Why OpenAI Is at War With an Obscure Idea Man

In a David vs. Goliath legal battle, AI powerhouse OpenAI is squaring off against a little-known entrepreneur who claims he conceived the company's name and mission months before its star-studded launch. Guy Ravine, a self-taught programmer with a history of near-misses in tech, registered the domain open.ai in March 2015. He envisioned a collaborative platform to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of humanity. By year's end, Ravine had pitched his "Open AI" concept to industry luminaries and filed for a trademark. Then, in December 2015, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman announced the creation of OpenAI, backed by a promised billion dollars from Elon Musk and others.

The similarity was uncanny -- a non-profit aimed at developing AGI for the public good. "What the f---?" Ravine recalls thinking. He claims his idea was stolen, while OpenAI dismisses him as an opportunistic "troll" and a "fraud." The ensuing legal battle has consumed Ravine's life, Bloomberg Businessweek covers in great detail, and has raised thorny questions about idea ownership in Silicon Valley. It also casts a shadow over OpenAI's origin story as the company, now valued at $157 billion, shifts from its non-profit roots to a for-profit juggernaut. "It's humanity's asset," Ravine insists. "It's not his [Altman's] asset." For now, a judge has barred Ravine from using "Open AI" while the suit proceeds, but the inventor has vowed to fight on against what he calls "the most feared law firm in the world." An amusing excerpt from the story: But Ravine had poked the bear, and as he packed up his house on Aug. 11, 2023, he opened an email from a lawyer at the firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, informing him that OpenAI was suing him in federal court over the domain and trademark. "I'm like, what the f---?" Ravine recalls. Altman, he says, "could have had it for free" -- or at least for the cost of a donation. "Instead, he decided to donate millions of dollars to literally the most feared law firm in the world, to sue me."

Again and again in our conversations, he returns to that phrase: "the most feared law firm in the world." Finally, I ask him how he knows this. He turns his laptop toward me and pulls up the email. The signature reads "Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP: Most Feared Law Firm in the World."

https://slashdot.org/story/24/10/15/1314227/why-openai-is-at-war-with-an-obscure-idea-man?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
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Human Sense of Smell Is Faster Than Previously Thought, New Study Suggests

A new study reveals that the human sense of smell is far more sensitive than previously thought, capable of distinguishing odors and their sequences within just 60 milliseconds. CNN reports: In a single sniff, the human sense of smell can distinguish odors within a fraction of a second, working at a level of sensitivity that is "on par" with how our brains perceive color, "refuting the widely held belief that olfaction is our slow sense," a new study finds. Humans also can discern between various sequences of odors -- distinguishing a sequence of "A" before "B" from sequence "B" before "A" -- when the interval between odorant A and odorant B is merely 60 milliseconds, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behavior. [...]

The new findings challenge previous research in which the timing it took to discriminate between odor sequences was around 1,200 milliseconds, Dr. Dmitry Rinberg, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone Health in New York, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in Nature Human Behavior. "The timing of individual notes in music is essential for conveying meaning and beauty in a melody, and the human ear is very sensitive to this. However, temporal sensitivity is not limited to hearing: our sense of smell can also perceive small temporal changes in odor presentations," he wrote. "Similar to how timing affects the perception of notes in a melody, the timing of individual components in a complex odor mixture that reaches the nose may be crucial for our perception of the olfactory world."

The ability to tell apart odors within a single sniff might be an important way in which animals detect both what a smell is and where it might be in space, said Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the new study. "The demonstration that humans can tell apart smells as they change within a sniff is a powerful demonstration that timing is important for smell across species, and therefore is a general principle underlying olfactory function. In addition, this study sheds important light on the mysterious mechanisms that support human odor perception," Datta wrote in an email. "The study of human olfaction has historically lagged that of vision and hearing, because as humans we think of ourselves as visual creatures that largely use speech to communicate," he said, adding that the new study helps "fill a critical gap in our understanding of how we as humans smell."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/15/0020207/human-sense-of-smell-is-faster-than-previously-thought-new-study-suggests?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
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https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/15/0020207/human-sense-of-smell-is-faster-than-previously-thought-new-study-suggests?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


New Passkey Specifications Will Let Users Import and Export Them

9to5Mac's Filipe Esposito reports: Passkeys were introduced two years ago, and they replace traditional passwords with more secure authentication using a security key or biometrics. To make the technology even better, the FIDO Alliance published on Monday new specifications for passkeys, which ensure a way to let users import and export them. Currently, there's no secure way to move passkeys between different password managers. For example, if you've stored a specific passkey in Apple's Passwords app, you can't simply move it to 1Password, or vice versa. But that will change soon.

As just announced by the FIDO Alliance, the new specifications aim to promote user choice by offering a way to import and export passkeys. The draft of the new specifications establishes the Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) and Credential Exchange Format (CXF) formats for transferring not only passkeys, but other types of credentials will also be supported. The new formats are encrypted, which ensures that credentials remain secure during the process. For comparison, most password managers currently rely on CSV files to import and export credentials, which is much less secure.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/2337227/new-passkey-specifications-will-let-users-import-and-export-them?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/2337227/new-passkey-specifications-will-let-users-import-and-export-them?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Casio Made a Furry Robot Designed To Cuddle and Calm You Down

Casio has opened preorders for Moflin, a cuddly robotic pet that "looks like a cross between a hamster and Star Trek's Tribbles," reports The Verge. The robot is priced at around $400 and is expected to ship on November 7th. From the report: Unlike Sony's robot dog Aibo that can follow you around, Moflin is designed to be held and cuddled, and over time, Casio says it will learn who you are and attempt to develop a simulated bond expressed through unique sounds and movements. Originally developed through a collaboration with a Japanese startup called Vanguard Industries, Moflin is now being manufactured and distributed by Casio. It can be preordered for [around $398 USD] and is expected to be available starting on November 7th. Casio is also offering an optional subscription service called Club Moflin for [about $44 USD] per year, which gets you a discount on repairs, cleanings, and even a complete fur replacement. Accidents happen.

Casio's Moflin isn't designed to be a play toy like Sony's Aibo. It's intended to be more of a comforting companion and potentially a tool to help improve your mental wellness, similar to Qoobo, the headless robotic cat. While being held, Moflin's limited head and body movements are supposed to make it feel like the furry robot is attempting to snuggle with you, and as with many devices debuting this year, there are some AI-powered features, too. Moflin is supposed to learn to recognize the person who interacts with it the most through their voice and the way they handle the bot, and it will respond with unique sounds and movements only expressed to that person to simulate a close bond.

The robot is also designed to develop its own simulated feelings and personality, which can change over time. With regular interactions, it will become happy, secure, and calm. If it's ignored, it can become stressed, anxious, and sad. But given the robot's limited emotive capabilities, it doesn't make sad sounds, or display an anxious wiggle, demonstrating those feelings. Its emotional state can only be determined through an app, making it feel almost like a very expensive Tamagotchi, minus any digital rewards for being a diligent caregiver. The app can also be used to turn down the volume of the sounds the robot makes.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/2035252/casio-made-a-furry-robot-designed-to-cuddle-and-calm-you-down?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
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25% of Adults Suspect Undiagnosed ADHD

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Neuroscience News: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder -- also known as ADHD -- is typically thought of as a childhood condition. But more adults are realizing that their struggles with attention, focus and restlessness could in fact be undiagnosed ADHD, thanks in large part to trending social media videos racking up millions of views. A new national survey of 1,000 American adults commissioned by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine finds that 25% of adults now suspect they may have undiagnosed ADHD. But what worries mental health experts is that only 13% of survey respondents have shared their suspicions with their doctor. That's raising concerns about the consequences of self-diagnosis leading to incorrect treatment.

"Anxiety, depression and ADHD -- all these things can look a lot alike, but the wrong treatment can make things worse instead of helping that person feel better and improving their functioning," said psychologist Justin Barterian, PhD, clinical assistant professor in Ohio State's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. An estimated 4.4% of people ages 18 to 44 have ADHD, and some people aren't diagnosed until they're older, Barterian said. "There's definitely more awareness of how it can continue to affect folks into adulthood and a lot of people who are realizing, once their kids have been diagnosed, that they fit these symptoms as well, given that it's a genetic disorder," Barterian said. The survey found that younger adults are more likely to believe they have undiagnosed ADHD than older generations, and they're also more likely to do something about it. Barterian said that should include seeing a medical professional, usually their primary care provider, to receive a referral to a mental health expert to be thoroughly evaluated, accurately diagnosed and effectively treated.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/2013213/25-of-adults-suspect-undiagnosed-adhd?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/2013213/25-of-adults-suspect-undiagnosed-adhd?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Apple Could Release $2,000 'Apple Vision' Headset Next Year

Apple is working on a more affordable $2,000 "Apple Vision" spatial computing headset that could be launched as early as next year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. MacRumors reports: The new headset would be a lower-end counterpart to the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro, which was released in February. Apple reportedly expects this more affordable model to sell at least twice as many units as the Vision Pro, though "that's not saying much," adds Gurman. Apple will struggle to hit 500,000 Vision Pro sales this year, according to market tracker IDC.

To achieve the lower price point, the Apple Vision would likely use a less powerful processor and cheaper materials than aluminum and glass. The device is also expected to omit certain inessential features, such as the EyeSight display that shows the user's eyes on the outside of the headset. Apple could also use larger, lower resolution displays for the more affordable version of the Vision Pro headset, according to previous reports. Gurman also notes that Apple is working on a second-generation Vision Pro, slated for release in 2026, and a separate smart glasses device to accompany the Vision headsets.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1957205/apple-could-release-2000-apple-vision-headset-next-year?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1957205/apple-could-release-2000-apple-vision-headset-next-year?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Adobe Starts Roll-Out of AI Video Tools, Challenging OpenAI and Meta

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Adobe (ADBE.O), opens new tab on Monday said it has started publicly distributing an AI model that can generate video from text prompts, joining the growing field of companies trying to upend film and television production using generative artificial intelligence. The Firefly Video Model, as the technology is called, will compete with OpenAI's Sora, which was introduced earlier this year, while TikTok owner ByteDance and Meta Platforms have also announced their video tools in recent months.

Facing much larger rivals, Adobe has staked its future on building models trained on data that it has rights to use, ensuring the output can be legally used in commercial work. San Jose, California-based Adobe will start opening up the tool to people who have signed up for its waiting list but did not give a general release date. While Adobe has not yet announced any customers using its video tools, it said on Monday that PepsiCo-owned Gatorade will use its image generation model for a site where customers can order custom-made bottles, and Mattel has been using Adobe tools to help design packaging for its Barbie line of dolls.

For its video tools, Adobe has aimed at making them practical for everyday use by video creators and editors, with a special focus on making the footage blend in with conventional footage, said Ely Greenfield, Adobe's chief technology officer for digital media. "We really focus on fine-grain control, teaching the model the concepts that video editors and videographers use -- things like camera position, camera angle, camera motion," Greenfield told Reuters in an interview.

https://meta.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1945237/adobe-starts-roll-out-of-ai-video-tools-challenging-openai-and-meta?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

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Chinese Scientists Report Using Quantum Computer To Hack Military-grade Encryption

schwit1 writes: Chinese scientists have mounted what they say is the world's first effective attack on a widely used encryption method using a quantum computer. The breakthrough poses a "real and substantial threat" to the long-standing password-protection mechanism employed across critical sectors, including banking and the military, according to the researchers.

Despite the slow progress in general-purpose quantum computing, which currently poses no threat to modern cryptography, scientists have been exploring various attack approaches on specialised quantum computers. In the latest work led by Wang Chao, of Shanghai University, the team said it used a quantum computer produced by Canada's D-Wave Systems to successfully breach cryptographic algorithms.

Using the D-Wave Advantage, they successfully attacked the Present, Gift-64 and Rectangle algorithms -- all representative of the SPN (Substitution-Permutation Network) structure, which forms part of the foundation for advanced encryption standard (AES) widely used in the military and finance. AES-256, for instance, is considered the best encryption available and often referred to as military-grade encryption. While the exact passcode is not immediately available yet, it is closer than ever before, according to the study. "This is the first time that a real quantum computer has posed a real and substantial threat to multiple full-scale SPN structured algorithms in use today," they said in the peer-reviewed paper.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1743258/chinese-scientists-report-using-quantum-computer-to-hack-military-grade-encryption?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1743258/chinese-scientists-report-using-quantum-computer-to-hack-military-grade-encryption?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


'Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings'

WordPress.org has seized control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin, renaming it "Secure Custom Fields" and removing commercial elements, according to WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. The move, justified by alleged security concerns and linked to ongoing litigation between WP Engine and Automattic, marks an unprecedented forcible takeover in the WordPress ecosystem.

David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and chief technology officer of Basecamp-maker 37signals, opines on the situation: For a dispute that started with a claim of "trademark confusion", there's an incredible irony in the fact that Automattic is now hijacking users looking for ACF onto their own plugin. And providing as rational for this unprecedented breach of open source norms that ACF needs maintenance, and since WPE is no longer able to provide that (given that they were blocked!), Automattic has to step in to do so. I mean, what?!

Imagine this happening on npm? Imagine Meta getting into a legal dispute with Microsoft (the owners of GitHub, who in turn own npm), and Microsoft responding by directing GitHub to ban all Meta employees from accessing their repositories. And then Microsoft just takes over the official React repository, pointing it to their own Super React fork. This is the kind of crazy we're talking about.

Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes.

And that's really the main reason I care to comment on this whole sordid ordeal. If this fight was just one between two billion-dollar companies, as Automattic and WPE both are, I would not have cared to wade in. But the principles at stake extend far beyond the two of them.

Using an open source project like WordPress as leverage in this contract dispute, and weaponizing its plugin registry, is an endangerment of an open source peace that has reigned decades, with peace-time dividends for all. Not since the SCO-Linux nonsense of the early 2000s have we faced such a potential explosion in fear, doubt, and uncertainty in the open source realm on basic matters everyone thought they could take for granted.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1526251/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/1526251/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


AI Threats 'Complete BS' Says Meta Senior Research,  Who Thinks AI is Dumber Than a Cat

Meta senior research Yann LeCun (also a professor at New York University) told the Wall Street Journal that worries about AI threatening humanity are "complete B.S."

When a departing OpenAI researcher in May talked up the need to learn how to control ultra-intelligent AI, LeCun pounced. "It seems to me that before 'urgently figuring out how to control AI systems much smarter than us' we need to have the beginning of a hint of a design for a system smarter than a house cat," he replied on X. He likes the cat metaphor. Felines, after all, have a mental model of the physical world, persistent memory, some reasoning ability and a capacity for planning, he says. None of these qualities are present in today's "frontier" AIs, including those made by Meta itself.

LeCun shared a Turing Award with Geoffrey Hinton and Hoshua Bengio (who hopes LeCun is right, but adds "I don't think we should leave it to the competition between companies and the profit motive alone to protect the public and democracy. That is why I think we need governments involved.")

But LeCun still believes AI is a very powerful tool — even as Meta joins the quest for artificial general intelligence:

Throughout our interview, he cites many examples of how AI has become enormously important at Meta, and has driven its scale and revenue to the point that it's now valued at around $1.5 trillion. AI is integral to everything from real-time translation to content moderation at Meta, which in addition to its Fundamental AI Research team, known as FAIR, has a product-focused AI group called GenAI that is pursuing ever-better versions of its large language models. "The impact on Meta has been really enormous," he says.

At the same time, he is convinced that today's AIs aren't, in any meaningful sense, intelligent — and that many others in the field, especially at AI startups, are ready to extrapolate its recent development in ways that he finds ridiculous... OpenAI's Sam Altman last month said we could have Artificial General Intelligence within "a few thousand days...." But creating an AI this capable could easily take decades, [LeCun] says — and today's dominant approach won't get us there.... His bet is that research on AIs that work in a fundamentally different way will set us on a path to human-level intelligence. These hypothetical future AIs could take many forms, but work being done at FAIR to digest video from the real world is among the projects that currently excite LeCun. The idea is to create models that learn in a way that's analogous to how a baby animal does, by building a world model from the visual information it takes in.

In contrast, today's AI models "are really just predicting the next word in a text, he says... And because of their enormous memory capacity, they can seem to be reasoning, when in fact they're merely regurgitating information they've already been trained on."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/2220258/ai-threats-complete-bs-says-meta-senior-research-who-thinks-ai-is-dumber-than-a-cat?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/2220258/ai-threats-complete-bs-says-meta-senior-research-who-thinks-ai-is-dumber-than-a-cat?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Solar Power Brought by Volunteers to Hurricane Helene's Disaster Zone

Bobby Renfro spent $1,200 to buy a gas-powered electricity generator for a community resource hub he set up in a former church near hurricane-struck Asheville, North Carolina. He's spending thousands more on fuel, reports the Associated Press — though he's just one of many. Right now over 500,000 people are without power in Florida, according to the PowerOutage.us project — with more than 9,000 in Georgia, and over 17,000 in North Carolina"

Without it, they can't keep medicines cold or power medical equipment or pump well water. They can't recharge their phones or apply for federal disaster aid... Residents who can get their hands on gas and diesel-powered generators are depending on them, but that is not easy. Fuel is expensive and can be a long drive away. Generator fumes pollute and can be deadly. Small home generators are designed to run for hours or days, not weeks and months.

Now, more help is arriving. Renfro received a new power source this week, one that will be cleaner, quieter and free to operate. Volunteers with the nonprofit Footprint Project and a local solar installation company delivered a solar generator with six 245-watt solar panels, a 24-volt battery and an AC power inverter. The panels now rest on a grassy hill outside the community building. Renfro hopes his community can draw some comfort and security, "seeing and knowing that they have a little electricity." The Footprint Project is scaling up its response to this disaster with sustainable mobile infrastructure. It has deployed dozens of larger solar microgrids, solar generators and machines that can pull water from the air to 33 sites so far, along with dozens of smaller portable batteries.
With donations from solar equipment and installation companies as well as equipment purchased through donated funds, the nonprofit is sourcing hundreds more small batteries and dozens of other larger systems and even industrial-scale solar generators known as "Dragon Wings."

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0151238/solar-power-brought-by-volunteers-to-hurricane-helenes-disaster-zone?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0151238/solar-power-brought-by-volunteers-to-hurricane-helenes-disaster-zone?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Is Google Preparing to Let You Run Linux Apps on Android, Just like ChromeOS?

"Google is developing a Linux terminal app for Android," reports the blog Android Authority. "The Terminal app can be enabled via developer options and will install Debian in a virtual machine.

"This app is likely intended for Chromebooks but might also be available for mobile devices, too."

While there are ways to run some Linux apps on Android devices, all of those methods have some limitations and aren't officially supported by Google. Fortunately, though, Google is finally working on an official way to run Linux apps on Android... This Terminal app is part of the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) and contains a WebView that connects to a Linux virtual machine via a local IP address, allowing you to run Linux commands from the Android host...

A set of patches under the tag "ferrochrome-dev-option" was recently submitted to the Android Open Source Project that adds a new developer option called Linux terminal under Settings > System > Developer options. This new option will enable a "Linux terminal app that runs inside the VM," according to its proposed description. Toggling this option enables the Terminal app that's bundled with AVF...

Google is still working on improving the Terminal app as well as AVF before shipping this feature... What's particularly interesting about the patch that adds these settings is that it was tested on "tangorpro" and "komodo," the codenames for the Pixel Tablet and Pixel 9 Pro XL respectively. This suggests that the Terminal app won't be limited to Chromebooks like the new desktop versions of Chrome for Android.

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0357212/is-google-preparing-to-let-you-run-linux-apps-on-android-just-like-chromeos?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0357212/is-google-preparing-to-let-you-run-linux-apps-on-android-just-like-chromeos?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Privacy Advocates Urge 23andMe Customers to Delete Their Data. But Can They?

"Some prominent privacy advocates are encouraging customers to pull their data" from 23andMe, reports SFGate.

But can you actually do that?
23andMe makes it easy to feel like you've protected your genetic footprint. In their account settings, customers can download versions of their data to a computer and choose to delete the data attached to their 23andMe profile. An email then arrives with a big pink button: "Permanently Delete All Records." Doing so, it promises, will "terminate your relationship with 23andMe and irreversibly delete your account and Personal Information."

But there's another clause in the email that conflicts with that "terminate" promise. It says 23andMe and whichever contracted genotyping laboratory worked on a customer's samples will still hold on to the customer's sex, date of birth and genetic information, even after they're "deleted." The reason? The company cites "legal obligations," including federal laboratory regulations and California lab rules. The federal program, which sets quality standards for laboratories, requires that labs hold on to patient test records for at least two years; the California rule, part of the state's Business and Professions Code, requires three. When SFGATE asked 23andMe vice president of communications Katie Watson about the retention mandates, she said 23andMe does delete the genetic data after the three-year period, where applicable...

Before it's finally deleted, the data remains 23andMe property and is held under the same rules as the company's privacy policy, Watson added. If that policy changes, customers are supposed to be informed and asked for their consent. In the meantime, a hack is unfortunately always possible. Another 23andMe spokesperson, Andy Kill, told SFGATE that [CEO Anne] Wojcicki is "committed to customers' privacy and pledges to retain the current privacy policy in force for the foreseeable future, including after the acquisition she is currently pursuing."
An Electronic Frontier Foundation privacy lawyer tells SFGate there's no information more personal than your DNA. "It is like a Social Security number, it can't be changed. But it's not just a piece of paper, it's kind of you."

He urged 23andMe to leave customers' data out of any acquisition deals, and promise customers they'd avoid takeover attempts from companies with bad security — or with ties to law enforcement.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0133220/privacy-advocates-urge-23andme-customers-to-delete-their-data-but-can-they?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0133220/privacy-advocates-urge-23andme-customers-to-delete-their-data-but-can-they?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Were America's Electric Car Subsidies Worth the Money?

America's electric vehicle subsidies brought a 2-to-1 return on investment, according to a paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "That includes environmental benefits, but mostly reflects a shift of profits to the United States," reports the New York Times. "Before the climate law, tax credits were mainly used to buy foreign-made cars."

"What the [subsidy legislation] did was swing the pendulum the other way, and heavily subsidized American carmakers," said Felix Tintelnot, an associate professor of economics at Duke University who was a co-author of the paper. Those benefits were undermined, however, by a loophole allowing dealers to apply the subsidy to leases of foreign-made electric vehicles. The provision sends profits to non-American companies, and since those foreign-made vehicles are on average heavier and less efficient, they impose more environmental and road-safety costs. Also, the researchers estimated that for every additional electric vehicle the new tax credits put on the road, about three other electric vehicle buyers would have made the purchases even without a $7,500 credit. That dilutes the effectiveness of the subsidies, which are forecast to cost as much as $390 billion through 2031.

The chief economist at Cox Automotive (which provided some of the data) tells the Times that "we could do better", but adds that the subsidies were "worth the money invested". But of course, that depends partly on how benefits were calculated:

[U]ing the Environmental Protection Agency's "social cost of carbon" metric, they calculated the dollar cost of each model's lifetime carbon emissions from both manufacturing and driving. On average, emissions by gas-powered vehicles impose 57% greater costs than electric vehicles. The study then calculated harms from air pollution other than greenhouse gases — smog, for example. That's where electric vehicles start to perform relatively poorly, since generating the electricity for them still creates pollution. Those harms will probably fade as more wind and solar energy comes online, but they are significant. Finally, the authors added the road deaths associated with heavier cars. Batteries are heavy, so electric vehicles — especially the largest — are likelier to kill people in crashes.

Totaling these costs and then subtracting fiscal benefits through gas taxes and electricity bills, electric vehicles impose $16,003 in net harms, the authors said, while gas vehicles impose $19,239. But the range is wide, with the largest electric vehicles far outpacing many internal combustion cars.

By this methodology, a large electric pickup like the Rivian imposes three times the harms of a Prius, according to one of the study's co-authors (a Stanford professor of global environmental). And yet "we are subsidizing the Rivian and not the Prius..."

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0020245/were-americas-electric-car-subsidies-worth-the-money?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/0020245/were-americas-electric-car-subsidies-worth-the-money?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Can the UK Increase Green Energy with 'Zonal Energy Pricing'?

To avoid overloading local electric grids, Britain's most productive windfarm "is paid to turn off," reports the Guardian — and across the industry these so-called "constraint payments" amount to billions every year.

"Government officials are hoping to correct the clear inefficiencies in the market by overhauling the market itself."

Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy, told the Guardian: "It's grotesque that energy costs are rising again this winter, whilst we literally pay windfarms these extortionate prices not to generate. Locational pricing would instead mean that local people got cheap power when it's windy. Scotland would have the cheapest power in Europe, instead of among the most expensive, and every region would be cheaper than today. Companies would invest in infrastructure where we need it — not where they get the highest subsidies."

The changes could catalyse an economic osmosis of high energy users — such as datacentres and factories — into areas of the country with low energy prices, creating new job opportunities beyond the south-east. It could also spur the development of new energy projects — particularly rooftop solar — across buildings in urban areas where energy demand is high. This rebalancing of the energy market could save the UK nearly £49bn in accumulated network costs by 2040, according to a study commissioned by the energy regulator from FTI Consulting.

But others fear the changes could come at a deeper cost to Britain's climate goals — and bill payers too. The clean energy companies preparing to spend billions on building new wind and solar farms are concerned that a redrawing of the market boundaries could radically change the economics of new renewable energy projects — which would ultimately raise the costs, which would be passed on to consumers, or see the projects scrapped altogether... With stiff competition in the international markets for investment in clean energy, Renewable UK [the industry's trade group] fears that companies and their investors will simply choose to build new clean energy projects elsewhere.

"The debate has driven deep rifts across the industry," the article concludes, "between modernisers who believe the new price signals would give rise to a new, rational market and those who fear the changes risk unravelling Britain's low-carbon agenda...

"The government is expected to make a decision on how to proceed in the coming months, but the fierce debate between warring factions of the energy industry is likely to continue for far longer."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/2323235/can-the-uk-increase-green-energy-with-zonal-energy-pricing?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/2323235/can-the-uk-increase-green-energy-with-zonal-energy-pricing?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Mystery Drones Swarmed a US Military Base for 17 Days. Investigators are Stumped

The Wall Street Journal reports on a "suspicious fleet of unidentified aircraft... as many as a dozen or more" that appeared in Virginia 10 months ago "over an area that includes the home base for the Navy's SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval port." The article notes this was just 10 months after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon...

After watching the drones — some "roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour" — there were weeks of meetings where "Officials from agencies including the Defense Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pentagon's UFO office joined outside experts to throw out possible explanations as well as ideas about how to respond..."

Federal law prohibits the military from shooting down drones near military bases in the U.S. unless they pose an imminent threat. Aerial snooping doesn't qualify, though some lawmakers hope to give the military greater leeway...

Drone incursions into restricted airspace was already worrying national-security officials. Two months earlier, in October 2023, five drones flew over a government site used for nuclear-weapons experiments. The Energy Department's Nevada Nuclear Security Site outside Las Vegas detected four of the drones over three days. Employees spotted a fifth. U.S. officials said they didn't know who operated the drones in Nevada, a previously unreported incursion, or for what reason. A spokeswoman said the facility has since upgraded a system to detect and counter drones...

Over 17 days, the [Virginia] drones arrived at dusk, flew off and circled back... They also were nearly impossible to track, vanishing each night despite a wealth of resources deployed to catch them. Gen. Glen VanHerck, at the time commander of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said drones had for years been spotted flying around defense installations. But the nightly drone swarms over Langley [Air Force base], he said, were unlike any past incursion...

Analysts learned that the smaller quadcopters didn't use the usual frequency band available for off-the-shelf commercial drones — more evidence that the drone operators weren't hobbyists.

"Langley officials canceled nighttime training missions, worried about potential collisions with the drone swarm, and moved the F-22 jet fighters to another base... On December 23, the drones made their last visit."

But toward the end of the article, it notes that "In January, authorities found a clue they hoped would crack the case." It was a student at the University of Minnesota named Fengyun Shi — who was reported flying a drone on a rainy morning near a Virginia shipyard that builds nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Their drone got stuck in a tree, and ended up with federal investigators who found "Shi had photographed Navy vessels in dry dock, including shots taken around midnight. Some were under construction at the nearby shipyard."
On Jan. 18, federal agents arrested Shi as he was about to board a flight to China on a one-way ticket. Shi told FBI agents he was a ship enthusiast and hadn't realized his drone crossed into restricted airspace. Investigators weren't convinced. but found no evidence linking him to the Chinese government. They learned he had bought the drone on sale at a Costco in San Francisco the day before he traveled to Norfolk. U.S. prosecutors charged Shi with unlawfully taking photos of classified naval installations, the first case involving a drone under a provision of U.S. espionage law. The 26-year-old Chinese national pleaded guilty and appeared in federal court in Norfolk on Oct. 2 for sentencing. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard said he didn't believe Shi's story — that he had been on vacation and was flying drones in the middle of the night for fun. "There's significant holes," the judge said in court.
"If he was a foreign agent, he would be the worst spy ever known," said Shi's attorney, Shaoming Cheng. "I'm sorry about what happened in Norfolk," Shi said before he was sentenced to six months in federal prison.

But "U.S. officials have yet to determine who flew the Langley drones or why..."
"U.S. officials confirmed this month that more unidentified drone swarms were spotted in recent months near Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/1855221/mystery-drones-swarmed-a-us-military-base-for-17-days-investigators-are-stumped?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/1855221/mystery-drones-swarmed-a-us-military-base-for-17-days-investigators-are-stumped?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Zambia Faces a Climate-Induced Energy Crisis

Zambia has the largest man-made lake in the world, reports the Associated Press — but a severe drought has left the lake's 128-meter-high (420-feet) dam wall "almost completely exposed". This leaves Kariba dam without enough water to run most of its hydroelectric turbines — meaning millions of people in Zambia now face "a climate-induced energy crisis..."

The water level is so low that only one of the six turbines on Zambia's side of the dam is able to operate, cutting generation to less than 10% of normal output. Zambia relies on the dam for more than 80% of its national electricity supply, and the result is Zambians have barely a few hours of power a day at the best of times. Often, areas are going without electricity for days... The power crisis is a bigger blow to the economy and the battle against poverty than the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Zambia Association of Manufacturers president Ashu Sagar.

Africa contributes the least to global warming but is the most vulnerable continent to extreme weather events and climate change as poor countries can't meet the high financials costs of adapting. This year's drought in southern Africa is the worst in decades and has parched crops and left millions hungry, causing Zambia and others to already declare national disasters and ask for aid...

Zambia is not alone in that hydroelectric power makes up over 80% of the energy mix in Mozambique, Malawi, Uganda, Ethiopia and Congo, even as experts warn it will become more unreliable. "Extreme weather patterns, including prolonged droughts, make it clear that overreliance on hydro is no longer sustainable," said Carlos Lopes, a professor at the Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

While the lake's water level normally rises six meters after it rains, "It moved by less than 30 centimeters after the last rainy season barely materialized, authorities said...

"Experts say there's also no guarantee those rains will come and it's dangerous to rely on a changing climate given Zambia has had drought-induced power problems before, and the trend is they are getting worse."

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/0056259/zambia-faces-a-climate-induced-energy-crisis?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/0056259/zambia-faces-a-climate-induced-energy-crisis?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Running X86_64 (Linux) Game Servers on ARM With Box64

Though native Linux game servers have been scarce over the last two decades, "I've seen people using the Box64 emulator to play x86_64 games on ARM devices," writes Slashdot reader VennStone. "It got me thinking: why not apply this to game servers...?
"I thought it would be fun to see if I could build a super low-power Trackmania 2 server using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W."

They dubbed the experiment "Trackberry", and shared all the technical details in a blog post at Interfacing Linux (includinga video). For example, they installed PyEnv so it could create a virtual environment for the PyPlanet server controller. ("That's right, your little Pi Zero 2 W is about to compile some software, slowly....")

But ultimately "it turns out that the A53 can run not only the server but also the server controller, with minimal effort. Five players push one core to around 50% load, while the others handle the database and controller."
WHY STOP THERE? There are a gang of x86 Linux servers that could potentially run with Box64. Imagine playing Pirraria, 7 Days to Pi, Counter-Pi 2, Pitorio, and countless others! Granted, you may need a more powerful device than a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. I'll leave that research up to you.

My main takeaway from this experiment? Box64 is straight-up Scandinavian witchcraft and is not to be trifled with. Not even a little bit.

That said, it introduces a compelling option for those of us looking to run dedicated game servers that don't require much in the way of system resources. Under load, TrackBerry averages 2.8 watts and, according to the scientific number digits below, ends up running just under $3.00 a year or $0.25 a month. I find the concept of having a stack of microSD cards, each holding a different game server, neat....
You can see TrackBerry in action every Tuesday and Friday on Twitch...

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/2224206/running-x8664-linux-game-servers-on-arm-with-box64?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/2224206/running-x8664-linux-game-servers-on-arm-with-box64?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


SpaceX's Starship Completes Fifth Test Flight - and Lands Booster Back at Launch Tower

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Starship rocket on its fifth test flight. But more importantly, CNBC points out, SpaceX "made a dramatic first catch of the rocket's more than 20-story tall booster."

Watch the footage here. It's pretty exciting...

The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX's goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system... The rocket's "Super Heavy" booster returned to land on the arms of the company's launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.

"Are you kidding me?" SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company's webcast. "What we just saw, that looked like magic," Huot added...

Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test. There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company's leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew...

With the booster catch, SpaceX has surpassed the fourth test flight's milestones... The company sees the ambitious catch approach as critical to its goal of making the rocket fully reusable. "SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success," the company wrote on its website.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/1541249/spacexs-starship-completes-fifth-test-flight---and-lands-booster-back-at-launch-tower?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/1541249/spacexs-starship-completes-fifth-test-flight---and-lands-booster-back-at-launch-tower?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


C Drops, Java (and Rust) Climb in Popularity - as Coders Seek Easy, Secure Languages

Last month C dropped from 3rd to 4th in TIOBE's ranking of programming language popularity (which tries to calculate each language's share of search engine results). Java moved up into the #3 position in September, reports TechRepublic, which notes that by comparison October "saw relatively little change" — though percentages of search results increased slightly. "At number one, Python jumped from 20.17% in September to 21.9% in October. In second place, C++ rose from 10.75% in September to 11.6%. In third, Java ascended from 9.45% to 10.51%..."

Is there a larger trend? TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen writes that the need to harvest more data increases demand for fast data manipulation languages. But they also need to be easy to learn ("because the resource pool of skilled software engineers is drying up") and secure ("because of continuous cyber threats.")
King of all, Python, is easy to learn and secure, but not fast. Hence, engineers are frantically looking for fast alternatives for Python. C++ is an obvious candidate, but it is considered "not secure" because of its explicit memory management. Rust is another candidate, although not easy to learn. Rust is, thanks to its emphasis on security and speed, making its way to the TIOBE index top 10 now. [It's #13 — up from #20 a year ago]

The cry for fast, data crunching languages is also visible elsewhere in the TIOBE index. The language Mojo [a faster superset of Python designed for accelerated hardware like GPUs]... enters the top 50 for the first time. The fact that this language is only 1 year old and already showing up, makes it a very promising language.
In the last 12 months three languages also fell from the top ten:

PHP (dropping from #8 to #15)
SQL (dropping from #9 to #11)
Assembly language (dropping from #10 to #16)

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/0150243/c-drops-java-and-rust-climb-in-popularity---as-coders-seek-easy-secure-languages?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/0150243/c-drops-java-and-rust-climb-in-popularity---as-coders-seek-easy-secure-languages?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


LLM Attacks Take Just 42 Seconds On Average, 20% of Jailbreaks Succeed

spatwei shared an article from SC World:

Attacks on large language models (LLMs) take less than a minute to complete on average, and leak sensitive data 90% of the time when successful, according to Pillar Security.
Pillar's State of Attacks on GenAI report, published Wednesday, revealed new insights on LLM attacks and jailbreaks, based on telemetry data and real-life attack examples from more than 2,000 AI applications. LLM jailbreaks successfully bypass model guardrails in one out of every five attempts, the Pillar researchers also found, with the speed and ease of LLM exploits demonstrating the risks posed by the growing generative AI (GenAI) attack surface...
The more than 2,000 LLM apps studied for the State of Attacks on GenAI report spanned multiple industries and use cases, with virtual customer support chatbots being the most prevalent use case, making up 57.6% of all apps.

Common jailbreak techniques included "ignore previous instructions" and "ADMIN override", or just using base64 encoding. "The Pillar researchers found that attacks on LLMs took an average of 42 seconds to complete, with the shortest attack taking just 4 seconds and the longest taking 14 minutes to complete.

"Attacks also only involved five total interactions with the LLM on average, further demonstrating the brevity and simplicity of attacks."

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/213247/llm-attacks-take-just-42-seconds-on-average-20-of-jailbreaks-succeed?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/213247/llm-attacks-take-just-42-seconds-on-average-20-of-jailbreaks-succeed?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


North Carolina Maker of High-Purity Quartz Back Operating After Hurricane

Thursday the Associated Press reported:

One of the two companies that manufacture high-purity quartz used for making semiconductors and other high-tech products from mines in a western North Carolina community severely damaged by Hurricane Helene is operating again. Sibelco announced on Thursday that production has restarted at its mining and processing operations in Spruce Pine, located 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Asheville. [Per Wikipedia, its pre-hurricane population was 2,175.] Production and shipments are progressively ramping up to full capacity, the company said in a news release.

"While the road to full recovery for our communities will be long, restarting our operations and resuming shipments to customers are important contributors to rebuilding the local economy," Sibelco CEO Hilmar Rode said... A Spruce Pine council member said recently that an estimated three-quarters of the town has a direct connection to the mines, whether through a job, a job that relies on the mines or a family member who works at the facilities.

An announcement last week from Sibelco attributed its resilience to their long-standing commitment to sustainability, "which includes measures to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events such as Hurricane Helene." Initial assessments indicated their operating facilities sustained only minor damage.

And "the company previously announced that all its employees are safe," Sibelco reaffirmed in its announcement Thursday:

Sibelco, with support from its contractors, has been contributing to the local recovery efforts by clearing debris, repairing roads, providing road building materials to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, installing temporary power generators for emergency shelters and local businesses, and working with the town of Spruce Pine to restart water supply to residents.

Additionally, Sibelco has incorporated the Sibelco Spruce Pine Foundation to further support the community's recovery. The company previously announced that it is making an immediate $1 million donation as seed money for the foundation. Anyone interested in learning more or contributing to this initiative should contact the foundation by email or by visiting our website for additional information and donation opportunities.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/0012204/north-carolina-maker-of-high-purity-quartz-back-operating-after-hurricane?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/13/0012204/north-carolina-maker-of-high-purity-quartz-back-operating-after-hurricane?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Who's Winning America's 'Tech War' With China?

In mid-2021 Ameria's National Security Advisor set up a new directorate focused on "advanced chips, quantum computing, and other cutting-edge tech," reports Wired. And the next year as Congress was working on boosting America's semiconductor sector, he was "closing in on a plan to cripple China's... In October 2022, the Commerce Department forged ahead with its new export controls."
So what happened next?

In a phone call with President Biden this past spring, Xi Jinping warned that if the US continued trying to stall China's technological development, he would not "sit back and watch." And he hasn't. Already, China has answered the US export controls — and its corresponding deals with other countries — by imposing its own restrictions on critical minerals used to make semiconductors and by hoovering up older chips and manufacturing equipment it is still allowed to buy. For the past several quarters, in fact, China was the top customer for ASML and a number of Japanese chip companies. A robust black market for banned chips has also emerged in China. According to a recent New York Times investigation, some of the Chinese companies that have been barred from accessing American chips through US export controls have set up new corporations to evade those bans. (These companies have claimed no connection to the ones who've been banned.) This has reportedly enabled Chinese entities with ties to the military to obtain small amounts of Nvidia's high-powered chips.

Nvidia, meanwhile, has responded to the US actions by developing new China-specific chips that don't run afoul of the US controls but don't exactly thrill the Biden administration either. For the White House and Commerce Department, keeping pace with all of these workarounds has been a constant game of cat and mouse. In 2023, the US introduced the first round of updates to its export controls. This September, it released another — an announcement that was quickly followed by a similar expansion of controls by the Dutch. Some observers have speculated that the Biden administration's actions have only made China more determined to invest in its advanced tech sector.

And there's clearly some truth to that. But it's also true that China has been trying to become self-sufficient since long before Biden entered office. Since 2014, it has plowed nearly $100 billion into its domestic chip sector. "That was the world we walked into," [NSA Advisor Jake] Sullivan said. "Not the world we created through our export controls." The United States' actions, he argues, have only made accomplishing that mission that much tougher and costlier for Beijing. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger estimated earlier this year that there's a "10-year gap" between the most powerful chips being made by Chinese chipmakers like SMIC and the ones Intel and Nvidia are working on, thanks in part to the export controls.

If the measure of Sullivan's success is how effectively the United States has constrained China's advancement, it's hard to argue with the evidence. "It's probably one of the biggest achievements of the entire Biden administration," said Martijn Rasser, managing director of Datenna, a leading intelligence firm focused on China. Rasser said the impact of the US export controls alone "will endure for decades." But if you're judging Sullivan's success by his more idealistic promises regarding the future of technology — the idea that the US can usher in an era of progress dominated by democratic values — well, that's a far tougher test. In many ways, the world, and the way advanced technologies are poised to shape it, feels more unsettled than ever.

Four years was always going to be too short for Sullivan to deliver on that promise. The question is whether whoever's sitting in Sullivan's seat next will pick up where he left off.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/1755254/whos-winning-americas-tech-war-with-china?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/1755254/whos-winning-americas-tech-war-with-china?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


The Radio-Obsessed Civilian Shaping Ukraine's Drone Defense

Former Ukranian officer Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov created a Signal channel where military communications specialists could talk with civilian radio experts, reports MIT's Technology Review. But radio communications are crucial for drones, so...

About once a month, he drives hundreds of kilometers east in a homemade mobile intelligence center: a black VW van in which stacks of radio hardware connect to an array of antennas on the roof that stand like porcupine quills when in use. Two small devices on the dash monitor for nearby drones. Over several days at a time, Flash studies the skies for Russian radio transmissions and tries to learn about the problems facing troops in the fields and in the trenches.
He is, at least in an unofficial capacity, a spy. But unlike other spies, Flash does not keep his work secret. In fact, he shares the results of these missions with more than 127,000 followers — including many soldiers and government officials — on several public social media channels. Earlier this year, for instance, he described how he had recorded five different Russian reconnaissance drones in a single night — one of which was flying directly above his van... Drones have come to define the brutal conflict that has now dragged on for more than two and a half years. And most rely on radio communications — a technology that Flash has obsessed over since childhood. So while Flash is now a civilian, the former officer has still taken it upon himself to inform his country's defense in all matters related to radio...

Flash has also become a source of some controversy among the upper echelons of Ukraine's military, he tells me. The Armed Forces of Ukraine declined multiple requests for comment, but Flash and his colleagues claim that some high-ranking officials perceive him as a security threat, worrying that he shares too much information and doesn't do enough to secure sensitive intel... [But] His work has become greatly important to those fighting on the ground, and he recently received formal recognition from the military for his contributions to the fight, with two medals of commendation — one from the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, the other from the Ministry of Defense...

And given the mounting evidence that both militaries and militant groups in other parts of the world are now adopting drone tactics developed in Ukraine, it's not only his country's fate that Flash may help to determine — but also the ways that armies wage war for years to come.

He's also written guides on building cheap anti-drone equipment...

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/190222/the-radio-obsessed-civilian-shaping-ukraines-drone-defense?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/190222/the-radio-obsessed-civilian-shaping-ukraines-drone-defense?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


AI Disclaimers in Political Ads Backfire on Candidates, Study Finds

Many U.S. states now require candidates to disclose when political ads used generative AI, reports the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, researchers at New York University's Center on Technology Policy "found that people rated candidates 'less trustworthy and less appealing' when their ads featured AI disclaimers..."

In the study, researchers asked more than 1,000 participants to watch political ads by fictional candidates — some containing AI disclaimers, some not — and then rate how trustworthy they found the would-be officeholders, how likely they were to vote for them and how truthful their ads were. Ads containing AI labels largely hurt candidates across the board, with the pattern holding true for "both deceptive and more harmless uses of generative AI," the researchers wrote. Notably, researchers also found that AI labels were more harmful for candidates running attack ads than those being attacked, something they called the "backfire effect".

"The candidate who was attacked was actually rated more trustworthy, more appealing than the candidate who created the ad," said Scott Babwah Brennen, who directs the center at NYU and co-wrote the report with Shelby Lake, Allison Lazard and Amanda Reid.

One other interesting finding... The article notes that study participants in both parties "preferred when disclaimers were featured anytime AI was used in an ad, even when innocuous."

https://politics.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/0445226/ai-disclaimers-in-political-ads-backfire-on-candidates-study-finds?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://politics.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/0445226/ai-disclaimers-in-political-ads-backfire-on-candidates-study-finds?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


PC Shipments Stuck in Neutral Despite AI Buzz

The PC market is not showing many signs of a rebound, despite the hype around AI PCs, with market watchers split over whether unit shipments are up or down slightly. From a report: Those magical AI PC boxes were supposed to fire up buyer enthusiasm and spur the somewhat listless market for desktop and laptop systems into significant growth territory, but that doesn't appear to be happening. According to the latest figures from Gartner, global PC shipments totaled 62.9 million units during Q3 of this year, representing a 1.3 percent decline compared with the same period last year. However, this does follow three consecutive quarters of modest growth.

"Even with a full line-up of Windows-based AI PCs for both Arm and x86 in the third quarter of 2024, AI PCs did not boost the demand for PCs since buyers have yet to see their clear benefits or business value," commented Gartner Director Analyst Mikako Kitagawa. This is perhaps understandable when AI PCs are largely just a marketing concept, and vendors can't agree on exactly what the the definition of an AI PC should be. Even worse, some buyers of Arm-based Copilot+ machines discovered that their performance isn't actually very good with some applications.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/0311250/pc-shipments-stuck-in-neutral-despite-ai-buzz?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/12/0311250/pc-shipments-stuck-in-neutral-despite-ai-buzz?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


NASA Confirms Plans To Develop Lunar Time Standard

NASA confirmed that it's working with international partners and standards organizations to create a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) for future lunar exploration. This time standard will account for relativity and be scalable for other celestial bodies, supporting long-term missions like Artemis and commercial space activities. From the report: The lunar time will be determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks at the Moon, similar to how scientists calculate Earth's globally recognized Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Exactly where at the Moon is still to be determined, since current analysis indicates that atomic clocks placed at the Moon's surface will appear to 'tick' faster by microseconds per day. A microsecond is one millionth of a second. NASA and its partners are currently researching which mathematical models will be best for establishing a lunar time.

To put these numbers into perspective, a hummingbird's wings flap about 50 times per second. Each flap is about .02 seconds, or 20,000 microseconds. So, while 56 microseconds may seem miniscule, when discussing distances in space, tiny bits of time add up. "For something traveling at the speed of light, 56 microseconds is enough time to travel the distance of approximately 168 football fields," said Cheryl Gramling, lead on lunar position, navigation, timing, and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "If someone is orbiting the Moon, an observer on Earth who isn't compensating for the effects of relativity over a day would think that the orbiting astronaut is approximately 168 football fields away from where the astronaut really is."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2234258/nasa-confirms-plans-to-develop-lunar-time-standard?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2234258/nasa-confirms-plans-to-develop-lunar-time-standard?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Physicists Generated Sound Waves That Travel In One Direction Only

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: Imagine three people huddled in a circle so when one speaks, only one other hears. Scientists have created a device that works like that, ensuring sound waves ripple in one direction only. The device, developed by scientists at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, is made up of a disk-shaped cavity with three equally-spaced ports that can each send or receive sound. In an inactive state, sound transmitted from port 1 is audible to ports 2 and 3 at equal volumes. Sound waves bounce back to port 1 as an echo as well. When the system is running, however, only port 2 hears port 1's sounds.

The trick is to blow swirling air into the cavity at a specific speed and intensity, which allows the sound waves to synchronize in a repeating pattern. That not only guides the sound waves in a single direction, but gives more energy to those oscillations so they don't dissipate. It's kind of like a roundabout for sound. The scientists say their technique may inform the design of future communications technologies. New metamaterials could be made to manipulate not just sound waves but potentially electromagnetic waves too. "This concept of loss-compensated non-reciprocal wave propagation is, in our view, an important result that can also be transferred to other systems," says senior researcher Nicolas Noiray. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2230246/physicists-generated-sound-waves-that-travel-in-one-direction-only?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2230246/physicists-generated-sound-waves-that-travel-in-one-direction-only?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Bluesky Is Now Courting Threads Users

Bluesky, the decentralized social network cofounded by Jack Dorsey, created a Threads account to court users frustrated by Meta's moderation issues. Thurrott reports: This week, the Bluesky team also used Threads to share some tips on how to get started on Bluesky, how to get more engagement, and more. The company also emphasized its decentralized structure and more extensive customization options, with the app recently introducing a new theme font, adjustable font sizing, and the ability to pin posts on top of profiles.

Bluesky also couldn't resist to engage in some strange trolling this week. "We're not like the other girls ... we're not owned by a billionaire," the team wrote on Threads yesterday. Of course, this the post that got the most engagement on the Bluesky Threads account with close to 500 comments as of this writing.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2221242/bluesky-is-now-courting-threads-users?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2221242/bluesky-is-now-courting-threads-users?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Appeal Court Affirms Verdict Against ISP Grande For Failing To Terminate Pirates

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a copyright infringement verdict against Internet provider Grande, which failed to take action against allegedly pirating subscribers. The jury's $47 million damages award in favor of the major music label plaintiffs is vacated. According to the Court (PDF), individual tracks that are part of an album, should not be counted as separate works. TorrentFreak reports: After hearing both sides, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the jury verdict yesterday. Grande's arguments, suggesting that the district court mistakenly upheld the verdict earlier, were rejected. "The district court did not err in upholding the jury's unanimous liability verdict because Plaintiffs satisfied each element legally and factually," the decision reads. "The court correctly interpreted the law and instructed the jury on the relevant legal standards in light of the factual issues disputed by the parties, and Plaintiffs introduced ample evidence from which a reasonable jury could find in Plaintiffs' favor." [...]

In addition to the material contribution challenge, Grande and its supporters also pointed out that terminating Internet access isn't a "simple measure," as the jury concluded. Instead, it is drastic and overbroad, which could also impact innocent subscribers. The Court of Appeals rejects this reasoning. Instead, it states that the jury could and did conclude that terminations are a simple measure. There is no evidence to reach a different conclusion. All in all, the Court sees no reason to reverse the jury's verdict that Grande is liable for contributory infringement. This means that the jury verdict is affirmed.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2054240/appeal-court-affirms-verdict-against-isp-grande-for-failing-to-terminate-pirates?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2054240/appeal-court-affirms-verdict-against-isp-grande-for-failing-to-terminate-pirates?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


TikTok Execs Know About App's Effect On Teens, Lawsuit Documents Allege

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR : For the first time, internal TikTok communications have been made public that show a company unconcerned with the harms the app poses for American teenagers. This is despite its own research validating many child safety concerns. The confidential material was part of a more than two-year investigation into TikTok by 14 attorneys general that led to state officials suing the company on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok was designed with the express intention of addicting young people to the app. The states argue the multi-billion-dollar company deceived the public about the risks. In each of the separate lawsuits state regulators filed, dozens of internal communications, documents and research data were redacted -- blacked-out from public view -- since authorities entered into confidentiality agreements with TikTok.

But in one of the lawsuits, filed by the Kentucky Attorney General's Office, the redactions were faulty. This was revealed when Kentucky Public Radio copied-and-pasted excerpts of the redacted material, bringing to light some 30 pages of documents that had been kept secret. A group of more than a dozen states sued TikTok on Tuesday, alleging the app was intentionally designed to addict teens, something authorities say is a violation of state consumer protection laws. After Kentucky Public Radio published excerpts of the redacted material, a state judge sealed the entire complaint following a request from the attorney general's office "to ensure that any settlement documents and related information, confidential commercial and trade secret information, and other protected information was not improperly disseminated," according to an emergency motion to seal the complaint filed on Wednesday by Kentucky officials.

NPR reviewed all the portions of the suit that were redacted, which highlight TikTok executives speaking candidly about a host of dangers for children on the wildly popular video app. The material, mostly summaries of internal studies and communications, show some remedial measures -- like time-management tools -- would have a negligible reduction in screen time. The company went ahead and decided to release and tout the features. Separately, under a new law, TikTok has until January to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a nationwide ban. TikTok is fighting the looming crackdown. Meanwhile, the new lawsuits from state authorities have cast scrutiny on the app and its ability to counter content that harms minors.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2021246/tiktok-execs-know-about-apps-effect-on-teens-lawsuit-documents-allege?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2021246/tiktok-execs-know-about-apps-effect-on-teens-lawsuit-documents-allege?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Robot Vacuums Hacked To Shout Slurs At Their Owners

Ecovacs robot vacuums have been hacked across the U.S. to shout racial slurs at unsuspecting people. VICE News reports: The issue is specifically with Ecovacs' Deebot X2 model. The hackers gained control of the devices and used the onboard speakers to blast racial slurs at anyone within earshot. One such person was a lawyer from Minnesota named Daniel Swenson. He was watching TV when he heard some odd noises coming from the direction of his vacuum. He changed the password and restarted it. But then the odd sounds started up again. And then it started shouting racial slurs at him like a surly disgruntled maid.

There were multiple reports of similar incidents across the United States and around the same time. One of them happened in Los Angeles, where a vacuum chased a dog while spewing hate. Another happened in El Paso, where the vac spewed slurs until it's owner turned it off. The attacks are apparently quite easy to pull off thanks to several known security vulnerabilities in Ecovacs, like a bad Bluetooth connector and a defective PIN system that is intended to safeguard video feeds and remote access but actually doesn't do any of that at all. A pair of cybersecurity researchers released a report on Ecovacs detailing the brand's multiple security flaws earlier this year.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2011249/robot-vacuums-hacked-to-shout-slurs-at-their-owners?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/2011249/robot-vacuums-hacked-to-shout-slurs-at-their-owners?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Silicon Valley Is Debating If AI Weapons Should Be Allowed To Decide To Kill

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In late September, Shield AI cofounder Brandon Tseng swore that weapons in the U.S. would never be fully autonomous -- meaning an AI algorithm would make the final decision to kill someone. "Congress doesn't want that," the defense tech founder told TechCrunch. "No one wants that." But Tseng spoke too soon. Five days later, Anduril cofounder Palmer Luckey expressed an openness to autonomous weapons -- or at least a heavy skepticism of arguments against them. The U.S.'s adversaries "use phrases that sound really good in a sound bite: Well, can't you agree that a robot should never be able to decide who lives and dies?" Luckey said during a talk earlier this month at Pepperdine University. "And my point to them is, where's the moral high ground in a landmine that can't tell the difference between a school bus full of kids and a Russian tank?"

When asked for further comment, Shannon Prior, a spokesperson for Anduril said that Luckey didn't mean that robots should be programmed to kill people on their own, just that he was concerned about "bad people using bad AI." In the past, Silicon Valley has erred on the side of caution. Take it from Luckey's cofounder, Trae Stephens. "I think the technologies that we're building are making it possible for humans to make the right decisions about these things," he told Kara Swisher last year. "So that there is an accountable, responsible party in the loop for all decisions that could involve lethality, obviously." The Anduril spokesperson denied any dissonance between Luckey (pictured above) and Stephens' perspectives, and said that Stephens didn't mean that a human should always make the call, but just that someone is accountable.

Last month, Palantir co-founder and Anduril investor Joe Lonsdale also showed a willingness to consider fully autonomous weapons. At an event hosted by the think tank Hudson Institute, Lonsdale expressed frustration that this question is being framed as a yes-or-no at all. He instead presented a hypothetical where China has embraced AI weapons, but the U.S. has to "press the button every time it fires." He encouraged policymakers to embrace a more flexible approach to how much AI is in weapons. "You very quickly realize, well, my assumptions were wrong if I just put a stupid top-down rule, because I'm a staffer who's never played this game before," he said. "I could destroy us in the battle."

When TC asked Lonsdale for further comment, he emphasized that defense tech companies shouldn't be the ones setting the agenda on lethal AI. "The key context to what I was saying is that our companies don't make the policy, and don't want to make the policy: it's the job of elected officials to make the policy," he said. "But they do need to educate themselves on the nuance to do a good job." He also reiterated a willingness to consider more autonomy in weapons. "It's not a binary as you suggest -- 'fully autonomous or not' isn't the correct policy question. There's a sophisticated dial along a few different dimensions for what you might have a soldier do and what you have the weapons system do," he said. "Before policymakers put these rules in place and decide where the dials need to be set in what circumstance, they need to learn the game and learn what the bad guys might be doing, and what's necessary to win with American lives on the line." [...] "For many in Silicon Valley and D.C., the biggest fear is that China or Russia rolls out fully autonomous weapons first, forcing the U.S.'s hand," reports TechCrunch. "At the Hudson Institute event, Lonsdale said that the tech sector needs to take it upon itself to 'teach the Navy, teach the DoD, teach Congress' about the potential of AI to 'hopefully get us ahead of China.' Lonsdale's and Luckey's affiliated companies are working on getting Congress to listen to them. Anduril and Palantir have cumulatively spent over $4 million in lobbying this year, according to OpenSecrets."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1954252/silicon-valley-is-debating-if-ai-weapons-should-be-allowed-to-decide-to-kill?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1954252/silicon-valley-is-debating-if-ai-weapons-should-be-allowed-to-decide-to-kill?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


European Govt Air-Gapped Systems Breached Using Custom Malware

An APT hacking group known as GoldenJackal has successfully breached air-gapped government systems in Europe using two custom toolsets to steal sensitive data, like emails, encryption keys, images, archives, and documents. From a report: According to an ESET report, this happened at least two times, one against the embassy of a South Asian country in Belarus in September 2019 and again in July 2021, and another against a European government organization between May 2022 and March 2024. In May 2023, Kaspersky warned about GoldenJackal's activities, noting that the threat actors focus on government and diplomatic entities for purposes of espionage. Although their use of custom tools spread over USB pen drives, like the 'JackalWorm,' was known, cases of a successful compromise of air-gapped systems were not previously confirmed.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1811217/european-govt-air-gapped-systems-breached-using-custom-malware?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1811217/european-govt-air-gapped-systems-breached-using-custom-malware?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Former Google Chief Urges AI Investment Over Climate Targets

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt urged prioritizing AI infrastructure over climate goals at a Washington AI summit this week. Schmidt, who led Google until 2011, argued that AI's rapid growth will outpace environmental mitigation efforts. "We're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it," Schmidt told attendees, addressing concerns about AI's surging energy demands.

Data centers powering AI are projected to consume 35 gigawatts annually by 2030, up from 17 gigawatts in 2023, according to McKinsey. Schmidt, now heading AI drone company White Stork, suggested AI could ultimately solve climate issues, stating, "I'd rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1637248/former-google-chief-urges-ai-investment-over-climate-targets?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1637248/former-google-chief-urges-ai-investment-over-climate-targets?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


US Officials Race To Understand Severity of China's Salt Typhoon Hacks

U.S. officials are racing to understand the full scope of a China-linked hack of major U.S. broadband providers, as concerns mount from members of Congress that the breach could amount to a devastating counterintelligence failure. From a report: Federal authorities and cybersecurity investigators are probing the breaches of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies. A stealthy hacking group known as Salt Typhoon tied to Chinese intelligence is believed to be responsible. The compromises may have allowed hackers to access information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Among the concerns are that the hackers may have essentially been able to spy on the U.S. government's efforts to surveil Chinese threats, including the FBI's investigations. The House Select Committee on China sent letters Thursday asking the three companies to describe when they became aware of the breaches and what measures they are taking to protect their wiretap systems from attack. Spokespeople for AT&T, Lumen and Verizon declined to comment on the attack. A spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington has denied that Beijing is responsible for the alleged breaches.

Combined with other Chinese cyber threats, news of the Salt Typhoon assault makes clear that "we face a cyber-adversary the likes of which we have never confronted before," Rep. John Moolenaar, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee Committee on China, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, the panel's top Democrat, said in the letters. "The implications of any breach of this nature would be difficult to overstate," they said. Hackers still had access to some parts of U.S. broadband networks within the last week, and more companies were being notified that their networks had been breached, people familiar with the matter said. Investigators remain in the dark about precisely what the hackers were seeking to do, according to people familiar with the response.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1445231/us-officials-race-to-understand-severity-of-chinas-salt-typhoon-hacks?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/1445231/us-officials-race-to-understand-severity-of-chinas-salt-typhoon-hacks?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Man Learns He's Being Dumped Via 'Dystopian' AI Summary of Texts

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, NYC-based software developer Nick Spreen received a surprising alert on his iPhone 15 Pro, delivered through an early test version of Apple's upcoming Apple Intelligence text message summary feature. "No longer in a relationship; wants belongings from the apartment," the AI-penned message reads, summing up the content of several separate breakup texts from his girlfriend -- that arrived on his birthday, no less. Spreen shared a screenshot of the AI-generated message in a now-viral tweet on the X social network, writing, "for anyone who's wondered what an apple intelligence summary of a breakup text looks like." Spreen told Ars Technica that the screenshot does not show his ex-girlfriend's full real name, just a nickname.

This summary feature of Apple Intelligence, announced by the iPhone maker in June, isn't expected to fully ship until an iOS 18.1 update in the fall. However, it has been available in a public beta test of iOS 18 since July, which is what Spreen is running on his iPhone. It works akin to something like a stripped-down ChatGPT, reading your incoming text messages and delivering its own simplified version of their content. On X, Spreen replied to skepticism over whether the message was real in a follow-up post. "Yes this was real / yes it happened yesterday / yes it was my birthday," Spreen wrote. In response to a question about it being a fair summary of his girlfriend's messages, he wrote, "it is."

We reached out to Spreen directly via email and he delivered his own summary of his girlfriend's messages. "It was something along the lines of i can't believe you just did that, we're done, i want my stuff. we had an argument in a bar and I got up and left, then she sent the text," he wrote. How did he feel about getting the news via AI summary? "I do feel like it added a level of distance to it that wasn't a bad thing," he told Ars Technica. "Maybe a bit like a personal assistant who stays professional and has your back even in the most awful situations, but yeah, more than anything it felt unreal and dystopian."

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/228207/man-learns-hes-being-dumped-via-dystopian-ai-summary-of-texts?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/228207/man-learns-hes-being-dumped-via-dystopian-ai-summary-of-texts?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Elon Musk Unveils Tesla Cybercab, Robovan and Updated Optimus Robot

At Tesla's "We, Robot" event at Warner Bros. Studios tonight, Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybercab, Robovan, and an updated version of the Optimus robot. Slashdot is at the event capturing photos and getting demos of everything announced. You can follow along on X. Below is a summary of each of the offerings.
Tesla Cybercab: The Tesla Cybercab is a futuristic, fully autonomous robotaxi designed without a steering wheel or pedals, positioned to revolutionize mass transit with extremely low operating costs. It features a sleek design with upward-opening butterfly doors and a compact cabin that seats two passengers. Musk said the Cybercab uses inductive charging instead of a traditional plug-in and that it's expected to cost under $30,000. Regulatory approval will be needed before it can go into production, which is projected to begin by 2026 or 2027.
Tesla Robovan: The Tesla Robovan is a dustbuster-shaped electric passenger van featuring sliding glass doors, a bright interior, and carriage-style seating for up to 20 passengers. While pricing and release details were not disclosed, the Robovan aligns with Tesla's vision for high passenger-density urban transport. Tesla Optimus: The updated Tesla Optimus robot is a humanoid designed to handle everyday tasks, such as retrieving packages or serving drinks. Optimus walked on stage and interacted with attendees, though its current capabilities are still limited. Elon Musk envisions the robot as a transformative product, with plans to produce millions of units at a price of around $20,000. Optimus is expected to start performing useful tasks by the end of the year, with broader availability projected by the end of next year. Developing...

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/0328206/elon-musk-unveils-tesla-cybercab-robovan-and-updated-optimus-robot?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/11/0328206/elon-musk-unveils-tesla-cybercab-robovan-and-updated-optimus-robot?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


AMD Launches AI Chip To Rival Nvidia's Blackwell

AMD is launching a new chip to rival Nvidia's upcoming Blackwell chips, which Nvidia called the "world's most powerful chip" for AI when unveiled earlier this year. CNBC reports: The Instinct MI325X, as the chip is called, will start production before the end of 2024, AMD said Thursday during an event announcing the new product. If AMD's AI chips are seen by developers and cloud giants as a close substitute for Nvidia's products, it could put pricing pressure on Nvidia, which has enjoyed roughly 75% gross margins while its GPUs have been in high demand over the past year. In the past few years, Nvidia has dominated the majority of the data center GPU market, but AMD is historically in second place. Now, AMD is aiming to take share from its Silicon Valley rival or at least to capture a big chunk of the market, which it says will be worth $500 billion by 2028.

AMD didn't reveal new major cloud or internet customers for its Instinct GPUs at the event, but the company has previously disclosed that both Meta and Microsoft buy its AI GPUs and that OpenAI uses them for some applications. The company also did not disclose pricing for the Instinct MI325X, which is typically sold as part of a complete server. With the launch of the MI325X, AMD is accelerating its product schedule to release new chips on an annual schedule to better compete with Nvidia and take advantage of the boom in AI chips. The new AI chip is the successor to the MI300X, which started shipping late last year. AMD's 2025 chip will be called MI350, and its 2026 chip will be called MI400, the company said.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/2143241/amd-launches-ai-chip-to-rival-nvidias-blackwell?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/2143241/amd-launches-ai-chip-to-rival-nvidias-blackwell?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Ubuntu 24.10 'Oracular Oriole' Released, Celebrating 20 Years of Ubuntu

Ubuntu 24.10 'Oracular Oriole', the latest version of the popular Linux distro, introduces several enhancements including a revamped GNOME Initial Setup for ARM64 devices, updated file management features, and a more seamless experience with dialog boxes that adjust to aspect ratios. Celebrating Ubuntu's 20th anniversary, this release also "offers a few touches for those who want to go down memory lane," reports Tom's Hardware. "When the system boots up, you'll see the 20 Years Ubuntu logo right at the bottom of the screen. You can also set the desktop background to the original Ubuntu 4.10 wallpaper, and a Warty Brown accent color is an available option if you want to complete the feel. To round out the experience, Ubuntu 24.10 uses the original startup sound from 4.10, which plays every time you log in." From the report: The most significant change, as OMG! Ubuntu notes that ARM64 devices now use GNOME Initial Setup, which offers a cleaner, slicker way of setting up the operating system after the first install. When I set up Ubuntu 24.10 in a virtual machine in my MacBook Air, it felt easier to install and use than my MacBook and Windows laptops. We also get updated dialog boxes that adjust based on the Windows aspect ratio, making it useful for portrait devices like smartphones and tablets.

Several other quality-of-life updates in Ubuntu 24.10, like new File Manager features, make navigating your bookmarks and internal drives easier on the sidebar. Apps also now use the default File Manager when browsing your hard drive, providing a more seamless experience. And, if you run a search on non-indexed folders, you'll find an info button that will explain why your search query is taking longer than usual.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/2042240/ubuntu-2410-oracular-oriole-released-celebrating-20-years-of-ubuntu?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/2042240/ubuntu-2410-oracular-oriole-released-celebrating-20-years-of-ubuntu?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


Windows 11's New Passkey Design Includes Cloud Syncing, 1Password Integration

Microsoft is enhancing passkey support in Windows 11 with a redesigned Windows Hello experience that allows users to sync passkeys to their Microsoft account or third-party providers like 1Password and Bitwarden. The Verge reports: A new API for third-party password and passkey managers means developers can plug directly into the Windows 11 experience, so you can use the same passkey from your mobile device to authenticate on your PC. Right now it's possible in some apps to do this through QR codes and other ways to authenticate from a mobile device, but Microsoft's full support means the passkeys experience on Windows is about to get a lot better.

Microsoft is also redesigning the Windows Hello prompt, including the ability to setup syncing of passkeys to your Microsoft account or saving them elsewhere. Once you've completed a one-time setup process you can use facial recognition, fingerprint, or PIN to authenticate with a passkey across multiple Windows 11 devices. Windows Insiders will get access to these new passkey features "in the coming months."

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/2019233/windows-11s-new-passkey-design-includes-cloud-syncing-1password-integration?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/2019233/windows-11s-new-passkey-design-includes-cloud-syncing-1password-integration?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed


The FBI Secretly Created a Coin To Investigate Crypto Pump-and-Dump Schemes

The FBI created a cryptocurrency as part of an investigation into price manipulation in crypto markets, the government revealed on Wednesday. From a report: The FBI's Ethereum-based token, NexFundAI, was created with the help of "cooperating witnesses." As a result of the investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged three "market makers" and nine people for allegedly engaging in schemes to boost the prices of certain crypto assets. The Department of Justice charged 18 people and entities for "widespread fraud and manipulation" in crypto markets.

The defendants allegedly made false claims about their tokens and executed so-called "wash trades" to create the impression of an active trading market, prosecutors claim. The three market makers -- ZMQuant, CLS Global, and MyTrade -- allegedly wash traded or conspired to wash trade on behalf of NexFundAI, an Ethereum-based token they didn't realize was created by the FBI.

"What the FBI uncovered in this case is essentially a new twist to old-school financial crime," Jodi Cohen, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston division, said in a statement. "What we uncovered has resulted in charges against the leadership of four cryptocurrency companies, and four crypto 'market makers' and their employees who are accused of spearheading a sophisticated trading scheme that allegedly bilked honest investors out of millions of dollars."

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/1857245/the-fbi-secretly-created-a-coin-to-investigate-crypto-pump-and-dump-schemes?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed
 at Slashdot.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/1857245/the-fbi-secretly-created-a-coin-to-investigate-crypto-pump-and-dump-schemes?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed