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A Disney employee's download of an AI image generation tool from GitHub led to a massive data breach in July 2024, exposing over 44 million internal Slack messages. The software contained infostealer malware that compromised Matthew Van Andel's computer [non-paywalled source] for five months, giving hackers access to his 1Password manager. The attackers used the stolen credentials to access Disney's corporate systems, publishing sensitive information including customer data, employee passport numbers, and revenue figures from Disney's theme parks and streaming services. The breach also devastated Van Andel personally. Hackers exposed his Social Security number, financial login details, and even credentials for his home's Ring cameras. Shortly after the incident, Disney fired Van Andel following a forensic analysis of his work computer, citing misconduct he denies. Security researchers believe the attacker, who identified as part of a Russia-based hacktivist group called Nullbulge, is likely an American individual.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BP has announced it will cut its renewable energy investments and instead focus on increasing oil and gas production. The energy giant revealed the shift in strategy on Wednesday following pressure from some investors unhappy its profits and share price have been lower than its rivals. From a report: BP said it would increase its investments in oil and gas by about 20% to $10bn a year, while decreasing previously planned funding for renewables by more than $5bn. The move comes as rivals Shell and Norwegian company Equinor have also scaled back plans to invest in green energy and US President Donald Trump's "drill baby drill" comments have encouraged investment in fossil fuels.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon has launched a comprehensive AI overhaul of Alexa, representing the voice assistant's most significant update since its 2014 debut. The new "Alexa Plus" enables multi-turn conversations without repeating wake words, replacing the previous command-response interaction model. The system now handles complex tasks including booking concert tickets, making restaurant reservations via Yelp integration, and creating smart home routines autonomously. Technical capabilities include image analysis, content-aware movie navigation, and semantic music search that processes vague descriptors rather than exact titles. Originally announced in September 2023 for early 2024 release, the update faced prolonged delays as Amazon engineers struggled with technical challenges. Internal testing revealed the new AI-powered assistant performed inconsistently against OpenAI's ChatGPT and suffered from verbose responses. Amazon's legacy architecture -- designed to retrieve predefined answers rather than generate responses dynamically -- complicated the transition to generative AI models. The launch represents a critical test for Devices & Services chief Panos Panay, who replaced Dave Limp amid reorganization following layoffs that affected the division.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than 90% of UK undergraduate students now use AI in their studies, up from two-thirds a year ago, according to a Higher Education Policy Institute survey released Wednesday. The poll of 1,041 full-time undergraduates found 88% used generative AI such as ChatGPT for assessments, compared with 53% in 2024, with science students more likely to use the technology than humanities peers. Half of students cited "saving time" and "improving work quality" as their primary motivations. The proportion considering it acceptable to include AI-generated text after editing rose to 25% from 17% last year, while only 6% approved using AI content without editing. "Every assessment must be reviewed in case it can be completed easily using AI," said Josh Freeman, policy manager at Hepi. The report identified "persistent digital divides" in AI competency, with men and students from wealthier backgrounds more likely to be frequent users.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Guardian: For some, the adverts that precede the start of a film are the bane of a trip to the cinema; for others, they are a useful buffer as you stand in the popcorn queue. But for one man in India, the lengthy marathon of cinema advertising was so infuriating that he took the matter to the courts -- and won. Abhishek MR, a 30-year-old man from the southern city of Bangalore, had booked a trip to the cinema with friends in December last year to watch wartime drama Sam Bahadur. But while the scheduled time he had booked the ticket for was 4.05pm, he had to sit through 25 minutes of adverts for upcoming features and commercial items such as homewares, mobile phones and cars before the film actually began. Having planned to return to work straight after the film, Abhishek MR was angered by what he felt was a costly disruption to his life. He filed a lawsuit against PVR Inox, India's largest cinema multiplex chain, stating that: "The complainant could not attend other arrangements and appointments which were scheduled for the day and has faced losses that cannot be calculated in terms of money as compensation." Bruce66423 adds: Great outcome -- and only 25 minutes of garbage punished. Note that Indian cinemas also make patrons sit through 15 minutes of adverts in the middle of the film.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British iPhone users have shown minimal reaction to Apple's decision to disable end-to-end encryption for UK iCloud customers, challenging the company's assumption about privacy priorities, a Bloomberg columnist notes. Rather than create a government-accessible backdoor demanded under Britain's Investigatory Powers Act, Apple chose to eliminate its Advanced Data Protection feature entirely for UK customers, effectively giving both authorities and potential hackers easier access to stored emails, photos and documents. The near absence of public outcry from British consumers points to what researchers call the "privacy paradox," where stated concerns about data security rarely translate to action. According to cited research, while 92% of American consumers believe they should control their online information, only 16% have stopped using services over data misuse. The quiet reception suggests Apple's principled stand against backdoors may have limited impact if customers don't understand or value encrypted protection, potentially undermining privacy's effectiveness as a marketing differentiator for the tech giant.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Meta Platforms is in discussions to construct a new data center campus for its artificial intelligence projects, with potential costs exceeding $200 billion, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Meta executives have informed data center developers that the company is considering building the campus in states including Louisiana, Wyoming or Texas, with senior leaders having visited potential sites this month, the report said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

North Korean hackers have executed the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, draining $1.5 billion from Dubai-based exchange Bybit by compromising its multisignature cold wallet system. The attackers stole over 400,000 ethereum and staked ethereum coins without exploiting code vulnerabilities or infrastructure. Security researchers from Elliptic identified North Korean signatures in the subsequent laundering operations, consistent with the nation's ongoing cryptocurrency theft operations that fund its weapons programs. Investigators determined the hackers manipulated the user interfaces on multiple Bybit employees' devices simultaneously, tricking authorized personnel into approving what appeared to be legitimate transactions. This sophisticated attack "altered the smart contract logic and masked the signing interface," according to Bybit's disclosure. "The Bybit hack has shattered long-held assumptions about crypto security," noted researchers at Check Point. "No matter how strong your smart contract logic or multisig protections are, the human element remains the weakest link."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New research suggests that anthocyanins, the antioxidants responsible for the vibrant colors of fruits and flowers, may help counteract reproductive harm caused by microplastics. The Guardian reports: The new review of scientific literature on anthocyanins found that the compounds are probably protective against a range of plastic-induced impacts on hormones, reductions in testosterone and estrogen, decreased sperm counts, lower sperm quality, erectile dysfunction and ovarian damage. [...] Researchers said that mice exposed to microplastics, then treated with anthocyanins, showed increased sperm quality, including increased sperm count and motility, and the antioxidants overall reduced testicular damage. The new paper also pointed to research that found some microplastics reduce testosterone levels because they harm Leydig cells, which are responsible for the hormone's production. Anthocyanins seem to helped restore testosterone production and protect Leydig cells. In women, impacts on fertility and sexual development could be mitigated by anthocyanins that seem to protect hormone receptors from plastic chemicals such as bisphenol, phthalates and cadmium. The chemicals can mimic hormones, or cause hormonal responses. Microplastics in ovarian tissue cause inflammation that seems to lower levels of estrogen and other hormones. Research found that treating rats exposed to microplastics protected the ovarian tissue and normalized levels of estrogen and other hormones. "Its antioxidant properties help preserve ovarian function and potentially maintain fertility, highlighting its therapeutic potential in managing ovarian damage," the authors wrote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, once considered a significant impact risk, has been reassigned to Torino Scale Level Zero and therefore poses no hazard to Earth. "The NASA JPL Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) now lists the 2024 YR4 impact probability as 0.00005 (0.005%) or 1-in-20,000 for its passage by Earth in 2032," Richard Binzel, Professor of Planetary Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and creator of the Torino scale exclusively told Space.com. "That's impact probability zero folks!" From the report: Discovered in Dec. 2024, 2024 YR4 quickly climbed to the top of NASA's Sentry Risk table, at one point having a 1 in 32 chance of hitting Earth. This elevated it to Level 3 on the Torino scale, a system used since 1999 to categorize potential Earth impact events. Level 3, which falls within the yellow band of the Torino Scale, is described as: "A close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers. Current calculations give a 1% or greater chance of collision capable of localized destruction." This conforms to the second part of the Torino scale level 3 description, which states: "Most likely, new telescopic observations will lead to re-assignment to Level 0. Attention by public and by public officials is merited if the encounter is less than a decade away." "Asteroid 2024 YR4 has now been reassigned to Torino Scale Level Zero, the level for 'No Hazard' as additional tracking of its orbital path has reduced its possibility of intersecting the Earth to below the 1-in-1000 threshold," Binzel continued. "1-in-1000 is the threshold established for downgrading to Level 0 for any object smaller than 100 meters; YR4 has an estimated size of 164 feet (50 meters)." [...] While 2024 YR4 poses no threat, it will still have a major scientific impact when it passes Earth in 2028 and again in 2032. On Dec. 17, the asteroid will come to within 5 million miles of Earth. Then, on Dec.22, 2032, 2024 YR4 will pass within just 167,000 miles of our planet. For context, the moon is 238,855 miles away.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: As investigators struggled for weeks to find who might have committed the brutal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in the fall of 2022, they were focused on a key piece of evidence: DNA on a knife sheath that was found at the scene of the crime. At first they tried checking the DNA with law enforcement databases, but that did not provide a hit. They turned next to the more expansive DNA profiles available in some consumer databases in which users had consented to law enforcement possibly using their information, but that also did not lead to answers. F.B.I. investigators then went a step further, according to newly released testimony, comparing the DNA profile from the knife sheath with two databases that law enforcement officials are not supposed to tap: GEDmatch and MyHeritage. It was a decision that appears to have violated key parameters of a Justice Department policy that calls for investigators to operate only in DNA databases "that provide explicit notice to their service users and the public that law enforcement may use their service sites." It also seems to have produced results: Days after the F.B.I.'s investigative genetic genealogy team began working with the DNA profiles, it landed on someone who had not been on anyone's radar:Bryan Kohberger, a Ph.D. student in criminology who has now been charged with the murders. The case has shown both the promise and the unregulated power of genetic technology in an era in which millions of people willingly contribute their DNA profiles to recreational databases, often to hunt for relatives. In the past, law enforcement officials would need to find a direct match between DNA at the crime scene and that of a specific suspect. Now, investigators can use consumer DNA data to build family trees that can zero in on a person of interest -- within certain policy limits.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese robotics company Zhongqing Robotics (also known as Engine AI) posted a video of what is claimed to be the world's first humanoid robot front flip. New Atlas reports: Ten years ago, this kind of stuff simply did not exist. And now you can buy your very own open-source PM01 robot for US$13,700, according to EngineAI's website. Its specs aren't bad: 5-DoF (degrees of freedom) in each arm and six per leg. That's 23-DoF in body movement in total. The bot also boasts 221 lb-ft of torque (300 Nm), which seems like quite a punch when the little guy is only 4.5 ft (138 cm) tall and weighs 88 lb (40kg). You can watch the video here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Denmark is set to ban mobile phones in schools and after-school clubs, following a government commission's recommendation that children under 13 should not have their own smartphones. The Guardian reports: The government said it would change existing legislation to force all folkeskole -- comprehensive primary and lower secondary schools -- to become phone-free, meaning that almost all children aged between seven and 16-17 will be required by law not to bring their phones into school. The announcement marks a U-turn by the government, which had previously refused to introduce such a law. It comes as governments across Europe are trying to impose tighter regulations on children's access to phones and social media. The Danish wellbeing commission was set up by the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in 2023 to investigate growing dissatisfaction among children and young people. Its long-awaited report, published on Tuesday, raised the alarm over the digitisation of children and young people's lives and called for a better balance between digital and analogue life. Among its 35 recommendations was the need for government legislation banning phones from schools and after-school clubs. The minister for children and education, Mattias Tesfaye, told Politiken: "There is a need to reclaim the school as an educational space, where there is room for reflection and where it is not an extension of the teenage bedroom." There will be scope for local authorities to make exceptions, including for children with special educational needs, but he said mobile phones and personal tablets "do not belong in school, neither during breaks nor during lessons." He said the government had started preparing a legislative amendment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A massive blackout has hit Chile, leaving millions without power and disrupting transportation, businesses, and essential services across 14 of the country's 16 regions. The Associated Press reports: The National Electrical Coordinator, Chile's grid operator, said a disruption had occurred in a high-voltage transmission line that carries power from the Atacama Desert of northern Chile to the capital of Santiago in the country's central valley. It did not say what actually caused the disruption that pushed much of the country's power grid into shutdown, from the northernmost Chilean port of Arica to the southern Los Lagos agricultural region. Interior Minister Carolina Toha said hospitals, prisons and government buildings were switching on backup generators to keep essential equipment operating. In a press conference, Toha urged the public to stay calm and said officials were racing to put the grid back in operation and restore electric service across the country of some 19 million people. "It's affecting the entire electrical system of the country," she said of the breakdown in the 500-kV backbone transmission line. Toha said if all areas didn't return to normal by sunset the government would take emergency measures to avert a crisis. [...] Videos on social media from all over Chile, a long ribbon of a country stretching 4,300 kilometers (over 2,600 miles) along the southern Pacific coast, showed chaos at intersections with no functioning traffic lights, people having to use their mobile phones as torches in the underground metro and police dispatched to help evacuate office buildings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: As part of a settlement announced by the state of New York's Attorney General, Letitia James, DoorDash has agreed to pay $16.75 million to more than 60,000 Dashers who were supposed to receive that money in the form of tips but instead, the company used it to cover base pay and pocketed the rest. New York's lawsuit alleged that between May 2017 and September 2019, tens of thousands of Dashers were misled by DoorDash's pay model. At the time, the company offered a guaranteed wage to drivers -- the minimum amount that they could expect to make from a job. But instead of paying that guarantee and letting drivers keep their tips, DoorDash counted the tip toward their base pay and kept what was left. [...] Per the AG's lawsuit, DoorDash showed a message to customers that said "Dashers will always receive 100 percent of the tip" -- a statement that is technically true but does not clarify that "tip" is actually the delivery drivers' wage. New York argued that disclosures explaining how tips worked were buried in online documents and "customers had no way of knowing that DoorDash was using tips to reduce its own costs." DoorDash did eventually change its payment model to ensure "earnings will increase by the exact amount a customer tips on every order," but New York's case represents drivers finally getting those tips they earned during the period when the company was less transparent about who was actually pocketing that extra cash. Dashers eligible for the settlement will be contacted by the settlement administrator so they can get their piece of the pie that was rightfully theirs in the first place.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Bloomberg (paywalled), Warner Bros. Discovery announced today that it is shutting down three gaming studios and canceling development of its planned Wonder Woman project. Engadget reports: Monolith Productions, Player First Games and WB Games San Diego will be shuttered due to a "disappointing 2024" for WB's gaming business, according to an internal memo from JB Perrette, the company's CEO and president of global streaming and games. [...] According to the internal email from Perrette, WB's gaming efforts will be focused on four of its properties: Harry Potter (including Hogwarts Legacy), Mortal Kombat, the DC universe and Game of Thrones. "We need to make some substantial changes to our portfolio/team structure if we are to commit the necessary resources to get back to a "fewer but bigger franchises' strategy," Perette said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At its "Second Gen" event today, Framework detailed three new computers: an updated Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 300, a 4.5-liter Mini-ITX desktop powered by Ryzen AI Max, and a colorful, convertible Framework Laptop 12 designed with students in mind. The latter is defined by Framework as a "defining product." Tom's Hardware reports: Framework Desktop: The Framework Desktop is a 4.5L Mini-ITX machine using AMD's Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" chips with Radeon 8060S graphics. While this is a mobile chip, Framework says putting it in a desktop chassis gets it to 120W sustained power and 140W boost "while staying quiet and cool." Framework says this should allow 1440p gaming on intense titles, as well as workstation-class projects and local AI. [...] The base model, with a Ryzen AI Max 385 and 32GB of RAM, starts at $1,099, while the top-end machine with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with 128GB of RAM begins at $1,999. Framework is only doing "DIY" editions here, so you'll have to get your own storage drive and bring your own operating system (the company is calling it "the easiest PC you'll ever build"). The mainboard on its own will be available from $799. Pre-orders are open now, and Framework expects to ship sometime in Q3. Framework Laptop 12: The Laptop 12 is designed to bring the flexibility from the Laptop 12 but make it smaller, cheaper, and in more colors (with an optional stylus to match). These machines are made of ABS plastic molded in thermoplastic polyurethane, all around a metal frame. Framework says that it's "our easiest product ever to repair," but that more information on that will come closer to its launch in mid-2025. I'm really looking forward to this repair guide. It comes in five colorways: lavender, sage, gray, black, and bubblegum. The laptop will come with 13th Gen Intel Core i3 and i5 processors, which aren't the latest, but better than entry-level junk. You'll get up to 48GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and Wi-Fi 6E. It has a 1920 x 1200 touch screen that the company claims will surpass 400 nits of brightness. There's no pricing information yet, and Framework says there's more to share on pricing and specs later in the year. Pre-orders will open in April ahead of the mid-year launch. Framework Laptop 13: The Framework Laptop 13 is getting a significant refresh with AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series. It doesn't look all that different on the outside, with a 13.5-inch design that largely resembles the one from way back in 2021. But there are new features. Beyond the processors, the Framework Laptop 3 is getting bumped up to Wi-Fi 7 and is getting a new thermal system, a "next-generation" keyboard, and new colorways for the Expansion Cards and bezels (though I still don't know why you would want a bezel in anything other than black). [...] The new Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen AI 300 starts at $899 for a DIY Edition without storage or an OS, and $1,099 for a pre-built model. If you're buying the mainboard to put in an old system, that's $449. (Framework is keeping the Ryzen 7040 systems around starting at $749). No word for now on any new Intel models.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Starting with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm will offer device manufacturers (OEMs) the "ability to provide support for up to eight consecutive years of Android software and security updates." Qualcomm today announced a "program" in partnership with Google: "What this means is that support for platform software included in this program will be made available to OEMs for eight consecutive years, including both Android OS and kernel upgrades, without requiring significant changes or upgrades to the platform and OEM code on the device (a separation commonly referred as 'Project Treble' or the 'vendor implementation'). While kernel changes will require updating kernel mode drivers, the vendor code can remain unchanged while the software support is being provided." This program specifically includes "two upgrades to the mobile platform's Android Common Kernel (ACK) to support the eight-year window." It's ultimately up to manufacturers to update their devices, but the bottleneck going forward won't be the chip. Qualcomm today notes how the extended software support it's providing can "lower costs for OEMs interested in supporting their devices longer." The first devices to benefit are Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered smartphones launching with Android 15. Notably, the program runs for the "next five generations" of SoCs, including Snapdragon 8 and 7-series chips launching "later this year." Older chipsets will not benefit from this program.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Most American workers are not embracing AI chatbots in their jobs, with 55% rarely or never using these tools and 29% completely unfamiliar with them, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday. Only 16% of workers report regular use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot. Adoption is highest among younger workers (23% of those aged 18-29) and those with post-graduate degrees (26%). Among users, research (57%), editing content (52%), and drafting reports (47%) top the list of applications. While 40% find chatbots extremely or very helpful for working faster, just 29% say they significantly improve work quality. For the majority who don't use AI chatbots, 36% cite lack of relevance to their job as the primary reason. Employer attitudes remain largely neutral, with half neither encouraging nor discouraging usage. The technology sector leads in workplace adoption, with 36% of employers actively promoting chatbot use, followed by financial services (24%).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our World in Data: To decarbonize road transport, the world must move away from petrol and diesel cars and towards electric vehicles and other forms of low-carbon transport. This transition has already started. In fact, global sales of combustion engine cars are well past the peak and are now falling. As you can see in the chart, global sales peaked in 2018. This is calculated based on data from the International Energy Agency. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates this peak occurred one year earlier, in 2017. Sales of electric cars, on the other hand, are growing quickly.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A New York law mandating low-cost broadband is inspiring similar legislation across multiple states, despite industry opposition. The law requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers to offer $15 plans with 25Mbps speeds or $20 plans with 200Mbps to income-eligible residents. Vermont, Massachusetts, and California legislators have introduced comparable bills following New York's success. Vermont's proposal mirrors New York's pricing structure, while Massachusetts goes further by requiring 100Mbps speeds for the $15 tier. AT&T responded by withdrawing its 5G home internet service from New York rather than complying with the mandate. Industry lobby groups continue fighting these regulations, with USTelecom warning that state-level price controls will "undermine connectivity progress" and "discourage investment."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Andrew Ferguson urging the FTC to require that companies admit when you're not really buying an ebook or video game. From a report: Wyden's letter, shared with The Verge, requests guidance to "ensure that consumers who purchase or license digital goods can make informed decisions and understand what ownership rights they are obtaining." Wyden wants the guidance to include how long a license lasts, what circumstances might expire or revoke the license, and if a consumer can transfer or resell the license. The letter also calls for the information "before and at the point of sale" in a way that's easily understandable. "To put it simply, prior to agreeing to any transaction, consumers should understand what they are paying for and what is guaranteed after the sale," Wyden says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has launched a free version of Gemini Code Assist, offering developers substantially higher usage limits than competing services. From a report: The AI coding assistant, powered by the fine-tuned Gemini 2.0 model, allows up to 180,000 code completions monthly -- 90 times more than GitHub Copilot's free tier limit of 2,000. The release comes just one day after Anthropic introduced Claude Code, underscoring intensifying competition in AI-powered development tools. Gemini Code Assist integrates with popular environments including Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDEs, and GitHub, where it performs code reviews on both public and private repositories. Google's offering features a 128,000-token context window, enabling developers to work with larger codebases. The service supports all public domain programming languages and requires only a Gmail account to register, with no credit card needed. According to Ryan Salva, Google Cloud's senior director of product management, more than 75% of developers now rely on AI in their daily work, with over 25% of new code at Google being AI-generated. For developers wanting advanced features like private repository integration or Google Cloud service connections, premium tiers remain available.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Activision has finally admitted to using AI-generated content in its games and Call of Duty players aren't the least bit surprised. [...] After years of suspicions from the CoD community, it's now been confirmed by Activision directly that AI-generated content has indeed been featured throughout the FPS franchise. Upon visiting the Black Ops 6 Steam page, fans will notice a new change. Activision has now been forced to disclose its use of Artificial Intelligence in the game's creation. "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets," Activision said in a statement provided to the platform.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is speeding up the release of its R2 model following the success of January's R1, which outperformed many US competitors at a fraction of the cost and triggered a $1 trillion-plus market selloff. The Hangzhou-based firm had planned a May release but now wants R2 out "as early as possible," Reuters reported Tuesday. The upcoming model promises improved coding capabilities and reasoning in multiple languages beyond English. DeepSeek's competitive advantage stems from its parent company High-Flyer's early investment in computing power, including two supercomputing clusters acquired before U.S. export bans on advanced Nvidia chips. The second cluster, Fire-Flyer II, comprised approximately 10,000 Nvidia A100 chips. DeepSeek's cost-efficiency comes from innovative architecture choices like Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) and multihead latent attention (MLA). According to Bernstein analysts, DeepSeek's pricing was 20-40 times cheaper than OpenAI's equivalent models. The competitive pressure has already forced OpenAI to cut prices and release a scaled-down model, while Google's Gemini has introduced discounted access tiers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple Fellow Phil Schiller testified in court Monday that he initially objected to the company's plan to charge a 27% commission on purchases made outside the App Store, court documents showed. Schiller, who oversees the App Store, warned the fee would create an "antagonistic relationship" with developers and transform Apple into "some kind of a collection agency" that might need to audit developers for nonpayment. "I had great concerns about the collections of funds from developers," Schiller said, worrying about "how all of those things change the relationship between Apple and developers in a way I thought would be detrimental." Despite these objections, a pricing committee including CEO Tim Cook ultimately approved the commission structure. The 27% fee resulted from the 2021 Epic Games ruling that required Apple to allow developers to link to external payment options, slightly lower than the standard 30% in-app purchase commission. Internal documents revealed Apple analyzed how a "less seamless experience" of web-based payments would affect transaction completion rates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Online-education company Chegg said it is conducting a business review and exploring alternatives such as selling the company or taking it private as it continues to lose subscribers to artificial-intelligence-enabled rivals. From a report: Chegg and other virtual-learning companies have ceded ground to generative-AI companies such as ChatGPT, which provides free alternatives to the homework help that Chegg charges $19.95 for to its subscribers. Although Chegg built its own AI products, the company has faced scores of canceled subscriptions. The business review comes as the company swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, with revenue falling 24%, and guided for lower-than-expected revenue for the first quarter. In November, Chegg said it would cut its workforce by an additional 21%. Chegg's shares have fallen 99% since its peak in 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chegg has filed suit in federal district court against Google, claiming that AI summaries of search results have hurt the online education company's traffic and revenue. From a report: The legal move come nearly two years after former CEO Dan Rosensweig said students engaging with OpenAI's ChatGPT assistant were cutting into Chegg's new customer growth. Chegg is worth less than $200 million, and in after-hours trading Monday, the stock was trading just above $1 per share. Chegg has engaged Goldman Sachs and will look at strategic options, including getting acquired and going private, President and CEO Nathan Schultz told analysts on a Monday earnings call. Chegg's shares have fallen 99% since its peak in 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The U.K. government is pushing forward with plans to attract more AI companies to the region through changes to copyright law that would allow developers to train AI models on artists' content on the internet -- without permission or payment -- unless creators proactively "opt out." Not everyone is marching to the same beat, though. On Monday, a group of 1,000 musicians released a "silent album," protesting the planned changes. The album -- titled "Is This What We Want?" -- features tracks from Kate Bush, Imogen Heap, and contemporary classical composers Max Richter and Thomas Hewitt Jones, among others. It also features co-writing credits from hundreds more, including big names like Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, and Hans Zimmer. But this is not Band Aid part 2. And it's not a collection of music. Instead, the artists have put together recordings of empty studios and performance spaces -- a symbolic representation of what they believe will be the impact of the planned copyright law changes. "You can hear my cats moving around," is how Hewitt Jones described his contribution to the album. "I have two cats in my studio who bother me all day when I'm working." To put an even more blunt point on it, the titles of the 12 tracks that make up the album spell out a message: "The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies." [...] The solution, say the artists, is to produce work in other markets where there might be better protections for it. Hewitt Jones -- who threw a working keyboard into a harbor in Kent at an in-person protest not long ago (he fished it out, broken, afterwards) -- said he's considering markets like Switzerland for distributing his music in the future.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

All 50 U.S. states have now introduced some form of right to repair legislation, marking a significant milestone that "shows the power of the grassroots political movement," reports 404 Media. From the report: Thursday, Wisconsin became the final state in the country to introduce a right to repair bill. So far, right to repair laws have been passed in Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon. Another 20 states are formally considering right to repair bills during this current legislative session. The rest have previously introduced bills that have not passed; so far we have seen that many states take several years to move a given right to repair bill through the legislative process. iFixit's Kyle Wiens said covering the entire map is a "tipping point" for the movement: "We've gone from a handful of passionate advocates to a nationwide call for repair autonomy. People are fed up with disposable products and locked-down devices. Repair is the future, and this moment proves it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In France, rightsholders have taken legal action to compel large VPN providers to support their pirate site blocking program. The aim is to reinforce existing blocking measures, but VPN providers see this as a dangerous move, leading to potential security issues and overblocking. As a result, some are considering leaving France altogether if push comes to shove. [...] Earlier this month, sports rightsholders Canal+ and LFP requested blocking injunctions that would require popular VPNs to start blocking pirate sites and services. The full requests are not public, but the details available show that Cyberghost, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark are listed as respondents. [...] The blocking request has yet to be approved and several of the targeted VPN providers have reserved detailed commentary, for now. That said, the VPN Trust Initiative (VTI), which includes ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark as members, has been vocal in its opposition. VTI is part of the i2Coalition and while it doesn't speak directly for any of the members, the coalition's Executive Director Christian Dawson has been in regular discussions with VPN providers. From this, it became clear that VPN providers face difficult decisions. If VPN providers are ordered to block pirate sites, some are considering whether to follow in the footsteps of Cisco, which discontinued its OpenDNS service in the country, to avoid meddling with its DNS resolver. Speaking with TorrentFreak, VTI's Dawson says that VPNs have previously left markets like India and Pakistan in response to restrictive requirements. This typically happens when privacy or security principles are at risk, or if the technical implementation of blocking measures is infeasible. VTI does not rule out that some members may choose to exit France for similar reasons, if required to comply with blocking measures. "We've seen this before in markets like India and Pakistan, where regulatory requirements forced some VPN services to withdraw rather than compromise on encryption standards or log-keeping policies," Dawson says. "France's potential move to force VPN providers to block content could put companies in a similar position -- where they either comply with measures that contradict their purpose or leave the market altogether." "This case in France is part of a broader global trend of regulatory overreach, where governments attempt to control encrypted services under the guise of content regulation. We've already seen how China, Russia, Myanmar, and Iran have imposed VPN restrictions as part of broader censorship efforts." "The best path forward is for policymakers to focus on targeted enforcement measures that don't undermine Internet security or create a precedent for global Internet fragmentation," concludes Dawson. "As seen in other cases, blanket blocking measures do not effectively combat piracy but instead create far-reaching consequences that disrupt the open Internet."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has updated its CPU compatibility list for Windows 11 24H2, excluding pre-11th-generation Intel processors for OEMs building new PCs. The Register reports: Windows 11 24H2 has been available to customers for months, yet Microsoft felt compelled in its February update to confirm that builders, specifically, must use Intel's 11th-generation or later silicon when building brand new PCs to run its most recent OS iteration. "These processors meet the design principles around security, reliability, and the minimum system requirements for Windows 11," Microsoft says. Intel's 11th-generation chips arrived in 2020 and were discontinued last year. It would be surprising, if not unheard of, for OEMs to build machines with unsupported chips. Intel has already transitioned many pre-11th generation chips to "a legacy software support model," so Microsoft's decision to omit the chips from the OEM list is understandable. However, this could be seen as a creeping problem. Chips made earlier than that were present very recently, in the list of supported Intel processors for Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2. This new OEM list may add to worries of some users looking at the general hardware compatibility specs for Windows 11 and wondering if the latest information means that even the slightly newer hardware in their org's fleet will soon no longer meet the requirements of Microsoft's flagship operating system. It's a good question, and the answer -- currently -- appears to be that those "old" CPUs are still suitable. Microsoft has a list of hardware compatibility requirements that customers can check, and they have not changed much since the outcry when they were first published.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chegg has filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of using AI-generated overviews to undermine publishers by reducing site traffic and eroding financial incentives for original content. Chegg claims this practice violates antitrust laws and threatens the integrity of the online information ecosystem. Reuters reports: This will eventually lead to a "hollowed-out information ecosystem of little use and unworthy of trust," the company said. The Santa Clara, California-based company has said Google's AI overviews have caused a drop in visitors and subscribers. Chegg was trading at around $1.63 on Monday, down more than 98% from its peak price in 2021. The company announced it would lay off 21% of its staff in November. Nathan Schultz, CEO of Chegg, said on Monday that Google is profiting off the company's content for free. "Our lawsuit is about more than Chegg -- it's about the digital publishing industry, the future of internet search, and about students losing access to quality, step-by-step learning in favor of low-quality, unverified AI summaries," he said. Publishers allow Google to crawl their websites to generate search results, which Google monetizes through advertising. In exchange, the publishers receive search traffic to their sites when users click on the results, Chegg said. But Google has started coercing publishers to let it use the information for AI overviews and other features that result in fewer site visitors, the company said. Chegg argued the conduct violates a law against conditioning the sale of one product on the customer selling or giving its supplier another product.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Elizabeth Holmes' fraud conviction has been upheld by a federal appellate panel," writes Slashdot reader ClickOnThis. MSNBC reports: A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed the convictions, sentences and nine-figure restitution ordered against both Holmes and Theranos president, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani. [...] Theranos was supposedly going to revolutionize medical laboratory testing with the ability to run fast, accurate and affordable tests with just a drop of blood from a finger prick. "But the vision sold by Holmes and Balwani was nothing more than a mirage," 9th Circuit Judge Jacqueline H. Nguyen wrote (PDF) for the panel, adding that the "grandiose achievements touted by Holmes and Balwani were half-truths and outright lies." Holmes was convicted of crimes related to fraud against investors while the jury acquitted her or hung on other counts. Balwani was convicted on all counts at his trial. The federal panel rejected a slew of arguments from both defendants, including that their trials featured improper testimony from Theranos employees. While the ruling is a major setback for the defendants, they can further appeal to a fuller panel of 9th Circuit judges and the Supreme Court, which generally has broad discretion over whether to accept cases for review.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Cloud communications software firm Bird, one of the Netherlands' most prominent tech startups, plans to move most of its operations out of Europe, its CEO said, citing restrictive regulations and difficulties hiring skilled technology workers. "We are mostly leaving Europe as it lacks the environment we need to innovate in an AI-first era of technology," CEO Robert Vis told Reuters on Monday. "We foresee that regulations in Europe will block true innovation in a global economy moving extremely fast to AI," he said in a text message response to Reuters queries. Bird's operations in future will be mostly split between New York, Singapore and Dubai, he said. Vis first announced the move abroad in a LinkedIn post over the weekend. Bird, formerly known as Message Bird, was founded in Amsterdam in 2011. It is a competitor of U.S.-based Twilio in the market for helping companies manage their communications with consumers across digital mediums such as messaging, email and video apps. It says it has developed an AI-powered platform that automates and streamlines business operations across entire organizations including tech leaders.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI-powered search engine Perplexity is developing its own web browser named Comet. "Just like Perplexity reinvented search, we're also reinventing the browser," a Perplexity spokesperson told TechCrunch. "Stay tuned for updates." From the report: In a post on X on Monday, the company launched a sign-up list for the browser, which isn't yet available. It's unclear when it might be -- or what the browser will look like, even. But we do have a name: Comet. [...] Perplexity may be betting that it can leverage its search engine user base to quickly ramp up and make some sort of a dent in the space with Comet.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AT&T and Verizon have successfully completed their first cellphone-to-satellite video calls using AST SpaceMobile's satellites, marking a significant step toward commercial satellite networks. The Verge reports: Verizon has completed its first cellphone-to-satellite video call, while AT&T has completed its first using satellites that will be used as part of a commercial network. [...] Verizon pulled off "a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and the other connected via Verizon's terrestrial network connection," according to a company press release. In AT&T's case, "AT&T and AST SpaceMobile have successfully completed another video call by satellite to an everyday smartphone over AT&T spectrum," per AT&T's press release. Both phone companies relied on AST's constellation of five BlueBird satellites that were launched last September for the tests. AT&T's initial video call test happened in June 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company founded by exiles from OpenAI, has introduced the first AI model that can produce either conventional output or a controllable amount of "reasoning" needed to solve more grueling problems. Anthropic says the new hybrid model, called Claude 3.7, will make it easier for users and developers to tackle problems that require a mix of instinctive output and step-by-step cogitation. "The [user] has a lot of control over the behavior -- how long it thinks, and can trade reasoning and intelligence with time and budget," says Michael Gerstenhaber, product lead, AI platform at Anthropic. Claude 3.7 also features a new "scratchpad" that reveals the model's reasoning process. A similar feature proved popular with theChinese AI model DeepSeek. It can help a user understand how a model is working over a problem in order to modify or refine prompts. Dianne Penn, product lead of research at Anthropic, says the scratchpad is even more helpful when combined with the ability to ratchet a model's "reasoning" up and down. If, for example, the model struggles to break down a problem correctly, a user can ask it to spend more time working on it. [...] Penn says that Claude's reasoning mode received additional data on business applications including writing and fixing code, using computers, and answering complex legal questions. "The things that we made improvements on are ... technical subjects or subjects which require long reasoning," Penn says. "What we have from our customers is a lot of interest in deploying our models into their actual workloads." Anthropic says that Claude 3.7 is especially good at solving coding problems that require step-by-step reasoning, outscoring OpenAI's o1 on some benchmarks like SWE-bench. The company is today releasing a new tool, called Claude Code, specifically designed for this kind of AI-assisted coding. "The model is already good at coding," Penn says. But "additional thinking would be good for cases that might require very complex planning -- say you're looking at an extremely large code base for a company."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has quietly launched a new version of Microsoft Office for Windows that can be used to edit documents for free, no Microsoft 365 subscription or Office license key required. From a report: This free version of Office is based on the full desktop apps, but has most features locked behind the Microsoft 365 subscription. The free version of Office for Windows includes ads that are permanently on screen when within a document in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Additionally, this new free version of Office also only allows you to save files to OneDrive, meaning no support for editing local files. To access the free version of Office, just skip the prompt to sign-in when you first run an Office app. From there, you will be given the choice to continue to use Office for free in exchange for ads and limited features. In this mode, you can open, view, and even edit documents, just like you can with the web version of Office.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Major corporations are reshaping their workforces around AI with Salesforce announcing it will not hire software engineers in 2025 and other companies laying off thousands while shifting focus to AI-specific roles. Duolingo has laid off thousands after implementing ChatGPT-4, UPS cut 4,000 jobs in its largest layoff in 116 years, and IBM paused hiring for back-office and HR positions that AI can now handle. Amazon is redirecting staff from Alexa to AI areas, while Intuit is laying off 10% of its non-AI workforce. Cisco plans to cut 7% of employees in its second round of job cuts this year as it prioritizes AI and cybersecurity. Salesforce reports its AI platform is boosting software engineering productivity by 30%. SAP is restructuring 8,000 positions to focus on AI-driven business areas. The trend extends globally, with Microsoft relocating thousands during an "exodus" from China, while entry-level jobs on Wall Street are becoming obsolete. A study found that 3 out of 10 companies replaced workers with AI last year, with over one-third of firms using AI likely to automate more roles in 2025. Job listings at large privately-held AI companies have dropped 14.2% over six months, JP Morgan wrote in a note seen by Slashdot. The transformation is creating new opportunities, with rising demand for AI skills in job postings. A survey of more than 1,200 users found nearly two-thirds of young professionals use AI tools at work, with 93% not worried about job threats, as business leaders view Generation Z's digital skills as beneficial for leveraging AI.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison's agricultural technology venture Sensei Ag has largely failed to deliver on its ambitious goals despite costing more than half a billion dollars, more than he spent to purchase Hawaii's Lanai island itself. Eight years after its founding, little of the revolutionary technology Sensei promised - including AI crop breeding, robotic harvesting, and advanced sensors - is being utilized in its six greenhouses on Lanai, according to WSJ. The company has faced numerous setbacks, including greenhouses that weren't built to withstand Lanai's strong winds, solar panels that malfunctioned, and executives with limited agricultural experience. Far from its original mission to "feed the world," Sensei currently grows lettuce and cherry tomatoes primarily for Hawaii's local market, while its Canadian operations supply some East Coast supermarkets. The company has pivoted to focus on developing software and robotics at test centers in Southern California, aiming to eventually license technology packages to other indoor farms.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than half the world's countries have no plans to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, despite committing to a global agreement to do so less than three years ago, new analysis shows. From a report: In late 2022, nearly every country signed a once-in-a-decade UN deal to halt the destruction of Earth's ecosystems. It included a headline target to protect nearly a third of the planet for biodiversity by the end of the decade -- a goal known as "30 by 30." But as country leaders gather in Rome to conclude Cop16 negotiations to save nature, analysis of countries' plans by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that many countries are will fall short. More than half are either pledging to protect less than 30% of their territory or are not setting a numerical target.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cloud communications software firm Bird, one of the Netherlands' most prominent tech startups, plans to move most of its operations out of Europe, its CEO said, citing restrictive regulations and difficulties hiring skilled technology workers. From a report: "We are mostly leaving Europe as it lacks the environment we need to innovate in an AI-first era of technology," CEO Robert Vis told Reuters on Monday. "We foresee that regulations in Europe will block true innovation in a global economy moving extremely fast to AI," he said in a text message response to Reuters queries. Bird's operations in future will be mostly split between New York, Singapore and Dubai, he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has canceled some leases for US data center capacity, according to TD Cowen, raising broader concerns over whether it's securing more AI computing capacity than it needs in the long term. From a report: OpenAI's biggest backer has voided leases in the US totaling "a couple of hundred megawatts" of capacity -- the equivalent of roughly two data centers -- canceling agreements with at least a couple of private operators, the US brokerage wrote Friday, citing "channel checks" or inquiries with supply chain providers. TD Cowen said its checks also suggest Microsoft has pulled back on converting so-called statements of qualifications, agreements that usually lead to formal leases. Microsoft in a statement on Monday reiterated its spending target for the fiscal year ending June, but declined to comment on TD Cowen's note. Exactly why Microsoft may be pulling some leases is unclear. TD Cowen posited in a second report on Monday that OpenAI is shifting workloads from Microsoft to Oracle as part of a relatively new partnership. The tech giant is also among the largest owners and operators of data centers in its own right and is spending billions of dollars on its own capacity. TD Cowen separately suggested that Microsoft may be reallocating some of that in-house investment to the US from abroad.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Financial Times: Venture capitalists have always been happy to back pre-profit companies. Back in the halcyon ZIRP era, they became happy to finance pre-revenue companies. But at least even Juicero, Wag and the Fyre Festival had an actual product. From Bloomberg over the weekend: "OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever is raising more than $1 billion for his start-up at a valuation of over $30 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter -- vaulting the nascent venture into the ranks of the world's most valuable private technology companies. Greenoaks Capital Partners, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, is leading the deal for the start-up, Safe Superintelligence, and plans to invest $500 million, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Greenoaks is also an investor in AI companies Scale AI and Databricks. The round marks a significant valuation jump from the $5 billion that Sutskever's company was worth before, according to Reuters, which earlier reported some details of the new funding. The financing talks are ongoing and the details could still change." OK, so a jump from a $5bn valuation less than half a year ago to $30bn must mean that Safe Superintelligence has an absolutely killer product right? SSI focuses on developing safe AI systems. It isn't generating revenue yet and doesn't intend to sell AI products in the near future. "This company is special in that its first product will be the safe superintelligence, and it will not do anything else up until then," Sutskever told Bloomberg in June. "It will be fully insulated from the outside pressures of having to deal with a large and complicated product and having to be stuck in a competitive rat race."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is preparing to abandon SMS verification codes for Gmail authentication in favor of QR codes, Gmail spokesperson Ross Richendrfer told Forbes. The move aims to address significant security vulnerabilities inherent in SMS-based verification while combating fraudulent exploitation of Google's messaging infrastructure, he said. "Just like we want to move past passwords with the use of things like passkeys, we want to move away from sending SMS messages for authentication," Richendrfer said. The transition will target "rampant, global SMS abuse" that undermines security and enables criminal schemes. SMS verification currently serves dual purposes at Google: confirming user identity and preventing service abuse. However, these codes are vulnerable to phishing, dependent on carrier security practices, and frequently exploited in "traffic pumping" scams where fraudsters profit from artificially triggered SMS messages. The forthcoming implementation will display QR codes that users scan with their phone cameras instead of entering six-digit codes. This approach eliminates shareable verification codes and reduces dependency on telecom carriers. The changes will roll out "over the next few months," the company said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple said it planned to hire an additional 20,000 staff in the US over the next four years as part of a $500 billion American investment plan. Financial Times: The $500 billion figure [non-paywalled source], spread over Trump's second term in office, includes regular spending on thousands of US suppliers, data centres and corporate facilities, as well as new initiatives such as an academy in Michigan "to train the next generation of US manufacturers." Apple will also open a manufacturing facility in Houston to build servers that can support its artificial intelligence ambitions. President Trump "implied that the iPhone maker is investing locally because it does not want to pay tariffs," reports Bloomberg. They add pointedly that Apple "didn't say whether the new investments were already underway before Trump's win."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Los Angeles Times publishes a weekly "Boiling Point" newsletter about climate change and energy issues. And this week they examined whether the scientific fact of a change climate is reflected in the mass media:For the second year running, nonprofit consulting firm Good Energy applied its Climate Reality Check to the actual Oscar-nominated films [which] tests whether a movie and its characters acknowledge global warming... Of last year's 13 Oscar-nominated films that met Good Energy's criteria (feature-length movies set in present-day or near-future Earth) three passed the test. This year, there were 10 eligible films. Only "The Wild Robot" passed... Maybe a few years from now, studios will release a torrent of movies and shows reflecting the realities of a scary-but-still-salvageable world, helmed by producers and writers jolted into renewed awareness by the infernos. But for now, the picture is bleak. A peer-reviewed study slated for publication this month, led by Rice University English and environmental studies professor Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, analyzes climate change mentions in 250 of the most popular movies of the last decade. The authors found that just 12.8% of the films allude to global warming. Just 3.6% depict or mention the climate crisis in two or more scenes. "A lot of times, it's really being mentioned in passing," Schneider-Mayerson said... [Good Energy Chief Executive Anna Jane Joyner] pointed to another analysis led by Schneider-Mayerson, which found that movies passing the Climate Reality Check and released in theaters earned 10% more at the box office, on average, than films failing the test. Netflix, meanwhile, says on its website that 80% of its customers "choose to watch at least one story on Netflix that helps them better understand climate issues or highlight hopeful solutions around sustainability...." [Netflix's "Sustainability Stories" collection includes Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, and Waterworld] Sponsors are interested in selling audiences on climate-friendly products, too. I was sitting in a movie theater last weekend enjoying "Captain America: Brave New World" - the latest entry in Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe - when, to my surprise, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) got out of his SUV and pulled his iconic red-white-and-blue shield out of the front trunk. Yes, a front trunk, where an internal combustion engine would normally be. That meant Captain America was driving an electric vehicle, right? Indeed, he was. I did some research after I got home and learned that Wilson was driving a GMC Hummer EV, the result of a paid partnership between Marvel Studios and GMC parent company General Motors. Ironically, the movie does not at any point acknowledge global warming, the article points out (adding "Also, SUVs kill more pedestrians and cyclists than smaller cars.") "But the more movies and TV shows spotlight climate solutions - electric vehicles, solar panels, induction stoves - the more likely people are to support those solutions. For Hollywood, that's a step in the right direction."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After completing a journalism graduate degree, Carla McCanna took a job "training AI models to optimize accuracy and efficiency," according an article by Nieman Journalism Lab:Staff jobs are scarce... and the competition for them is daunting. (In 2024, the already beleaguered U.S. news industry cut nearly 5,000 jobs, up 59% from the previous year, according to an annual report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas....) For the past couple months, McCanna has been working close to full-time for [AI training data company] Outlier, picking up projects on its gig platform at about $35 per hour. Data work has quickly become her primary source of income and a hustle she's recommended [to her journalism program classmates]. "A lot of us are still looking for jobs. Three times I told someone what I do, and they're like, please send it to me," she said. "It's hard right now, and a lot of my colleagues are saying the same thing." McCanna is just one of many journalists who has been courted by Outlier to take on part-time, remote data work over the past year... Several of them told me they have taken on Outlier projects to supplement their income or replace their work in journalism entirely, because of dwindling staff jobs or freelance assignments drying up. Some are early-career journalists like McCanna, but others are reporters with over a decade of experience. One thing they all had in common? Before last year they'd never heard of Outlier or even knew that this type of work existed. Launched back in 2023, Outlier is a platform owned and managed by Scale AI, a San Francisco-based data annotation company valued at $13.8 billion. It counts among its customers the world's largest AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft. Outlier, and similar platforms like CrowdGen and Remotasks, use networks of remote human workers to improve the AI models of their clients. Workers are paid by the hour for tasks like labeling training data, drafting test prompts, and grading the factual accuracy and grammar of outputs. Often their work is fed back into an AI model to improve its performance, through a process called reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF). This human feedback loop has been core to building models like OpenAI's GPT and Meta's Llama. Aside from direct recruitment messages, I also found dozens of recent public job postings that underscore this growing trend of hiring journalists for data work... Rather than training a replacement, McCanna sees her data work as an asset, growing her knowledge of AI tools as they continue to embed in the workplace. "Actually doing this work you realize AI models still need us ... I think it's going to be a really, really long time until they can truly write like humans."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When it comes to application packaging, earlier this month the site Its FOSS complained that Fedora Flatpaks "are often unmaintained or broken, leading to a poor experience for users who aren't usually aware they're using them." And this apparently created friction with OBS Studio, the free/open-source screencasting and streaming app. "We are now considering the Fedora Flatpaks distribution of OBS Studio a hostile fork," OBS Studio lead Joel Bethke posted in on GitLab's page for Fedora Flatpaks. They said they were making "a formal request to remove all of our branding, including but not limited to, our name, our logo, any additional IP belonging to the OBS Project, from your distribution. Failure to comply may result in further legal action taken...." (Issues with Fedora's packaging led "to users complaining upstream thinking they are being served the official package..." Bethke said in his original Issue. "I would also like some sort of explanation on why someone thought it was a good idea to take a Flatpak that was working perfectly fine, break it, and publish it at a higher priority to our official builds.") 23 people clicked "Like" on the original Issue - but threatening legal action only happened after Bethke felt Fedora was unresponsive, according to It's FOSS:In a comment on a video by Brodi Robertson (check pinned comment), Joel shared that folks from Fedora were not taking this issue seriously, with one of them even resorting to name-calling by labeling the OBS Studio devs as being "terrible maintainers". Since then, a major step has been taken by Neal Gompa, a well-known Fedora contributor and member of the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo). He has opened a new issue to remove Fedora's OBS Studio flatpak from the registry as soon as possible. But by Tuesday Bethke posted in a new comment on GitLab announcing that "a very good conversation" with the Flatpak SIG and Fedora Project Leader seemed to have cleared the tension. "We discussed the issues, how we got here, and what next steps are... [T]he OBS Project is no longer requesting a removal of IP or rebrand of the OBS Studio application provided by Fedora Flatpaks." To the issue of not knowing where to report bugs for the downstream package, "We had some very good discussion on how this might be accomplished in the medium-long term, but don't consider it a blocker at this point." As for other issues with Fedora's Flatpak for OBS Studio, "The discussion was positive and they are actively working to resolve..." And similar sentiments were echoed on Fedora's own issue tracker. "We had a good conversation today, and there is a hopeful path forward that does not require the OBS Project distancing itself from Fedora Flatpaks..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.