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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Scientists have trained a computer to analyze the brain activity of someone listening to music and, based only on those neuronal patterns, recreate the song. The research, published on Tuesday, produced a recognizable, if muffled version of Pink Floyd's 1979 song, "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)." [...] To collect the data for the study, the researchers recorded from the brains of 29 epilepsy patients at Albany Medical Center in New York State from 2009 to 2015. As part of their epilepsy treatment, the patients had a net of nail-like electrodes implanted in their brains. This created a rare opportunity for the neuroscientists to record from their brain activity while they listened to music. The team chose the Pink Floyd song partly because older patients liked it. "If they said, 'I can't listen to this garbage,'" then the data would have been terrible, Dr. Schalk said. Plus, the song features 41 seconds of lyrics and two-and-a-half minutes of moody instrumentals, a combination that was useful for teasing out how the brain processes words versus melody. Robert Knight, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the leader of the team, asked one of his postdoctoral fellows, Ludovic Bellier, to try to use the data set to reconstruct the music "because he was in a band," Dr. Knight said. The lab had already done similar work reconstructing words. By analyzing data from every patient, Dr. Bellier identified what parts of the brain lit up during the song and what frequencies these areas were reacting to. Much like how the resolution of an image depends on its number of pixels, the quality of an audio recording depends on the number of frequencies it can represent. To legibly reconstruct "Another Brick in the Wall," the researchers used 128 frequency bands. That meant training 128 computer models, which collectively brought the song into focus. The researchers then ran the output from four individual brains through the model. The resulting recreations were all recognizably the Pink Floyd song but had noticeable differences. Patient electrode placement probably explains most of the variance, the researchers said, but personal characteristics, like whether a person was a musician, also matter. The data captured fine-grained patterns from individual clusters of brain cells. But the approach was also limited: Scientists could see brain activity only where doctors had placed electrodes to search for seizures. That's part of why the recreated songs sound like they are being played underwater. [...] The researchers also found a spot in the brain's temporal lobe that reacted when volunteers heard the 16th notes of the song's guitar groove. They proposed that this particular area might be involved in our perception of rhythm. The findings offer a first step toward creating more expressive devices to assist people who can't speak. Over the past few years, scientists have made major breakthroughs in extracting words from the electrical signals produced by the brains of people with muscle paralysis when they attempt to speak.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A genetically altered pig kidney transplanted into a brain-dead man has continued to function for 32 days, an advance toward the possible use of animal organs in humans, surgeons at NYU Langone Health said Wednesday. The Washington Post reports: The kidney was not rejected in the minutes after it was transplanted -- a problem in xenotransplantation, the use of organs from a different species. It began producing urine and took over the functions of a human kidney such as filtering toxins, the physicians said at a news conference. Also Wednesday, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine published a similar case study, of a brain-dead patient who received two pig kidneys that underwent 10 gene alterations earlier this year. The kidneys were not rejected and continued to function for seven days. The results were peer-reviewed and published in the journal JAMA Surgery. In the NYU Langone transplant, the specially bred pig from which the kidney was procured required just one genetic alteration, to remove a protein that human immune systems attack shortly after surgery. Surgeons also implanted the pig's thymus gland, which helps train the immune system, by sewing it under the outer layer of the kidney, and used immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection later on. Managing the condition of the brain-dead man, who on Wednesday still had a heart beat and was breathing with the aid of a ventilator, for an extended period of time also requires extensive efforts by critical care personnel. But the work has revealed information about longer-term use of animal organs, the doctors said. The researchers expect to follow the patient for another month. With the results released Wednesday, both Montgomery and Locke said they can envision moving toward the early stage of clinical trials to identify the safety of transplanting pig kidneys into live humans. [...] The genetic alteration in the NYU Langone study knocked out a carbohydrate molecule known as Alpha-gal, for short. Humans do not produce the substance and create high levels of antibodies against it, which has in the past proven a formidable obstacle to xenotransplantation. "Now that it can be completely removed from the pig, that allows us to move forward," Montgomery said. Still, the team said, pigs have 1,000 proteins that humans don't, and it can take 10 to 14 days to see how a person's immune system reacts to them. Getting beyond that stage with this patient at NYU Langone is a first sign that long-term viability of the organ and patient is possible, they said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recent developments, such as Adobe ending support for Type 1 fonts in 2023 and Microsoft discontinuing Type 1 font support in Office apps, may impact users who manage their own fonts, potentially leading to compatibility and layout issues in older files. Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham writes: If you want to know about the history of desktop publishing, you need to know about Adobe's PostScript fonts. PostScript fonts used vector graphics so that they could look crisp and clear no matter what size they were, and Apple licensed PostScript fonts for the original LaserWriter printer; together with publishing software like Aldus PageMaker, they made it possible to create a file that would look exactly the same on your computer screen as it did when you printed it. The most important PostScript fonts were so-called "Type 1" fonts, which Adobe initially didn't publish a specification for. From the 1980s up until roughly the early 2000s or so, if you were working in desktop publishing professionally, you were probably using Type 1 fonts. Other companies didn't want Adobe to have a monopoly on vector-based fonts or desktop publishing, of course; Apple created the TrueType format in the early 90s and licensed it to Microsoft, which used it in Windows 3.1 and later versions. Adobe and Microsoft later collaborated on a new font format called OpenType that could replace both TrueType and PostScript Type 1, and by the mid-2000s, it had been released as an open standard and had become the predominant font format used across most operating systems and software. For a while after that, apps that had supported PostScript Type 1 fonts continued to support them, with some exceptions (Microsoft Office for Windows dropped support for Type 1 fonts in 2013). But now we're reaching an inflection point; Adobe ended support for PostScript Type 1 fonts in January 2023, a couple of years after announcing the change. Yesterday, a Microsoft Office for Mac update deprecated Type 1 font support for the continuously updated Microsoft 365 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook for Mac (plus the standalone versions of those apps in Office 2019 and 2021). The LibreOffice suite, otherwise a good way to open ancient Word documents, stopped supporting Type 1 fonts in the 5.3 release in mid-2022. If you began using Adobe and Microsoft's productivity apps at some point in the last 10 or 15 years and you've stuck mostly with the default fonts -- either the ones included with the software or the ones from Adobe's extensive font library -- it's not too likely that you've been using a Type 1 font unintentionally. For these kinds of users, this change will be effectively invisible. But if you install and manage your own fonts and you've been using the same ones for a while, it's possible that you created a document in 2022 that you simply won't be able to open in 2023. The change will also cause problems if you open and work with decades-old files with any kind of regularity; files that use Type 1 fonts will begin generating lots of "missing font" messages, and the substitution OpenType fonts that apps might try to use instead can introduce layout issues. You'll also either need to convert any specialized PostScript Type 1 font that you may have paid for in the past or pay for an equivalent OpenType alternative.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bambu's X1C and P1P 3D printers started printing unattended, overnight, and without any additional user input, according to user reports from r/BambuLab and X. The Verge reports: Some woke up to failed prints. Some found a second copy of a previous print. And at least a few found their Bambu X1C or P1P had started smacking itself apart -- damaging components -- while trying to print a second copy atop the object they'd actually asked for. What happened? In an official blog post, Bambu says it's still investigating but suspects that a cloud outage is to blame. The company says its servers had two brief outages on Tuesday morning where the servers couldn't confirm that the printers had actually printed -- but instead of failing gracefully, they wound up sending the same print job again and again until it went through, Bambu's staff believes. "Simply explained, the print job sent to the printer before was trapped on the cloud and had a delayed start," writes Bambu. When contacted by The Verge, Bambu would not go quite so far as to promise free repairs and replacements for all affected customers but says anyone who's suffered any damage should reach out to Bambu support ASAP. "For damage caused by this incident, we will offer the necessary solutions to our customers impacted by the Cloud Outage, in the form of part replacements or a printer replacement if the situation demands it," spokesperson Taylor Liu tells me.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Microsoft prohibits users from reverse engineering or harvesting data from its AI software to train or improve other models, and will store inputs passed into its products as well as any output generated. The details emerged as companies face fresh challenges with the rise of generative AI. People want to know what corporations are doing with information provided by users. And users are likewise curious about what they can do with the content generated by AI. Microsoft addresses these issues in a new clause titled 'AI Services' in its terms of service. The five new policies, which were introduced on 30 July and will come into effect on September 30, state that: Reverse Engineering. You may not use the AI services to discover any underlying components of the models, algorithms, and systems. For example, you may not try to determine and remove the weights of models.Extracting Data. Unless explicitly permitted, you may not use web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction methods to extract data from the AI services.Limits on use of data from the AI Services. You may not use the AI services, or data from the AI services, to create, train, or improve (directly or indirectly) any other AI service.Use of Your Content. As part of providing the AI services, Microsoft will process and store your inputs to the service as well as output from the service, for purposes of monitoring for and preventing abusive or harmful uses or outputs of the service.Third party claims. You are solely responsible for responding to any third-party claims regarding Your use of the AI services in compliance with applicable laws (including, but not limited to, copyright infringement or other claims relating to content output during Your use of the AI services). A spokesperson from Microsoft declined to comment on how long the company plans to store user inputs into its software. "We regularly update our terms of service to better reflect our products and services. Our most recent update to the Microsoft Services Agreement includes the addition of language to reflect artificial intelligence in our services and its appropriate use by customers," the representative told us in a statement. Microsoft has previously said, however, that it doesn't save conversations or use that data to train its AI models for its Bing Enterprise Chat mode. The policies are a little murkier for its Microsoft 365 Copilot, although it doesn't appear to use customer data or prompts for training, it does store information. "[Copilot] can generate responses anchored in the customer's business content, such as user documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings, contacts, and other business data. Copilot combines this content with the user's working context, such as the meeting a user is in now, the email exchanges the user has had on a topic, or the chat conversations the user had last week. Copilot uses this combination of content and context to help deliver accurate, relevant, contextual responses," it said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A phishing campaign has targeted a notable energy company in the U.S., bypassing email security filters to slip malicious QR codes into inboxes. BleepingComputer reports: Roughly one-third (29%) of the 1,000 emails attributed to this campaign targeted a large US energy company, while the remaining attempts were made against firms in manufacturing (15%), insurance (9%), technology (7%), and financial services (6%). According to Cofense, who spotted this campaign, this is the first time that QR codes have been used at this scale, indicating that more phishing actors may be testing their effectiveness as an attack vector. Cofense did not name the energy company targeted in this campaign but categorized them as a "major" US-based company. Cofense says the attack begins with a phishing email that claims the recipient must take action to update their Microsoft 365 account settings. The emails carry PNG or PDF attachments featuring a QR code the recipient is prompted to scan to verify their account. The emails also state that the target must complete this step in 2-3 days to add a sense of urgency. The threat actors use QR codes embedded in images to bypass email security tools that scan a message for known malicious links, allowing the phishing messages to reach the target's inbox. To evade security, the QR codes in this campaign also use redirects in Bing, Salesforce, and Cloudflare's Web3 services to redirect the targets to a Microsoft 365 phishing page. Hiding the redirection URL in the QR code, abusing legitimate services, and using base64 encoding for the phishing link all help evade detection and get through email protection filters.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Loading screen maps and movement physics are just some of the elements from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that Nintendo is trying to patent. Kotaku reports: Automaton, a gaming website that focuses on Japanese games like Zelda, has a roundup of the 32 patents Nintendo put forth. Some of them are specific to Link's latest adventure, including things like Riju's lightning ability, which lets the player target enemies with a bow and bring down a lighting strike wherever the arrow lands. The weirder ones are related to baseline game design and coding that applies to plenty of other video games on the market. One of the hopeful patents relates to the physics of a character riding on top of a moving vehicle and reacting dynamically to it in a realistic manner. The distinction, according to Automaton's translation of Japanese site Hatena Blog user nayoa2k's post on the matter, is down to how Tears of the Kingdom codes these interactions. Link and the objects he rides on move together at the same speed, rather than Link being technically stationary on top of a moving object as is common in the physics of other games. The two are functionally the same, but given that plenty of video games displayed characters who can walk around on top of moving vehicles, it's highly unlikely this kind of approach hasn't been utilized before. On top of trying to patent the tech, Nintendo seeks to patent the loading screen that shows up when the player is fast-traveling across Hyrule. This specifically refers to the screen that shows the map transition from the player's starting point to their destination. Sure, that's pretty specific and not something every game utilizes, but it's still such a general concept that it feels almost petty to patent it when it's hardly an iconic draw of Tears of the Kingdom.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A few months ago, an engineer in a data center in Norway encountered some perplexing errors that caused a Windows server to suddenly reset its system clock to 55 days in the future. The engineer relied on the server to maintain a routing table that tracked cell phone numbers in real time as they were being moved from one carrier to the other. A jump of eight weeks had dire consequences because it caused numbers that had yet to be transferred to be listed as having already been moved and numbers that had already been transferred to be reported as pending. "With these updated routing tables, a lot of people were unable to make calls, as we didn't have a correct state!" the engineer, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Simen, wrote in an email. "We would route incoming and outgoing calls to the wrong operators! This meant, e.g., children could not reach their parents and vice versa." Simen had experienced a similar error last August when a machine running Windows Server 2019 reset its clock to January 2023 and then changed it back a short time later. Troubleshooting the cause of that mysterious reset was hampered because the engineers didn't discover it until after event logs had been purged. The newer jump of 55 days, on a machine running Windows Server 2016, prompted him to once again search for a cause, and this time, he found it. The culprit was a little-known feature in Windows known as Secure Time Seeding. Microsoft introduced the time-keeping feature in 2016 as a way to ensure that system clocks were accurate. Windows systems with clocks set to the wrong time can cause disastrous errors when they can't properly parse time stamps in digital certificates or they execute jobs too early, too late, or out of the prescribed order. Secure Time Seeding, Microsoft said, was a hedge against failures in the battery-powered on-board devices designed to keep accurate time even when the machine is powered down. "You may ask -- why doesn't the device ask the nearest time server for the current time over the network?" Microsoft engineers wrote. "Since the device is not in a state to communicate securely over the network, it cannot obtain time securely over the network as well, unless you choose to ignore network security or at least punch some holes into it by making exceptions." To avoid making security exceptions, Secure Time Seeding sets the time based on data inside an SSL handshake the machine makes with remote servers. These handshakes occur whenever two devices connect using the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, the mechanism that provides encrypted HTTPS sessions (it is also known as Transport Layer Security). Because Secure Time Seeding (abbreviated as STS for the rest of this article) used SSL certificates Windows already stored locally, it could ensure that the machine was securely connected to the remote server. The mechanism, Microsoft engineers wrote, "helped us to break the cyclical dependency between client system time and security keys, including SSL certificates."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linus Sebastian's Linus Media Group YouTube empire is currently in crisis, with accusations of theft, lapses in ethics, and most recently, allegations of sexual harassment. From a report: The company has currently paused all production to improve its review processes, and CEO Terren Tong tells The Verge an outside investigator will be hired to examine the harassment allegations. In a video posted this morning titled "What do we do now?" Linus Media Group CFO Yvonne Ho announced the entire channel was pausing production for the next week to address the issues raised by the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus about errors in videos and concerning ethical practices. "I agree with the community," Ho said in the video, "so I'm putting my foot down. Effective immediately all YouTube video production is on pause." The controversy started earlier this week, when Gamers Nexus posted a video outlining a number of factual errors and ethics concerns in recent Linus Tech Tips videos. "We've been seeing an alarming amount of conflicts from Linus Tech Tips as it relates to their corporate connections, their flow of money, and the potential bias as a result of those things," said Gamers Nexus host Steve Burke.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is building an ambitious new organization to tackle scientific challenges with the help of artificial intelligence, according to people briefed on the plans. Schmidt has already hired two accomplished scientists to spearhead the nonprofit initiative: Samuel Rodriques, founder of the Applied Biotechnology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute; and Andrew White, a University of Rochester professor and a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry. People familiar with the plans say the effort is modeled after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which was founded with great fanfare as a philanthropic organization. Schmidt wants the new nonprofit to become a big draw for top talent in science and AI, two areas that are converging to potentially create breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery to material sciences. Funding will come mostly from Schmidt's personal wealth, but outside funds may be necessary given the ambition of the project, people familiar with the plans said. Schmidt intends to offer competitive salaries and resources, in particular compute power that can be difficult to come by in academia. The project is still in the early stages, the people said, and exact plans could change.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York City is banning TikTok from city-owned devices and requiring agencies to remove the app within the next 30 days. From a report: The directive issued Wednesday comes after a review by the NYC Cyber Command, which a city official said found that TikTok "posed a security threat to the city's technical networks." Starting immediately, city employees are barred from downloading or using the app and accessing TikTok's website from any city-owned devices. "While social media is great at connecting New Yorkers with one another and the city, we have to ensure we are always using these platforms in a secure manner," a New York City Hall spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge Wednesday. "NYC Cyber Command regularly explores and advances proactive measures to keep New Yorkers' data safe." The city cited US Office of Management and Budget guidelines discouraging TikTok's use on government devices as well as federal legislation banning the app that was passed earlier this year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The UK government will host a summit on the safety of artificial intelligence at the start of November, with "like-minded" countries invited to the event in Bletchley Park to address global threats to democracy, including the use of AI in warfare and cyber security. From a report: Leading academics and executives from AI companies, including Google's DeepMind, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic, will be asked to the AI Safety Summit at the Buckinghamshire site where British codebreakers were based during the second world war. "The UK will host the first major global summit on AI safety this autumn," a spokesperson for the government said on Wednesday, adding that Downing Street would set out further details in due course. Prime minister Rishi Sunak initially announced in June the UK would be organising a summit on AI regulation after a meeting in Washington with President Joe Biden.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the most productive scientific collaborations of the 21st century is pulling apart, as deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China lead researchers to sever ties. From a report: The decoupling, which began in recent years with investigations into Chinese researchers in the U.S., has accelerated as tensions have risen between the superpowers. Now some U.S. lawmakers are pushing to let a landmark agreement to cooperate on science and technology, signed in 1979 and renewed routinely since, expire this month. China has built itself into a powerful engine of scientific discovery in recent decades, partly with American help, and many in Washington fear that China could gain a security and military advantage unless the U.S. takes decisive steps to cut off cooperation in scientific research. Many scientists warn, however, that Washington would be severing ties as China is making its greatest contributions to scientific advancements, and cutting it off risks slowing American progress in critical areas such as biotechnology, clean energy and telecommunications. While the U.S. remains the world's pre-eminent science power, fundamental scientific research has grown borderless in the era of globalization, much as business has. More than 40% of America's scientific production -- measured by the number of high-quality papers that U.S.-based scientists produce -- involves cooperation with researchers abroad, according to Clarivate, a London-based data firm that tracks global scientific research. China and the U.S. are each other's No. 1 partner in producing scientific research, with collaborative research between the two consistently among the most-cited papers across fields, according to an analysis of Clarivate's data by Caroline Wagner, a professor of public policy at Ohio State University.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is evaluating tools that would use AI to perform tasks that some of its researchers have said should be avoided. From a report: Earlier this year, Google, locked in an accelerating competition with rivals like Microsoft and OpenAI to develop A.I. technology, was looking for ways to put a charge into its artificial intelligence research. So in April, Google merged DeepMind, a research lab it had acquired in London, with Brain, an artificial intelligence team it started in Silicon Valley. Four months later, the combined groups are testing ambitious new tools that could turn generative A.I. -- the technology behind chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's own Bard -- into a personal life coach. Google DeepMind has been working with generative A.I. to perform at least 21 different types of personal and professional tasks, including tools to give users life advice, ideas, planning instructions and tutoring tips, according to documents and other materials reviewed by The New York Times. The project was indicative of the urgency of Google's effort to propel itself to the front of the A.I. pack and signaled its increasing willingness to trust A.I. systems with sensitive tasks. The capabilities also marked a shift from Google's earlier caution on generative A.I. In a slide deck presented to executives in December, the company's A.I. safety experts had warned of the dangers of people becoming too emotionally attached to chatbots.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coinbase has gained approval to sell cryptocurrency derivatives directly to retail consumers in the US. From a report: Coinbase Financial Markets, a subsidiary of the US's biggest crypto exchange, has secured approval from the National Futures Association to operate a Futures Commission Merchant and offer access to crypto futures. The offering will launch within weeks, according to a company spokesperson. Coinbase has been working on the derivatives push for some time. It applied for the NFA approval almost two years ago. In early 2022, it bought futures exchange FairX, which was already registered with US regulators. Renamed Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, it currently sends traders to buy futures from third-parties such as brokers. But with the NFA approval, Coinbase will be able to provide these same derivatives to users directly, first via Coinbase's main app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has moved the "end call" button back to the middle of the screen in the newest developer version of iOS 17, released Tuesday. From a report: The move reverses a change that Apple had been considering over the summer, as CNBC reported last week. Previous beta versions of iOS 17 had moved the red "end call" button to the lower right-hand corner, as opposed to centered in the bottom half of the screen, where it had been for years. However, in the most recent developer beta, the end call button is centered vertically, in the middle of three buttons close to the bottom of the screen.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel has dropped its planned $5.4 billion acquisition of Israel's Tower Semiconductor. It's a setback to Intel's plans to expand its chip-manufacturing business. From a report: Intel said Wednesday the deal, originally agreed in 2022, had been terminated due to delays in getting regulatory approval. Chinese regulators hadn't approved the deal by Tuesday's deadline. Intel will now have to pay a $353 million termination fee to Tower Semiconductor. However, the more painful consequence could be the blow to Intel's plans to build up its business making chips on contract for others via its Foundry Services unit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: First shown off at 2022 CES, the Masonite M-PWR comes with a built-in Ring video doorbell and Yale smart lock, plus motion-activated LED lights and a door sensor -- all powered by your home's electrical system so there are no batteries to replace. An onboard battery backup keeps the door operational for 24 hours in the event of a power loss. Both doorbell and lock components can be upgraded over time as technology advances. If you were hoping for an all-in-one app, however, you'll be disappointed. To use all the door's features, you need the Yale app, the Ring app, and the M-PWR app. What's all this technology going to cost you? The fiberglass Masonite M-PWR starts at $4,000 -- and that's for the basic model. Several finishes/designs/glass options are available, with pricing on the higher-end versions reaching $7,000. If you consider that a decent front door, Ring doorbell, and Yale smart lock from the same retailer can be had for under $1,000, this is clearly a door for people who want the finer things. And that price doesn't include installation, something most homeowners can't do on their own as the door needs to be hard-wired. The door has been available in new construction homes since 2022, but this marks the first time you can buy it separately.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Adweek, the New York Times updated its Terms of Service on August 3rd to prohibit its content from being used in the development of "any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system." That includes text, photographs, images, audio/video clips, "look and feel," metadata, and compilations. The Verge reports: The updated terms now also specify that automated tools like website crawlers designed to use, access, or collect such content cannot be used without written permission from the publication. The NYT says that refusing to comply with these new restrictions could result in unspecified fines or penalties. Despite introducing the new rules to its policy, the publication doesn't appear to have made any changes to its robots.txt -- the file that informs search engine crawlers which URLs can be accessed. The move follows a recent update to Google's privacy policy that discloses the search giant reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI tools.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China launched what is thought to be the world's first geosynchronous orbit synthetic aperture radar satellite on Saturday. SpaceNews reports: A Long March 3B rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China at 1:36 p.m. Eastern (1736 UTC) Aug. 12. The Land Exploration-4 01 (Ludi Tance-4 (01)) satellite successfully entered geosynchronous transfer orbit, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., (CASC) announced within an hour of liftoff. Few details of the satellite were provided by CASC. However the group's "blue book" outlining plans for 2023 released in January noted the launch of a "high-orbit 20-meter [resolution] SAR satellite." The L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite will provide all-day, all-weather observation of China and surrounding areas, boosting the country's disaster prevention, reduction, and relief capabilities. The land observation satellite series and "high-orbit SAR technology" are listed in the country's Medium and Long Term Development Plan for Civilian Space Infrastructure (2015-2025). The plan includes establishing high and medium resolution optical and synthetic aperture radar constellations for a range of land, marine and atmospheric monitoring. The series is separate from the China High-resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS), which consists of Gaofen ("high resolution") satellites. China's Gaofen-4 satellite is a GEO optical satellite. SAR at GEO, while providing much lower resolution than satellites in low Earth orbit, can provide constant coverage and imagery despite cloud cover. It is not yet known what orbital scheme the Land Exploration-4 (01) satellite will enter. An inclined GEO orbit would produce a "figure eight" ground track over the area of intended coverage. Chinese academics from the Beijing Institute of Technology have produced a study of various schemes, while others have published research into modified signal models for GEO SAR. The (01) designation suggests China could launch other SAR satellites into geosynchronous orbits. The satellite was developed by the China Academy of Spacecraft Technology (CAST.)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Home buyers, sellers, real estate agents, and listing websites throughout the US have been stymied for five days by a cyberattack on a California company that provides a crucial online service used to track home listings. The attack, which commenced last Wednesday, hit Rapottoni, a software and services provider that supplies Multiple Listing Services to regional real estate groups nationwide. Better known as MLS, it provides instant access to data on which homes are coming to the market, purchase offers, and sales of listed homes. MLS has become essential for connecting buyers to sellers and to the agents and listing websites serving them. "If you're an avid online refresher on any real estate website, you may have noticed a real nosedive in activity the last couple of days," Peg King, a realty agent in California's Sonoma County, wrote in an email newsletter she sent clients on Friday. "Real estate MLS systems across the country have been unusable since Wednesday after a massive cyberattack against major MLS provider, Rapattoni Corporation. This means that real estate markets (like ours!) can't list new homes, change prices, mark homes as pending/contingent/sold, or list open houses." While Rapattoni has referred to the incident as a cyberattack, it has been widely reported that the event is a ransomware attack, in which criminals gain unauthorized access to a victim's network, encrypt or download crucial data and demand payment in exchange for decrypting the data or promising not to publish it. Rapattoni has so far not said publicly what sort of attack shut it down or other details. Rapattoni has yet to say whether personal information has been compromised. [...] Not all regional listing services are affected because some use data vendors other than Rapattoni. The damage the outage is causing to agents, buyers, renters, and sellers could get worse unless services are restored in the next few days. On Sunday, Rapattoni wrote: "We are continuing to investigate the nature and scope of the cyberattack that has caused a system outage and we are working diligently to get systems restored as soon as possible. All technical resources at our disposal are continuing to work around the clock through the weekend until this matter is resolved. We still do not have an ETA at this time, but we will continue to update you and keep you informed of our efforts."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dave Limp, a longtime executive at Amazon who oversees the unit that makes Echo smart speakers and the Alexa voice assistant, plans to retire "before the end of the year." The Seattle Times reports: In a note to employees, also posted on Amazon's corporate blog, Limp wrote that he'd been working in consumer electronics off and on for more than 30 years. "I love it, but I also want to look into the future through a different lens," he said. "I am not sure what that future is right now, with the notable exception that it won't be in the consumer electronics space." Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said the company would announce Limp's successor "in the coming weeks." Limp's division was among those affected by an unprecedentedly large round of layoffs that affected 27,000 people. "I remain excited and quite optimistic about the products and services we're building in Devices and Services -- we're at the relative beginning of what's possible and what I believe these businesses will add for customers and the company," Jassy said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long lines have formed at ATMs around Ireland tonight as a cash machine glitch is allowing customers to withdraw more cash than they have in their accounts. Independent.ie reports: The fault with the online app allows people who have no money in their account to transfer up to 500 euros into a Revolut account. Some people claimed they were able to get access to 1,000 eros, but the bank insisted the daily withdrawal limit is 500 euros. Once people use their Bank of Ireland app to transfer the funds to Revolut they can then withdraw the cash from the Revoult account through any ATM. Huge queues at ATMs in Dublin, Limerick, Dundalk and other parts of the country were reported this evening as people took advantage of the screw-up to withdraw cash from their Revolut accounts. There were reports in Dundalk of gardai (the state police force of the Irish Republic) having to control crowds at ATMs in the town. The frenzied withdrawal of cash was despite warnings on social media that there is no such thing as free cash and the money will have to be repaid. The bank said in a statement: "We are working on a technical issue that is impacting a number of our services including our mobile app and 365Online. We are working to fix this as quickly as possible and apologize to customers for any inconvenience caused." "We would like to remind customers that if they transfer or withdraw funds -- including over their normal limits -- this money will be debited from their account," the bank added. "While we are conscious customers may not be able to check their balance at this time, they should not withdraw or transfer funds if they are likely to become overdrawn."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In an interview with CNN, Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center, said chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT are just "glorified tape recorders." From the report: "It takes snippets of what's on the web created by a human, splices them together and passes it off as if it created these things," he said. "And people are saying, 'Oh my God, it's a human, it's humanlike.'" However, he said, chatbots cannot discern true from false: "That has to be put in by a human." According to Kaku, humanity is in its second stage of computer evolution. The first was the analog stage, "when we computed with sticks, stones, levers, gears, pulleys, string." After that, around World War II, he said, we switched to electricity-powered transistors. It made the development of the microchip possible and helped shape today's digital landscape. But this digital landscape rests on the idea of two states like "on" and "off," and uses binary notation composed of zeros and ones. "Mother Nature would laugh at us because Mother Nature does not use zeros and ones," Kaku said. "Mother Nature computes on electrons, electron waves, waves that create molecules. And that's why we're now entering stage three." He believes the next technological stage will be in the quantum realm. Quantum computing is an emerging technology utilizing the various states of particles like electrons to vastly increase a computer's processing power. Instead of using computer chips with two states, quantum computers use various states of vibrating waves. It makes them capable of analyzing and solving problems much faster than normal computers. But beyond business applications, Kaku said quantum computing could also help advance health care. "Cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease -- these are diseases at the molecular level. We're powerless to cure these diseases because we have to learn the language of nature, which is the language of molecules and quantum electrons."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In the summer of 2021, DISH Network and Sling filed a copyright lawsuit against four unlicensed sports streaming sites, among them the popular SportsBay.org. After the plaintiffs named two alleged operators of the sites, this week a court in Texas held the pair liable for almost 2.5 million violations of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and almost half a billion dollars in damages. [...] The complaint alleged that the unknown defendants circumvented (and provided technologies and services that circumvented) security measures employed by Sling and thereby provided "DISH's television programming" to users of their websites. The plaintiffs requested a permanent injunction, control of the defendants' domains, and damages of up to $2,500 for each violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. According to DISH's first amended complaint filed in January 2022, information obtained from the third-party service providers enabled the company to identify two men responsible for operating the SportsBay sites. Juan Barcan, an individual residing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, used his PayPal account to make payments to Namecheap and GitHub. Juan Nahuel Pereyra, also of Buenos Aires, used his PayPal account to make payments to Namecheap. On January 20, 2022, DISH sent a request to the Argentine Central Authority to serve Barcan and Pereyra under the Hague Convention. On October 31, 2022, the Central Authority informed DISH that Pereyra was served in Buenos Aires on September 14, 2022. Barcan was not served so after obtaining permission from the court, DISH served Barcan via a Gmail address used to make payments to Namecheap for the Sportsbay.org, Live-nba.stream, and Freefeds.com domain names. When the defendants failed to appear, DISH sought default judgment. [...] In his order (PDF) handed down yesterday, District Judge Charles Eskridge entered a default judgment against Juan Barcan and Juan Nahuel Pereyra for violations of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. The defendants and anyone acting in concert with them are permanently enjoined from circumventing any technological protection measure that controls access to Sling or DISH programming, including through the use of websites or any similar internet streaming service. Then comes the award for damages. "Plaintiffs are awarded $493,850,000 in statutory damages against Defendants, jointly and severally, for Defendants' 2,469,250 violations of section 1201(a)(2) of the DMCA," the order reads.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tesla is hiring staff for the company's new "first of its kind" data centers. Electrek reports: Tesla has shared a new job posting for a "Sr. Engineering Program Manager, Data Center" role first spotted by Electrek last week. In the job posting, Tesla says that it will build "1st of its kind Data Centers": "This role will lead the end-to-end design and engineering of Tesla's 1st of its kind Data Centers and will be one of the key members of the factory engineering team." Tesla didn't explain how those data centers will be "1st of their kind," which is not something you'd expect in a job posting anyway. But interestingly, the new effort comes as Tesla has been taking over data centers from Twitter. [...] The Information reported that Tesla has taken over one of the old Twitter data centers leased from NTT Data that the social media company was using in Sacramento. The report also mentions that Tesla is in talks with Prime Data Centers to use another data center that Twitter used to have in Sacramento. Tesla is seeing its need for data processing increasing rapidly as it tries to take advantage of its growing fleet of millions of vehicles all equipped with cameras in order to improve the neural nets powering its self-driving effort. The automaker is also handling a growing number of connectivity features that it tries to sell to vehicle owners through a $10-a-month "Premium Connectivity" subscription service. On the energy side, Tesla is also handling a lot of data to operate its virtual power plant and its services to distributed energy assets, like Autobidder and Powerhub.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Larabel writes via Phoronix: Mozilla developers are celebrating that they are now faster than Google Chrome with the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, although that test has been superseded by the JetStream benchmark. Last week a new Firefox Nightly News was published that outlines that "We're now apparently beating Chrome on the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark!" The provided numbers now show Firefox easily beating Chrome in this decade-old JavaScript benchmark. The benchmarks come from AreWeFastYet.com. Meanwhile for the newer and more demanding JetStream 2.0 benchmark, Google Chrome continues to win easily over Firefox. You can learn more about the latest Firefox Nightly build advancements via Firefox Nightly News.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US broadband industry is united in opposition to a requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees. Five lobby groups representing cable companies, fiber and DSL providers, and mobile operators have repeatedly urged the Federal Communications Commission to eliminate the requirement before new broadband labeling rules take effect. The trade associations petitioned the FCC in January to change the rules and renewed their call last week in a filing and in a meeting with FCC officials. The requirement that ISPs list all their monthly fees "would add unnecessary complexity and burdens to the label for consumers and providers and could result in some providers having to create many labels for any given plan," the groups said in the filing on Friday. The trade groups said the FCC should instead "require providers to include an explanatory statement that such fees may apply and that they vary by jurisdiction, similar to the Commission's treatment of government-imposed taxes," or require "the display of the maximum level of government-imposed fees that might be passed through, so that consumers would not experience bill shock with respect to such fees." The filing was submitted by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which represents Comcast, Charter, Cox, and other cable companies. The NCTA's ex parte filing described a meeting with FCC officials that also included wireless industry trade group CTIA and USTelecom, which represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Frontier, and Windstream. Comcast submitted its own filing urging the FCC to scrap the rules in June. The calls to weaken the FCC's truth-in-billing rules angered consumer advocates, as we wrote at the time. "The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes. This request would allow the big ISPs to continue hiding the true cost of service and frustrating customers with poor service," Joshua Stager, policy director at media advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. Congress required the FCC to implement broadband labels with exact prices for Internet service plans in a 2021 law, but gave the FCC some leeway in how to structure the rules. The FCC adopted specific label rules in November 2022. The labels must be displayed to consumers at the point of sale and include monthly price, additional charges, speeds, data caps, additional charges for data, and other information. The FCC rules aren't in force yet because they are subject to a federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review under the US Paperwork Reduction Act.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

HP all-in-one printer owners, upset that their devices wouldn't scan or fax when low on ink, were handed a partial win in a northern California court late last week after a judge denied HP's motion to dismiss their suit. From a report: The plaintiffs argued in their amended class action complaint that HP withheld vital information by including software in its all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machines that disabled non-printing functions when out of ink and not telling buyers that was the case. "It is well-documented that ink is not required in order to scan or to fax a document, and it is certainly possible to manufacture an All-in-One printer that scans or faxes when the device is out of ink," the plaintiffs argued in their complaint. The amended complaint was filed in February this year after US federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman dismissed the suit on the grounds that it hadn't properly stated a claim. Armed with their amended complaint, lawyers for San Franciscan Gary Freund and Minneapolis resident Wayne McMath have succeeded at not only making relevant claims, but also surviving an attempt by HP to have the entire case dismissed for a second time. In the amended complaint, Freund and McMath's lawyers argue that HP's move to disable devices that were low on ink was intentional, citing HP's own comments from a support forum post in which an HP support agent told a user complaining of similar issues that their "HP printer is designed in such a way that with the empty cartridge or without the cartridge [the] printer will not function."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The top U.S. agency for consumer financial protection will announce plans at the White House on Tuesday to regulate companies that track and sell people's personal data, part of the Biden administration's widening scrutiny of that industry's privacy practices, officials said. From a report: Data brokers' conduct can be "particularly worrisome" because the sensitive data driving the use of artificial intelligence can be collected from military personnel, people experiencing dementia, and others, according to Rohit Chopra, director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "The CFPB will be taking steps to ensure that modern-day data brokers in the surveillance industry know that they cannot engage in illegal collection and sharing of our data," he said in a statement. President Joe Biden last year called on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to help protect the data privacy of women seeking reproductive healthcare who may face law enforcement action in some states. The FTC has also sued an Idaho company for selling mobile phone geolocation data, saying it could be traced to places like abortion clinics, churches and addiction treatment centers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new strike-based enforcement program is coming to Xbox today. The system is meant to clear up confusion regarding how Xbox enforces its community standards and help players keep track of enforcement actions made on their accounts. The Verge: In an interview with The Verge, Xbox player services corporate vice president Dave McCarthy explained the new enforcement system and its place in Xbox's overall community management strategy. "This is all about player transparency," McCarthy said. "We didn't have a way to show our players what their standing was in our community. And this makes it completely clear." In the new system, if a player violates the Xbox community standards, they'll receive a strike. The severity of the violation determines the number of strikes and the length of the punishment. If a player receives a total of eight strikes, their account will be banned from using Xbox services like voice chat or multiplayer for a year. The strike program starts today with everyone on the platform getting a clean strike-less slate.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) is getting a major new feature: it will be able to summarize articles you're reading on the web, according to a Google blog post. From a report: SGE can already summarize search results for you so that you don't have to scroll forever to find what you're looking for, and this new feature is designed to take that further by helping you out after you've actually clicked a link. You probably won't see this feature, which Google is calling "SGE while browsing," right away. Google says it's a new feature that's starting to roll out Tuesday as "an early experiment" in its opt-in Search Labs program. (You'll get access to it if you already opted in to SGE, but if you haven't, you can opt in to the feature on its own.) It will be available first in the Google app on Android and iOS, and the company is bringing it to the Chrome browser on desktop "in the days ahead."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Staff shortages, a lack of specialist personnel and low pay are major barriers to achieving net zero, according to workers in the UK environment sector. From a report: The trade union Prospect, many members of which work in the climate and environment sector, received more than 500 responses to a survey on workplace trends. Widespread shortages of expert staff and reductions in specialist personnel in recent years had seriously affected workload levels, the study found. Four in 10 workers said they had seen a reduction in the numbers of expert staff in the past year, and 35% said they had experienced a significant increase in workload. More than 100 respondents provided additional comments. "I really like the people I work with and the value of the work I do," one wrote, "but I could be paid four times as much for my skills in a different industry -- one that is bad or indifferent to the environment. We can't solve environmental problems or net zero unless we have people to do the work." The reduction in expertise has led to important tasks being assigned to inexperienced staff, according to respondents, with 36% saying specialist jobs are being allocated to untrained workers. Low pay is a significant concern across the sector, which has a large percentage of specialised and highly educated staff. Despite the skilled nature of many roles and 20% of survey participants having a PhD or equivalent, 38% of respondents report earning $38,000 or less.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are buying up thousands of the high-performance Nvidia chips crucial for building artificial intelligence software, joining a global AI arms race that is squeezing the supply of Silicon Valley's hottest commodity. From a report: The Gulf powerhouses have publicly stated their goal of becoming leaders in AI as they pursue ambitious plans to turbocharge their economies. But the push has also raised concerns about potential misuse of the technology by the oil-rich states' autocratic leaders. According to people familiar with the moves, Saudi Arabia has bought at least 3,000 of Nvidia's H100 chips -- a $40,000 processor described by Nvidia chief Jensen Huang as "the world's first computer [chip] designed for generative AI" -- via the public research institution King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust). Meanwhile, the UAE has also secured access to thousands of Nvidia chips and has already developed its own open-source large language model, known as Falcon, at the state-owned Technology Innovation Institute in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. "The UAE has made a decision that it wants toa...aown and control its own computational power and talent, have their own platforms and not be dependent on the Chinese or the Americans," said a person familiar with Abu Dhabi's thinking.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In April, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai took an unusual step: merging two large artificial intelligence teams -- with distinct cultures and code -- to catch up to and surpass OpenAI and other rivals. Now the test of that effort is coming, with hundreds of people scrambling to release a group of large machine-learning models -- one of the highest-stakes products the company has ever built -- this fall. The Information: The models, collectively known as Gemini, are expected to give Google the ability to build products its competitors can't, according to a person involved with Gemini's development. OpenAI's GPT-4 large-language model can understand and produce conversational text. Gemini will go beyond that, combining the text capabilities of LLMs like GPT-4 with the ability to create AI images based on a text description, similar to AI-image generators Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, this person said. Gemini's image capabilities haven't been previously reported. Google employees have also discussed using Gemini to offer features like analyzing charts or creating graphics with text descriptions and controlling software using text or voice commands. Google is betting on Gemini to power services ranging from its Bard chatbot, which competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT, to enterprise apps like Google Docs and Slides. Google also wants to charge app developers for access to Gemini through its Google Cloud server-rental unit. Google Cloud currently sells access to more primitive Google-made AI models through a product called Vertex AI. Those new features could help Google catch up with Microsoft, which has raced ahead with new AI features for its Office 365 apps and has also been selling access to OpenAI's models to its app customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A very short, very wild history of the market that will shape the next financial crisis. Financial Times: Bonds have long been considered the most boring bit of finance. They occasionally crop up in literature, almost always as a signifier of dreariness. The Great Gatsby's narrator Nick Carraway was a bond salesman and Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities traded them. Bonds have never figured in the popular imagination in the same way as stocks, say, or corporate M&A. There has never been a "meme bond." Ian Fleming chose the name Bond for his spy because he thought it was "the dullest name I've ever heard." Even so, they have played an integral role in the development of human society, from subsistence farming to the modern era, funding everything from wars and railways to Tesla's electric cars and Netflix. "The bond market is the most important market in the world," says Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater. "It is the backbone of all other markets." While the bond market has become larger and more powerful, the importance of banks -- historically the workhorses of the capitalist system -- is subtly fading. The global bond market was worth about $141tn at the end of 2022. That is, for now, smaller than the $183tn that the Financial Stability Board estimates banks hold globally, but much of the latter is actually invested in bonds -- a fact that some US banks have recently rued.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon said on Tuesday its online pharmacy will automatically apply manufacturer-sponsored coupons to more than 15 insulin and diabetes medicines to help patients access discounts pledged by the drug industry. From a report: With the new program, patients using Amazon Pharmacy will no longer have to search for and manually enter coupons from the three largest insulin makers, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi, to lower the cost of their insulin to as little as $35 for a month's supply, the company said. Novo, Lilly and Sanofi announced in March that they would slash their insulin prices by at least 70% by or in 2024, but a report from Senator Elizabeth Warren released last month said some patients were finding it difficult to get already discounted generic insulin from pharmacies at the promised lower price. Despite Lilly lowering the list price of its Insulin Lispro to $25 per vial in May, patients were still being quoted as much as $330 for the medicine, were not being told about cheaper options when they went to pharmacies, and were finding it difficult to use Lilly's savings program, Warren's report found. Vin Gupta, Amazon Pharmacy's Chief Medical Officer, said the report highlighted the need to make it easier for patients to get their insulin at the lowest possible prices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Powered by shows like "Suits" on Netflix, streaming's share of U.S. viewing time grew to a new high in July, while television viewing fell below 50% for the first time, according to new Nielsen data. From a report: The milestone is the latest sign of the rapid erosion of the cable-TV bundle, which has lost about a quarter of its subscribers over the past decade, as more Americans cut the cord in favor of streaming services like Netflix, Google's YouTube and Disney's Hulu. Cable television accounted for 29.6% of total U.S. viewing time in July, while broadcast attracted 20%, Nielsen said in a release published Tuesday. Streaming services, meanwhile, captured 38.7% of Americans' viewing time, while a category labeled "Other" -- which Nielsen says includes usage such as DVD playback and gaming -- accounted for the remaining 11.6%. The growth of streaming platforms at the expense of cable and broadcast TV networks has accelerated in recent years, as most entertainment conglomerates introduced their own direct-to-consumer services to take on industry leader Netflix. As they sought to rapidly grow their subscriber bases, many of them chose to make their highest-profile and costliest content available exclusively on streaming. While original content helps reel in subscribers and build streaming brands, the most-watched programs are sometimes older TV shows. Last month, the show Americans spent the most time watching was "Suits," a legal drama starring Meghan Markle made for cable TV that made its debut more than a decade ago.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The mysterious attacks began on July 11. "Strange beings," locals said, visiting an isolated Indigenous community in rural Peru at night, harassing its inhabitants and attempting to kidnap a 15-year-old girl. [...] News of the alleged extraterrestrial attackers quickly spread online as believers, skeptics, and internet sleuths around the world analyzed grainy videos posted by members of the Ikitu community. The reported sightings came on the heels of U.S. congressional hearings about unidentified aerial phenomenon that ignited a global conversation about the possibility of extraterrestrial life visiting Earth. Members of the Peruvian Navy and Police traveled to the isolated community, which is located 10 hours by boat from the Maynas provincial capital of Iquitos, to investigate the strange disturbances in early August. Last week, authorities announced that they believed the perpetrators were members of illegal gold mining gangs from Colombia and Brazil using advanced flying technology to terrorize the community, according to RPP Noticias. Carlos Castro Quintanilla, the lead investigator in the case, said that 80 percent of illegal gold dredging in the region is located in the Nanay river basin, where the Ikitu community is located. One of the key pieces to the investigation was related to the attempted kidnapping of a 15-year-old girl on July 29. Cristian Caleb Pacaya, a local teacher who witnessed the attack, said that they "were using state of the art technology, like thrusters that allow people to fly." He said that after looking the devices up on Google, he believed that they were "jetpacks." Authorities have not made any arrests related to the attacks, nor named the alleged assailants or their organization directly. However, the prosecutors office claimed that they had destroyed 110 dredging operations and 10 illegal mining camps in the area already in 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland shares a report from BleepingComputer: The Discord.io custom invite service has temporarily shut down after suffering a data breach exposing the information of 760,000 members. Discord.io is not an official Discord site but a third-party service allowing server owners to create custom invites to their channels. Most of the community was built around the service's Discord server, with over 14,000 members. Yesterday, a person known as 'Akhirah' began offering the Discord.io database for sale on the new Breached hacking forums. As proof of the theft, the threat actor shared four user records from the database. The most sensitive information in the breach is a member's username, email address, billing address (small number of people), salted and hashed password (small number of people), and Discord ID. "This information is not private and can be obtained by anyone sharing a server with you. Its inclusion in the breach does, however, mean that other people might be able to link your Discord account to a given email address," Discord.io explained about the leaking of Discord IDs.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The judge overseeing Apple's "batterygate" iPhone throttling lawsuit has cleared the way for payments to be sent out. MacRumors reports: Apple in 2020 agreed to pay $500 million to settle the "batterygate" lawsuit, which accused the company of secretly throttling older iPhone models. The class action lawsuit was open to U.S. customers who had an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, or 7 Plus running iOS 10.2.1 or iOS 11.2 prior to December 21, 2017. [...] Apple ultimately apologized for its lack of communication and dropped the price of battery replacements to $29 through the end of 2018. iPhone owners eligible for a payout would have needed to submit a claim back in 2020, and submissions were open through October 6, 2020. Those who submitted a claim back then will be eligible for a payment, which will be around $65 per claimant.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sam Bankman-Fried used money he stole from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange to make more than $100 million in political campaign contributions before the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Reuters reports: An amended indictment accused the 31-year-old former billionaire of directing two FTX executives to evade contribution limits by donating to Democrats and Republicans, and to conceal where the money came from. "He leveraged this influence, in turn, to lobby Congress and regulatory agencies to support legislation and regulation he believed would make it easier for FTX to continue to accept customer deposits and grow," the indictment said. Bankman-Fried faces seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over FTX's collapse, though the indictment no longer includes conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws as a separate count. [...] Bankman-Fried's indictment does not name the two people prosecutors say he used for "straw donors" to donate money at his direction. But other court papers and Federal Elections Commission data show they are Nishad Singh and Ryan Salame. Singh, FTX's former engineering chief, pleaded guilty to fraud and campaign finance violations in February. He donated $9.7 million to Democratic candidates and causes, and said in court he knew the money came from FTX customers. Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX's Bahamian unit, gave more than $24 million to Republican candidates and causes in the 2022 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commision data. He has not been charged with a crime. In a separate court filing on Monday, prosecutors said Salame's lawyer had told them he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to testify. Prosecutors said Salame told a family member in a November 2021 message that Bankman-Fried wanted to use political donations to "weed-out" anti-crypto Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and would likely "route money through me to weed out that republican [sic] side." On Friday, a U.S. judge revoked Sam Bankman-Fried's bail due to probable cause that he tampered with witnesses at least twice. He is being sent to jail.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Iraq's telecom ministry lifted the ban on Telegram over the weekend, days after the agency blocked the chat app over security concerns. The ministry said it lifted the ban because of the "response of the company that owns the application to the requirements of the security authorities," which required Telegram to reveal sources leaking data of officials and citizens, according to a translated statement. Telegram has shown commitment to communicating with authorities about security concerns, the ministry said, insisting that it "doesn't stand against freedom of expression." Telegram told Reuters that the company forbids users from posting private data on the platform without consent. Telegram didn't share any private user data with Iraqi authorities, the messaging app operator told the publication. "We can confirm that our moderators took down several channels sharing personal data. However, we can also confirm that no private user data was requested from Telegram and that none has been shared," the company told the publication in a statement. Context: "Last week, Iraq banned the chat app saying that many channels were publishing citizen's private data such as names, addresses, and family ties with other people," reports TechCrunch. "At that time, the ministry said that Telegram -- which has more than 800 million users globally -- didn't respond to its requests, and as a result, the country banned the app."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to the Globe Gazette, the school board of Mason City, Iowa has begun leveraging AI technology to cultivate lists of potentially bannable books from the district's libraries ahead of the 2023/24 school year. Engadget reports: In May, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed, and Governor Kim Reynolds subsequently signed, Senate File 496 (SF 496), which enacted sweeping changes to the state's education curriculum. Specifically it limits what books can be made available in school libraries and classrooms, requiring titles to be "age appropriatea and without "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act," per Iowa Code 702.17. But ensuring that every book in the district's archives adhere to these new rules is quickly turning into a mammoth undertaking. "Our classroom and school libraries have vast collections, consisting of texts purchased, donated, and found," Bridgette Exman, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Mason City Community School District, said in a statement. "It is simply not feasible to read every book and filter for these new requirements." As such, the Mason City School District is bringing in AI to parse suspect texts for banned ideas and descriptions since there are simply too many titles for human reviewers to cover on their own. Per the district, a "master list" is first cobbled together from "several sources" based on whether there were previous complaints of sexual content. Books from that list are then scanned by "AI software" -- the district doesn't specify which systems will be employed -- which tells the state censors whether or not there actually is a depiction of sex in the book. So far, the AI has flagged 19 books for removal. [The full list is available here.]Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Despite a record-breaking start in its first weeks of launch, engagement with Meta's Threads app continues to plummet. According to Similarweb, engagement is down 79% from a high of 2.3 million active users in early July to 576,000 as of August 7th. The Guardian reports: In addition to users jumping ship, large US companies like the fast food chain Wendy's, the clothing store Anthropologie and Rare Beauty, a makeup line, have all decreased the number of posts they publish on Threads, Adweek reports. On its busiest day, the number of users of Threads was less than half that of Twitter, according to Similarweb data. Twitter averages more than 100 million active daily users.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While Apple's next line of smartwatches is expected to be a minor upgrade, the company is working on a revamped "Watch X" update for the device's 10th anniversary. Bloombeg's Mark Gurman reports: Apple is planning a splashy upgrade for its smartwatch, but you won't see it this year. The 2023 models, due next month, will be a minor refresh -- the kind of incremental update that has characterized the product in recent years. Inside Apple, executives have pondered the idea of switching away from this slow-but-steady annual upgrade cycle. The deliberations haven't gotten far (Apple has dutifully released a new watch every year since the category debuted in 2015), but recent updates to the device underscore why this is even a discussion. [...] Fact is, Apple isn't giving consumers many reasons to buy a new watch with each generation. The company did launch an impressive new Apple Watch Ultra last year that spurred upgrades at the high end, but 2023 will (once again) be another low-key year. [...] Because of the Apple Watch's slow evolution over the years, the design has remained largely the same since the Series 4 launched in 2018 -- aside from the Ultra model. But that's poised to change. Apple is planning a "Watch X" model to mark the device's 10-year anniversary, and it promises to be the biggest overhaul yet. (The category was unveiled in 2014 and released the following year, so Apple is planning to launch Watch X either in 2024 or 2025.) With the X model, Apple designers are working on a thinner watch case and have explored changing the way bands are attached to the device. Starting with the original Apple Watch, bands have slid into the sides of the chassis and attached with a locking mechanism. Keeping that design the same let the bands stay compatible with old and new models, but it has downsides. People involved in the development of new Apple Watches say the system takes up a considerable amount of space that could be better filled with a bigger battery or other components. To that end, the company has explored a new magnetic band attachment system, though it's unclear if it will be ready or used in the Watch X revamp. Even bigger changes are coming as well: a microLED display that tops the color and clarity of the current OLED screens, as well as a technology for monitoring blood pressure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: A whopping 80% of bosses regret their initial return-to-office decisions and say they would have approached their plans differently if they had a better understanding of what their employees wanted, according to new research from Envoy. "Many companies are realizing they could have been a lot more measured in their approach, rather than making big, bold, very controversial decisions based on executives' opinions rather than employee data," Larry Gadea, Envoy's CEO and founder, tells CNBC Make It. Envoy interviewed more than 1,000 U.S. company executives and workplace managers who work in-person at least one day per week. Some leaders lamented the challenge of measuring the success of in-office policies, while others said it's been hard to make long-term real estate investments without knowing how employees might feel about being in the office weeks, or even months, from now. Kathy Kacher, a consultant who advises corporate executives on their return-to-office plans, is surprised the percentage isn't higher. "Many organizations that attempted to force a return to the office have had to retract or change their plans because of employee pushback, and now, they don't look strong," says Kacher, the president of Career/Life Alliance Services. "A lot of executives have egg on their faces and they're sad about that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners have complaints reminiscent of the bad old days of "batterygate," reporting that with less than a year of service on the clock, their phones are already reporting more battery degradation than expected. From a report: Sam Kohl of AppleTrack tweeted in July that his iPhone 14 Pro had already dropped to a maximum capacity of 90 percent, a much faster dropoff than previous iPhones he'd owned, and the thread shows many other people with the same experience. Kohl followed up with a video posted yesterday about the issue, saying it makes it hard for him to recommend the phone, especially considering how much it costs with a price of $999. Officially, Apple says iPhone batteries should "retain up to 80 percent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles." The iPhone 15 series is expected to launch soon, and recent rumors have claimed those devices will see a battery size increase of 10 - 18 percent compared to current devices. He's not the only one seeing these kinds of numbers. Verge alum and Wall Street Journal senior tech columnist Joanna Stern wrote in her newsletter just this week that her iPhone 14 Pro is showing 88 percent battery capacity. Around The Verge, reports are mixed, with two 14 Pros down to 93 and 91 percent and another at 97 percent. In previous years, most haven't seen a drop in reported capacity until two years of use, at least.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British households are making more green energy upgrades than ever before after installing a record number of solar panels and heat pumps in the first half of the year, according to the industry's official standards body. From a report: The industry figures show there were more green energy installations in June than in previous years. On average, more than 17,000 households installed solar panels every month this year, while the number of homes installing heat pumps reached 3,000 a month for the first time, according to the data. Each month of 2023 was a record month for battery technologies, as installation figures consistently surpassed the month before, bringing the total number of batteries installed in homes and businesses across the UK to more than 1,000 in 2023 so far. The industry's accreditation body, MCS, said the green energy boom has put households on track to install more renewable energy than the last record set in 2012, when many raced to install solar panels before government subsidies were reduced.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ford has hired former Apple executive Peter Stern to help build new high-margin digital and subscription services. Reuters reports: Stern, who previously oversaw Apple TV+, iCloud and Apple News+, will report to Ford CEO Jim Farley. In his new role, Stern will focus on integrating hardware, software and services across the company's Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro units. Like other U.S. automakers, Ford is looking to expand beyond its traditional wholesale-to-dealer business model and build recurring revenues from services connected to its vehicles, much as Apple has built on its hardware products. Stern joins an executive team at Ford that includes another Apple alumnus, Doug Field, who is chief advanced product development and technology officer. [...] Stern said Ford plans to create "bundles of services" that will provide "safer, more convenient and more productive experiences." "The basis for differentiation is shifting from the vehicles alone to the integration of hardware, software and services," Stern said. One of Stern's first tasks is to help expand Ford's BlueCruise hands-free driving package, which is being extended to more vehicles in the 2024 model year. Ford will install BlueCruise hardware on another 500,000 vehicles next year, while giving customers the option of activating the subscription package at any point during ownership, rather than just at time of purchase. The automaker plans to offer BlueCruise in a wider variety of Ford and Lincoln models, including F-150, F-150 Lightning, Expedition, Navigator, Nautilus and Corsair.Read more of this story at Slashdot.