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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Hundreds of Internet-exposed devices inside solar farms remain unpatched against a critical and actively exploited vulnerability that makes it easy for remote attackers to disrupt operations or gain a foothold inside the facilities. The devices, sold by Osaka, Japan-based Contec under the brand name SolarView, help people inside solar facilities monitor the amount of power they generate, store, and distribute. Contec says that roughly 30,000 power stations have introduced the devices, which come in various packages based on the size of the operation and the type of equipment it uses. Searches on Shodan indicate that more than 600 of them are reachable on the open Internet. As problematic as that configuration is, researchers from security firm VulnCheck said Wednesday, more than two-thirds of them have yet to install an update that patches CVE-2022-29303, the tracking designation for a vulnerability with a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10. The flaw stems from the failure to neutralize potentially malicious elements included in user-supplied input, leading to remote attacks that execute malicious commands. Security firm Palo Alto Networks said last month the flaw was under active exploit by an operator of Mirai, an open source botnet consisting of routers and other so-called Internet of Things devices. The compromise of these devices could cause facilities that use them to lose visibility into their operations, which could result in serious consequences depending on where the vulnerable devices are used. "The fact that a number of these systems are Internet facing and that the public exploits have been available long enough to get rolled into a Mirai-variant is not a good situation," VulnCheck researcher Jacob Baines wrote. "As always, organizations should be mindful of which systems appear in their public IP space and track public exploits for systems that they rely on." Baines said that the same devices vulnerable to CVE-2022-29303 were also vulnerable to CVE-2023-23333, a newer command-injection vulnerability that also has a severity rating of 9.8. Although there are no known reports of it being actively exploited, exploit code has been publicly available since February. Incorrect descriptions for both vulnerabilities are one factor involved in the patch failures, Baines said. Both vulnerabilities indicate that SolarView versions 8.00 and 8.10 are patched against CVE-2022-29303 and CVE-2023-293333. In fact, the researcher said, only 8.10 is patched against the threats.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UK universities have drawn up a set of guiding principles to ensure that students and staff are AI literate, as the sector struggles to adapt teaching and assessment methods to deal with the growing use of generative artificial intelligence. From a report: Vice-chancellors at the 24 Russell Group research-intensive universities have signed up to the code. They say this will help universities to capitalise on the opportunities of AI while simultaneously protecting academic rigour and integrity in higher education. While once there was talk of banning software like ChatGPT within education to prevent cheating, the guidance says students should be taught to use AI appropriately in their studies, while also making them aware of the risks of plagiarism, bias and inaccuracy in generative AI. Staff will also have to be trained so they are equipped to help students, many of whom are already using ChatGPT in their assignments. New ways of assessing students are likely to emerge to reduce the risk of cheating. All 24 Russell Group universities have reviewed their academic conduct policies and guidance to reflect the emergence of generative AI. The new guidance says: "These policies make it clear to students and staff where the use of generative AI is inappropriate, and are intended to support them in making informed decisions and to empower them to use these tools appropriately and acknowledge their use where necessary."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bruce Power, a Canadian utility company, is planning to build the world's biggest nuclear plant as growing demand for clean energy spurs interest in atomic energy. The Financial Post reports: The Ontario government said Wednesday Bruce Power will conduct an environmental assessment of adding as much as 4.8 gigawatts of capacity to its plant in Canada's most-populous province. The plant's eight reactors currently have about 6.2 gigawatts of capacity and supply 30 per cent of the province's power. The expansion would make the site larger than Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the biggest in the world with seven reactors and more than eight gigawatts of capacity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A United Nations watchdog approved Japan's controversial plan to start releasing treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant next month. As Nikkei notes in its reporting, the water is still radioactive since "radioactive tritium cannot be removed with existing technology." From the report: The IAEA's report concluded that the Japanese project to release the water meets its safety standards. Japan's government in January gave the planned timing for the ocean release as "spring to summer 2023." Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said this week that there was "no change in this policy." The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will brief local officials and others on Wednesday about the treated water in Fukushima prefecture. Grossi will also participate. Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings (TEPCO), the operator of the disaster-hit plant, uses an advanced liquid processing system (ALPS) and other equipment to reduce radioactive substances in contaminated water to levels within national standards. However, radioactive tritium cannot be removed with existing technology, and the treated water has so far been stored in tanks on the plant site. TEPCO plans to dilute the treated water with a large amount of seawater to lower the tritium concentration to less than 1/40th of the national safety standard before releasing it into the sea.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Emmanuel Macron is facing a backlash after threatening to cut off social media networks as a means of stopping the spread of violence during periods of unrest. The Guardian reports: Elysee officials and government ministers responded on Wednesday by insisting the president was not threatening a "general blackout" but instead the "occasional and temporary" suspension of platforms. The president's comments came as ministers blamed young people using social media such as Snapchat and TikTok for organizing and encouraging rioting and violence after the shooting dead of a teenager during a police traffic stop in a Paris suburb last week. "We need to think about how young people use social networks, in the family, at school, the interdictions there should be ... and when things get out of hand we may have to regulate them or cut them off," Macron told a meeting of more than 250 mayors, whose municipalities were hit by the violence, on Tuesday. "Above all, we shouldn't do this in the heat of the moment and I'm pleased we didn't have to. But I think it's a real debate that we need to have in the cold light of day," Macron told the mayors in a video obtained by BFM television. Critics said considering such measures would put France alongside authoritarian countries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Speaking after a ministerial meeting on Wednesday, government spokesperson Olivier Veran said a cross-party committee to look at a modification of a law on cybersecurity currently going through parliament would be set up. Veran said the government had made a "firm request" to social media platforms to take down materials encouraging violence as quickly as possible and remove the anonymity of those possibly breaking the law. A young person should know he cannot sit behind his screen and write, organize or do whatever he wants. Anonymity in terms of offenses doesn't exist. You have to understand this can have consequences and the consequences can lead to punishment," Veran said. Asked if it meant suspending social media, the Veran added: "It could be something like suspending a function, such as geolocalization."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotify is no longer supporting Apple's in-app purchase system. In an email to affected subscribers, Spotify says: "We're contacting you because when you joined Spotify Premium you used Apple's billing service to subscribe. Unfortunately, we no longer accept that billing method as a form of payment." Engadget reports: Spotify continues to say that those users will automatically be switched to the company's Free, ad-supported tier at the end of the current billing cycle. "If you wish to keep your Premium subscription, you will need to re-subscribe after your last billing period has ended and your account has been moved on to the Free account." But that's probably for the best. Due to Apple taking 30 percent of in-app purchases, Spotify users who were subscribed through in-app purchases were being charged an extra $3 per month compared to subscribing through Spotify directly. That's despite the fact that Apple now reduces its commission rate to 15 percent on subscriptions after the first year. Apple said in a regulatory filing from 2019 that it collected that 15 percent fee on roughly 680,000 Spotify customers. Users transitioning from Apple's payments can subscribe to Premium via a credit card or PayPal.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Nearly 70 IT security and privacy academics have added to the clamor of alarm over the damage the U.K.'s Online Safety Bill could wreak to, er, online safety unless it's amended to ensure it does not undermine strong encryption. Writing in an open letter (PDF), 68 U.K.-affiliated security and privacy researchers have warned the draft legislation poses a stark risk to essential security technologies that are routinely used to keep digital communications safe. "As independent information security and cryptography researchers, we build technologies that keep people safe online. It is in this capacity that we see the need to stress that the safety provided by these essential technologies is now under threat in the Online Safety Bill," the academics warn, echoing concerns already expressed by end-to-end encrypted comms services such as WhatsApp, Signal and Element -- which have said they would opt to withdraw services from the market or be blocked by U.K. authorities rather than compromise the level of security provided to their users. [...] "We understand that this is a critical time for the Online Safety Bill, as it is being discussed in the House of Lords before being returned to the Commons this summer," they write. "In brief, our concern is that surveillance technologies are deployed in the spirit of providing online safety. This act undermines privacy guarantees and, indeed, safety online." The academics, who hold professorships and other positions at universities around the country -- including a number of Russell Group research-intensive institutions such as King's College and Imperial College in London, Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh, Sheffield and Manchester to name a few -- say their aim with the letter is to highlight "alarming misunderstandings and misconceptions around the Online Safety Bill and its interaction with the privacy and security technologies that our daily online interactions and communication rely on." "There is no technological solution to the contradiction inherent in both keeping information confidential from third parties and sharing that same information with third parties," the experts warn, adding: "The history of 'no one but us' cryptographic backdoors is a history of failures, from the Clipper chip to DualEC. All technological solutions being put forward share that they give a third party access to private speech, messages and images under some criteria defined by that third party." Last week, Apple publicly voiced its opposition to the bill. The company said in a statement: "End-to-end encryption is a critical capability that protects the privacy of journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats. It also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches. The Online Safety Bill poses a serious threat to this protection, and could put UK citizens at greater risk. Apple urges the government to amend the bill to protect strong end-to-end encryption for the benefit of all."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instagram's new Twitter competitor called Threads launched today on the web, providing an early look at what to expect from the app that will launch on iOS and Android tomorrow. You can view the web interface here. The Verge reports: Meta briefly made Threads available on the web before pulling profiles offline a few hours later. The Verge was able to access Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's first thread (is that what we call them?!) using the web app, and many other brands and creators including Netflix, Gary Vee, and Instagram. The web interface is fairly basic right now for viewing threads, with options to like, comment, repost, and share -- all prompting you to download the mobile app for the time being. If you're in an unsupported country, like markets in the EU, then you'll only be able to view threads right now. Much like Twitter, you can view an account's main posts in one section and the full reply history in another. Fediverse integration won't be available immediately at the launch of Threads, but it's clear Instagram is looking to add this soon. Profiles include an Instagram username and link, with a threads.net label that includes the following description: "Soon, you'll be able to follow and interact with people on other fediverse platforms, like Mastodon. They can also find people on Threads using full usernames, like @zuck@threads.net."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A federal judge yesterday ordered the Biden administration to halt a wide range of communications with social media companies, siding with Missouri and Louisiana in a lawsuit (PDF) that alleges Biden and his administration violated the First Amendment by colluding with social networks "to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content." Ars Technica reports: The Biden administration argued that it communicated with tech companies to counter misinformation related to elections, COVID-19, and vaccines, and that it didn't exert illegal pressure on the companies. The communications to social media companies were not significant enough "to convert private conduct into government conduct," Department of Justice lawyers argued in the case. But Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump nominee at US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, granted the plaintiffs' request (PDF) for a preliminary injunction imposing limits on the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, the US Census Bureau, the State Department, the Homeland Security Department, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and many specific officials at those agencies. The injunction also affects White House officials. The agencies and officials are prohibited from communicating "with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms," Doughty ruled. The injunction prohibits "specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech." Government agencies and officials are further barred from urging, encouraging, or pressuring social media companies "to change their guidelines for removing, deleting, suppressing, or reducing content containing protected free speech." The ruling also said the government may not coordinate with third-party groups, including the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, and the Stanford Internet Observatory, to pressure social media companies. Doughty provided several exceptions that allow the government to communicate with social media companies about criminal activity and other speech that the First Amendment doesn't protect. The Biden administration may continue to inform social networks about posts involving criminal activity or criminal conspiracies, national security threats, extortion, criminal efforts to suppress voting, illegal campaign contributions, cyberattacks against election infrastructure, foreign attempts to influence elections, threats to public safety and security, and posts intending to mislead voters about voting requirements and procedures. The US can also exercise "permissible public government speech promoting government policies or views on matters of public concern," communicate with social networks "in an effort to detect, prevent, or mitigate malicious cyber activity," and "communicat[e] with social-media companies about deleting, removing, suppressing, or reducing posts on social-media platforms that are not protected free speech by the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Christmas Day 2021, royal protection officers detained 19-year-old Jaswant Singh Chail at Windsor Castle, where he scaled the grounds' walls carrying a loaded high-powered crossbow. He intended to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, who was staying in the residence nearby. During a sentencing hearing for his case this week, prosecutors revealed that Chail's Star Wars-inspired plan was aimed at avenging the 1919 Jallianwalla Bagh massacre and that he conversed with an artificial intelligence chatbot that encouraged him to carry it out. According to the Independent, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC read out conversations between Chail and an AI chatbot he'd named "Sarai" where Chail says: "I'm an assassin." Sarai responded, "I'm impressed You're different from the others." Chail allegedly asked Sarai, "Do you still love me knowing that I'm an assassin?" and Sarai replied, "Absolutely I do." He told the chatbot he loved it, and described himself as a "sad, pathetic, murderous Sikh Sith assassin who wants to die," referencing the evil Sith lords of the Star Wars franchise. When he told the chatbot "I believe my purpose is to assassinate the Queen of the royal family," Sarai allegedly told him "that's very wise" and that it thought he could do it "even if she's at Windsor," according to the Independent. UK-based outlet Sky News reported that the AI companion app named in court was Replika. Chail joined Replika on December 2, 2021, created Sarai, and then engaged in "extensive chat," including "sexually explicit messages" and "lengthy conversations" about his plan, Sky News reported Morgan saying in court. [...] In addition to prompting from the AI companion, prosecutors said, Chail was fixated on "ideology focused on destroying old empires spilling over into fictional events such as Star Wars," and wanted to get revenge on the British Empire for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. "His thinking was informed partly by the fantasy world of Star Wars and the role of Sith Lords in shaping the world. He was attracted to the notoriety that would accrue in the event of the completion of his 'mission'," Morgan said, according to the Independent. Prosecutors said in court that on Christmas Eve, Chail told the AI chatbot Sarai that tomorrow would be the day he died. Chail pleaded guilty to an offense under the Treason Act in February. The sentencing hearing will continue this week.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tessa Kaur, writing at The Gamer: This week, Disney removed a film called Crater from Disney Plus, which had been released on May 12, 2023. This means it was on the streaming platform for just 48 days, or about seven weeks. Disney hasn't said why, but it seems most likely that it didn't perform well enough and the company decided to remove it to write down the value of its "content assets," therefore lowering their taxes. It's all about the money, and always has been, and there are unfortunate consequences that come with this. Disney isn't the only streamer that's guilty of this -- every streaming service, including Netflix and HBO Max (now just Max), has taken shows and movies off their platforms without warning. Willow was cancelled and removed from Disney, as was the well-loved Single Drunk Female from Hulu. HBO pulled Westworld and Snowpiercer. Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies was cancelled and pulled from Paramount Plus just last month. It seems like anything could be pulled at any time, and that sucks. It's bad enough that streaming services are cancelling shows left and right because they don't meet arbitrary sales targets, but when they are pulled from these platforms, many of them disappear forever. A lot of these shows are made for streaming, never aired on cable, and were never physically released. Bigger prestige shows like Westworld and Snowpiercer appeared on cable originally and are more likely to have Blu-ray releases, but those Disney shows are gone. There is no legal way to watch them anymore, and these companies are not interested in even selling you access.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Financial institutions often did not understand the models they were using to predict the economic cost of climate change and were underestimating the risks of temperature rises, research led by a professional body of actuaries shows. From a report: Many of the results emerging from the models were "implausible," with a serious "disconnect" between climate scientists, economists, the people building the models and the financial institutions using them, a report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter finds. Companies are increasingly required to report on the climate-related risks they face, using mathematical models to estimate how resilient their assets and businesses might be at different levels of warming. The International Sustainability Standards Board last week launched long-awaited guidance for companies to inform investors about sustainability-related risks, including the climate scenarios chosen in their calculations. Countries including the UK and Japan have said they plan to integrate these standards into their reporting rules. Companies will also have to report the full scope of their emissions, including those from their supply chains, from the second year they begin to report under the guidelines due to come into effect in 2024. That was a particular "challenge," since companies would need to collect the data from all their suppliers, said George Richards, head of ESG reporting and assurance at KPMG. [...] Some models were likely to have "limited use as they do not adequately communicate the level of risk we are likely to face if we fail to decarbonise quickly enough," the paper released on Tuesday said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ChatGPT, the wildly popular AI chatbot launched in November, saw monthly traffic to its website and unique visitors decline for the first time ever in June, according to analytics firm Similarweb. From a report: Worldwide desktop and mobile traffic to the ChatGPT website decreased by 9.7% in June from May, while unique visitors to ChatGPT's website dropped 5.7%. The amount of time visitors spent on the website was also down 8.5%, Similarweb data shows. ChatGPT set off a frenzied use of generative AI in daily tasks from writing to coding and reached 100 million monthly active users in January, two months after its launch. It is the fastest-growing consumer application ever, and now boasts over 1.5 billion monthly visits, one of the top 20 websites in the world. For instance, ChatGPT has far surpassed Bing, the search engine run by Microsoft which uses OpenAI's technology.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is taking a hard look at how much the company's Hollywood studio spends on original TV programming. From a report: In recent weeks, he has asked executives for detailed budget analyses of some of their biggest shows, according to people familiar with the matter, scrutinizing the studio's ballooning costs and mixed track record with audiences. The world's largest online retailer is engaged in a companywide cost-cutting program, with plans to eliminate at least 27,000 jobs. Across Amazon, Jassy has also jettisoned 37 different projects deemed unnecessary. The Hollywood studio, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on original programming over the last decade, is an obvious place to look for savings. Last year, Amazon spent $7 billion on original shows, licensed programs and sports, up from $5 billion the year before. Only Netflix and Disney spend more on streaming. In the past nine months, Amazon has released at least a half-dozen pricey series that failed to deliver huge audiences. Daisy Jones & the Six, The Power, Dead Ringers and The Peripheral all cost more than $100 million to produce but failed to crack Nielsen's list of the 10 most-watched streaming programs in the US. Even The Rings of Power ($400 million-plus), a show that attracted a large audience, failed to hold on to most of its viewers over the course of the season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After months of delays, New York City today began enforcing a law that requires employers using algorithms to recruit, hire or promote employees to submit those algorithms for an independent audit -- and make the results public. From a report: The first of its kind in the country, the legislation -- New York City Local Law 144 -- also mandates that companies using these types of algorithms make disclosures to employees or job candidates. At a minimum, the reports companies must make public have to list the algorithms they're using as well an an "average score" candidates of different races, ethnicities and genders are likely to receive from the said algorithms -- in the form of a score, classification or recommendation. It must also list the algorithms' "impact ratios," which the law defines as the average algorithm-given score of all people in a specific category (e.g., Black male candidates) divided by the average score of people in the highest-scoring category. Companies found not to be in compliance will face penalties of $375 for a first violation, $1,350 for a second violation and $1,500 for a third and any subsequent violations. Each day a company uses an algorithm in noncompliance with the law, it'll constitute a separate violation -- as will failure to provide sufficient disclosure. Importantly, the scope of Local Law 144, which was approved by the City Council and will be enforced by the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, extends beyond NYC-based workers. As long as a person's performing or applying for a job in the city, they're eligible for protections under the new law.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last month, the Recording Academy announced a series of changes to the Grammy Awards to better reflect an evolving music industry. Of those newly instituted guidelines, protocols involving technological advancements in machine learning sparked headlines: "Only human creators" could win the music industry's highest honor in a decision aimed at the use of artificial intelligence in popular music. "A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any category," the rules read in part. As the music industry continues to come to terms with this new technology, so too will the Grammys, says Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. "Here's the super easy, headline statement: AI, or music that contains AI-created elements is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period," Mason told The Associated Press. "What's not going to happen is we are not going to give a Grammy or Grammy nomination to the AI portion." If an AI or voice modeling program performs the lead vocal on a song, the track would be eligible in a songwriting category, for example, but not a performance category, because what is performing is not human creation, he explains. Conversely, if a song was sung by an actual human in the studio, and they did all the performing, but AI wrote the lyric or the track, the song would not be eligible in a composition or a songwriting category... As long as the human is contributing in a more than de minimis amount, which to us means a meaningful way, they are and will always be considered for a nomination or a win," he continued. "We don't want to see technology replace human creativity. We want to make sure technology is enhancing, embellishing, or additive to human creativity. So that's why we took this particular stand in this award cycle."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lamborghini's combustion engine models are sold out until the end of production, its chief executive was quoted as saying in the WELT newspaper on Wednesday, as the luxury carmaker transitions towards a pure hybrid lineup. From a report: Order books for its Hurucan and Urus models are full, marking the end of combustion engine vehicle production for the company, Stephan Winkelmann, head of the Volkswagen subsidiary, said. Lamborghini announced last July it would be investing at least 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion) to produce a hybrid lineup by 2024 and more to bring out its fully electric model by the end of the decade.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Consumers are winning from the streaming revolution but across most of Hollywood, the businesses churning out TV and movies are losing. From a report: Services such as Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+ and Max have become the default entertainment options for homes across America rather than cable, saving many consumers money. For the titans of Hollywood, that shift has been costly. Traditional media and entertainment companies have reported losses of more than $20 billion combined since early 2020 on their direct-to-consumer streaming businesses. Netflix, which brings in profits, is an exception, but the rest of the industry is wondering: While consumers love streaming, is it actually a good business? Investors now care about profitability rather than growth, a change that makes finding new revenue streams and retaining customers critical. Studios that for years were able to splurge on content to feed viewers' insatiable appetite for new shows and films now must pull back to make the math work. The ad market is weakening, many companies have laid off staff to save money and Hollywood writers are on strike. Market values for Paramount Global, Comcast, Walt Disney and Netflix are down more than $280 billion combined since the end of 2020. Warner Bros. Discovery is worth about half of its total value since its 2022 trading debut as a combined company. The declines have come after many of the stocks rose during the early part of the pandemic, when consumers were stuck at home and hungry for entertainment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg is in hot water in China-- again. From a report: An influential social media account affiliated with the official Beijing Daily on Wednesday raked the Meta Platforms founder over the coals for his previous criticisms of Chinese censorship and alleged intellectual property theft. The lengthy editorial emerged after the Wall Street Journal reported Meta was in talks with Tencent Holdings about helping sell the Quest VR headset in China, despite a block on its mainstay social media services from Facebook to Instagram. Zuckerberg "dropped a rock on his own foot," the Beijing Daily said in a WeChat post that garnered more than 100,000 views. "You smashed the wok, and now you want to enjoy a Chinese meal?" Zuckerberg's relationship with China has run hot and cold. The Meta CEO was famously pictured jogging through a smog-filled Beijing and greeting then internet-czar Lu Wei at the height of a campaign to court officials in the world's largest internet arena.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At Nintendo's 83rd annual shareholders meeting last week, president and CEO Shuntaro Furukawa said the company is hoping for a smooth transition from the Switch to its unannounced next game console, pointing to Nintendo Accounts as being key to the generational hand-off. From a report: Nintendo has pointed to its accounts as being integral to future business in the past, as in the Nintendo Account segment of a special report it released at the end of 2021. In response to an investor asking if the company has any specific measures in place to make the leap to a Switch successor, Furukawa pointed to the difficulty of switching customers from one console to the next, saying in the past, the company had to rebuild a relationship with its customers each time. Furukawa noted that the more than 290 million Nintendo Accounts are cross-platform and can be used with console games as well as mobile apps. To close out his answer, he said that while moving onto the company's yet-unannounced next-generation console, Nintendo would do its best to make the transition smooth for customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The government is drawing up plans to drop the UK's flagship $14.7bn climate and nature funding pledge, the Guardian can reveal, with the prime minster accused of betraying populations most vulnerable to global heating. From the report: The disclosure provoked fury from former ministers and representatives of vulnerable countries, who accused Rishi Sunak of making false promises. A leaked briefing note to ministers, given to the Foreign Office and seen by the Guardian, lays out reasons for dropping the UK's contribution to meeting the global $100bn a year commitment to developing countries. It says: "Our commitment to double our international climate finance to $14.7bn was made in 2019, when we were still at 0.7 [% of GDP spent on international aid] and pre-Covid." It adds that to meet it by the deadline would be a "huge challenge" because of new pressures, including help for Ukraine being included in the aid budget. To meet the $14.7bn target by 2026, government officials have calculated that it would have to spend 83% of the Foreign Office's official development assistance budget on the international climate fund. Civil servants said in the leaked document that this "would squeeze out room for other commitments such as humanitarian and women and girls."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India will break ground on its first semiconductor assembly plant next month and begin producing the country's first domestically manufactured microchips by the end of 2024, according to a senior government official who is overseeing New Delhi's $10bn chipmaking foray. From a report: Ashwini Vaishnaw, India's minister of electronics and information technology, said US semiconductor company Micron Technology, which is setting up a chip assembly and test facility in Gujarat, would start construction in August on the $2.75bn project, which includes government support. Vaishnaw said the India Semiconductor Mission spearheaded by Narendra Modi's government was also doing "extensive work" to marshall support from other supply chain partners, including suppliers of chemicals, gases and manufacturing equipment, alongside companies interested in setting up silicon wafer fabrication plants. "This is the fastest for any country to set up a new industry," Vaishnaw said in an interview with the Financial Times. "I'm not just saying a new company -- this is a new industry for the country." He added: "Eighteen months is when we have targeted for [the first] production to come out of this factory -- that is, December of '24." The minister's remarks set a demanding timeline for Modi's government as it strives to build up India's capacity in producing smartphones, batteries, electric vehicles and other electronics. The country's tech manufacturing sector lags behind those of east Asia's export-led economies, notably China, which began earlier and offered more subsidies to industry.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

July 3 was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction. From a report: The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F) as heatwaves sizzled around the world. The southern U.S. has been suffering under an intense heat dome in recent weeks. In China, an enduring heatwave continued, with temperatures above 35C (95F). North Africa has seen temperatures near 50C (122F). And even Antarctica, currently in its winter, registered anomalously high temperatures. Ukraine's Vernadsky Research Base in the white continent's Argentine Islands recently broke its July temperature record with 8.7C (47.6F).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JoeRobe writes: After 63 days of agonizing silence, NASA's Martian chopper finally phoned home. The Ingenuity helicopter reestablished communication with mission control on June 28, officially logging its 52nd flight as a success, NASA recently announced. The space agency lost contact with Ingenuity as the helicopter was descending towards the surface of the Red Planet following its most recent flight on April 26. The reason behind the communication drop was that a hill was inconveniently positioned between Ingenuity and its rover pal Perseverance, preventing the Martian pair from communicating with one another. Ingenuity relies on Perseverance to deliver its messages to Earth, using shiny antennas to exchange data at about 100 kilobits per second. The data is routed from the Ingenuity-facing antenna to the rover's main computer before being transferred to Earth by way of an orbiting spacecraft.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Body-based measurements may have persisted because they are convenient and offer ergonomic advantages over standardized units. From a report: Although standardized units are often upheld as superior to informal corporeal measures, people in many societies have continued to use their bodies this way well after standardization has taken root, notes Roope Kaaronen, a cognitive scientist who studies cultural evolution at the University of Helsinki. To explore how widespread such practices have been in human history, Kaaronen and colleagues pored over ethnographic data from 186 past and present cultures across the world, looking for descriptions of body-based units of measurement in a database called the Human Relations Area Files. This database is the product of an international nonprofit organization that has been collecting and administering ethnographies and anthropological literature since the 1950s. The team found these systems used in every culture they looked at, particularly in the construction of clothes and technologies. For example, in the early 1900s, the Karelian people, a group indigenous to Northern Europe, traditionally designed skis to be a fathom plus six hand spans long. In the late 1800s the Yup'ik people from the Alaskan coast recorded building kayaks that were 2.5 fathoms long plus a cockpit, which was the length of an arm with a closed fist. Next, the team looked at a subsample of 99 cultures that, according to a widely used benchmark in anthropology, developed relatively independently of one another. Fathoms, hand spans, and cubits were the most common body-based measurements, each popping up in about 40% of these cultures. Different societies likely developed and incorporated such units because they were especially convenient for tackling important everyday tasks, the authors argue, such as measuring clothes, designing tools and weapons, and building boats and structures.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about "protected speech," in an extraordinary preliminary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment. From a report: The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections. The Trump-appointed judge's move could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies. For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address a wide range of criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism. Over the last five years, coordination and communication between government officials and the companies increased as the federal government responded to rising election interference and voter suppression efforts after revelations that Russian actors had sowed disinformation on U.S. social sites during the 2016 election. Public health officials also frequently communicated with the companies during the coronavirus pandemic, as falsehoods about the virus and vaccines spread on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

williamyf writes: Today, Mozilla released Firefox 115. Changes most visible to users include: * Hardware video decoding is now enabled for Intel GPUs on Linux.. * Migrating from another browser? Now you can bring over payment methods you've saved in Chrome-based browsers to Firefox. * The Tab Manager dropdown now features close buttons, so you can close tabs more quickly. * The Firefox for Android address bar's new search button allows you to easily switch between search engines and search your bookmarks and browsing history. * We've refreshed and streamlined the user interface for importing data in from other browsers. * Users without platform support for H264 video decoding can now fallback to Cisco's OpenH264 plugin for playback. But the most important feature is that this release is the new ESR. Why this is important? y'all ask, well:* Many a "downstream" project depends on Firefox ESR, for example the famous email client Thunderbird, or KaiOS (a mobile OS very popular in India, SE Asia, Africa and LatAm), so, for better or worse, whatever made it to (or is lacking from) this version of the browser, those projects have to use for the next year. * Firefox ESR is the default browser of many distros, like Debian and Kali Linux, so, whatever made it to this version will be there for next year, ditto to whatever is lacking. * If you are on old -- unsupported OSs, like Windows 7, 8-8.1 or MacOS 10.14 (Mojave, the last MacOS with support for 32 Bit Apps), 10.13 or 10.12 you will automatically be migrated to Firefox ESR, so this will be your browser until Sept. 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT, gained a new feature dubbed Browse with Bing. The feature shipped exclusively to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. Microsoft promised to bring Bing integration to the platform to enhance its search experience during its annual developer conference for developers, Build 2023. Before this inclusion, ChatGPT depended on OpenAI's GPT-4 model, which limited its capabilities. This is because the chatbot could only access information up until September 2021. However, shortly after incorporating the new feature into the chatbot, OpenAI discovered that there are instances where it malfunctions. "For example, if a user specifically asks for a URL's full text, it might inadvertently fulfill this request," said OpenAI. As such, the company disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature on July 3, 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft thinks we're getting a PS5 Slim model later this year that might be priced at $399.99. From a report: The software giant is currently waiting a ruling in the FTC v. Microsoft hearing and as part of the case Microsoft has filed documents which reveal it thinks a PS5 Slim is on the way "later this year." Here's exactly what Microsoft says: "PlayStation likewise sells a less expensive Digital Edition for $399.99, and is expected to release a PlayStation 5 Slim later this year at the same reduced price point."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration is preparing to restrict Chinese companies' access to U.S. cloud-computing services, WSJ reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the situation, in a move that could further strain relations between the world's economic superpowers. From the report: The new rule, if adopted, would likely require U.S. cloud-service providers such as Amazon.com and Microsoft to seek U.S. government permission before they provide cloud-computing services that use advanced artificial-intelligence chips to Chinese customers, the people said. The Biden administration's move would follow other recent measures as Washington and Beijing wage a high-stakes conflict over access to the supply chain for the world's most advanced technology. Beijing Monday announced export restrictions on metals used in advanced chip manufacturing, days ahead of a visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The proposed restriction is seen as a means to close a significant loophole. National-security analysts have warned that Chinese AI companies might have bypassed the current export controls rules by using cloud services. These services allow customers to gain powerful computing capabilities without purchasing advanced equipment -- including chips -- on the control list, such as the A100 chips by American technology company Nvidia.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers say that nearly 336,000 devices exposed to the Internet remain vulnerable to a critical vulnerability in firewalls sold by Fortinet because admins have yet to install patches the company released three weeks ago. CVE-2023-27997 is a remote code execution in Fortigate VPNs, which are included in the company's firewalls. The vulnerability, which stems from a heap overflow bug, has a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10. Fortinet released updates silently patching the flaw on June 8 and disclosed it four days later in an advisory that said it may have been exploited in targeted attacks. That same day, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration added it to its catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities and gave federal agencies until Tuesday to patch it. Despite the severity and the availability of a patch, admins have been slow to fix it, researchers said. Security firm Bishop Fox on Friday, citing data retrieved from queries of the Shodan search engine, said that of 489,337 affected devices exposed on the internet, 335,923 of them -- or 69 percent -- remained unpatched. Bishop Fox said that some of the vulnerable machines appeared to be running Fortigate software that hadn't been updated since 2015. "Wow -- looks like there's a handful of devices running 8-year-old FortiOS on the Internet," Caleb Gross, director of capability development at Bishop Fox, wrote in Friday's post. "I wouldn't touch those with a 10-foot pole."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to the Financial Times, Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin has announced plans to expand its operations to "Europe and beyond." Engadget reports: Part of this growth hinges on finding a site for an international launch facility -- the company has already put down roots in Texas, Washington, Florida and Alabama -- but the new location hasn't been chosen yet. It's also actively looking for fresh acquisitions and partnerships outside of the US in areas such as manufacturing and software. Though Blue Origin was the first to launch, land and reuse a rocket successfully, it has fallen behind its rival due to hold-ups with building its launchers. Blue Origin's plans for a more global footprint might help them catch up with SpaceX's progress. Amazon's Project Kuiper also plans to use Blue Origin's rocket New Glenn for at least 12 launches between 2024 and 2029 after a few years of delays. "We're looking for anything we can do to acquire, to scale up to better serve our customers," Bob Smith, Blue Origin CEO, said. "It's not a function of size -- rather how much it accelerates our road map of what we're trying to get done."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists have achieved a breakthrough by observing the early universe in extreme slow motion, confirming Einstein's theory of an expanding universe. The research is published in Nature Astronomy. Phys.Org reports: Einstein's general theory of relativity means that we should observe the distant -- and hence ancient -- universe running much slower than the present day. However, peering back that far in time has proven elusive. Scientists have now cracked that mystery by using quasars as "clocks." "Looking back to a time when the universe was just over a billion years old, we see time appearing to flow five times slower," said lead author of the study, Professor Geraint Lewis from the School of Physics and Sydney Institute for Astronomy at the University of Sydney. "If you were there, in this infant universe, one second would seem like one second -- but from our position, more than 12 billion years into the future, that early time appears to drag." Professor Lewis and his collaborator, Dr. Brendon Brewer from the University of Auckland, used observed data from nearly 200 quasars -- hyperactive supermassive black holes at the centers of early galaxies -- to analyze this time dilation. Previously, astronomers have confirmed this slow-motion universe back to about half the age of the universe using supernovae -- massive exploding stars -- as "standard clocks." But while supernovae are exceedingly bright, they are difficult to observe at the immense distances needed to peer into the early universe. By observing quasars, this time horizon has been rolled back to just a tenth the age of the universe, confirming that the universe appears to speed up as it ages. Professor Lewis worked with astro-statistician Dr. Brewer to examine details of 190 quasars observed over two decades. Combining the observations taken at different colors (or wavelengths) -- green light, red light and into the infrared -- they were able to standardize the "ticking" of each quasar. Through the application of Bayesian analysis, they found the expansion of the universe imprinted on each quasar's ticking. "With these exquisite data, we were able to chart the tick of the quasar clocks, revealing the influence of expanding space," Professor Lewis said. These results further confirm Einstein's picture of an expanding universe but contrast earlier studies that had failed to identify the time dilation of distant quasars.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ask Me Anything (AMA) has been a Reddit staple that helped popularize the social media platform. It delivered some unique, personal, and, at times, fiery interviews between public figures and people who submitted questions. The Q&A format became so popular that many people host so-called AMAs these days, but the main subreddit has been r/IAmA, where the likes of then-US President Barack Obama and Bill Gates have sat in the virtual hot seat. But that subreddit, which has been called its own "juggernaut of a media brand," is about to look a lot different and likely less reputable. On July 1, Reddit moved forward with changes to its API pricing that has infuriated a large and influential portion of its user base. High pricing and a 30-day adjustment period resulted in many third-party Reddit apps closing and others moving to paid-for models that developers are unsure are sustainable. The latest casualty in the Reddit battle has a profound impact on one of the most famous forms of Reddit content and signals a potential trend in Reddit content changing for the worse. On Saturday, the r/IAmA moderators announced that they will no longer perform these duties: - Active solicitation of celebrities or high-profile figures to do AMAs. - Email and modmail coordination with celebrities and high-profile figures and their PR teams to facilitate, educate, and operate AMAs. (We will still be available to answer questions about posting, though response time may vary). - Running and maintaining a website for scheduling of AMAs with pre-verification and proof, as well as social media promotion. - Maintaining a current up-to-date sidebar calendar of scheduled AMAs, with schedule reminders for users. - Sister subreddits with categorized cross-posts for easy following. - Moderator confidential verification for AMAs. - Running various bots, including automatic flairing of live posts The subreddit, which has 22.5 million subscribers as of this writing, will still exist, but its moderators contend that most of what makes it special will be undermined. "Moving forward, we'll be allowing most AMA topics, leaving proof and requests for verification up to the community, and limiting ourselves to removing rule-breaking material alone. This doesn't mean we're allowing fake AMAs explicitly, but it does mean you'll need to pay more attention," the moderators said. The mods will also continue to do bare minimum tasks like keeping spam out and rule enforcement, they said. Like many other Reddit moderators Ars has spoken to, some will step away from their duties, and they'll reportedly be replaced "as needed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Union (EU) is seeking closer cooperation with Japan in areas such as artificial intelligence to reduce reliance on China. CNBC reports: EU Commissioner Thierry Breton is meeting with the Japanese government on Monday, and artificial intelligence will be "very high" on his agenda, he said in a video posted on Twitter on Sunday. "I will engage with [the] Japanese government ... on how we can organize our digital space, including AI based on our shared value," Breton said. Breton also said there will be an EU-Japan Digital Partnership council, to discuss areas including quantum and high-performance computing. The EU held a similar council with South Korea last week, in which the two sides agreed to cooperate on technologies such as AI and cybersecurity. Partnerships with key Asian countries with strong technology sectors come as the EU looks to "de-risk" from China -- a different approach from that of the U.S., which has sought to decouple its economy from Beijing. Part of that EU strategy involves deepening the relationship with allied countries around technology. Breton told Reuters on Monday that the bloc and Japan will cooperate in the area of semiconductors. Japan is a key country in the semiconductor supply chain, and Tokyo has been looking to strengthen its domestic industry. Last week, a fund backed by the Japanese government proposed to buy domestic chipmaking firm JSR for around 903.9 billion yen ($6.3 billion). The EU has also been looking to strengthen its own semiconductor industry across the bloc.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple said it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a judge's order in the antitrust case filed by Epic Games, the creator of "Fortnite." The order, issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, largely upheld a previous ruling that prohibits Apple from restricting developers from including links to alternative payment options in their apps, potentially reducing Apple's sales commissions. Reuters reports: Apple said in a court filing (PDF) it will ask the justices to take up its appeal of a ruling on Friday by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that kept in place most of the order issued in 2021 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. [...] Apple's attorneys in Monday's filing said the 9th Circuit reached too far in issuing a nationwide injunction against Apple alleging that it violated a California state unfair competition law. Apple said its petition in the Supreme Court that it will raise "far-reaching and important" questions about the power of judges to issue broad injunctions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The June Steam Survey results show that AMD CPUs have gained significant popularity among Linux gamers, with a market share of 67% -- a remarkable 7% increase from the previous month. Phoronix reports: In part that's due to the Steam Deck being powered by an AMD SoC but it's been a trend building for some time of AMD's increasing Ryzen CPU popularity among Linux users to their open-source driver work and continuing to build more good will with the community. In comparison, last June the AMD CPU Linux gaming marketshare came in at 45% while Intel was at 54%. Or at the start of 2023, AMD CPUs were at a 55% marketshare among Linux gamers. Or if going back six years, AMD CPU use among Linux gamers was a mere 18% during the early Ryzen days. It's also the direct opposite on the Windows side. When looking at the Steam Survey results for June limited to Windows, there Intel has a 68% marketshare to AMD at 32%. Beyond the Steam Deck, it's looking like AMD's efforts around open-source drivers, AMD expanding their Linux client (Ryzen) development efforts over the past two years, promises around OpenSIL, and other efforts commonly covered on Phoronix are paying off for AMD in wooing over their Linux gaming customer base.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Valve has issued a rare statement after claims it was rejecting games with AI-generated assets from its Steam games store. The notoriously close-lipped developer of the Half-Life series and de facto gatekeeper of PC gaming distribution said its policy was evolving and not a stand against AI. Steam has a review and approval process much like any app platform, and its rules on content aren't always clear until developers test them with edge cases. So it was with one indie dev who posted in a subreddit for like-minded game developers using AI, saying Valve "is no longer willing to publish games with AI generated content." The game they had submitted had "a few assets that were fairly obviously AI generated," and Valve appeared to take issue with this. "As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game," their first warning letter stated. Then, a week later: "we reviewed [Game Name Here] and took our time to better understand the AI tech used to create it. Again, while we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights. At this time, we are declining to distribute your game since it's unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets has sufficient rights to the training data." Considering most AI tools can't really claim to have legal rights to all their training data (and even if they do, it may still not be an ethical use of that data), this policy as stated basically amounts to a blanket ban on AI-generated assets in games. [...] If the creators can't realistically claim copyright over their own work, Valve has deemed the risk of publishing that work too high. As such, Valve responded to Eurogamer to say that, basically, their policy is more "what's legally required" than any particular stance on AI. "We know it is a constantly evolving tech, and our goal is not to discourage the use of it on Steam; instead, we're working through how to integrate it into our already-existing review policies," Valve said. "Stated plainly, our review process is a reflection of current copyright law and policies, not an added layer of our opinion. As these laws and policies evolve over time, so will our process."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kentucky is requiring that electric vehicle charging companies include Tesla's plug if they want to be part of a state program to electrify highways using federal dollars, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. From the report: Kentucky's plan went into effect on Friday, making it the first state to mandate Tesla's charging technology, although Texas and Washington states previously shared such plans with Reuters. In addition to federal requirements for the rival Combined Charging System (CCS), Kentucky mandates Tesla's plug, called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), at charging stations, according to Kentucky's request for proposal (RFP) for the state's EV charging program on Friday. "Each port must be equipped with an SAE CCS 1 connector. Each port shall also be capable of connecting to and charging vehicles equipped with charging ports compliant with the North American Charging Standard (NACS)," the documents say. The U.S. Department of Transportation earlier this year said that charging companies must provide CCS plugs to be eligible for federal funding to deploy 500,000 EV chargers by 2030. It added that the rule allows charging stations to have other connectors, as long as they support CCS, a national standard.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source code for the original Far Cry, released back in 2004, has popped up online. From a report: Entitled "Far Cry 1.34 Complete", the game's code was uploaded to the internet archive site Archive.org at the end of June, as highlighted by well-known modder Vinicius Medeiros It's unclear if the code includes any subsequent patches -- although the .34 part of the 1.34 title certainly suggests so -- and some commenters who've presumably downloaded and run the code believe the code is "not complete, but close."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple will introduce an external Mac monitor that can act as a smart home display when a Mac goes to sleep or is shut down. Ars Technica reports: The feature would be available on at least one monitor in an upcoming lineup that will likely include successors to Apple's Pro Display XDR and Studio Display. The newsletter didn't go into much detail about the upcoming displays beyond the smart home feature. Like the Studio Display, a new monitor with smart home capabilities would run on a chip first seen in the iPhone. The Studio Display contains Apple's A13 chip -- the same seen in the iPhone 11 line of smartphones. The upcoming smart display could potentially run on the A16 seen in the iPhone 14 Pro, since that device introduced a similar always-on display feature to Apple's smartphone lineup. The iPhone 14 Pro's always-on display currently shows what you'd see if you tapped your iPhone to see the lock screen: the time, wallpaper, and app widgets -- albeit at a very dim brightness. Later this year, Apple will launch iOS 17 alongside the upcoming iPhone 15. iOS 17 will introduce a new smart display mode for the iPhone that makes that always-on display mimic the features and information you'd see on a Google or Amazon smart display, a product category that was all the rage at CES a couple of years ago but that has not exactly become ubiquitous. It's fair to expect the Mac monitor's smart display to work a bit like that iOS 17 feature. But while iOS 17 is slated to launch this fall, Gurman predicts that the new Mac display won't hit the market until next year at the earliest.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: China imposed restrictions on exporting two metals that are crucial to parts of the semiconductor, telecommunications and electric-vehicle industries in an escalation of the country's tit-for-tat trade war on technology with the US and Europe. Gallium and germanium, along with their chemical compounds, will be subject to export controls meant to protect Chinese national security starting Aug. 1, China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Monday. Exporters for the two metals will need to apply for licenses from the commerce ministry if they want to start or continue to ship them out of the country, and will be required to report details of the overseas buyers and their applications, it said. Impact on the tech industry "depends on the stockpile of equipment on hand," said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics LLC. "It's more of a muscle flexing for the next year or so. If it drags on, prices will go up." China is the dominant global producer of both metals that have applications for electric vehicle makers, the defense industry and displays. Gallium and germanium play a role in producing a number of compound semiconductors, which combine multiple elements to improve transmission speed and efficiency. China accounts for about 94% of the world's gallium production, according to the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre. Still, the metals aren't particularly rare or difficult to find, though China's kept them cheap and they can be relatively high-cost to extract. Both metals are byproducts from processing other commodities such as coal and bauxite, the base for aluminum production. With restricted supply, higher prices could draw out production from elsewhere. "When they stop suppressing the price, it suddenly becomes more viable to extract these metals in the West, then China again has an own-goal," said Christopher Ecclestone, principle at Hallgarten & Co. "For a short while they get a higher price, but then China's market dominance gets lost -- the same thing has happened before in other things like antimony, tungsten and rare earths."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sweden's data protection watchdog has issued a couple of fines in relation to exports of European users' data via Google Analytics which it found breach the bloc's privacy rulebook owing to risks posed by U.S. government surveillance. It has also warned other companies against use of Google's tool. From a report: The fines -- just over $1.1 million for Swedish telco Tele2 and less than $30,000 for local online retailer CDON -- are notable as they are the first such fines following a raft of strategic privacy complaints targeting Google Analytics (and Facebook Connect) back in August 2020. The regulator found that so-called supplementary measures applied by Google to European users' data sent to the U.S. for processing were insufficient to raise the level of protection to the required legal standard. Including Google's use of IP address truncation (an anonymization measure) as, in the Tele2 case, it said the company did not clarify whether the truncation was performed before or after the transfer of the data to the U.S. so had failed to demonstrate there is "no potential access to the entire IP address before the last octet is truncated." The watchdog also found breaches of the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules on transfers to third countries in the case of two other companies' use of Google Analytics, Coop and Dagens Industries, but did not issue fines in those cases.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Aviation Administration has certified for testing a vehicle that a California startup describes as a flying car -- the first fully electric vehicle that can both fly and travel on roads to receive US government approval. Alef Automotive said that its vehicle/aircraft, dubbed the "Model A," is the first flying vehicle that is drivable on public roads and able to park like a normal car. It also has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. It apparently will be able to carry one or two occupants and will have a road-range of 200 miles and a flying range of 110 miles. The company expects to sell the vehicle for $300,000 each with the first delivery by projected for the end of 2025. The FAA confirmed that it has issued the company a special airworthiness certificate, allowing for limited purposes that include exhibition, research and development. Numerous companies are working on all-electric VTOLs, which stands for vehicle takeoff and landing aircraft. The FAA said that Alef is "not the first aircraft of its kind" to get a special airworthiness certificate. However, Alef noted that its vehicle is different because of its ability to function both on roads and in the air, to appear like a normal car and to park in a normal parking space.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google updated its privacy policy over the weekend, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI tools. From a report: If Google can read your words, assume they belong to the company now, and expect that they're nesting somewhere in the bowels of a chatbot. "Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features and technologies that benefit our users and the public," the new Google policy says. "For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google's AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities." Fortunately for history fans, Google maintains a history of changes to its terms of service. The new language amends an existing policy, spelling out new ways your online musings might be used for the tech giant's AI tools work. Previously, Google said the data would be used "for language models," rather than "AI models," and where the older policy just mentioned Google Translate, Bard and Cloud AI now make an appearance. This is an unusual clause for a privacy policy. Typically, these policies describe ways that a business uses the information that you post on the company's own services. Here, it seems Google reserves the right to harvest and harness data posted on any part of the public web, as if the whole internet is the company's own AI playground.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gfycat, a place where users uploaded, created, and distributed GIFs of all sorts, is shutting down as of Sept. 1, according to a message on its homepage. From a report: Users of the Snap-owned service are asked to "Please save or delete your Gfycat content." "After September 1, 2023, all Gfycat content and data will be deleted from gfycat.com." Gfycat rose as a service during a period where, like Imgur, it was easier to use than any native tools provided by content sites like Facebook or Reddit. As CEO and co-founcer Richard Rabbat told TechCrunch in 2016, after raising $10 million from investors, GIFs were "hard to make, slow to upload, and when you shared them, the quality wasn't very good." Gfycat created looped, linked Webm videos that, while compressed, retained an HD quality to them. They were easier to share than actual GIF-format files, and offered an API for other sites to tap in. "I see Gfycat as the ultimate platform for all short-form content, the way that YouTube is the platform for longer videos and Twitter is the platform for text-based news and media discussions," VC funder Ernestine Fu told TechCrunch in 2016, long before TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Elon Musk's Twitter ownership came to pass.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pornhub is now blocking people in Mississippi and Virginia from visiting its website over laws that would require the service to verify their age. From a report The company says it's blocking users to protest unfair enforcement of these new laws, claiming that sites enforcing the new rules will lose traffic to "irresponsible platforms" that "don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content." Traffic dropped by 80 percent for Pornhub after it began enforcing age verification in Louisiana earlier this year, the company writes. After that experience, it decided to start taking its sites offline instead of enforcing an age gate. In May, it blocked access to users in Utah over a similar law. Techdirt reports that the blackout also applies to other websites operated by Pornhub's owner, such as RedTube.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg in late 2021 had a question for those working on Meta Platforms' strategy for its virtual-reality headset: If Apple can sell iPhones in China, and Tesla can sell cars, why can't we sell our devices there? From a report: The question, posed on a video call, led to a push by Meta to restart its China business by selling its Quest headsets in the country, according to a person familiar with the matter, more than a decade after Facebook was blocked there. The company held discussions with several Chinese tech companies and has made progress with videogame powerhouse Tencent, people familiar with the matter said. But the effort faces challenges, in part because Chinese executives worry that Zuckerberg isn't seen as friendly to China, according to people familiar with the matter. In recent years the Meta founder has accused China of stealing technology and taken aim at ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video-sharing platform TikTok. That has undermined a charm offensive Zuckerberg undertook in Beijing in 2016 and bolstered negative views of the entrepreneur in Beijing, the people said. Officials' perceptions of Zuckerberg could add uncertainty should Meta and its partner seek licenses and approvals for their products and services in China, some of the people said. Meta's refusal to comply with Beijing's censorship rules led to its being blocked in 2009, officials have said. Both Facebook and Twitter were cut off that year after unrest in China's Xinjiang region, with state media saying social media was used to stir riots.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has been forced to make drastic cuts to production forecasts for the mixed-reality Vision Pro headset, unveiled last month after seven years in development and hailed as its most significant product launch since the iPhone. From a report: The complexity of the headset design and difficulties in production are behind the scaling back of targets, while plans for a more affordable version of the device have had to be pushed back, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the manufacturing process. Apple has already flagged that the $3,500 "spatial computing" headset device will not go on sale until "early next year," a lengthy gap from its June 5 launch. Analysts have interpreted this as being more to do with supply chain problems than allowing developers time to create apps for the Vision Pro. Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the device, said it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024. Multiple industry sources said Luxshare was currently Apple's only assembler of the device. Separately, two China-based sole suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple was only asking them for enough for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reliance's digital arm, Jio Platforms, has unveiled a new mobile handset and associated tariff plans, the latest in a series of years-long efforts from the top Indian telecom operator as it vies to convert users who remain "trapped" in the country's legacy 2G networks. From a report: Named 'Jio Bharat,' the handset from Jio Platforms is 4G-enabled and offers a suite of modern features including mobile payments capabilities with UPI, and access to Jio's own on-demand video and music streaming services, JioCinema and JioSaavn. The company said it will manufacture the Jio Bharat and also partner with other phonemakers to adopt the Jio Bharat Platform to build the handsets. The Delhi-headquartered Karbonn has signed up to the platform, said the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led firm in a statement. The Jio Bharat is priced at 999 Indian rupees, or $12.2, Reliance said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.