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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: OpenAI has pitched the Biden administration on the need for massive data centers that could each use as much power as entire cities, framing the unprecedented expansion as necessary to develop more advanced artificial intelligence models and compete with China. Following a recent meeting at the White House, which was attended by OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and other tech leaders, the startup shared a document with government officials outlining the economic and national security benefits of building 5-gigawatt data centers in various US states, based on an analysis the company engaged with outside experts on. To put that in context, 5 gigawatts is roughly the equivalent of five nuclear reactors, or enough to power almost 3 million homes. OpenAI said investing in these facilities would result in tens of thousands of new jobs, boost the gross domestic product and ensure the US can maintain its lead in AI development, according to the document, which was viewed by Bloomberg News. To achieve that, however, the US needs policies that support greater data center capacity, the document said. "Whatever we're talking about is not only something that's never been done, but I don't believe it's feasible as an engineer, as somebody who grew up in this," said Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation Energy Corp. "It's certainly not possible under a timeframe that's going to address national security and timing."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LG has started displaying ads on TV screensavers, intensifying the proliferation of ads in smart TV software. The South Korean company quietly announced the move to advertisers on September 5, forgoing a public statement to consumers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta unveiled prototype AR glasses codenamed Orion on Wednesday, featuring a 70-degree field of view, Micro LED projectors, and silicon carbide lenses that beam graphics directly into the wearer's eyes. In an interview with The Verge, CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated the device's capabilities, including ingredient recognition, holographic gaming, and video calling, controlled by a neural wristband that interprets hand gestures through electromyography. Despite technological advances, Meta has shelved Orion's commercial release, citing manufacturing complexities and costs reaching $10,000 per unit, primarily due to difficulties in producing the silicon carbide lenses. The company now aims to launch a refined, more affordable version in coming years, with executives hinting at a price comparable to high-end smartphones and laptops. Zuckerberg views AR glasses as critical to Meta's future, potentially freeing the company from its reliance on smartphone platforms controlled by Apple and Google. The push into AR hardware comes as tech giants and startups intensify competition in the space, with Apple launching Vision Pro and Google partnering with Magic Leap and Samsung on headset development.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet unit Google filed a complaint to the European Commission on Wednesday against what it said were Microsoft's anti-competitive practices to lock customers into Microsoft's cloud platform Azure. From a report: Google, whose biggest cloud computing rivals are Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, said Microsoft was exploiting its dominant Windows Server operating system to prevent competition. Google Cloud Vice President Amit Zavery told a briefing that Microsoft made customers pay a 400% mark-up to keep running Windows Server on rival cloud computing operators. This did not apply if they used Azure. Users of rival cloud systems would also get later and more limited security updates, Zavery said. Google pointed to a 2023 study by cloud services organization CISPE which found that European businesses and public sector bodies were paying up to 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) per year on Microsoft licensing penalties. Microsoft in July clinched a 20-million-euro deal to settle an antitrust complaint about its cloud computing licensing practices with CISPE, averting an EU investigation. However, the settlement did not include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and AliCloud, prompting criticism from the first two companies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hackers linked to the Chinese government have broken into a handful of U.S. internet-service providers in recent months in pursuit of sensitive information, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The hacking campaign, called Salt Typhoon by investigators, hasn't previously been publicly disclosed and is the latest in a series of incursions that U.S. investigators have linked to China in recent years. The intrusion is a sign of the stealthy success Beijing's massive digital army of cyberspies has had breaking into valuable computer networks in the U.S. and around the globe. In Salt Typhoon, the actors linked to China burrowed into America's broadband networks. In this type of intrusion, bad actors aim to establish a foothold within the infrastructure of cable and broadband providers that would allow them to access data stored by telecommunications companies or launch a damaging cyberattack. Last week, U.S. officials said they had disrupted a network of more than 200,000 routers, cameras and other internet-connected consumer devices that served as an entry point into U.S. networks for a China-based hacking group called Flax Typhoon. And in January, federal officials disrupted Volt Typhoon, yet another China-linked campaign that has sought to quietly infiltrate a swath of U.S. critical infrastructure. "The cyber threat posed by the Chinese government is massive," said Christopher Wray, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's director, speaking earlier this year at a security conference in Germany. "China's hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation, combined." U.S. security officials allege that Beijing has tried and at times succeeded in burrowing deep into U.S. critical infrastructure networks ranging from water-treatment systems to airports and oil and gas pipelines. Top Biden administration officials have issued public warnings over the past year that China's actions could threaten American lives and are intended to cause societal panic. The hackers could also disrupt the U.S.'s ability to mobilize support for Taiwan in the event that Chinese leader Xi Jinping orders his military to invade the island.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At a time when tech companies are paying eye-popping sums to hire the best minds in artificial intelligence, Google's deal to rehire Noam Shazeer has left others in the dust. From a report: A co-author of a seminal research paper that kicked off the AI boom, Shazeer quit Google in 2021 to start his own company after the search giant refused to release a chatbot he developed. When that startup, Character.AI, began to flounder, his old employer swooped in. Google wrote Character a check for around $2.7 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The official reason for the payment was to license Character's technology. But the deal included another component: Shazeer agreed to work for Google again. Within Google, Shazeeer's return is widely viewed as the primary reason the company agreed to pay the multibillion-dollar licensing fee. The arrangement has thrust him into the middle of a debate in Silicon Valley about whether tech giants are overspending in the race to develop cutting-edge AI, which some believe will define the future of computing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away, as administrators using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) will soon find out. From a report: Windows Server 2025 remains in preview, but Microsoft has been busy letting users know what is set for removal and what will be deprecated in the release. WSUS fits into the latter category -- still there for now, but no longer under active development. This is a big deal for many administrators who rely on the feature to deploy and manage the distribution of updates and features in an enterprise environment. It'll even work on a network disconnected from the internet -- download the patches to a connected computer, stick them on some removable media, import the patches to a WSUS server on the disconnected network, and away you go. A tame administrator told El Reg: "We are migrating to Intune. It's a lot more complicated than WSUS, and it takes a lot longer to get set up." "Such is progress!" he sighed. Microsoft's advice is, unsurprisingly, to migrate to cloud tools. As well as the aforementioned Intune, there is also Windows Autopatch for client update management or Azure Update Manager for server update management. And there are plenty of third-party tools out there too, such as Ansible. Microsoft's announcement has attracted comment. One user said: "Congratulations, you just made centralized automated patching subject to internal politics and budget constraints. "I survived the era of Melissa, SQL Slammer, and other things that were solved when we no longer had to choose between paid patch management or trusting admins of every server to do the right thing. For those of you that did not live through that, buckle up!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new law in California will make it easier for consumers to cancel their streaming subscriptions and similar products when they enroll in automatic renewal of those services. From a report: The law, passed through Assembly Bill (AB) 2863, will require companies that offer automatic subscription renewals through one-click purchases to also offer customers a way to cancel their subscriptions through the same one-click method. California already had one of the toughest subscription cancellation laws in the country, requiring companies to offer a way to cancel a recurring subscription through the Internet if they allowed customers to sign up for a service that way. The initial law was meant to prevent companies from allowing customers to purchase a subscription through the web, while forcing them to call a hotline to cancel them. Consumer advocacy groups complained that companies would often subject customers to frustrating long wait times on the phone with the hope that they would eventually hang up without cancelling their service. While the law was good in theory, it contained at least one loophole: Companies were in compliance as long as they offered a way for customers to cancel their subscriptions online, but could make them click several links or visit several webpages with opt-in requirements before a cancellation request was processed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Somehow, Nintendo's NES Classic Edition console is already almost eight years old, while the Super Nintendo Classic Edition is about to turn seven. That's apparently old enough for Nintendo to announce that the Japanese versions of the consoles -- the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer and the Nintendo Classic Mini Super Famicom -- will no longer be eligible for repair once Nintendo Japan's current stock of parts runs out. That doesn't mean that if you wake up tomorrow morning with a mini Famicom that won't boot you're out of luck. Nintendo Japan will continue to accept repairs but is warning users that it doesn't have a definitive timeline for how long that will be the case.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Microsoft today revealed Correction, a service that attempts to automatically revise AI-generated text that's factually wrong. Correction first flags text that may be erroneous -- say, a summary of a company's quarterly earnings call that possibly has misattributed quotes -- then fact-checks it by comparing the text with a source of truth (e.g. uploaded transcripts). Correction, available as part of Microsoft's Azure AI Content Safety API (in preview for now), can be used with any text-generating AI model, including Meta's Llama and OpenAI's GPT-4o. "Correction is powered by a new process of utilizing small language models and large language models to align outputs with grounding documents," a Microsoft spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We hope this new feature supports builders and users of generative AI in fields such as medicine, where application developers determine the accuracy of responses to be of significant importance." Experts caution that this tool doesn't address the root cause of hallucinations. "Microsoft's solution is a pair of cross-referencing, copy-editor-esque meta models designed to highlight and rewrite hallucinations," reports TechCrunch. "A classifier model looks for possibly incorrect, fabricated, or irrelevant snippets of AI-generated text (hallucinations). If it detects hallucinations, the classifier ropes in a second model, a language model, that tries to correct for the hallucinations in accordance with specified 'grounding documents.'" Os Keyes, a PhD candidate at the University of Washington who studies the ethical impact of emerging tech, has doubts about this. "It might reduce some problems," they said, "But it's also going to generate new ones. After all, Correction's hallucination detection library is also presumably capable of hallucinating." Mike Cook, a research fellow at Queen Mary University specializing in AI, added that the tool threatens to compound the trust and explainability issues around AI. "Microsoft, like OpenAI and Google, have created this issue where models are being relied upon in scenarios where they are frequently wrong," he said. "What Microsoft is doing now is repeating the mistake at a higher level. Let's say this takes us from 90% safety to 99% safety -- the issue was never really in that 9%. It's always going to be in the 1% of mistakes we're not yet detecting."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tony Isaac shares a report from WOSU Public Media: Silicon Valley has the reputation of being the birthplace of our hyper-connected Internet age, the hub of companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook. However, a pioneering company here in central Ohio is responsible for developing and popularizing many of the technologies we take for granted today. A listener submitted a question to WOSU's Curious Cbus series wanting to know more about the legacy of CompuServe and what it meant to go online before the Internet. That legacy was recently commemorated by the Ohio History Connection when they installed a historical marker in Upper Arlington -- near the corner of Arlington Center and Henderson roads -- where the company located its computer center and corporate building in 1973. The plaque explains that CompuServe was "the first major online information service provider," and that its subscribers were among the first to have access to email, online newspapers and magazines and the ability to share and download files. CompuServe, founded in 1969 in Ohio as a subsidiary of Golden United Life Insurance, began as a computer time-sharing service for businesses. In 1979, it launched an online service for consumers, partnering with RadioShack since they "were key in reaching early computer users." Acquired by H&R Block in 1980, CompuServe became a leader in digital innovations like email, online newspapers, and chat forums, with The Columbus Dispatch becoming the first online newspaper. "... it turned out that what was most popular is not reading reliable news sources, but just shooting the breeze with your friends or arguing with strangers over politics," said former tech journalist and early Compuserve user Dylan Tweney. Despite competing with Prodigy and AOL through the 1990s, CompuServe struggled with the rise of the internet. AOL acquired the company in 1997, but CompuServe remains a digital pioneer for fostering online communities. "For a lot of people, CompuServe was a connection to the world and their first introduction to the idea that their computer could be more than a computer," said Tweney. "It was a communications device, an information device."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists have proposed a method to deflect dangerous asteroids using nuclear explosions, not by directly blowing them up, but by detonating a bomb above the surface to create an X-ray burst that vaporizes part of the asteroid and changes its course. Experiments using the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories simulated this process, showing that it could potentially redirect even large asteroids to prevent catastrophic impacts on Earth. Space.com reports: In a new study, the researchers employed the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratory, the most powerful laboratory source of radiation in the world. It generates powerful electric pulses, magnetic fields and X-rays to find out how materials react under high pressures and temperatures. "At present, there is only one way to generate an intense enough X-ray burst to do an experiment like this, and that's using the Z Machine," said [Nathan Moore, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.]. The scientists used electrical pulses from the Z machine to generate powerful magnetic fields. These in turn compressed argon gas to generate plasma, the same form of matter that makes up lightning and stars. This argon plasma produced the X-ray burst the researchers needed to simulate a similar one from a nuclear explosion. "You have to concentrate a lot of power, about 80 trillion watts, into a very small space, the size of a pencil lead, and very quickly, about 100 billionths of second, to generate a hot enough argon plasma, several millions of degrees, to make a powerful enough X-ray burst to heat the asteroid material surface to tens of thousands of degrees to give it enough push," Moore said. The scientists hung up a pair of targets in a vacuum, each 0.47 inches (12 millimeters) wide -- one made of quartz, the other of fused silica. These materials are similar in composition to known asteroids. Previous attempts to study various asteroid deflection strategies all held targets fixed in place, "which wasn't very realistic," Moore said. "After all, asteroids in outer space aren't attached to anything. Besides, how would a mock asteroid accelerate realistically if it was anchored down?" To overcome this problem, the researchers devised what they called "X-ray scissors." They hung the targets up using thin metal foil just 13 microns thick, or about one-eighth the thickness of an average human hair. This foil vaporized when the X-rays hit it, freeing the targets to accelerate naturally in space. The X-ray pulses generated vapor plumes from each target and accelerated each one to about 155 mph (250 km/h), matching computational predictions. "The ability to deflect miniature asteroids in a laboratory using the Z Machine is unlike anything else you can do anywhere else on Earth," Moore said. Scaling these findings up to a 2.5-mile-wide (4 kilometer) asteroid, with a 1 megaton nuclear bomb exploding about 1.25 miles (2 km) from its surface, the researchers suggested the resulting push could help deflect dangerous asteroids away from Earth. "For reference, a 4-km [2.5-mile] asteroid is predicted to be large enough to cause global devastation and possible disruption of civilization, according to the NASA Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan," Moore said. Moore noted that asteroids come in a variety of compositions. "This new technique can be used to investigate the deflection response of different asteroid materials," he said. "Understanding how different asteroid materials vaporize and deflect will be critical for preparing for a planetary defense mission, should the need arise." The study has been published in the journal Nature Physics.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Software fixes are now responsible for more than 1 in 5 automotive recalls. That's the key finding from a decade's worth of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall data, according to an analysis from the law firm DeMayo Law. While that's a sign of growing inconvenience for drivers, the silver lining is that a software patch is usually a much quicker fix than something requiring hardware replacement. "Our analysis suggests we're witnessing a shift in how automotive recalls are handled. The growing number of software-related recalls, coupled with the ability to address issues remotely, could revolutionize the recall process for both manufacturers and vehicle owners," said a spokesperson for DeMayo Law. In 2014, 34 of 277 automotive recalls were software fixes. The percentage of software recalls floated around 12-13 percent (apart from a spike in 2015) before growing steadily from 2020. In 2021, 16 percent of automotive recalls (61 out of 380) were for software. In 2022, almost 22 percent of recalls were software fixes (76 out of 348), and last year topped 23 percent (82 out of 356). Leading the way was Chrysler, with 82 different software recalls since 2014. Ford (66 recalls) and Mercedes-Benz (60) are the two runner-ups. Meanwhile, Tesla ranks only eighth, with 26 software recalls since 2014, which puts it on par with Hyundai (25) and Kia (25). Electrical systems were the most common problem area, which makes sense -- this is also the second-most common hardware fix recall and would probably be the top if it were not for the massive Takata airbag recall, which has affected more than 100 million cars worldwide. The other common systems affected by recalls requiring software remedies were related to backover prevention -- whether that be reversing cameras, collision warnings, or automatic emergency braking -- airbags, powertrains, and exterior lighting. "It should be noted that not all recalls involving a software fix are to solve a software problem," notes Ars' Jonathan M. Gitlin. "Take the recent Jaguar I-Pace recall, which was triggered by battery fires caused by battery cells damaged during assembly. Jaguar's fix? A software update that sets a new, lower limit to the storage capacity of the battery pack, preventing it from fully charging to 100 percent."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In November, ByteDance's TikTok Music will be shut down in all the countries it currently operates in, including Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico. A notice on the service's website reads: "We are sorry to inform you that TikTok Music will be closing on 28 November 2024." TechCrunch reports: Subscribers can continue to use the service until November 28, after which renewals will be automatically canceled, the notice said. Users who want to transfer their playlists to other streaming services will need to do so by October 28, and refund requests need to be submitted by November 28. TikTok said that it will continue partnering with music streaming services rather than competing with them. In February, the company launched the "Add to Music" feature on TikTok that lets users add tracks directly to a playlist on Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Spotify. TikTok Music was rooted in a ByteDance product called Resso, which was first launched in India and Indonesia in 2019 and later expanded to Brazil. In 2023, ByteDance rebranded Resso to TikTok Music in Brazil and Indonesia, and soon after expanded it to Singapore, Australia, and Mexico. Resso was banned early this year in India. "Our Add to Music App feature has already enabled hundreds of millions of track saves to playlists on partner music streaming services. We will be closing TikTok Music at the end of November in order to focus on our goal of furthering TikTok's role in driving even greater music listening and value on music streaming services, for the benefit of artists, songwriters, and the industry," Ole Obermann, global head of Music Business Development, TikTok, said in a statement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The FAA's air traffic control systems are significantly out of date and won't be updated until the 2030s, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The Register reports: In a report released Monday, the GAO said that 51 of the FAA's 138 ATC systems -- more than a third -- were unsustainable due to a lack of parts, shortfalls in funding to sustain them, or a lack of technology refresh funding to replace them. A further 54 systems were described as "potentially unsustainable" for similar reasons, with the added caveat that tech refresh funding was available to them. "FAA has 64 ongoing investments aimed at modernizing 90 of the 105 unsustainable and potentially unsustainable systems," the GAO said in its report. "However, the agency has been slow to modernize the most critical and at-risk systems." The report said the seemingly perilous status of 17 systems was "especially concerning" as these are deemed to have critical operational impact at the same time as being unsustainable and having extended completion dates -- the first of them won't be modernized until 2030 at the earliest. Others aren't planned to be complete until 2035, and four of the 17 "most critical and at-risk FAA ATC systems" have no modernization plans at all. Of the systems on the list, two are more than 40 years old, and a further seven have been in service for more than 30 years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A small city in Kansas switched was forced to switch its water treatment facility to manual operations after a suspected cyberattack was discovered on September 22. The precautionary measure was taken "to ensure plant operations remained secure," the city said. It reassured residents that the drinking water is safe and the water supply remains unaffected. SecurityWeek.com reports: Arkansas City says it has notified the relevant authorities of the incident and that they are working with cybersecurity experts to address the issue and return the facility's operations to normal. "Enhanced security measures are currently in place to protect the water supply, and no changes to water quality or service are expected for residents," the city said. While the city's notification does not share further details on the incident, it appears that the water treatment plant might have fallen victim to a ransomware attack. Switching to manual operations suggests that systems were shut down to contain the attack, which is the typical response to incidents involving ransomware.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: In a major coup for the artificial intelligence company, Stability AI says that Avatar, Terminator and Titanic director James Cameron will join its board of directors. Stability AI is the firm that developed the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generative AI model, an image- and video-focused model that is among those being closely watched by many in Hollywood, particularly in the visual effects industry. In fact, Stability AI's CEO, Prem Akkaraju, is no stranger to the business, having previously served as the CEO of visual effects firm WETA Digital. Sean Parker, the former president of Facebook and founder of Napster, also recently joined the AI firm as executive chairman. As a director, Cameron has long been eager to push the boundaries of what is technologically possible in filmmaking (anyone who has seen the Terminator franchise knows that he is also familiar with the pitfalls of technology run amok). He was among the earliest directors to embrace the potential of computer-generated visual effects, and he continued to use his films (most recently Avatar: The Way of Water) to move the entire field forward. "I've spent my career seeking out emerging technologies that push the very boundaries of what's possible, all in the service of telling incredible stories," Cameron said in a statement. "I was at the forefront of CGI over three decades ago, and I've stayed on the cutting edge since. Now, the intersection of generative AI and CGI image creation is the next wave. The convergence of these two totally different engines of creation will unlock new ways for artists to tell stories in ways we could have never imagined. Stability AI is poised to lead this transformation. I'm delighted to collaborate with Sean, Prem, and the Stability AI team as they shape the future of all visual media."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: After a decade of explosive growth, body cameras are now standard-issue for most American police as they interact with the public. The vast majority of those millions of hours of video are never watched -- it's just not humanly possible. For academics who study the everyday actions of police, the videos are an ocean of untapped data. Some are now using 'large language model' AI's -- think ChatGPT -- to digest that information and produce new insights. [...] The research found the encounters were more likely to escalate when officers started the stop by giving orders, rather than reasons for the interaction. While academics are using AI from anonymized videos to understand larger processes, some police departments have started using it to help supervise individual officers -- and even rate their performance. An AI system mentioned in the report, called TRULEO, assesses police officers' behavior through automated transcriptions of body camera footage. It'll evaluate both positive and negative conduct during interactions, such as traffic stops, and provide feedback to officers. In addition to flagging issues like swearing or abusive language, the AI can also recognize instances of professionalism.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, must serve 24 months in prison and forfeit $11 billion. "I've seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years. I've never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison," said Judge Lewis Kaplan during the sentencing hearing today. The Verge reports: Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and five conspiracy counts in December 2022 as part of a cooperation agreement with the government. Prosecutors had recommended a lenient sentence because of Ellison's "extraordinary" and "very timely" cooperation. Her own lawyers asked for no jail time, as did the federal Probation Department. Ellison was the key witness at the trial of FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried, where she testified for three days. A statement submitted by the prosecution before Ellison's sentencing said the speed at which she came clean made it possible to indict her ex-boyfriend Bankman-Fried quickly, "ensuring that he did not flee the Bahamas or further obstruct the government's investigation." The document also noted that Ellison was completely and immediately forthcoming in her meetings with the government. Ellison was also prompt in assisting John J. Ray, the new CEO charged with cleaning up the FTX mess, in locating and recovering customer assets, according to a statement written by Ray submitted by the defense. Her "early cooperation" was "valuable" in recovering debtors' assets, he wrote. Ellison is working on a deal where she will turn over "substantially all of her remaining assets after satisfying her forfeiture obligations" to the FTX debtors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required makers of web browsers and mobile operating systems to let consumers send opt-out preference signals that could limit businesses' use of personal information. The bill approved by the State Legislature last month would have required an opt-out signal "that communicates the consumer's choice to opt out of the sale and sharing of the consumer's personal information or to limit the use of the consumer's sensitive personal information." It would have made it illegal for a business to offer a web browser or mobile operating system without a setting that lets consumers "send an opt-out preference signal to businesses with which the consumer interacts." In a veto message (PDF) sent to the Legislature Friday, Newsom said he would not sign the bill. Newsom wrote that he shares the "desire to enhance consumer privacy," noting that he previously signed a bill "requir[ing] the California Privacy Protection Agency to establish an accessible deletion mechanism allowing consumers to request that data brokers delete all of their personal information." But Newsom said he is opposed to the new bill's mandate on operating systems. "I am concerned, however, about placing a mandate on operating system (OS) developers at this time," the governor wrote. "No major mobile OS incorporates an option for an opt-out signal. By contrast, most Internet browsers either include such an option or, if users choose, they can download a plug-in with the same functionality. To ensure the ongoing usability of mobile devices, it's best if design questions are first addressed by developers, rather than by regulators. For this reason, I cannot sign this bill." Vetoes can be overridden with a two-thirds vote in each chamber. The bill was approved 59-12 in the Assembly and 31-7 in the Senate. But the State Legislature hasn't overridden a veto in decades. "It's troubling the power that companies such as Google appear to have over the governor's office," said Justin Kloczko, tech and privacy advocate for Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit group in California. "What the governor didn't mention is that Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge don't offer a global opt-out and they make up for nearly 90 percent of the browser market share. That's what matters. And people don't want to install plug-ins. Safari, which is the default browsers on iPhones, doesn't even accept a plug-in."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI is rolling out its advanced voice interface for ChatGPT to all Plus and Team subscribers in the U.S., the company said Tuesday. The feature, unveiled four months ago, lets users speak to the AI chatbot instead of typing. Five new voices join the lineup, expanding user options. OpenAI claims improved accent recognition and smoother conversations since initial testing. VentureBeat adds: OpenAI's foray into adding voices into ChatGPT has been controversial at the onset. In its May event announcing GPT-4o and the voice mode, people noticed similarities of one of the voices, Sky, to that of the actress Scarlett Johanssen. It didn't help that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted the word "her" on social media, a reference to the movie where Johansson voiced an AI assistant. The controversy sparked concerns around AI developers mimicking voices of well-known individuals.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

wiredmikey writes: CrowdStrike says it has revamped several testing, validation, and update rollout processes to prevent a repeat of the embarrassing July outage that caused widespread disruption on Windows systems around the world. In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, CrowdStrike vice president Adam Meyers outlined a new set of protocols that include carefully controlled rollouts of software updates, better validation of code inputs, and new testing procedures to cover a broader array of problematic scenarios.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Steep online discounts aren't as sweet as they used to be. From a report: The average discount offered by online retailers in the US is down to 36% so far this year, data from Centric Market Intelligence shows. That's down two percentage points from last year, and down from an average of 42% in 2019 -- a 14% drop in real terms. Finding a bargain is getting tougher for a variety of reasons, according to retail experts who spoke with Sherwood. Sellers are having to pay more for raw materials, and they're shelling out more in customer-acquisition costs to get you to order from them. Fulfilling online orders is also generally more expensive than selling items in person. All these add up to increased costs that make it harder to offer discounts.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GPS spoofing attacks are increasingly disrupting commercial flights worldwide, with over 1,100 daily incidents reported in August, up from dozens in February. The false signals, primarily originating from Russia, Ukraine, and Israel, confuse cockpit navigation systems, triggering false alarms and misdirecting flight paths, WSJ reports. Pilots report clocks resetting, erroneous warnings, and navigation errors lasting minutes to entire flights. While no major safety incidents have occurred, aviation officials warn that managing these disruptions could overburden crews during emergencies. Airlines, manufacturers, and regulators are scrambling for solutions, but new equipment standards to combat spoofing won't be ready until next year at the earliest. In the meantime, pilots receive briefings on identifying and responding to potential attacks, sometimes instructed to ignore safety system warnings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services firm has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has attempted to unlawfully crush competitors, including fintech companies like PayPal and Square. From a report: The lawsuit follows a multiyear investigation of Visa which the company disclosed in 2021. "We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa's unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing -- but the price of nearly everything." Visa makes more than $7 billion a year in payment processing fees alone, and more than 60 percent of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa's network, the complaint claims. The government alleges that Visa's market dominance is partly due to the "web of exclusionary agreements" it imposes on businesses and banks. Visa has also attempted to "smother" competitors -- including smaller debit networks and newer fintech companies -- the complaint alleges. Visa executives allegedly feel particularly threatened by Apple, which the company has described as an "existential threat," the DOJ claims.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fourteen of the world's biggest banks and financial institutions are pledging to increase their support for nuclear energy [non-paywalled link], a move that governments and the industry hope will unlock finance for a new wave of nuclear power plants. FT: At an event on Monday in New York with White House climate policy adviser John Podesta, institutions including Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will say they support a goal first set out at the COP28 climate negotiations last year to triple the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050. They will not spell out exactly what they would do, but nuclear experts said the public show of support was a long-awaited recognition that the sector had a critical role to play in the transition to low-carbon energy. The difficulty and high cost of financing nuclear projects has been an obstacle to new plants and contributed to a significant slowdown in western countries since a wave of reactors was built in the 1970s and 1980s.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

silverjacket writes: A feature for The New Yorker describes a plan to use robots to mine lunar materials and build a radio telescope on the far side of the moon that will help answer questions about the early universe. An excerpt from the story: he dream of a lunar telescope dates to the nineteen-sixties. The moon has the advantage of being hundreds of thousands of miles away from earthly electronics; on the far side of the moon, in particular, there's virtually no noise from human technology or the Earth's magnetosphere. After the Apollo landings, however, interest in the moon waned. Jack Burns, an astrophysicist who is now at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been advocating for a moon-based telescope since 1984. "I never, never would have guessed that it would take this long," he told me. "I just won't accept no for an answer." Today, Burns is the chief scientist of FarView, as well as the primary investigator of a sort of mini-FarView: FARSIDE, which would have one or two hundred antennas instead of a hundred thousand. If FarView is built, it would be able to detect some of the oldest light in existence. The universe began 13.8 billion years ago as a dense, fast-expanding soup of matter and energy; around three hundred and eighty thousand years later, it had cooled enough for hydrogen atoms to hold together. After that came the Cosmic Dark Ages: millions of years without stars or galaxies, a period we know very little about. But hydrogen occasionally releases light with a wavelength of twenty-one centimetres -- radio waves. Some of that light is still around. Because twenty-one-centimetre radiation is stretched by the steady expansion of the universe -- it's now tens to hundreds of metres long -- scientists can figure out how old it is, and how far away. (The longer the wavelength, the older the light and the more distant its source.) This means that if scientists can build a radio telescope on the moon, they will be able to create a three-dimensional picture of the early universe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Pacific country of Kiribati might be surrounded by water, but on land its population is running dry. The ocean around them is steadily encroaching, contaminating underground wells and leeching salt into the soil. "Our waters have been infected," climate activist and law student Christine Tekanene says. "Those who are affected, they now can't survive with the water that changed after sea level rise." The freshwater crisis is just one of the many threats driven by rising seas in Kiribati. Its people live on a series of atolls, peaking barely a couple of metres above a sprawling tract of the Pacific Ocean. As global temperatures rise and ice sheets melt, Kiribati -- and other low-lying nations like it -- are experiencing extreme and regular flooding, frequent coastal erosion and persistent food and water insecurity. This week the United Nations general assembly will hold a high-level meeting to address the existential threats posed by sea level rise as the issue climbs the international agenda; last year the UN security council debated it for the first time. Wednesday's meeting aims to build political consensus on action to address the widespread social, economic and legal consequences of rising seas. Samoa's UN representative, Fatumanava Dr Pa'olelei Luteru, says the upcoming UN meeting is long overdue and "extremely important" for island nations. "Economically, militarily, we're not powerful," says Luteru, who also serves as the current chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). "At least within the context of the UN and the multilateral system we have the possibility and the opportunity to engage and achieve some of the things that are a priority for us."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The alleged Iranian hack of Donald Trump's orbit continued at least until mid-September and may be ongoing, a document the hackers shared with a progressive publication reveals. Iranian authorities have denied any involvement in the efforts to leak internal documents from Trump's campaign, which have reportedly been sent to major US publications including Politico and The New York Times, and to the Biden campaign. But the campaign and outside analysts have blamed the hack on the Iranians, who have ample reasons for hostility to the former president and also allegedly plotted his assassination. The publisher of the newsletter Popular Information, Judd Legum, writes this morning that a source under the name "Robert" shared a set of documents with him. Those included a research dossier on JD Vance matching other publications' descriptions of the hacked material. But the leak also included a legal letter to The New York Times complaining about an article that raised questions about the validity of Trump's image as a successful businessman.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WordPress hosting service WP Engine on Monday sent a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic after the latter's CEO Matt Mullenweg called WP Engine a "cancer to WordPress" last week. From a report: The notice asks Automattic and Mullenweg to retract their comments and stop making statements against the company. WP Engine, which (like Automattic itself) commercializes the open-source WordPress project, also accused Mullenweg of threatening WP Engine before the WordCamp summit held last week. "Automattic's CEO Matthew Mullenweg threatened that if WP Engine did not agree to pay Automattic -- his for-profit entity -- a very large sum of money before his September 20th keynote address at the WordCamp US Convention, he was going to embark on a self-described 'scorched earth nuclear approach' toward WP Engine within the WordPress community and beyond, the letter read. "When his outrageous financial demands were not met, Mr. Mullenweg carried out his threats by making repeated false claims disparaging WP Engine to its employees, its customers, and the world," the letter added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is getting ready to show off updated Street View imagery in nearly 80 countries. The Verge: In a now-removed blog post seen by The Verge, Google announced that the new images are coming to countries like Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Japan, the Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, and more. Google is also bringing Street View to a handful of countries where it's never been available, including Bosnia, Namibia, Lichtenstein, and Paraguay. The company said its more portable Street View camera, which launched in 2022, will help offer images of "even more places in the future." Google Maps and Google Earth are getting sharper satellite imagery as well, thanks to the company's cloud-removal AI tool that takes out clouds, shadows, haze, and mist. This should result in "brighter, more vibrant" images, according to Google.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Speaking of California, its governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a a bill that requires schools to limit or ban the use of smartphones, amid a growing consensus that excess usage can increase the risk of mental illness and impair learning. From a report: Thirteen other states this year have banned or restricted cellphones in school or recommended local educators do so, after Florida led the way by banning phones in class in 2023, according to Education Week. California, with nearly 5.9 million public school students, has followed the lead of its own Los Angeles County, whose school board banned smartphones for its 429,000 students in June. That same month U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a warning label on social media platforms, akin to those on cigarette packages, likening the problem to a mental health emergency. Murthy cited a study in the medical journal JAMA showing adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media may be at heightened risk of mental illness, while referring to a Gallup poll showing the average teen spends 4.8 hours per day on social media. California's bill, which passed 76-0 in the state assembly and 38-1 in the senate, requires school boards or other governing bodies to develop a policy to limit or prohibit student use of smartphones on campus by July 1, 2026, and update the policy every five years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Paper or paper? In California, shoppers will have only one bag option at the checkout line starting in 2026. A decade ago, California became the first U.S. state to ban single-use plastic bags, the flimsy sacks that regularly blew into waterways, littered streets and collected in landfills. The prohibition, in the nation's most populous state, was considered a turning point in the effort to reduce plastic waste. But the move backfired in a way that few supporters expected. Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California's recycling agency. A loophole in the initial ban allowed retailers to provide thick-walled plastic bags and charge 10 cents a piece for them. Though technically reusable and recyclable, the heavier-duty sacks still ended up in many trash cans after a shopping trip. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), regardless of thickness. The only option for customers who lack their own reusable shopping bags will be buying paper bags for 10 cents each. "We deserve a cleaner future for our communities, our children and our earth," said Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democratic assemblywoman and co-author of the bill, in a statement. "It's time for us to get rid of these plastic bags and continue to move forward with a more pollution-free environment." Plastic bags are typically used for 12 minutes before being discarded, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy group. But those bags live in oceans and landfills for hundreds of years, and can contaminate drinking water and food in the form of microplastics. SB 1053 will go into effect on January 1st, 2026. It also changes the definition of a "recycled paper bag," requiring all bags with that label to be made of at least 50% post-consumer recycled materials starting January 1st, 2028.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report SpaceNews with the caption: "Failures aren't failures if you learn from them." From the report: Chinese commercial rocket firm Deep Blue Aerospace conducted a first-stage rocket hop test Sunday, experiencing a partial failure during the final moments of landing. Deep Blue Aerospace carried out the test at 1:40 a.m. Eastern (0540 UTC) Sept. 22 at the firm's Ejin Banner Spaceport in Inner Mongolia using a Nebula-1 rocket first stage. Footage of the vertical liftoff, vertical landing test shows the rocket ascending to a predetermined altitude before shutting off two of the three engines used for the 179-second flight. Landing legs deployed as planned, and the stage hovered above its planned landing spot. However an anomaly during the final engine shutdown phase led to a higher-than-expected landing altitude, leading to partial damage. You can watch the landing attempt and explosion here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A startup called Amogy has successfully converted a 67-year-old diesel tugboat to run on clean ammonia, marking a significant milestone in the transition to zero-emissions propulsion in the maritime industry. The Associated Press reports: Amogy's system uses ammonia to make hydrogen for a fuel cell, making the tug an electric-powered ship. The International Maritime Organization set a target for international shipping to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by, or close to, 2050. Shipping needs to cut emissions rapidly and there are no solutions widely available today to fully decarbonize deep-sea shipping, according to the Global Maritime Forum, a nonprofit that works closely with the industry. There is a lot of interest in ammonia as an alternative fuel because the molecule doesn't contain carbon, said Jesse Fahnestock, who leads the forum's decarbonization work. Ammonia is widely used for fertilizer, so there is already infrastructure in place for handling and transporting it. Ton for ton, it can hold more energy than hydrogen, and it can be stored and distributed more easily. The tugboat ran on green ammonia produced by renewable electricity. A 2,000-gallon tank fits in the old fuel tank space, for a 10-to 12-hour day at sea. It splits liquid ammonia into its constituents, hydrogen and nitrogen, then funnels the hydrogen into a fuel cell that generates electricity for the vessel without carbon emissions. The process does not burn ammonia like a combustion engine would, so it primarily produces nitrogen in its elemental form and water as emissions. The company says there are trace amounts of nitrogen oxides that it's working to completely eliminate. Amogy first used ammonia to power a drone in 2021, then a tractor in 2022, a semi-truck in 2023, and now the tugboat to prove the technology. Woo said their system is designed to be used on vessels as small as the tugboat and as large as container ships, and could also make electricity on shore to replace diesel generators for data centers, mining and construction, or other heavy industries. The company has raised about $220 million. Amazon, an enterprise with immense needs for shipping, is among the investors. Nick Ellis, principal of Amazon's $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund, said the company is excited and impressed by what Amogy is doing. By investing, Amazon can show ship owners and builders it wants its goods delivered with zero emissions, he added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil on Monday alleging the company carried out a "decades-long campaign of deception" in which the oil and gas giant misled the public on the merits of plastic recycling. The complaint accuses the company of using slick marketing and misleading public statements for half a century to claim recycling was an effective way to deal with plastic pollution, according to a press release from Bonta's office published Monday. It alleges the company continues to perpetuate the "myth" of recycling today. The case, filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, seeks to compel ExxonMobil "to end its deceptive practices that threaten the environment and the public," the statement said. Bonta is also asking the court to rule ExxonMobil must pay civil penalties, among other payments, for the harm inflicted by plastic pollution in California. "Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damage -- in ways known and unknown -- to our environment and potentially our health," Bonta said. "For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn't possible. ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health," he said. [...] Lawsuits against oil and gas companies for their role in climate change and air pollution are becoming more common, but Monday's is the first in the country to take on a fossil fuel company for its messaging around plastic recycling. The statement said that ExxonMobil "falsely promoted all plastic as recyclable, when in fact the vast majority of plastic products are not and likely cannot be recycled, either technically or economically." The lawsuit also alleges Exxon "continues to deceive the public by touting "advanced recycling" as the solution to the plastic waste and pollution crisis." Advanced -- or chemical -- recycling is a technology promoted by many oil companies, but which has been plagued by missed targets, closed or shelved plants and reports of fires and spills. [...] At the heart of the suit is the allegation ExxonMobil's messaging caused consumers to buy and use more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have. In response to the lawsuit, ExxonMobil pointed the finger back at California, which it said has an ineffective recycling system that officials have known about for decades: "They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills." ExxonMobil contends chemical recycling does work. "We're bringing real solutions, recycling plastic waste that couldn't be recycled by traditional methods," the company said in a statement. A copy of the Attorney General's complaint can be found here (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rPlus Energies has broken ground on a $1 billion solar + battery storage project in east-central Utah. Electrek reports: The Green River Energy Center in Emery County, Utah, is a 400-megawatt (MW) solar and 400 MW/1,600-megawatt-hour battery storage project that will supply power to western electric utility PacifiCorp under a power purchase agreement. EliTe Solar is supplying solar panels, and Tesla is providing battery storage. Sundt Construction is the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the project. Securing over $1 billion in construction debt financing in July, the Green River project is expected to create around 500 jobs. Salt Lake City-based rPlus Energies gives the target completion date as 2026.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a rare blog post today, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman laid out his vision of the AI-powered future, which he refers to as "The Intelligence Age." Among the most notable claims, Altman said superintelligence might be achieved in "a few thousand days." VentureBeat reports: Specifically, Altman argues that "deep learning works," and can generalize across a range of domains and difficult problem sets based on its training data, allowing people to "solve hard problems," including "fixing the climate, establishing a space colony, and the discovery of all physics." As he puts it: "That's really it; humanity discovered an algorithm that could really, truly learn any distribution of data (or really, the underlying "rules" that produce any distribution of data). To a shocking degree of precision, the more compute and data available, the better it gets at helping people solve hard problems. I find that no matter how much time I spend thinking about this, I can never really internalize how consequential it is." In a provocative statement that many AI industry participants and close observers have already seized upon in discussions on X, Altman also said that superintelligence -- AI that is "vastly smarter than humans," according to previous OpenAI statements -- may be achieved in "a few thousand days." "This may turn out to be the most consequential fact about all of history so far. It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I'm confident we'll get there." A thousand days is roughly 2.7 years, a time that is much sooner than the five years most experts give out.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Steam has broken its record for the most PC players online, with 38,366,479 concurrent gamers. As IGN notes, that figure is a million more than the previous record, set last month. From the report: So, what helped propel Steam to new heights over the weekend? All the usual suspects were in the top 10 most-played games on Valve's platform, including Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Banana (yes, Banana has yet to split), and PUBG, with this year's Black Myth: Wukong, Satisfactory 1.0, Space Marine 2, and Valve's own Deadlock putting in work. Last week saw PlayStation exclusives God of War Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 16 both launch on Steam for the first time, which will have provided a modest boost, too. The popularity of Steam is gradually increasing as Valve's vice-like grip on the PC market tightens ever further. Competitors such as the Epic Games Store and CD Projekt's GOG occupy a relatively small piece of the PC gaming pie, with Steam continuing to enjoy record-breaking success even amid perceived downturns in the video game industry. The release of Steam Deck is yet another platform on which Steam operates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: With the perennial tensions between proprietary and open source software (OSS) unlikely to end anytime soon, a $3 billion startup is throwing its weight behind a new licensing paradigm -- one that's designed to bridge the open and proprietary worlds, replete with new definition, terminology, and governance model. Developer software company Sentry recently introduced a new license category dubbed "fair source." Sentry is an initial adopter, as are some half dozen others, including GitButler, a developer tooling company from one of GitHub's founders. The fair source concept is designed to help companies align themselves with the "open" software development sphere, without encroaching into existing licensing landscapes, be that open source, open core, or source-available, and while avoiding any negative associations that exist with "proprietary." However, fair source is also a response to the growing sense that open source isn't working out commercially. "Open source isn't a business model -- open source is a distribution model, it's a software development model, primarily," Chad Whitacre, Sentry's head of open source, told TechCrunch. "And in fact, it places severe limits on what business models are available, because of the licensing terms." Sure, there are hugely successful open source projects, but they are generally components of larger proprietary products. Businesses that have flown the open source flag have mostly retreated to protect their hard work, moving either from fully permissive to a more restrictive "copyleft" license, as the likes of Element did last year and Grafana before it, or ditched open source altogether as HashiCorp did with Terraform. "Most of the world's software is still closed source," Whitacre added. "Kubernetes is open source, but Google Search is closed. React is open source, but Facebook Newsfeed is closed. With fair source, we're carving a space for companies to safely share not just these lower-level infrastructure components, but share access to their core product." Further reading: As Companies Try 'Open Source Rug Pull', Open Source Foundations Considered HelpfulRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Ars Technica's Dan Goodin reports: Five years ago, researchers made a grim discovery -- a legitimate Android app in the Google Play market that was surreptitiously made malicious by a library the developers used to earn advertising revenue. With that, the app was infected with code that caused 100 million infected devices to connect to attacker-controlled servers and download secret payloads. Now, history is repeating itself. Researchers from the same Moscow, Russia-based security firm reported Monday that they found two new apps, downloaded from Play 11 million times, that were infected with the same malware family. The researchers, from Kaspersky, believe a malicious software developer kit for integrating advertising capabilities is once again responsible. [...] The researchers found Necro in two Google Play apps. One was Wuta Camera, an app with 10 million downloads to date. Wuta Camera versions 6.3.2.148 through 6.3.6.148 contained the malicious SDK that infects apps. The app has since been updated to remove the malicious component. A separate app with roughly 1 million downloads -- known as Max Browser -- was also infected. That app is no longer available in Google Play. The researchers also found Necro infecting a variety of Android apps available in alternative marketplaces. Those apps typically billed themselves as modified versions of legitimate apps such as Spotify, Minecraft, WhatsApp, Stumble Guys, Car Parking Multiplayer, and Melon Sandbox. People who are concerned they may be infected by Necro should check their devices for the presence of indicators of compromise listed at the end of this writeup.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon, Meta, and Tesla were named by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) as some of the worst corporate underminers of democracy . These companies were accused of union busting, monopolizing media and technology, violating human rights, contributing to climate change, and fostering political movements that threaten democratic institutions. The full list of "corporate underminers of democracy for 2024" is Amazon, Blackstone Group, ExxonMobil, Glencore, Meta, Tesla and the Vanguard Group. The Register reports: The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) today published a list of seven companies it said were "emblematic" of the ways large international corporations have begun tossing their weight around to influence global affairs. Those businesses, ITUC noted, violate trade union and alleged human rights, monopolize media and technology, exacerbate the climate catastrophe and try to privatize public services in a way that "protects and expands [their] own profits by undermining democracy." "These companies deploy complex lobbying operations to undermine popular will and disrupt existing or nascent global policy that could hold them accountable," ITUC wrote. The desire for greater corporate power, the Confederation added, invariably puts corporate interests in bed with anti-democratic political movements like the modern far-right. Right-wing politicians, ITUC noted, tend to lower taxes, undercut higher wages for workers, crack down on trade unions, and the like - all things sure to please the likes of corporations like Amazon, Tesla, and Meta as evidenced by plenty of prior reporting and research. For Amazon, the ITUC criticized the company for becoming "notorious for its union busting and low wages, monopoly in e-commerce, egregious carbon emissions through its AWS [datacenters], corporate tax evasion and lobbying." Meta was accused of exploiting user data, undermining privacy laws, manipulating global information, and failing to regulate harmful content on its platforms. "Meta's algorithms can quite literally alter humanity's perceptions of reality," ITUC said. "Its revenue model exploits trillions of personalized data points to deliver highly effective advertising." Some have referred to the company as "a foreign state, populated by people without sovereignty, ruled by a leader with absolute power." As for Tesla, it was condemned for poor labor practices, anti-union politics, unsafe working conditions, human rights violations, and environmental damage in its supply chain. "The world's most highly-valued automaker has quickly become known as one of its most belligerent employers. Tesla's rapid market success has been outpaced only by the descent of its corporate leaders into anti-democratic, anti-union politics."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Cloudflare announced plans on Monday to launch a marketplace in the next year where website owners can sell AI model providers access to scrape their site's content. The marketplace is the final step of Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince's larger plan to give publishers greater control over how and when AI bots scrape their websites. "If you don't compensate creators one way or another, then they stop creating, and that's the bit which has to get solved," said Prince in an interview with TechCrunch. As the first step in its new plan, on Monday, Cloudflare launched free observability tools for customers, called AI Audit. Website owners will get a dashboard to view analytics on why, when, and how often AI models are crawling their sites for information. Cloudflare will also let customers block AI bots from their sites with the click of a button. Website owners can block all web scrapers using AI Audit, or let certain web scrapers through if they have deals or find their scraping beneficial. A demo of AI Audit shared with TechCrunch showed how website owners can use the tool, which is able to see where each scraper that visits your site comes from, and offers selective windows to see how many times scrapers from OpenAI, Meta, Amazon, and other AI model providers are visiting your site. [...]Read more of this story at Slashdot.

joshuark shares a report: Microsoft has officially announced that Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is now deprecated, but plans to maintain current functionality and continue publishing updates through the channel. This move isn't surprising, as Microsoft first listed WSUS as one of the "features removed or no longer developed starting with Windows Server 2025" on August 13. In June, the company also revealed that it would also soon deprecate WSUS driver synchronization. While new features and development for WSUS will cease, Microsoft said today that it plans to continue supporting the service's existing functionality and updates, which will still be distributed, even after deprecation. "Specifically, this means that we are no longer investing in new capabilities, nor are we accepting new feature requests for WSUS," Microsoft's Nir Froimovici said on Friday. "However, we are preserving current functionality and will continue to publish updates through the WSUS channel. We will also support any content already published through the WSUS channel."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Customers of Kaspersky antivirus in the United States found out in the last few days that their cybersecurity software was automatically replaced with a new one called UltraAV, according to several customers. And while Kaspersky said earlier this month that its U.S. customers would be transitioned to UltraAV, many of its customers said they had no idea this was going to happen and that it would automatically be forced upon them. From a report: "Woke up to Kasperky [sic] completely gone from my system with Ultra AV and Ultra VPN freshly installed (not by me, just automatically while I slept)," a user on Reddit wrote. Others reported having the same experience in the same Reddit thread, as well as in other threads. A reseller, who until recently sold Kaspersky products prior to the recent sales ban, told TechCrunch that he was left "annoyed" by the move to automatically remove Kaspersky software and replace it with an entirely different antivirus. A former senior U.S. government cybersecurity official said that this was an example of the "huge risk" posed by the access granted by Kaspersky software. It's worth noting that, on the other hand, other customers did report receiving an email from Kaspersky about the transition to UltraAV.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The government of Bhutan is currently holding over $828 million in bitcoin, according to onchain data by Arkham Intelligence. From a report: "Unlike most governments, Bhutan's BTC does not come from law enforcement asset seizures, but from bitcoin mining operations, which have ramped up dramatically since early 2023," the crypto intelligence firm explained. Crypto intelligence firm Arkham highlighted the Kingdom of Bhutan's bitcoin holdings on social media platform X last week. Bhutan is a small, landlocked kingdom located in the eastern Himalayas, bordered by China to the north and India to the south. The country currently has a population of less than 800,000 people. We learned last year that Bhutan had been secretly mining bitcoin using its abundant hydroelectric resources since around 2019. The operation, which began when bitcoin was priced at approximately $5,000, aims to harness the country's vast renewable energy reserves to power mining rigs. Hydroelectricity already accounts for 30% of Bhutan's GDP and powers nearly all of its 800,000 residents. The government claimed last year that mining profits are used to subsidize power and hardware costs. This revelation makes Bhutan one of the few countries globally to run a state-owned bitcoin mine, alongside El Salvador. At over $800 million in Bitcoin holdings, the reserve accounts for nearly a third of Bhutan's 2022-calculated GDP.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world's life-support systems. From a report: "Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold," particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. "The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems." The report, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), builds on years of research showing there are nine systems and processes -- the planetary boundaries -- that contribute to the stability of the planet's life-support functions. Thresholds beyond which they can no longer properly function have already been breached in six. Climate change, the introduction of novel entities, change in biosphere integrity and modification of biogeochemical flows are judged to be in high-risk zones, while planetary boundaries are also transgressed in land system change and freshwater change but to a lesser extent. All have worsened, according to the data. Stratospheric ozone depletion has remained stable, however, and there has been a slight improvement in atmospheric aerosol loading, the research says. At a briefing outlining the findings, Levke Caesar, a climate physicist at PIK and co-author of the report, said there were two reasons the levels of ocean acidification were concerning.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft unveiled detailed security reforms Monday, five months after CEO Satya Nadella pledged to prioritize cybersecurity following major breaches. The 25-page Secure Future Initiative report [PDF] outlines technical and governance changes addressing criticisms in an April 2024 Cyber Safety Review Board report that deemed Microsoft's security culture "inadequate." Microsoft said it implemented significant security upgrades to its Entra ID and Microsoft Account systems, introducing Azure-managed hardware security modules for access token signing keys. The company has also purged 5.75 million inactive tenants to minimize potential attack vectors and adopted a new testing system with secure defaults to prevent legacy-related security issues. Concurrently, Microsoft has enhanced its network tracking capabilities, now monitoring over 99 percent of its physical network through a centralized inventory system, which aids in firmware compliance and logging. Internal security measures have been tightened, with engineering teams facing stricter access controls. Personal access tokens are now limited to seven days, SSH access has been disabled for internal engineering repositories, and access to critical engineering systems has been restricted to fewer groups. Additionally, Microsoft has extended its audit log retention period to a minimum of two years, bolstering its ability to investigate and respond to potential security incidents.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube Premium users around the world woke up to bad news today. In over a dozen countries, the price of YouTube Premium individual and family plans increased significantly. This is only the most recent sweep of price increases from Google, as many countries saw price jumps only months ago, with the United States being one of them last summer. Impacted countries include Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, UAE, Switzerland, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Denmark. The prices have gone up by as early as 40%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Marc Benioff said Microsoft's Copilot AI hasn't lived up to the hype. The Salesforce CEO said on the company's second-quarter earnings call that its own AI is nothing like Copilot, which he said was unimpressive. From a report: "So many customers are so disappointed in what they bought from Microsoft Copilot because they're not getting the accuracy and the response that they want," Benioff said. "Microsoft has disappointed so many customers with AI." Microsoft Copilot integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT tech into the company's existing suite of business software like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that comes with Microsoft 365. Launched last year, Copilot is meant to help companies boost productivity by responding to employee prompts and helping them with daily tasks like scheduling meetings, writing up product announcements, and creating presentations. In response to Benioff's comments, Jared Spataro, Microsoft's corporate vice president for AI at work, said in a statement to Fortune that the company was "hearing something quite different" from its customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.