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alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: [I]n a new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center in the U.S. have revealed that we can put certain tasks on autopilot in a way that enables something closer to true multitasking. Driving is the perfect example: When you take your test, your entire mental and physical energy is concentrated on executing the right combinations of movements and thoughts. After a decade behind the wheel, the brain is no longer consciously thinking everything through in great detail. In the new study, the researchers found that after extensive practice, the brain can effectively reroute some tasks around the brain's main computing center -- like a bypass road around a city -- to reduce mental overload and improve multitasking capability. "We have another stepping stone in our understanding of how the brain learns," says neuroscientist Maximilian Riesenhuber, senior author of the study. "The encouraging part is that you really can learn to multitask. There is actually a way to remodel your brain architecture and use other parts of your brain." [...] "Previous studies have shown that parts of the temporal cortex can be activated by particular object categories in experienced observers -- birds, cars, even Pokemon -- but a limitation of all of those studies is that they only looked after people became experts," says psychologist Patrick Cox, first author of the study. "We measure before and after training, so we can see that extensive training essentially put a category-selective area in the temporal lobe that was not there before." The study culminated in a dual-task experiment, in which the participants were asked to identify cars and take on another challenge. The individuals whose brains had offloaded more car-sorting work to the temporal cortex did better at the second task.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Trump administration has banned newly authorized foreign-made humanoid and four-legged robots, along with power inverters, citing "unacceptable risks" to the country's national security. FCC chairman Brendan Carr said the agency was doing its part "to secure America's critical supply chains." The BBC reports: The FCC has added the items to its Covered List -- a register of goods and services that are deemed a risk to US national security. The ban applies to new foreign-produced advanced robotic devices and power inverters and does not prevent the sale or import of any existing models that had been previously authorized by the FCC. The FCC cited concerns that the use of foreign-made inverters could allow overseas firms to turn them off, steal data, facilitate remote access and surveillance by "foreign government actors, or be otherwise exploited through a cyberattack." It added that the use of robots made outside the US could allow "malign actors to surveil Americans, enhance the capabilities of foreign intelligence services, or to remotely commandeer the robots."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: A corporate fad of "tokenmaxxing" on artificial intelligence technology is hitting its limits as workplaces throwing AI at everything are seeing the costs rise without a similar spike in productivity. What started as tech industry-fueled springtime hype over squeezing as much AI-generated work as possible out of products like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude has shifted to a summertime backlash. [...] Just a few months ago, Silicon Valley executives were promoting high token consumption as a signal of high-performing employees. The stereotypical tokenmaxxer was staying up late -- perhaps ignoring their significant other -- while orchestrating an army of 24-hour AI agents performing work on their behalf. [...] The trend boosted revenue for leading AI large language model developers like Anthropic and OpenAI, but it fizzled as it became apparent it wasn't necessarily the best strategy for everyone else. [...] Bain & Company management consultant Jue Wang said many of the big businesses her firm advises have been taking a closer look at returns on their AI investments. "The token cost for them has been doubling, almost every other month," she said. "Let's say $200 per developer per month. Multiply that by 20,000 developers, which is often what we're dealing with at these companies, and that quickly gets you to a number that is not a line item that any general manager has planned for." Sometimes that just means not using the AI equivalent of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. "Not everything needs a Claude Opus 4.6," she said of one of Anthropic's more capable models suited to software engineering or deep research. "And yet you see so many companies, so many users, default to using Opus for everything, including generating emails." That's led to a search for tools that do AI "model routing" -- in which easier queries get automatically sent to cheaper and more efficient AI systems and more complex tasks go to more powerful models. [...] At the same time, those who favor racking up as many tokens as possible are having a field day with new open-source models from Chinese startups like Moonshot's Kimi or Zhipu's GLM, which nearly match the capabilities of top U.S. models at a fraction of the price. "There is some validity to the theory that this could push tokenmaxxing a little bit further," said Raffi Krikorian, the chief technology officer at Mozilla. "But if we look at the industry overall, I think it's realizing that tokenmaxxing is a dumb thing." It's similar, Krikorian said, to how software companies once considered how many lines of code a programmer wrote to be a good metric of productivity. That later fell out of favor. "I think tokenmaxxing is moving through the exact same pattern," he said. "I think this is going to be an interesting blip that we're all going to look back to laugh at in a year."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has replaced its iPhone Upgrade Program with Apple Upgrade, a Klarna-backed U.S. leasing service covering most iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches. MacRumors reports: Apple Upgrade has lower base prices than the iPhone Upgrade Program, with iPhones available starting at $17.99 per month and the Apple Watch available starting at $11.99 per month. Macs can be leased starting at $24.99 per month, and iPads start at $11.99 per month. AppleCare+ is optional and not included in the lease price, with customers also able to opt for AppleCare One. There are 12-month and 24-month leasing options for the iPhone and Apple Watch, along with 24-month and 36-month leasing options for the Mac and iPad. Lease cost varies based on device, and is lower with a device trade-in that's applied on a monthly basis. [...] When leasing an iPhone, customers are required to choose a plan from AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile, and prepaid plans are not eligible. iPhones need to be leased with a carrier plan, but the iPhones are unlocked so customers can switch carriers if desired. MVNOs like Mint Mobile or Visible are not supported. At the end of the leasing period, customers can choose to return the device and exit the program, pay off the remaining amount owed on the device with a one-time payment and keep it, or return it and upgrade to a new device with a new lease. The payoff amount is the difference between what was paid during the leasing period and the retail price of the device, minus any remaining trade-in credits. Klarna is not charging a fee for the leasing program, so an iPhone that's $1,099 can be leased and then purchased for $1,099 with no extra cost beyond taxes. As with trade-ins, Apple will send a pre-labeled and prepaid shipping box for device returns or upgrades. If you don't opt to pay the purchase fee at the end of the leasing program, you will not own the device and must return it. Last week, after Bloomberg reported on Apple's upcoming leasing program, 9to5Mac uncovered code in the iOS 27 beta suggesting the company was developing a system that could restrict leased iPhones when customers fall behind on payments. Apple has now told The Verge that the new "Restricted Mode" will not be activated in response to a missed lease payment. What the new system is actually meant for remains unclear.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI-assisted vulnerability discovery has yet to produce the expected surge in real-world attacks: VulnCheck found that only 14 of 1,061 attributed discoveries, or 1.3 percent, had been exploited, which is "almost identical to the rate across all vulnerabilities in VulnCheck's dataset," reports The Register. "That's a far cry from the narrative that frontier AI is dramatically tilting the balance in attackers' favor by churning out instantly weaponizable bugs." The findings suggest AI is currently better at increasing the volume of bugs found than making them easier to weaponize. From the report: The report takes particular aim at Anthropic's much-publicized Project Glasswing, unveiled in April with warnings that AI-assisted vulnerability discovery could allow attackers to hijack systems, disrupt operations, or steal data. Claude Mythos may have identified 23,019 vulnerability candidates, but there's remarkably little public evidence showing what became of most of them. VulnCheck notes that only 126 have been published as CVEs, that just one has been confirmed exploited in the wild, and that Anthropic's public disclosure record has seen little movement since Project Glasswing launched. But that doesn't mean AI-assisted vulnerability research has failed, according to Patrick Garrity, security researcher at VulnCheck. "AI-assisted vulnerability discovery clearly has value for both attackers and defenders," Garrity wrote. "The data does not suggest that AI-discovered vulnerabilities are inherently more likely to be exploited than those found through traditional methods." Instead, he argues, AI is simply helping researchers discover more flaws, giving defenders an opportunity to patch them before criminals get there. Garrity stopped well short of declaring the threat overblown forever, but he did suggest some of the rhetoric has outpaced reality. "The data so far, including Anthropic's own stalled disclosure ledger, suggests that AI-assisted vulnerability discovery and frontier capabilities have been overhyped relative to the evidence available today," he wrote. "That doesn't mean the risk is imaginary. It means the impact has been real but modest."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eBay and several former executives have agreed to pay $56 million to Ina and David Steiner, the newsletter writers targeted in a 2019 corporate harassment campaign that involved threats, surveillance attempts, and deliveries of live insects and other disturbing items. The settlement closes the couple's civil case after seven former employees pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the scheme. TechCrunch reports: Ina and David Steiner, a married couple and the co-authors of EcommerceBytes, inspired the ire of high-level eBay executives after occasionally criticizing the company in their newsletter. In 2019, a plot was concocted to intimidate the couple into halting their negative coverage. Executives used sock puppet social media accounts to harass the couple, while also sending them anonymous threatening letters and bizarre items in the mail -- including live spiders and cockroaches, pornographic magazines, a bloody pig mask, a funereal wreath, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. According to previously released court documents, a plan that was attempted but never successfully carried out involved affixing a GPS tracking device to the couple's car. Yet another internally broached plan involved sending a "Samoan gang" to the Steiners' home. The settlement this week resolves a 2021 civil case brought by the couple against eBay. The law office representing the Steiners writes that the settlement includes $46.15 million paid to the couple by eBay itself, as well as $2 million from former eBay executive CEO Devin Wenig. Additionally, $500,000 will be paid out to the couple from former eBay executive Wendy Jones, as well as $50,000 from former eBay executive Steve Wymer. Additional funds are being paid to various non-profits. In 2022, seven former eBay employees were criminally charged and pled guilty in relation to the plot, including the company's former security chief, James Baugh -- who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Others indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice include David Harville, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Popp, Stephanie Stockwell, Philip Cooke, and former eBay contractor Veronica Zea.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview has "found flaws in a weakened version of a digital encryption standard that is in pervasive use throughout the internet," reports The New York Times. Researchers said the model discovered novel attacks against weakened versions of AES and the experimental post-quantum HAWK system, including one that was 200 to 1,000 times faster than previous human-developed methods. From the report: The flaws identified do not concern a cryptographic standard currently in use today, which means that modern banking and communication systems are not subject to immediate potential intrusions from A.I. Instead, Anthropic's technology cracked a watered-down version of an algorithm for Advanced Encryption Standard, or A.E.S., a ubiquitous protocol that safeguards web traffic, wireless networks, data storage and more. It is common to perform tests on weaker versions of encryption algorithms to understand whether more powerful computers could someday crack the actual standards, akin to solving a simpler math problem to identify whether patterns may exist for a more complicated one. In the testing, Mythos was able to break the weaker version of Advanced Encryption Standard in a way that Anthropic said made an assault 200 to 1,000 times faster than what previous human research had managed to do. While the immediate ramifications are minimal, the long-term implications could be significant. In previous tests, large-language models seemingly could not match or best what humans can do in the mathematically dense field of cryptographic research, but their rapid advances could suggest a future in which top models can surmount traditional internet security protections that are foundational to just about everything that takes place on the internet. [...] In addition to the attack on the encryption standard, Mythos also orchestrated another improved attack against a different digital cryptographic system known as HAWK that is designed to be bulletproof against both traditional and quantum computers. HAWK is not currently in use, but under consideration by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to become a new standard. The HAWK attack was validated by its authors, and independent cryptographers reviewed the Advanced Encryption Standard attack, Anthropic said, adding that it had shared its findings with the U.S. government and industry partners ahead of publication. Mythos devised the cryptographic attack on A.E.S. almost entirely autonomously, Anthropic said, but only after first refusing to contemplate the problem because it believed it was impossible to improve on existing methods of analysis. But after some coaxing, the chatbot sat with the puzzle for about a week before engineering its novel attack. Two human researchers then worked for nearly a month to verify that the method appeared correct. "Given that we are constantly underestimating the power and time of availability of future models, are we really comfortable that two years from now strong encryption won't be threatened?" said Glenn S. Gerstell, the former general counsel at the National Security Agency. "Mathematicians would tell you that it shouldn't be possible given current computing powers to break strong encryption in any meaningful time," added Mr. Gerstell, who helped write a report on cryptology in 2022. "But I don't think the capabilities of future models in the medium term -- before quantum computing or quantum-proof cryptography -- should be dismissed as trivial in this context."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Minnesota, the first US state to prohibit prediction markets, was prevented from enforcing the law by a federal court ruling just days before the ban was scheduled to take effect. But while Minnesota was stopped from enforcing a total ban, the state may ultimately be allowed to prohibit some types of prediction-market wagers. The Trump administration and the two largest prediction markets -- Kalshi and Polymarket -- sued Minnesota after the state enacted the law in May. The cases were consolidated, and a ruling (PDF) issued yesterday imposed a preliminary injunction blocking the law that was scheduled to take effect on August 1. Minnesota lawmakers saw prediction markets as indistinguishable from gambling, but the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) argues it has exclusive authority to regulate the platforms under federal law. One of the primary legal questions is whether event contracts are "swaps," which are regulated by the CFTC. Swaps are defined broadly in US law to include contracts in which payment "is dependent on the occurrence, nonoccurrence, or the extent of the occurrence of an event or contingency associated with a potential financial, economic, or commercial consequence." US District Judge Katherine Menendez in the District of Minnesota, a Biden appointee, said Minnesota's total ban on prediction markets is likely to violate US law because many trades on Kalshi and Polymarket are swaps. Menendez wrote: "Specifically, it appears that whether the Minnesota statute is expressly preempted turns on whether the state law attempts to regulate trades in event contracts that qualify as "swaps" within the meaning of the CEA [Commodity Exchange Act]. And there are several examples of event contracts hosted by Kalshi and Polymarket US that fit that definition because they concern the occurrence of events with clear potential economic, financial, or commercial consequences that are neither remote or unattenuated. Kalshi and Polymarket US are designated contract markets, so the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction to regulate transactions involving those 'swaps.'" Menendez said the CFTC, Kalshi, and Polymarket met their burden of showing they are likely to succeed on the merits, so she issued "a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of Minnesota's prediction market statute until a final decision on the merits is reached." But she said Minnesota may be able to prohibit some types of event contracts offered on Kalshi and Polymarket because not all of them appear to meet the definition of swaps. For example, Menendez doesn't think prediction-market bets on the outcome of Love Island USA meet the legal definition of swaps. Minnesota could continue litigating the case in district court or ask a federal appeals court to overturn the preliminary injunction.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DEF CON has banned "Meta-style glasses with recording capabilities," with no exceptions being made even for those with prescription versions. "Be sure to pack non-violating eyewear if you need them," DEF CON said. The Register reports: [The conference's official photo policy] has not been updated since 2023, predating the recent growth of camera-equipped eyewear developed by Meta with EssilorLuxottica under its Ray-Ban and Oakley brands. It states that public photography is permitted but with several caveats that essentially prohibit capturing the image of anyone, except on-stage speakers, unless the photographer obtains consent from the subject(s). "Love to see a 'no pervert glasses' policy at DEF CON," said EFF director of cybersecurity Eva Galperin.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GrapheneOS is defending its duress-password feature after an environmental activist used it to wipe his Pixel phone during a U.S. Customs search and was later indicted for allegedly destroying property under government control. The nonprofit says the operating system is "completely legal," cannot recover the erased data, and should not be weakened with encryption backdoors. Meanwhile, the activist faces up to five years in prison if found guilty. PCMag reports: In a post on Saturday, the Canadian nonprofit behind the operating system, the GrapheneOS Foundation, explained that the software offers a range of features to prevent data extraction. For example, one safeguard is the "auto-reboot timer" that'll reboot a locked device after a set period of time to put the data at rest, leaving all files inside encrypted. The group's post subtly suggests that GrapheneOS phones can withstand law enforcement searches without requiring users to resort to a duress password. "People should carefully consider how to use it in an actual duress situation where there can be physical or legal consequences for wiping the device," the nonprofit wrote. "GrapheneOS doesn't require it to protect data from being extracted from the device, but it takes recovering it completely off the table even with the PIN/password for each profile on the device." On X, the nonprofit has also said it can do nothing to help US law enforcement recover data from Tunick's phone. "Data cannot be recovered after the key derivation material is reliably wiped. It's not possible and there's nothing we can do to assist with it," the group wrote. "Similarly, it's not possible to assist with bypassing encryption because the hardware and software has been designed to prevent it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The review embargo has lifted for the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro, and the consensus across the board is that it is a massive leap forward in terms of build quality and battery life. The main issue reviewers complained about is the sky-high price, with the higher-end model jumping dramatically from $2,100 up to $2,900 due to the memory shortage crisis. (Some note that the price "nearly doubled" overnight while they were in the middle of testing.) In his video review, Marques Brownlee says, "This is their best build yet. They're finally doing what people have been asking for: a premium... modular... laptop." ZDNET agrees that this device "represents a new approach for Framework and a maturation of the brand's catalog," noting that the new construction is "sleek and airtight, with no gaps, spaces, or evidence that was even put together by your hands at all." Tom's Hardware echoes this enthusiasm, declaring that "The Framework Laptop 13 Pro's sturdy design, haptic trackpad, and bigger battery feel like they should have been there all along". Battery life, which has historically been a weak point for Framework, is now a standout feature. Ars Technica points out that the combination of Intel's efficient Panther Lake chips and a new 74-watt-hour battery is "finally long enough to decisively eliminate 'mediocre-to-poor battery life' as the laptop's biggest downside." They also said it's "Framework's nicest-looking, nicest-feeling, most polished laptop design." For Linux users, the machine appears to deliver on its promises. Phoronix says the device "is designed with great Linux compatibility in mind," offering a seamless out-of-the-box experience for distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora. As mentioned above, the overarching complaint is the extreme cost. Ars Technica notes that Framework unfortunately "switched to an exotic new upgradeable LPDDR5X RAM format just in time for those modules to become astronomically expensive." Still, Marques Brownlee summarizes the long-term value proposition perfectly: while it might be painfully expensive on day one, "the longer you keep this laptop, the more it feels worth it" because you can easily repair and upgrade it over time. Compared to Apple's flagship, the Framework is "80% of the quality, way more modular," he says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Claude is exposing a wealth of users' chats and creations in Google search results, meaning anyone can dig through conversations or other material that people used Claude to make but may not have realized were publicly available for strangers to see. The exposed data includes an AI-powered therapy app that someone appears to have vibe-coded, notes on meetings, and a dashboard someone made apparently to analyze medical billing data. Exposed chats reportedly include private cryptocurrency wallet keys and personal information like peoples' addresses Like other chatbots, Claude lets people share their conversations with others by creating a publicly accessible link of the chat. People may do this to send the full text of a conversation to their friends or coworkers in a group chat, for example. But they may not realize Google is also surfacing these links in search results, making them available to essentially anyone. [...] Claude users can change their privacy and sharing settings to make their chats no longer publicly accessible.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Arizona State University has launched a 120-credit bachelor's degree in content creation that teaches video, podcasting, branding, analytics, media law, and social strategy. For their capstone, students are "expected to build a real social media account and demonstrate audience growth during the program," reports Dexerto. From the report: The Content Creation BA is housed within ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and appears in the university's 2026-2027 course catalog. The 120-credit-hour degree prepares students to become "an influencer and strategic storyteller" by teaching video production, podcasting, personal branding, audience analytics and social media strategy. The program was approved by the ASU University Senate in March 2026. Its proposal said graduates would be prepared to work independently as influencers and content creators across livestreaming, videography, writing, podcasting, graphics and emerging media. [...] For the program's final project, students will choose a social media platform, such as TikTok, create a content and growth strategy, and attempt to gain real followers throughout the semester. "They will have demonstrable audience growth," [explained Jessica Pucci, senior associate dean at the Cronkite School]. "They will have a platform of their choice with real content and real followers and a real audience behind them." The curriculum includes courses titled How to Become an Influencer, On-Camera Presence, Introduction to Editing, Videography, Podcasting and Audio Storytelling, Social Media Foundations and The Digital Audience.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new analysis of 89 major geological events over the past 260 million years found evidence that mass extinctions, volcanic eruptions, ocean crises, and other upheavals may cluster around a roughly 27.5-million-year cycle. The cause remains unknown, with possibilities ranging from mantle activity and orbital changes to speculative galactic influences. Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: One possibility lies deep within Earth itself. The planet's mantle is constantly circulating through convection, albeit at an almost unimaginably slow pace. Periodic changes in mantle convection, or the initiation of mantle plumes, could influence volcanism, plate tectonics, mountain building, and other large-scale geological processes. Because these systems are closely interconnected, disturbances originating deep within Earth could eventually ripple through the planet's surface, oceans, climate, and biosphere. Another hypothesis focuses on interactions between Earth's surface and interior. Long-term orbital variations influence climate and sea level, periodically redistributing enormous amounts of water, ice, and sediment across the planet. [New York University geologist Michael Rampino] discusses the possibility that these changing surface loads subtly modify stresses within Earth's crust and upper mantle, potentially influencing tectonic and volcanic activity over geological timescales. Rampino also considers possible influences beyond Earth, an idea he has been weighing up since the 1980s. As the Solar System orbits the center of the Milky Way, it oscillates above and below the galaxy's mid-plane, with the timing of these passages aligning with that of Earth's major upheavals. These crossings, other researchers have suggested, could also gravitationally perturb comets in the distant Oort Cloud, increasing the likelihood of large asteroid impacts. Another, even more speculative, hypothesis suggests that if dark matter is concentrated near the galactic plane, a fraction of it could occasionally be captured by Earth. Over millions of years, this process could generate small amounts of internal heat, potentially influencing geological activity. At present, however, there is no direct evidence supporting either mechanism, so they remain very controversial. Large asteroid impacts are discussed separately in the paper. Although they were not included in the statistical analysis of the 89 geological events, the timing of several of Earth's largest known impact craters appears broadly consistent with the proposed 27.5-million-year rhythm, as Rampino has discussed in earlier papers. Rampino suggests this correspondence may warrant further investigation, but stops short of claiming a causal relationship.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name "fus__ro_dah" (two underscores after "fus"), but they accidentally requested records for the username "fus_ro_dah" (one underscore after "fus"). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme. (Ars readers may recognize "fus ro dah" as the Unrelenting Force "dragon shout" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.) Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term. Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme's conviction, writing: "Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted." [...] As the court puts it, "Although the information about the usernames was available at the time of the trial, there is no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube Premium will include Peacock Premium at no extra charge beginning in early 2027. "The deal brings a slew of premium content to the [$15.99 per month] YouTube Premium subscription, including live sports like the NFL, NBA and MLB and entertainment like Law & Order, Saturday Night Live and Love Island," reports The Hollywood Reporter. "It also has the potential to dramatically scale Peacock, which remains smaller than many of its streaming competitors." From the report: Peacock has 48 million subscribers, while YouTube Premium and YouTube Music have a combined 125 million subscribers, though they don't break out how many each of those offerings have. The agreement, which expands on the deal the company inked with YouTube parent company Google last year, will also extend the entertainment company's programming deal with YouTube TV, while bringing some of YouTube's offerings to Comcast Xfinity and Xumo platforms. There's also a notable sports and production element to the deal, with NBC Sports agreeing to stream some live sporting events on its YouTube channels, and with NBC agreeing to serve as the production partner for select live events on YouTube. YouTube will also bundle some of the company's International streaming offerings like Universal+ and Hayu in select markets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon has asked the FCC to approve a 5,105-satellite constellation launching in 2028 that would provide global direct-to-cell "voice, messaging, data, and emergency services," similar to Starlink's partnership with T-Mobile. The network would use Globalstar spectrum, support future Apple satellite services, and complement Amazon's existing Leo broadband constellation. The Verge reports: Advanced Television points out that the FCC application also includes a request to use spectrum assigned to Iridium's satellite network outside the US, even as Rocket Lab is in the process of acquiring Iridium with plans to expand. The new constellation and direct-to-device service will "complement" the broadband services Amazon also plans to offer through its Leo platform. In addition to consumer satellite service, it would also be used for things like disaster response and emergency messaging. Amazon says the new direct-to-device satellites "will process the signals in orbit before relaying them to improve performance." The new constellation will be nearly double the size of Amazon's initial Leo constellation, which is planned to include around 3,200 satellites. As of July 2nd, Amazon says "over 375" of those satellites have launched so far.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia and a large group of technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software companies have launched new initiative aimed at developing and sharing open source tools, models, and techniques for securing AI systems and agents. The new Open Secure AI Alliance aims to give defenders more open tools for testing, auditing and protecting AI models and agents. Nvidia points to the recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, noting that when closed AI tools could not differentiate between attackers and defenders and blocked forensic work, Hugging Face used the open-weight GLM 5.2 model on its own systems to review over 17,000 actions and contain the breach. "The right response is not to deny defenders access to capable open systems. It is to pair openness with strong safeguards, clear rules against malicious misuse, rigorous evaluation and rapid remediation. In cybersecurity, the safer path is the one that gives more defenders the ability to test, verify and strengthen the systems on which society relies," Nvidia said. Thanks to longtime Slashdot reader SphericalCrusher for also sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Hackaday: Community-led open source project hosting site Codeberg has formally announced that projects whose code is largely or fully machine-generated through LLMs and other 'AI' tools will no longer be welcome. This follows on the heels of a similar ban on cryptocurrency-related projects. The community vote was on two issues, the first being the notion that scraping of project code for the use in LLMs should be forbidden, which was a motion that easily passed. The second motion was on disallowing projects whose code was substantially generated by LLMs like Claude, OpenAI Codex, and similar. This motion passed with 358 in favor versus 144 against. In the earlier linked blog post the reasoning behind especially this second issue is expanded upon, covering not only "license whitewashing," but also the direct and indirect hardware costs, with the expanding 'AI' datacenter hyperscaling having massively increased hardware costs for Codeberg over the past years, as the costs have been largely externalized. Also covered is the aspect of these LLM-based tools destroying the OSS community, which is something that is backed up by recent studies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to The Information (paywalled), a state-backed Shanghai company has begun mass-producing China's first homegrown immersion DUV lithography machines, with about five units expected this year for SMIC, Hua Hong, and CXMT. Roughly 20 more units are expected in 2027. Tom's Hardware reports: The Information didn't name the manufacturer, but its sources described the operation as having pulled DUV development teams from several Chinese companies, one of them the state-backed startup Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology. SMIC has been testing a Yuliangsheng immersion tool since September 2025. Most components in the new systems are domestic, though some critical parts still come from Japan, and delays at local suppliers have held back output this year. [...] China accounts for around 20% of ASML's net sales this year, down from 33% in 2025, driven mainly by mainstream logic demand... Independent analysis from the AI Futures Project in June put commercial-scale Chinese immersion DUV in the mid-2030s, with ASML holding 98.7% of the immersion market. Qualifying the new machines for production lines could take many months, and they trail ASML's tools on performance and build quality. China's domestic EUV effort, which Reuters first reported as a working prototype in December, remains years away.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI's ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the "broad qualities" of those authors "while remaining distinct in its own voice," for example. This morning, Ars received the following response to a test prompt asking for a story introduction in the style of Stephen King: "I can definitely write with the hallmarks of atmospheric, character-driven horror and small-town dread, but I can't write in Stephen King's exact style or closely imitate his distinctive voice. Here's an original opening that captures a similar feeling while remaining its own..." In testing, ChatGPT generated similar dodges for other authors both living (J.K. Rowling, Amy Tan) and dead (Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway). An analysis published by No Latency earlier this month (PDF) found the same behavior for living authors but found ChatGPT complied with style-copying requests for deceased authors. In refusing to directly copy the "exact style" of various authors, ChatGPT offered instead to capture an overall "feeling" by incorporating some of the common features found in those authors' work. That may seem like a distinction without a real difference at first glance. But the slight alteration could be legally important as OpenAI continues to fight a number of lawsuits brought by book authors alleging large-scale copyright infringement by models trained on their work. One of those suits specifically cites ChatGPT's "uncanny ability to generate text similar to that found in copyrighted textual materials," for instance. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica. In the US, copyright law generally protects only a specific expression of an idea, not the more intangible style of an author. But an AI-generated stylistic imitation could become infringing if it becomes "substantially similar" to the work of the original author. "We've never had a situation in which this personal style of individual creators could be imitated as well and as inexpensively as we now have with AI," George Washington University Law School Professor Robert Brauneis told Bloomberg Law.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MacRumors interviewed AI critic Ed Zitron, author of the Where's Your Ed At newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast, about what could happen to Apple if the costly AI infrastructure boom collapses. Zitron argued that Apple is relatively well insulated because it has spent far less on data centers than rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. He said the company could use the downturn to make selective acquisitions, though it might simply continue operating largely as before. "I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn," Zitron said. Here's an excerpt from the report: If the bubble deflates the way you expect (write-downs, too much compute supply, possibly OpenAI cratering), can you walk us through what that would actually look like for Apple? Does anything break for iPhone users, or does Apple mostly watch it happen from the sidelines? Could it even benefit Apple? I think things would look much the same for Apple. I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn. I could see them doing some choice acquisitions as things begin to collapse, but I could also see them do nothing. I think Apple is in a very weird place at the moment. The Vision Pro was a dud, but it was also the most interesting and future-forward thing I've seen anyone put out in a while. If they were smart, they'd tread water and sink as much money into making that as small as humanely possible -- no matter how long it takes -- because the entire AI bubble is a result of everybody running out of hypergrowth ideas, mostly because we're flat out of new interfaces. I want to be clear that what they want to do with the Vision Pro requires it to basically be weightless and invisible and never need adjustments. When it works, it's genuinely awesome. But that's a load-bearing when. One slight movement means the whole thing goes out of focus. I can't even use mine anymore because it needs an update that requires you to wear the thing the whole time. So much promise, released too early, shoved out the door by a CEO on his way out.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European misinformation researchers say TikTok, X, and Meta are obstructing access to platform data required under the EU's Digital Services Act through rejections, restrictive quotas, costly APIs, and burdensome security demands. Although regulators have fined X and pushed platforms to improve access, researchers remain skeptical that the changes will provide reliable, reproducible data at scale. Ars Technica reports: In recent years, social media companies shut down public access tools like Meta's CrowdTangle and replaced them with content libraries, or, like X, paywalled their API data, forcing academics to pay "hundreds of dollars a month," said Duncan Allen, a research officer at Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in Germany. Researchers say that without API access, what Iamnitchi describes as the "black holes" in what society knows about how these platforms recommend content or handle reports regarding sensitive content will only grow. Others, like TikTok, cap how many posts any researcher account can pull each day, which Allen said can make it "impossible to study anything at scale." The DSA was meant to solve this by allowing vetted researchers at credible institutions to have access to API data if they could show it would help in studying systemic risks, from illegal content to threats to fundamental rights. But two years after the law took effect, researchers say they struggle to meet its security requirements and face narrow interpretations from platforms of what qualifies as a systemic risk. Application forms differ by platform, but most require data to be stored on infrastructure that cannot be compromised -- such as a machine physically disconnected from the Internet -- a resource most universities lack, [said Adriana Iamnitchi, chair of computational social sciences at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who leads research into online disinformation campaigns.] Even for researchers who secure approval, "there's no guarantee that the data is good," said L. K. Seiling, coordinator of the DSA40 Collaboratory, a German initiative that tracks 46 DSA applications. API data is often difficult for a colleague to reproduce, so a researcher's work cannot be checked for errors, which Iamnitchi said is a "basic requirement of science." DSA40 data shows that of 46 tracked applications, 20 were approved and 14 rejected. But approval rates vary widely: TikTok approved 11 of 13 applications, while X rejected 11 of 23. The true rejection rate is likely higher because the tracker relies on voluntary reporting, Seiling said. "There's no structured advantage for researchers to use this pathway," Seiling said. "Data access as it's set up right now tries to disincentivize researchers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Nvidia is in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The backstop from Nvidia would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project that SoftBank's energy subsidiary is developing in southern Ohio, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. For OpenAI, a deal would be the first step toward controlling its own infrastructure instead of renting it from Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle, while for Nvidia, it would guarantee demand for its chips for years to come. The project is expected to cost more than $500 billion in total, including the chips inside the data center, according to the WSJ. The $250 billion guarantee covers the data center lease and debt financing, but would not cover the Nvidia chips inside the center, the WSJ said, adding that the chipmaker was also discussing financing OpenAI's chip purchases worth up to $350 billion. Nvidia's backing would support financing vehicles aimed at reassuring lenders about the project's funding, the report added. The first phase of the project is expected to be finished in 2028, with around 800 megawatts of power, the Journal said. The report notes that the U.S. government will control access to the power, while Japan will fund it separately under a trade agreement tied to Tokyo's $33 billion investment in a natural gas plant. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will reportedly help determine who receives access.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Phoronix:A patch series that appears destined for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window is what's dubbed the "KVM Chainsaw" as a major code clean-up in dealing with the kvm_mmu "god data structure". Red Hat engineer and KVM maintainer Paolo Bonzini has merged the kvm-chainsaw branch to KVM's "next" Git branch. With this KVM Chainsaw work now in the next branch, it should be submitted for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle. The KVM Chainsaw work deals with the kvm_mmu structure being overloaded with multiple uses and splits it down into three parts for better handling current KVM usage. Paolo explains of KVM Chainsaw with the merge to the KVM.git next branch: "The kvm_mmu is a "god data structure" that includes three different tasks: describing the guest page table's format, walking the guest page tables and building the page tables. This means that the (already poorly named) nested_mmu is only used in part, since it has no page tables to construct. Furthermore, some parts are reused across guest and host page tables (such as the reserved bits detector) but others are not; for example permission_fault is replaced by simplified code such as is_executable_pte(). This series cleans this up by splitting kvm_mmu in three parts...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"The rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels and Amazon storefronts has created a new kind of white-collar exit strategy," reports Bloomberg. Workers ditch office jobs not to become celebrities, necessarily, "but to piece together an income online through brand deals, affiliate links and highly personal videos documenting everyday life." In many cases, the followers necessary to sustain a living are smaller (and more attainable) than people might assume. A small but loyal audience can now generate enough income to rival a midlevel salary. Welcome to the middle-class creator economy. Last year, 25-year-old Abi Platock balanced a corporate marketing job in New York while posting online in her spare time. She built her audience by posting one or two videos a day, offering career advice, beauty tips and daily vlogs. "I signed my first brand deal in the four-figure range, and for me that was just such a big eye-opening moment," Platock says of her partnership with deodorant brand Secret. She had 8,000 followers on TikTok at the time. "You can totally make it work without having hundreds of thousands of followers." Platock, who now has roughly 25,000 followers across platforms, has signed about $25,000 in brand deals so far this year and expects her annual creator income to reach around $50,000 by yearend. Her experience reflects a broader shift in advertising. Brands are increasingly moving money toward so-called microinfluencers - smaller online personalities who have less than 100,000 followers. "They are hiring a bunch of microcreators at scale instead of hiring a handful of macrocreators for what could potentially be the same cost," says Ali Grant, co-chief executive officer of the Digital Department, a creator management company. And they perform where it matters most: engagement. An engagement rate of 3% is considered strong, and some microinfluencers exceed 10%, Grant says of the closely watched metric that tracks how often followers interact with content through likes, comments, shares and saves. Microinfluencers average a 3.2% engagement rate, almost triple the 1.1% rate for macroinfluencers (more than 1 million followers), according to growth marketing agency ATTN... A TikTok partnership with a creator who has around 50,000 followers can run a brand more than $3,500 for a single post, Grant says; with 10 times the followers, that fee might just triple, to around $10,000.... The influencer marketing economy ballooned to a projected $33 billion in 2025 up from $1.7 billion in 2015. The segment gained momentum after the COVID-19 pandemic, as dissatisfaction with traditional work pushed many to reconsider conventional career paths, says Brooke Duffy, a professor of communications at Cornell University. "They realized the trade-offs in terms of the investments of time, energy and human capital were not necessarily worth sacrificing so much of one's personal self for," she says. Success online can bring greater freedom - and even higher pay than many traditional office jobs, which have a median US salary of $69,000, according to Glassdoor. But the middle-class hustle still requires constant effort to maintain. The career has no promise of lifetime longevity. And unlike traditional workers, creators have no predictable paycheck or job protections, making career stability elusive. Roughly 57% of 3,000 surveyed full-time creators earn below a living wage from content creation, according to a report last year from Influencer Marketing Hub. Income from social media can fluctuate wildly from month to month, driven by shifts in algorithms, sponsorship cycles and platform trends. "You could have a month where you make zero dollars, or you could have a month where you make $10,000," Platock says. The article cites Gallup Poll data released last year that found employee engagement in the U.S. had fallen to its lowest level in a decade [with engagement defined as "the psychological attachment workers have to their work/team/employer]. "Among the hardest-hit groups were Generation Z and workers in finance and technology. Broader workplace challenges, including rapid organizational change, hybrid and remote work transitions, and rising employee expectations are considered drivers of the overall trend." "For many workers, influencing can seem like a better deal; flexible schedules and independence wrapped in a veneer of creativity and fun. Almost 60% of Gen Zers say they'd become an influencer if given the opportunity, according to a 2023 survey from Morning Consult."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Variety reports:"The Odyssey" leaks have begun, as a high-quality bootleg of the film reached millions of people on X thanks to a viral tweet on July 25. At 2:25 p.m. PT, a post on X reading "Someone uploaded 'The Odyssey' full movie on X. Can you believe it?" amplified a message from a now-suspended account. The message included a high-quality version of the film, as confirmed by Variety, and climbed to over 2.1 million views within two and a half hours. By that time, the streaming film was replaced by a takedown notice, and then the account was suspended... As of July 26, a few clones of the bootlegged film are available on X, but they've been mostly flooded away by mislabeled files promising "The Odyssey" but actually showing a Rickroll, the longtime internet prank of tricking people into watching the music video for Rick Astley's 1987 song "Never Gonna Give You Up." The article notes the leak "certainly doesn't seem to have hurt the film's still-surging box office in its second weekend, during which it earned another $87 million," or lessened demand for Imax 70 mm tickets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thousands of Germans have been threatened with fines or prison sentences for social media posts, reports The Telegraph, calling the country's political speech laws "unusually stringent for an EU member state."One German had his home raided for calling a minister a "Schwachkopf [dummy]" while another was fined 2,000 (1,700) for calling Friedrich Merz a "lying Fritz" under a law that, critics claim, makes it effectively illegal to make fun of politicians. The number of investigations under Section 86a, the Nazi symbols ban... has more than doubled over the past decade according to official police statistics. Investigations into the "political insult" law also reached record levels in 2025. The surge in cases is so vast that the UN has launched an investigation into free speech violations in Germany, a step typically reserved for dictatorships and banana republics... In one recent case, a pensioner was investigated under Section 188 for posting "Pinocchio is coming" on Facebook, after he learnt Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, was visiting his hometown... The case was dropped after the story caused an outcry in Germany, and police have since clarified that calling the chancellor Pinocchio is not a crime... In November 2024, police in Bavaria raided the home of another pensioner because he called Robert Habeck, the then vice-chancellor of Germany, a "schwachkopf", or dummy. The raid was reportedly launched after Mr Habeck personally filed a criminal complaint against the pensioner. Prosecutors eventually dropped the investigation after deciding that the insult "dummy" was not of "sufficient weight" to merit criminal charges. While such cases might seem like bizarre outliers, there are plenty of others. In 2021, police raided a man's apartment in Hamburg after he told a senator "you're such a d---," and this year a resident was fined 2,000 for calling Mr Merz a "lying Fritz". Official figures show a record 4,792 Section 188 cases were filed in Germany in 2025, with the numbers rising by nearly 85 per cent between 2023 and 2025. The article notes both left- and right-leaning free speech activists in Germany are calling for some of the stricter laws to be scrapped. And it adds that the uproar "bears some similarities to the free speech debate in Britain, where citizens have had a knock on the door from police over opinions posted online."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's been a change to NASA's launch of six satellites for solar storms research. Space.com reports that those satellites "were originally slated to lift off on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket but have now been assigned a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, according to a NASA mission update."[NASA's Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment mision - or SunRISE] will fly to space as part of a rideshare mission sponsored by the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command. Though it's not stated specifically in the NASA release, that may be a hint as to why the mission's rocket was changed. On its most recent launch [U.S. Space Force mission USSF-87], Vulcan experienced an anomaly in one of its solid rocket boosters - the second such incident to occur during the rocket's four launches to date. Vulcan succeeded in delivering the USSF-87 payload to its designated orbit on that launch, but the recurrence of the booster issue during ascent prompted the Space Force to pause national security launches on Vulcan until it could be addressed. Which mission SunRISE will be manifested on has not yet been released, but Space Force's Space Systems Command [SSC] has already shifted other launches between Vulcan and SpaceX's Falcon 9... Falcon Heavy is SpaceX's heavy-lift launch vehicle... that consists of three modified Falcon 9 first stages, and has launched 12 times since it debuted in 2018. Four of those have delivered national security payloads to orbit, with the most recent of those, USSF-52, launching in December 2023. Falcon Heavy's most recent flight overall occurred this past April, when it sent the Viasat-3 F3 telecom satellite to orbit. Falcon Heavy's next mission will lift off with NASA's Nancy Roman Space Telescope, currently set for no earlier than Aug. 30. SunRISE is scheduled to launch later this year... Sientists will use data collected by the satellites "to improve prediction models for impending space weather, which in turn could lead to mitigation plans to better thwart the effects of such solar events on orbital infrastructure." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Digital Trends reports:Apple could unveil its first smart glasses at WWDC in June 2027, followed by a consumer release toward the end of the year, according to Bloomberg... Part of the delay reportedly stems from Apple's engineering and marketing teams spending more time refining the product and deciding how to address the privacy concerns... Apple has reportedly considered glasses without cameras, as well as a version where the cameras can analyse the surroundings but cannot record photos or video. Such an approach could still support object recognition, navigation, Siri, calls, and music playback. The company is also expected to favor on-device processing, avoid facial recognition, keep recordings away from AI training, and use a more visible light around the camera.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A U.S. district court "has dismissed Google's case against SerpApi over that company's scraping of search results to train AI models," reports Computerworld. Google had claimed that it was protecting copyright holders - and that SerpApi's actions breached America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):[Google] made two claims: first, that no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, and second that no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, or component protected by the Act. SerpApi claimed that the URLs and other links that were being served by Google did not in themselves entail copyright and the judge agreed. In her judgment, she said that there was no indication that the copyright holders had authorized Google to take action against SerpApi. The case is not completely over as the judge has given Google 21 days to amend its complaint to demonstrate that it was acting on behalf of the copyright owners. SerpApi's CEO reacted to the court's ruling as "a win not just for SerpApi, but for all who depend on an open internet. We're pleased that the court rejected Google's attempts to expand the DMCA to assert control over access to public pages. The internet's founding principle - open access to usable information - is essential to driving innovation and ensuring everyone benefits from the promise of data. SerpApi will continue supporting developers, AI companies, researchers, and businesses that rely on access to public search information." Some analysis from Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber:I've come around on SerpApi in the last few months. My initial take was that it surely must be illegal for a company to scrape Google's search results and offer access to that data as an API. But I've come around to the argument that what SerpApi is doing to obtain Google search results is, well, exactly how Google scrapes the rest of the entire web to build its search index. It's all just scraping publicly accessible web pages. This December piece by Mike Masnick at Techdirt is what began to change my mind. In fact, Masnick wrote, Google "built its entire business on scraping the web without asking permission first. And now it wants to use one of the most abused provisions in copyright law to stop others from doing something functionally similar to what made Google a tech giant in the first place." Now Google is even getting heckled about the decision on social media. "If Google wants to refile the suit within the allowed 21 days, it has to admit that site owners have copyright protection of their work and THAT would open the door to them suing Google for scraping their content for AI Overviews."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

270,000 people have been displaced by wildfires in France and Spain, reports the Guardian. A wildfire even forced evacuations in Scotland. And wildfires "have now scorched four million acres of land in the U.S.," reports NPR, as tens of millions of people in North America "are continuing to endure hazardous smoke from out of control wildfires burning across Canada and the Western U.S." At America's National Interagency Fire Center, NPR's wildfire correspondent says all of America's firefighting resources have now been deployed across the country. "So if we get another big fire, we're in trouble... International aid could be harder to come by if the situation in Southern Europe gets worse and firefighters are going to be needed there." Meanwhile Toronto was blanketed this week "with eye-watering, cough-inducing soot," writes a climate-change reporter for the Toronto Star newspaper, "briefly giving us the worst air quality in the world." But looking to the future after a wildfire that's 50% larger than any in Ontario's history (315,000 hectares or 778,331 acres), he had this to say about the eye-watering smoke. "It will be back." The article's headline warned of "Our smoke-filled future" and how Canada "must prepare for bigger wildfires, every summer - forever."Even if global carbon emissions were cut dramatically, so long as any greenhouse gases are being put into the atmosphere, climate scientists say the world will continue to get hotter. And as the temperature rises, the forests dry out and the wildfires will get bigger, stronger and more frequent. "It's not going to get better. It's going to get worse," said Edward Struzik, a fellow with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen's University and the author of Dark Days at Noon: the Future of Fire . "These fires aren't going away. Toronto is going to get smoke every summer...." The best solution would have been to dramatically cut emissions years ago. The harsh scientific reality is there's nothing we can do to stop wildfire smoke from blanketing cities for a few days every summer - and it's going to continue for decades to come. We're all going to need to buy air purifiers and masks and get used to it.... "The idea that we can thin our way through the boreal forest boggles the mind," [says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-profit research organization]. "There aren't enough people in Canada to do that." The boreal forest in Canada is an enormous and largely roadless expanse bigger than the entire European Union. In comparison, America's much smaller forests are criss-crossed by roads, making firefighter access much quicker and easier. And the nature of the forests is fundamentally different as well, said Hausfather, who wrote an article summarizing research on the subject. "Western U.S. forests have evolved for frequent low-level fires that burn out the undergrowth - usually every five to 30 years," he said. "Historically, before fire suppression, fires would burn through, and they wouldn't actually kill the trees. They'd just kill smaller trees and clear out the brush." "The boreal forest is a fundamentally different beast," he said. "It's an ecosystem designed to burn." With smaller, more densely packed trees, the boreal is wetter and colder and doesn't burn anywhere near as often - every 100 to 200 years on average, Hausfather said. But when fire does erupt, it's often much more intense, burning up into the canopy and levelling everything in its path... Clearing out the dead wood on the ground wouldn't prevent, or even slow, the canopy fires that sweep the boreal, said Hausfather.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

America's garbage trucks can do more than just collect trash, reports Newsweek. They may also help identify code violations using AI.Officials in Cape Coral, Florida, recently considered equipping sanitation trucks with AI-powered cameras that would photograph properties as crews complete their normal collection routes. The system would have been designed to identify potential issues such as overgrown lawns, peeling paint, and illegal dumping, and to flag violations so the city staff can review them later before taking enforcement action... However, in a statement on July 13, Cape Coral officials said it would not be moving forward with the camera technology, citing cost issues and insufficient benefits. "Claims suggesting that this technology would automatically identify, cite or fine residents are inaccurate," the statement also noted... Cape Coral officials say that a camera system in the future would assist - not replace - human code enforcement officers, and employees will review any AI-generated alerts before violations are issued. "Even if such a system were to be considered in the future, any potential code violations would require review and verification by a Code Compliance Officer before any enforcement action could be taken," the organization wrote. But Cape Coral, Florida "is not the first city to explore the technology," the article notes.AI imaging systems developed by City Detect have already been deployed in several municipalities. According to the company's published case studies, Stockton, California, used the platform to analyze nearly 40,000 parcels, capturing almost 200,000 images while identifying thousands of potential code issues. Cathedral City, California, has also used the technology to assist code enforcement, while Dallas approved funding for a similar program pending final implementation. Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the site tech-news site XDA Developers:The consumer tech economy needs more DRAM manufacturers, and it needs them more urgently than perhaps at any point in its history. Anyone keeping track of the pricing trends will know that memory prices have climbed into the stratosphere on the back of AI infrastructure's relentless demand, and every consumer device that depends on RAM has traveled from inflated to unaffordable, quarter after quarter, with almost no relief in sight. Which is exactly why a story out of Shenzhen is worth paying attention to, even in its current rumor phase. According to the details circulated by various semiconductor analysts on X, the Chinese government, DRAM maker SwaySure and Chinese tech giant Huawei have partnered to set up a 12-inch memory production plant. If the reports hold up, it could change memory economics for years to come, but not necessarily in the way you'd hope... SwaySure itself is a known player. The company was registered in Shenzhen in March 2022, is reportedly backed by municipal government, and appears alongside Huawei on the US Commerce Department's Entity List, suggesting Washington has realized the connection between the two entities. Although, that's also where the story becomes a little less straightforward. None of these claims have been independently confirmed, and many of the technical details circulating online trace back to a single X account. Huawei has previously denied operating the wider network of state-backed fabs that analysts have reported. Even the widely quoted figure of 140,000 wafers per month isn't new, and public records indicate SwaySure's production line is already operational. What gives the report weight, then, is the fact that Huawei has spent years building this kind of domestic semiconductor ecosystem through partners that appear to operate independently. The rationale that analysts on X keep revisiting has little to do with consumer memory. Huawei's Ascend AI accelerators require high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and US export controls have all but cut Chinese entities from procuring HBM from Samsung or SK Hynix... Owning the supply outright solves a problem that purchasing power can't, which is why the DRAM push is read as a bid to secure captive HBM for Huawei's own silicon rather than to flood the market with cheaply manufactured DDR5... The catch, however, is the fact that most of this new and rejuvenated capacity is expected to be absorbed by China's own domestic demand, rather than to relieve the global shortage... This development does not seem to be an isolated incident, given the state of DRAM economics. CXMT, China's largest manufacturer of DRAM, is already running close to 265,000 wafer starts per month as of now as per analyst estimates, and is projected to hit 350,000 by the end of the year, bringing it within the touching distance of Micron's estimated 385,000.... [T]he oligopoly seems to be facing the first credible challenge to its capacity discipline in decades, and it seems to be coming from a country building fabs much faster than the competition could hope to match. Now, whether it tangibly impacts the consumer market economics in the time to come may be a story in its own right in a few years, but for now, for what it's worth, it's a new direction, and much of it feeds optimism.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Welcome home!" NASA posted on X.com, sharing footage of a successful "parachute-assisted" landing on a Kazakhstan steppe for the Soyuz MS-28, carrying three astronauts who'd spent 241 days on the International Space Station. (And YouTube has a full two-hour video with NASA's coverage of the landing.) A NASA web page notes they orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles after docking with the Space Station on November 27. It was the first mission for NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Mikaev (and the second mission for Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov). "After routine post-landing medical checks, recovery teams will fly the crew by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Williams then will board a NASA aircraft bound for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It started with some underground utility work for the South Carolina town of Surfside Beach (population: 4,155). "Public records confirm that a payment of $545,598.30 was issued," according to a local news station - but the CEO of Wildcat Contractors "stated that the account that received the money is a scammer account and that his company has an overdue invoice for underground utility work completed in Surfside Beach." Yahoo picks up the story:After the payment issue surfaced, Wildcat said Surfside Beach sent over the email thread containing the payment confirmation. The company told WMBF it noticed multiple red flags in the chain. One involved an email address where "Wildcat" appeared with an extra "i." Another involved documents that the company said included a forged signature taken from a prior notarized document. Wildcat said the money was sent to a spoofing account claiming to be the contractor. More local reports are unraveling what happened:According to the Wall Street Journal, the town's finance director said a town employee called Wildcat's project manager on March 13, the day the payment was sent. The project manager referred the caller to [Wildcat CEO] Bowker. The town then called Bowker's mobile phone and left a voicemail about the ACH transfer. Bowker told the Wall Street Journal she does not recall the voicemail but acknowledged she may have missed it. Now a new report released by a law firm hired by the town to investigate "shows it did make an attempt to verify before sending $545,000 to a fraudulent bank account," according to local news reports:According to the report, the town sent an email to Wildcat's legitimate email domain on March 13 requesting a callback for verbal verification before sending the payment. Surfside received a response to that email with a phone number, though it remains unclear whether that response came from a real Wildcat employee or from the scammers. The report found that the fake town domain was used in communications between both parties throughout the process, which the law firm overseeing the investigation said was likely created to facilitate the fraud and delay its discovery. That seems to be the case in a nutshell:Investigators determined the fraudsters used spoofed and typo-squatted email domains, including surfsidesbeach.org, to impersonate town officials and redirect the payment. The fraudulent domain was created March 9 and was used to help conceal the scheme, according to investigators. Town officials said they are continuing to work with the FBI, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and their insurance partners to recover the funds. "The town has also implemented additional security measures to strengthen payment verification procedures and reduce the risk of similar incidents."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Canadian lab has run a chemical process on real spent nuclear fuel "and pulled out 90% of the long-lived danger in 24 hours, the part that forces a burial site to last 100,000 years," notes the blog Autonocio, "with the leftovers meant to fuel a reactor."The standard plan for spent nuclear fuel is to wait it out. You pull the used bundles from a reactor, sit them in a pool of water for seven to ten years while the heat and radiation come down, seal them in concrete casks, and look for somewhere deep and geologically dull to leave them for the next hundred thousand years. Canada has been hunting for that burial site since the 1980s and still doesn't have one in the ground. A company in Saint John, New Brunswick thinks most of what makes that waste dangerous never needed to go in the ground at all. Moltex Energy Canada says a chemical process it calls WATSS can strip 90% of the long-lived material out of used Canada Deuterium Uranium [CANDU] fuel in 24 hours, and that the concentrated leftovers become fuel for a reactor it wants to build on the same site. The recovery step isn't a slide in a pitch deck anymore. In 2025, World Nuclear News reported that Canadian Nuclear Laboratories ran the process on real used fuel from a commercial Canadian reactor and confirmed the 90% figure. None of it is generating power yet. What exists is a validated chemical step and a reactor design waiting in line at a regulator. The rest is a 2030s problem. "The chemistry has a lab result behind it. The reactor does not exist..." the article points out. "Moltex is aiming to have its first WATSS and SSR-W units running at Point Lepreau by the early-to-mid 2030s... Not everyone buys the pitch. Critics have argued the reprocessing creates its own stream of byproducts, that the economics are unproven, and that a single site's stockpile is finite." But Moltex "isn't alone in trying to burn nuclear waste instead of bury it," the article notes, with Switzerland and Denmark "chasing the same goal a different way." Switzerland's Transmutex drives a subcritical reactor with a particle accelerator, feeding it spent fuel alongside thorium... Denmark's Copenhagen Atomics is building a thorium molten-salt reactor that fits inside a shipping container and runs on the leftovers from conventional plants. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader kwelch007 for sharing the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Big news from Comic-Con 2026:"Coyote vs. ACME" debuted its long-awaited final trailer. CNET calls it "an animation-meets-live-action story," with the Coyote catapulting into theaters this August 28. (The film began development back in 2018, but was shelved for a tax write-off in 2023 by Warner Bros. until a backlash led to its sale to Ketchup Entertainment.) "Fed up with Acme's unreliable products, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a lawyer and sue the company..." writes CNET. "The movie also features Lana Condor along with a host of Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn and Granny (who gets dinged by an anvil)."In other movie news, CNET says Johnny Depp also "made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con, donning a costume as Ebenezer Scrooge" to promote his November 13 movie about the miser from Charles Dickens' famous Christmas novella. (Ian McKellen and Daisy Ridley are also in the movie.)But several geek favorites are being filmed as TV series... There's big news for William Gibson fans, reports Entertainment Weekly. "Two years after Apple TV announced production on the first-ever series adaptation of William Gibson's seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer, the lucky few hundred who attended the studio's Hall H panel at Comic-Con 2026 got to watch the first teaser. For Amazon's Prime Video, the Tolkien-derived "Rings of Power" series released a season 3 trailer that CNET said "successfully hides the best parts with fire... The trailer suggests that Sauron is building an army, and all of Middle-earth is trying to find ways to stop him... Rings of Power season 3 will start dropping weekly episodes on Nov. 11, meaning this show will be airing at the same time the Peter Jackson films will be celebrating their 25th anniversary."Later in November Amazon's Prime Video will also debut Blade Runner 2099, an eight-episode series that's a sequel to 2017's film Blade Runner 2049, reports CNET. "Set in an alternate version of LA where replicants run things and the humans play second fiddle, the series sees Yeoh's replicant Olwen chasing down outlaw replicants who've gone missing. With her own shelf life on a ticking clock, the stakes are high for her and for her human fugitive partner, Cora..."Paramount Plus will debut Avatar: Seven Havens in October, a new animated series from the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender which CNET says "follows a pair of twin avatars, one of whom is Korra's successor."Disney+ has season 3 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.Kevin Feige said Marvel's television slate will include more seasons of "X-Men '97" and the upcoming "VisionQuest" TV series.HBO Max will launch a new Green Lantern series called Lanterns on August 16.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"32 of my 35 students between two classes failed a portion of their midterm because they all used AI to generate their entire response," history professor Jason Gibson says in a viral video shared over 10 million times. "And apparently, they didn't proofread it." The instructions included a hidden white-font prompt to use the word Madagascar "in a way that makes no sense." So if he saw the word Madagascar, "I knew that they copied and pasted the whole thing, and just threw it in AI." Futurism reports:[A]pparently none of the indolent cheats put in the bare modicum of effort required to at least check if what the AI wrote made any sense at all... [Gibson shared some AI-generated answersin a follow-up video.] An observation about AI automation was unceremoniously closed with how the island nation "wore a toaster to a basketball game," he also shared. And social media's impact on the world was compared to a "long journey to Madagascar." Gibson makes it clear that humiliating his students wasn't the point. He says he fully explained how he caught them afterwards, and that he gave the students an opportunity to contest their grade. (Only two did, showing at least that they do feel shame....) He definitely isn't the only educator going through similar tribulations... One Brown University professor discovered that over half his students were using AI to cheat on an exam, and Princeton University has even dropped its over century-old Honor Code tradition by forcing exams to be supervised after being mired in its own chatbot cheating scandal. "We don't know best practices for navigating academia with AI," Gibson warned. "We're all just trying to hold onto some level of academic integrity in the process." "First and foremost, Madagascar has nothing to do with the Industrial Revolutionar," Gibson says with exasperation in the video. "Second, it was more than obvious that they didn't even go back and re-read these responses... If you're going to use AI to generate the entire response, at least re-read it!" Here's how one student answered the test question. "Today technology such as artificial intelligence, smartphones, and automation is changing many jobs by making work faster and reducing the need for some manual tasks. Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon." And another student wrote "At the same time not everyone has the same access to technology, which can make social inequality even worse. Madagascar purple bicycle whispers to the ceiling."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a sign of the times, Firefox's New Tab page could soon include a crossword puzzle from AI-powered news platform Particle. The blog OMG Ubuntu reports:The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle's AI has ingested and summarised that day. [After solving the crossword, links appear to related news articles...] If you just want to try the crossword, you access it in any browser via a direct link. While it may look like Mozilla is trying to capitalise on the Wordle craze several years too late, it's part of its strategy to make the Firefox new tab page a discover destination in itself, not just a springboard for new searches. The 'Daily Grind' crossword widget (name subject to change) is just one of several widgets Firefox has (or will get). You'll also find a to-do list, timer, stock checker, world clock, picture of the day, privacy report and new-look weather widget (bigger than the existing one). During the World Cup 2026, Firefox offered real-time match scores and fixture information too... [T]hey aren't mandatory. You can disable the ones you don't want to use, or, if you don't want any at all, turn them all off to hide the widget area itself. A button to 'show fewer widgets' frees up room to allow other distractions (sponsored stories) on the new tab page to show... [Presumably you can also still open new tabs to a blank page...] They're rolling out to users in certain region and locales already. Plus, Mozilla routinely tests new features with a small set of users before they hit stable builds (i.e., the "Allow Firefox to run feature studies" setting). If you don't have widgets in your Firefox build, but you want them, you can manually enable them in Firefox 153 and later from the about:config page. Search for the following master switch and set it to true to enable the widget area: browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.widgets.system.enabled Then, enable the widgets you want to use by searching: activity-stream.widgets.*.enabled However, the usual caveats about "trying things not enabled by default" still apply. Mozilla hasn't set a firm rollout date, though the feature is already documented on its support site. With fortnightly Firefox releases about to start, and a big Nova redesign, chances are we'll all be puzzling over these widgets sooner rather than later.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a sign of the times, Firefox's New Tab page could soon include a crossword puzzle from AI-powered news platform Particle. The blog OMG Ubuntu reports:The mini crossword game is updated daily, with puzzles based around recent content Particle's AI has ingested and summarised that day. [After solving the crossword, links appear to related news articles...] If you just want to try the crossword, you access it in any browser via a direct link. While it may look like Mozilla is trying to capitalise on the Wordle craze several years too late, it's part of its strategy to make the Firefox new tab page a discover destination in itself, not just a springboard for new searches. The 'Daily Grind' crossword widget (name subject to change) is just one of several widgets Firefox has (or will get). You'll also find a to-do list, timer, stock checker, world clock, picture of the day, privacy report and new-look weather widget (bigger than the existing one). During the World Cup 2026, Firefox offered real-time match scores and fixture information too... [T]hey aren't mandatory. You can disable the ones you don't want to use, or, if you don't want any at all, turn them all off to hide the widget area itself. A button to 'show fewer widgets' frees up room to allow other distractions (sponsored stories) on the new tab page to show... [Presumably you can also still open new tabs to a blank page...] They're rolling out to users in certain region and locales already. Plus, Mozilla routinely tests new features with a small set of users before they hit stable builds (i.e., the "Allow Firefox to run feature studies" setting). If you don't have widgets in your Firefox build, but you want them, you can manually enable them in Firefox 153 and later from the about:config page. Search for the following master switch and set it to true to enable the widget area: browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.widgets.system.enabled Then, enable the widgets you want to use by searching: activity-stream.widgets.*.enabled However, the usual caveats about "trying things not enabled by default" still apply. Mozilla hasn't set a firm rollout date, though the feature is already documented on its support site. With fortnightly Firefox releases about to start, and a big Nova redesign, chances are we'll all be puzzling over these widgets sooner rather than later.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Politico reports that in the Virginia area alone there's dozens of data center projects "that altogether need 70 gigawatts of power - equivalent to 70 nuclear plants" - currently seeking connection to their grid. But there's also concerns about a Virginia data center powered with natural gas and backup diesel generators:When Virginia's top environmental regulator received an analysis warning of data center pollution, it took him less than five minutes to forward it to seven people on his staff... Internal emails obtained by POLITICO through a public records request paint a portrait of an agency that moved quickly to defend the only data center in Virginia that is powering itself - in what former officials and environmental health advocates described as an unusual effort to shape the debate around an industry whose global epicenter is in the state. The agency's pushback focused on the report's findings that the facility in Loudoun County could release harmful amounts of air pollution through eight bus-sized natural gas turbines - as allowed by permits granted by the Department of Environmental Quality [DEQ] itself... The request comes as data centers are devising new ways to produce their own power as a way to temper growing public discord over rising electricity prices amid the AI construction boom. Virginia has more than 600 data centers. The report [commissioned by Virginia's 54-year-old environmental nonprofit Piedmont Environmental Council] raised concerns that the data center's on-site power system, which also includes dozens of backup diesel generators, could cause tens of millions of dollars in health damages to people living around the facility, owned by Vantage Data Centers... [The analysis also argued the pollution could lead to 3.4 to 6.5 premature deaths annually.] People living near the Vantage facility in Sterling say its natural gas turbines produce constant noise and air pollution. The permits for Vantage issued by DEQ in 2023 allow cumulative emissions of seven different pollutants, including 95 tons per year of nitrogen oxides and more than 56 tons of soot. Both contribute to asthma and heart attacks. Those figures are in line with other state permits for minor sources of pollution, but DEQ's permits for Vantage have sparked local concerns because of the facility's location in a residential area... [Viriginia environmental quality officials] raised questions about whether the report wrongly described the facility's potential air pollution as dangerous, when soot levels in Loudoun County are deemed acceptable by America's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Health experts, including former EPA air quality official Michael Korber, told POLITICO that soot pollution can negatively affect human health even at EPA-approved levels. The World Health Organization's standard for ambient soot pollution is nearly half of what EPA suggests is safe. Some current and former staffers on Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality believe it's inappropriate for the agency to issue aggressive statements on the healthfulness of the data centers, with one former department leader saying Virginia's DEQ "is not the health department."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"In many parts of the world, lakes are drying out at a scale so massive that scientists are warning they may be emitting enough greenhouse gases to rival our fossil fuel habit," reports ScienceAlert: In a new study published in Science, scientists say the Aral Sea - the world's largest desiccated lake - has emitted a whopping 204 megatons (~225 million US tons) of carbon dioxide since it was drained in the 1960s... The study estimates that between 1960 and 2022, the evaporating sea has released 204 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, based on site surveys and core samples collected from across the dry lakebed... The new study suggests that rehydrating the entire basin could come with enormous benefits to the environment, not just within the sea itself, but at a global level. "There is a hidden carbon treasure beneath the Aral Sea," says biochemist Rafael Marce from the Spanish National Research Council. "If these sediments remain exposed, carbon will continue to be released into the atmosphere. If the sea is re-flooded, that same carbon could shift from being a source of emissions to becoming part of the climate solution." According to the researchers' calculations, re-flooding the lakebed could prevent the release of the estimated 165 megatons of carbon that remain. The study also revealed that nearly one-fifth of the Aral Sea's carbon emissions are actually being released as wind blows away sediment on the lakebed, a factor that researchers had not accounted for in the past. Thanks to Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ars Technica reports:Hyundai Motor Company's plan to put humanoid robots to work by 2028 is not part of current negotiations with striking South Korean autoworkers, according to the company. The automaker is disputing news reports that partial labor strikes by the Hyundai Motor union at the world's largest automotive plant in South Korea were spurred by concerns about the company's planned deployment of humanoid robots in the United States starting in 2028. [The planned robots are built by Boston Dynamics, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hyundai.] A Hyundai statement shared with Ars describes the union's demands as focusing on compensation-related issues such as wage increases, bonuses, and an extension of workers' retirement age. "Potential deployment of robots in Korean production facilities is not part of the current labor-management discussions," according to the Hyundai statement... Hyundai emphasized that its current plan only covers the initial deployment of the Atlas humanoid robot at Metaplant America, an electric vehicle factory near Savannah, Georgia, starting in 2028. "Decisions about future Atlas deployment at other facilities will be made thoughtfully, in accordance with local operational needs, and in dialogue with the employees and workforce representatives at those sites," the company stated. However, The Wall Street Journal described the Hyundai Motor union as making "unprecedented demands seeking to enshrine job protections in the era of robots and AI," and characterized certain compensation demands as hedging against potential reductions in work hours caused by AI adoption and robotic automation. "Remember that without labor-management agreement, not a single robot using new technology will be allowed to enter the workplace," the union told Hyundai in an internal letter reported by Reuters. Hyundai management and the labor union are currently reviewing a proposed wage reform that would "provide factory workers with greater income stability even after the carmaker's planned deployment of humanoid robots," The Korea Times reported. But experts cautioned that the wage overhaul, which would convert hourly pay for overtime and night-shift allowances into fixed wages, could come at the expense of company productivity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNBC reports:Amazon is requiring that third-party sellers label any product images or videos that contain "AI-generated people" after New York recently passed a law mandating greater transparency around "synthetic performers" in ads... The policy directs sellers to tag images [and videos or other graphics on listing pages] with specific metadata keywords before they're uploaded. "Recent legislation requires disclosure when images or videos in advertisements contain photorealistic AI-generated people," Amazon wrote in the announcement [clarifying that the requirement doesn't apply to content featuring TV/video game/movie characters or content including real people, even if they've been altered using AI]. The company said it will "add an indicator" to listings on its website, informing consumers that images or other content feature AI-generated people, "where applicable." It's unclear what criteria Amazon will apply when deciding when to display the label to shoppers... Amazon has embraced AI internally and it's increasingly infusing the technology across its portfolio. The company has optimized listing titles and details so they're more likely to be spotted by AI systems, invested in a recently rebranded assistant called Alexa for Shopping, and launched a feature that injects AI-generated [images of] products into its search bar in real time based on user queries. More Amazon third-party sellers are using AI to generate text, images and other content for their listings, partly by using the company's tools. Outside sellers account for more than 60% of goods sold on Amazon, the article points out. It adds that there's currently no nationwide U.S. law requiring companies to disclose AI-generated advertising content, it adds - but YouTube, Meta, Pinterest, and TikTok have already added labels for AI-generated content. And a new California law also requires large AI providers to embed watermarks in AI-generated images, video and other content...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Futurism reports:[Some online publications] are now debating whether to cut Google off entirely, as the Wall Street Journal reports, illustrating an increasingly fraught relationship between the tech giant and the publishers that are creating content its AI models are regurgitating. According to the newspaper, prominent outlets including USA Today, Politico, the Economist, People, and Reuters are all reexamining their relationship with Google. Some are debating whether to continue to work with the tech giant at all... Even Reddit executives are reevaluating the company's $60 million-a-year contract that allows Google to train its AI models on user-submitted content on the platform. They've similarly watched as Google's AI features discourage users from navigating to Reddit... Beyond pondering whether to cut Google off, other publishers have resorted to suing the company, accusing it of illegally rehashing their intellectual property via AI summaries.It's an extremely undesirable position for publishers. By severing ties with the search giant, they could face even steeper declines in traffic. At the same time, there's seemingly little to gain from having Google's AIs crawl their content - and in the long term, it could guarantee their destruction. Two interesting data points from the article:"Last month, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince noticed that automated bot traffic had overtaken human traffic for the first time in the internet's history.""USA Today has seen its traffic from US users drop by almost half over the last year."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CNN reports on yaks "designed and cloned" in secretive, high-altitude labs in Tibet - 2.4 miles (4,000 meters) above sea level. They're a critical part of the local economy, and researchers "hope to create an 'elite' herd of super-yaks, healthier and more fertile than their predecessors."Both domestic yaks and their wild cousins have been facing threats for years, with some rare subspecies at risk of disappearing entirely. Authorities in the southwestern Chinese region have poured tens of millions of dollars into boosting the yak industry in recent years - and they hope cloning can help. The first yak clone came in July 2025, Chinese state media hailing it as a breakthrough achievement that combined cloning with gene selection. More clones were born this spring - and researchers are now aiming to create a herd of more than 100 "elite" yak clones by 2028, boasting desired traits like faster growth and larger size. "This shows the technology has moved from a one-time success to a stable, mass-scale application," said Fang Shengguo, the project's scientific lead and director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife, according to state-run news agency Xinhua... Many experts acknowledge there are legitimate arguments for using cloning in conservation, and for gene selection in farming. But the ethical waters are murky, and any such project should have high levels of public transparency and accountability, said Lisa Moses, a veterinarian and bioethicist at Harvard Medical School. So far, much of the yak cloning project remains mysterious, with information largely limited to glowing state-media coverage... [S]ome scientists say these projects reduce our sense of urgency toward fixing the environment, and that we can't simply churn out clones while the planet burns. To truly enact change, they say, we have to continue addressing the root cause of the problem - restoring degraded habitats, lowering carbon emissions, cracking down on poaching, and more. But for others, "there is a strong feeling ... that traditional conservation is essentially failing now," Moses said. "What we've been doing for the last 100 years to try to stave off ecological destruction is not working.... The argument is, we don't have a choice," she added. "If we want to try to do something that will actually make a difference, we need to use these technologies, specifically synthetic biology, to essentially override evolution and change the fitness of the species for the environment that they live in." "History is littered with good intentions in the environment gone wrong," Moses said, "and I would argue that these technologies have even more unknowns than ones that we previously employed." The article points out that the number of wild yaks "dropped more than a third in the last 30 years,with just 10,000 to 20,000 individuals left, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society." The yaks are threatened by climate change and habitat degradation, "with warmer temperatures bringing invasive plant species and increased competition for resources... in one of the world's most inhospitable terrains."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook announced Friday they're launching a badge "that verifies there's a real person behind a profile"."You record a short video selfie, which we check against your existing profile photos to confirm a match. The process is free and typically takes just a few minutes. Accounts must meet our trust and safety standards to qualify for verification...." Once verified, your badge will appear across the places on Facebook where it matters most: Marketplace, Dating, Groups, and Profile to start. Over time, we'll add badges in Feed posts as well. There's no subscription fee - you verify once, and the badge travels with you across Facebook... [Y]ou'll see the Verified badge on accounts that have completed the verification process... It's a quick, visible signal, before you respond to a listing, accept a date, or join a conversation, that there's a real person on the other end. "We're rolling out Facebook Verified in phases, starting in select markets with plans to expand globally..." their announcement adds. "As AI makes it easier to do more on Facebook, a clear signal that distinguishes real people becomes essential. That's what Facebook Verified is for: keeping the moments that matter on Facebook grounded in real people." Lifehacker shares their reaction:Facebook says it will store your selfie video for "up to 30 days" after verification, which is a one-time process. It's not entirely clear what happens with that video in the meantime, and it's worth noting that Meta has relied on user data to train its AI. Meta AI (and Meta more broadly) is a terrible offender when it comes to privacy and security, so you should consider whether the tradeoff of a verification mark is worth handing over more of your data and read the privacy policy before you agree. Google also launched a video selfie verification feature this week, though its purpose is to prove your identity should you get locked out of your account. Unlike Facebook Verified, which is meant to be a trust signal to other users, Google's selfie verification allows access to your entire Google account, bringing with it some additional security considerations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A large Danish study found a modest but consistent association between long-term road traffic noise exposure and higher Parkinson's disease risk, with a 3% increase for every 11.5 dB rise in noise at the most exposed side of a home. The Guardian reports: The researchers modeled noise exposure at the most and least exposed exterior of the residence of each participant and calculated the difference in noise levels. The magnitude of the effect was modest but consistent; at the most exposed facade, for every 11.5dB rise in noise level, the risk of Parkinson's disease rose by 3% over the study period. Having a quiet part of the home may mitigate the association between exposure to road traffic noise and higher risk of Parkinson's disease, according to the findings. The study, published in Jama Neurology, included 3.1 million Danish participants aged 40 and over, and followed them for 18 years. It was established using nationwide health register data, making it the largest study on road traffic noise and Parkinson's disease. Previous research linked the rise in neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, with exposure to environmental toxins. Environmental risk factors such as air pollution, microplastics and pesticides have become the main focus of prevention strategies. The study is one of the first to make the link to noise pollution.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President Trump threatened a "substantial" new tariff on the European Union after Brussels fined Google more than $1 billion over alleged illegal trade practices. "The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The penalties will be entirely reversed and, we anticipate, a substantial TARIFF to be placed on them at the earliest possible moment." Politico reports: The president's threat came just a day after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer warned that the EU's action against Google -- two fines totaling over $1 billion -- could imperil the bloc's relationship with the White House. At risk: the Turnberry deal, which Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed last fall, that capped U.S. tariffs on EU exports at 15 percent. [...] But the president's social media post could signal a coming breach. "The United States of America is not a 'PIGGYBANK' for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!" Trump wrote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.