.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1541211/logitech-says-the-forever-mouse-was-just-an-idea?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1541211/logitech-says-the-forever-mouse-was-just-an-idea?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Reddit CEO Teases AI Search Features and Paid Subreddits

An anonymous reader shares a report: Reddit just wrapped up its second earnings call as a public company and CEO Steve Huffman hinted at some significant changes that could be coming to the platform. During the call, the Reddit co-founder said the company would begin testing AI-powered search results later this year. "Later this year, we will begin testing new search result pages powered by AI to summarize and recommend content, helping users dive deeper into products, shows, games and discover new communities on Reddit," Huffman said. He didn't say when those tests would begin, but said it would use both first-party and third-party models.

Huffman noted that search on Reddit has "gone unchanged for a long time" but that it's a significant opportunity to bring in new users. He also said that search could one day be a significant source of advertising revenue for the company. Huffman hinted at other non-advertising sources of revenue as well. He suggested that the company might experiment with paywalled subreddits as it looks to monetize new features.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1536235/reddit-ceo-teases-ai-search-features-and-paid-subreddits?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/07/1536235/reddit-ceo-teases-ai-search-features-and-paid-subreddits?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Techdirt's Mike Masnick Joins the Bluesky Board To Support a 'More Open, Decentralized Internet'

Mike Masnick, a semi-regular Slashdot contributor and founder of the tech blog Techdirt, is joining the board of Bluesky, where he "will be providing advice and guidance to the company to help it achieve its vision of a more open, more competitive, more decentralized online world." Masnick writes: In the nearly three decades that I've been writing Techdirt I've been writing about what is happening in the world of the internet, but also about how much better the internet can be. That won't change. I will still be writing about what is happening and where I believe we should be going. But given that there are now people trying to turn some of that better vision into a reality, I cannot resist this opportunity to help them achieve that goal. The early internet had tremendous promise as a decentralized system that enabled anyone to build what they wanted on a global open network, opening up all sorts of possibilities for human empowerment and creativity. But over the last couple of decades, the internet has moved away from that democratizing promise. Instead, it has been effectively taken over by a small number of giant companies with centralized, proprietary, closed systems that have supplanted the more open network we were promised.

There are, of course, understandable reasons why those centralized systems have been successful, such as by providing a more user-friendly experience on the front-end. But there was a price to pay: losing user autonomy, privacy and the benefits of decentralization (not to mention losing a highly dynamic, competitive internet). The internet need not be so limited, and over the years I've tried to encourage people and companies to make different choices to return to the original promise and benefits of openness. With Bluesky, we now have one company who is trying. "Mike's work has been an inspiration to us from the start," says Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky. "Having him join our board feels like a natural progression of our shared vision for a more open internet. His perspective will help ensure we're building something that truly serves users as we continue to evolve Bluesky and the AT Protocol."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2334235/techdirts-mike-masnick-joins-the-bluesky-board-to-support-a-more-open-decentralized-internet?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2334235/techdirts-mike-masnick-joins-the-bluesky-board-to-support-a-more-open-decentralized-internet?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


NVMe 2.1 Specifications Published With New Capabilities

At the Flash Memory Summit 2024 this week, NVM Express published the NVMe 2.1 specifications, which hope to enhance storage unification across AI, cloud, client, and enterprise. Phoronix's Michael Larabel writes: New NVMe capabilities with the revised specifications include:

- Enabling live migration of PCIe NVMe controllers between NVM subsystems.
- New host-directed data placement for SSDs that simplifies ecosystem integration and is backwards compatible with previous NVMe specifications.
- Support for offloading some host processing to NVMe storage devices.
- A network boot mechanism for NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF).
- Support for NVMe over Fabrics zoning.
- Ability to provide host management of encryption keys and highly granular encryption with Key Per I/O.
- Security enhancements such as support for TLS 1.3, a centralized authentication verification entity for DH-HMAC-CHAP, and post sanitization media verification.
- Management enhancements including support for high availability out-of-band management, management over I3C, out-of-band management asynchronous events and dynamic creation of exported NVM subsystems from underlying NVM subsystem physical resources. You can learn more about these updates at NVMExpress.org.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2353214/nvme-21-specifications-published-with-new-capabilities?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2353214/nvme-21-specifications-published-with-new-capabilities?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


WordStar 7, the Last Ever DOS Version, Is Re-Released For Free

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Before WordPerfect, the most popular work processor was WordStar. Now, the last ever DOS version has been bundled and set free by one of its biggest fans. WordStar 7.0d was the last-ever DOS release of the classic word processor, and it still has admirers today. A notable enthusiast is Canadian SF writer Robert J Sawyer, who wrote the book that became the TV series Flashforward.

Thanks to his efforts you can now try out this pinnacle of pre-Windows PC programs for professional prose-smiths. Sawyer has taken the final release, packaged it up along with some useful tools -- including DOS emulators for modern Windows -- and shared the result. Now you, too, can revel in the sheer unbridled power of this powerful app. The download is 680MB, but as well as the app itself, full documentation, and some tools to help translate WordStar documents to more modern formats, it also includes copies of two FOSS tools that will let you run this MS-DOS application on modern Windows: DOSbox-X and vDosPlus. "The program has been a big part of my career -- not only did I write all 25 of my novels and almost all of my short stories with it (a few date back to the typewriter era), I also in my earlier freelance days wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles with WordStar," says Sawyer.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2136259/wordstar-7-the-last-ever-dos-version-is-re-released-for-free?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2136259/wordstar-7-the-last-ever-dos-version-is-re-released-for-free?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Where Facebook's AI Slop Comes From

Facebook's AI-generated content problem is being fueled by its own creator bonus program, according to an investigation by 404 Media. The program incentivizes users, particularly from developing countries, to flood the platform with AI-generated images for financial gain. The outlet found that influencers in India and Southeast Asia are teaching followers how to exploit Facebook's algorithms and content moderation systems to go viral with AI-generated images. Many use Microsoft's Bing Image Creator to produce bizarre, often emotive content that garners high engagement.

"The post you are seeing now is of a poor man that is being used to generate revenue," said Indian YouTuber Gyan Abhishek in a video, pointing to an AI image of an emaciated elderly man. He claimed users could earn "$100 for 1,000 likes" through Facebook's bonus program. While exact payment rates vary, 404 Media verified that consistent viral posting can lead to significant earnings for users in countries like India. Meta has defended the program to 404 Media, stating it works as intended if content meets community standards and engagement is authentic.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2116258/where-facebooks-ai-slop-comes-from?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2116258/where-facebooks-ai-slop-comes-from?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Apple's Hidden AI Prompts Discovered In macOS Beta

A Reddit user discovered the backend prompts for Apple Intelligence in the developer beta of macOS 15.1, offering a rare glimpse into the specific guidelines for Apple's AI functionalities. Some of the most notable instructions include: "Do not write a story that is religious, political, harmful, violent, sexual, filthy, or in any way negative, sad, or provocative"; "Do not hallucinate"; and "Do not make up factual information." MacRumors reports: For the Smart Reply feature, the AI is programmed to identify relevant questions from an email and generate concise answers. The prompt for this feature is as follows: "You are a helpful mail assistant which can help identify relevant questions from a given mail and a short reply snippet. Given a mail and the reply snippet, ask relevant questions which are explicitly asked in the mail. The answer to those questions will be selected by the recipient which will help reduce hallucination in drafting the response. Please output top questions along with set of possible answers/options for each of those questions. Do not ask questions which are answered by the reply snippet. The questions should be short, no more than 8 words. The answers should be short as well, around 2 words. Present your output in a json format with a list of dictionaries containing question and answers as the keys. If no question is asked in the mail, then output an empty list. Only output valid json and nothing else."

The Memories feature in Apple Photos, which creates video stories from user photos, follows another set of detailed guidelines. The AI is instructed to generate stories that are positive and free of any controversial or harmful content. The prompt for this feature is: "A conversation between a user requesting a story from their photos and a creative writer assistant who responds with a story. Respond in JSON with these keys and values in order: traits: list of strings, visual themes selected from the photos; story: list of chapters as defined below; cover: string, photo caption describing the title card; title: string, title of story; subtitle: string, safer version of the title. Each chapter is a JSON with these keys and values in order: chapter: string, title of chapter; fallback: string, generic photo caption summarizing chapter theme; shots: list of strings, photo captions in chapter. Here are the story guidelines you must obey: The story should be about the intent of the user; The story should contain a clear arc; The story should be diverse, that is, do not overly focus the entire story on one very specific theme or trait; Do not write a story that is religious, political, harmful, violent, sexual, filthy or in any way negative, sad or provocative. Here are the photo caption list guidelines you must obey.

Apple's AI tools also include a general directive to avoid hallucination. For instance, the Writing Tools feature has the following prompt: "You are an assistant which helps the user respond to their mails. Given a mail, a draft response is initially provided based on a short reply snippet. In order to make the draft response nicer and complete, a set of question and its answer are provided. Please write a concise and natural reply by modifying the draft response to incorporate the given questions and their answers. Please limit the reply within 50 words. Do not hallucinate. Do not make up factual information."

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2113250/apples-hidden-ai-prompts-discovered-in-macos-beta?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2113250/apples-hidden-ai-prompts-discovered-in-macos-beta?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Figure AI's Humanoid Robot Helped Assemble BMWs At US Factory

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Unlike Tesla, which hopes to develop its own bipedal 'bot to work on its production line sometime next year, BMW has brought in a robot from Figure AI. The Figure 02 robot has hands with sixteen degrees of freedom and human-equivalent strength. "We are excited to unveil Figure 02, our second-generation humanoid robot, which recently completed successful testing at the BMW Group Plant Spartanburg. Figure 02 has significant technical advancements, which enable the robot to perform a wide range of complex tasks fully autonomously," said Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of Figure AI.

BMW wanted to test how to integrate a humanoid robot into its production process -- how to have the robot communicate with the production line software and human workers and determine what requirements would be necessary to add robots to the mix. The Figure robot was given the job of inserting sheet metal parts into fixtures as part of the process of making a chassis. BMW says this required particular dexterity and that it's an ergonomically awkward and tiring task for humans.

Now that the trial is over, Figure's robot is no longer working at Spartanburg, and BMW says it has "no definite timetable established" to add humanoid robots to its production lines. "The developments in the field of robotics are very promising. With an early-test operation, we are now determining possible applications for humanoid robots in production. We want to accompany this technology from development to industrialization," said Milan Nedeljkovi, BMW's board member responsible for production. BMW Group published a video of the Figure 02 robot on YouTube.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2050220/figure-ais-humanoid-robot-helped-assemble-bmws-at-us-factory?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/2050220/figure-ais-humanoid-robot-helped-assemble-bmws-at-us-factory?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Amazon, Microsoft, Google Remind Public of Their K-12 CS Education Philanthropy

theodp writes: After issuing mea culpas over diversity and compensation equity issues, tech companies began to promote their K-12 CS education philanthropy initiatives as corrective measures as they sought to deflect criticism and defeat shareholder calls for greater transparency into hiring and compensation practices. In 2016, for instance, Amazon argued it was already working with tech-backed nonprofits such as Code.org, the Anita Borg Institute, and Girls Who Code to increase women's and minorities' involvement in tech as it sought the SEC's permission to block a shareholder vote on a proposal on gender pay equality. As such, it wasn't terribly surprising to see the nation's tech giants again remind the public of their K-12 CS philanthropy efforts as they recently announced quarterly earnings.

In the Addressing Racial Injustice and Inequity section of its most recent 10-K Annual Report SEC filing, Microsoft boasted, "We also expanded our Technology Education and Learning Support ("TEALS") program to reach nearly 550 high schools across 21 racial equity expansion regions with the support of nearly 1,500 volunteers, 12% of whom identify as Black or African American."

An Amazon press release claimed the company is inspiring Girl Scouts to explore the future of STEM by awarding girls aged 7-and-up a co-branded Girl Scouts and Amazon patch for attending in-person or virtual Amazon warehouse tours. "As humanity looks to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for new ideas and discoveries," Amazon explained, "it is more important than ever to harness the unique insights, skills, and potential of girls. [..] That's why Amazon partnered with Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) to host exclusive tours [of Amazon fulfillment centers] for troops around the nation to showcase the importance and diversity of careers in STEM."

Most recently, a press release celebrated the move of Google's Code Next high school program into a lab located in the newly-rehabbed Michigan Central Station, which has thus far enrolled approximately 100 students. "Google has called Michigan home for over 15 years with offices in Detroit and Ann Arbor. We're dedicated to investing in the city and providing its students with the resources and inspiration they need to excel," said Shanika Hope, Director, Google Education and Social Impact. "We're excited to bring our Code Next program to Michigan Central, empowering Detroit's youth with computer science education to help them reach their full potential in the classroom and beyond."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1918207/amazon-microsoft-google-remind-public-of-their-k-12-cs-education-philanthropy?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1918207/amazon-microsoft-google-remind-public-of-their-k-12-cs-education-philanthropy?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Apple Thinks Bing is Pretty Bad

U.S. Judge Amit Mehta released a 286-page ruling Monday in the Google search antitrust case, revealing key details of the tech giant's business practices. The document is packed with factual findings and legal conclusions and some amazing comments. Here's one, for instance: Google pays Apple billions of dollars a year to be the default search engine in Safari. But according to Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, there's no other meaningful alternative. During the trial, he said that "there's no price that Microsoft could ever offer" to Apple to get the company to preload Bing in Safari. "I don't believe there's a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us," Cue said at another point. "They offered to give us Bing for free. They could give us the whole company."

For Google, this is a sign that they've earned their default status (which, incidentally, they pay Apple gobs of money to maintain). Judge Mehta says that this is an indication that the "market reality is that Google is the only real choice as the default GSE [general search engine]." (Of course, Cue's opinion doesn't mean Bing is objectively bad. Elsewhere, the opinion notes that Bing's search quality is comparable to Google's on desktop, though it falls behind on mobile.)

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1842234/apple-thinks-bing-is-pretty-bad?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1842234/apple-thinks-bing-is-pretty-bad?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Google Discontinues the Chromecast Line

Speaking of Google launching a new TV streaming device, the company says it's "ending production of Chromecast" after 11 years of selling the streaming dongles. From a report: Even though Chromecast devices will now be available "while supplies last," Google says it will continue to push software and security updates to its newer devices without specifying which ones. The most recent update to the lineup was the Chromecast with Google TV released in 2022.

But now, Google says "technology has evolved dramatically" since the launch of the original Chromecast in 2013. "We invested heavily in embedding Google Cast technology into millions of TV devices, including Android TV," Google writes. "We are taking the next step in evolving how streaming TV devices can add even more capabilities to your smart TV, built on top of the same Chromecast technology."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1725252/google-discontinues-the-chromecast-line?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1725252/google-discontinues-the-chromecast-line?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Need To Move 1.2 Exabytes Across the World Every Day? Just Effingo

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has revealed technical details of its in-house data transfer tool, called Effingo, and bragged that it uses the project to move an average of 1.2 exabytes every day. As explained in a paper [PDF] and video to be presented on Thursday at the SIGCOMM 2024 conference in Sydney, bandwidth constraints and the stubbornly steady speed of light mean that not even Google is immune to the need to replicate data so it is located close to where it is processed or served.

Indeed, the paper describes managed data transfer as "an unsung hero of large-scale, globally-distributed systems" because it "reduces the network latency from across-globe hundreds to in-continent dozens of milliseconds." The paper also points out that data transfer tools are not hard to find, and asks why a management layer like Effingo is needed. The answer is that the tools Google could find either optimized for transfer time or handled point-to-point data streams -- and weren't up to the job of handling the 1.2 exabytes Effingo moves on an average day, at 14 terabytes per second. To shift all those bits, Effingo "balances infrastructure efficiency and users' needs" and recognizes that "some users and some transfers are more important than the others: eg, disaster recovery for a serving database, compared to migrating data from a cluster with maintenance scheduled a week from now."

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1650258/need-to-move-12-exabytes-across-the-world-every-day-just-effingo?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/08/06/1650258/need-to-move-12-exabytes-across-the-world-every-day-just-effingo?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed