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Finland's University of Jyvaskyla has an announcement: an experiment performed in its accelerator lab "has succeeded in producing a previously unknown atomic nucleus." Dubbed "190-Astatine," it's made from 85 protons and 105 neutrons..The nucleus is the lightest isotope of astatine discovered to date. Astatine is a fast-decaying, and therefore rare element. It has been estimated that in the Earth's crust, there is no more than one tablespoon of astatine... The new isotope was produced in the fusion of 84Sr beam particles and silver target atoms. The isotope was detected among the products by using the detectors of RITU recoil separator... "The studies of new nuclei are important for understanding the structure of atomic nuclei and the limits of known matter," says Doctoral Researcher Henna Kokkonen from the Department of Physics, University of Jyvaskyla.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Blizzard's Battle.net online service was the target of an apparent DDoS attack, "since at least the early hours of Sunday morning," reports Engadget, "making it difficult, if not impossible, to play Diablo IV, World of Warcraft and other Blizzard titles." It was just 20 minutes ago that they tweeted that the DDOS attacks "have ended." Engadget notes Blizzard's customer support account had tweeted at 10:24AM EST, "We continue to actively monitor an ongoing DDoS attack which is affecting latency/connections to our games." When players launched Battle.net on PC, a notification warned "We are currently experiencing a DDoS attack, which may result in high latency and disconnections for some players..." On Reddit, some players reported they hadn't been able to play Blizzard's latest game for at least 10 to 12 hours. Engadget predicts, "At the very least, you can bet this incident will likely renew calls for Blizzard to add an offline mode to Diablo IV."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader internet-redstar writes:In little longer than 1 year, RHEL7 and CentOS 7 will go EOL. Large enterprises with thousands of these servers are struggling to meet that deadline. Now they also have the option to use Project78 from Linux Belgium which offers a Cloud and OnPrem version to aid in the transition to RHEL 8 or Rocky Linux 8. It promises a 100% success rate for in-place OS upgrading and a 95% success rate for application migrations in a Upgrade-as-a-Service package. In April Red Hat's senior technical marketing manager shared their thoughts about next year's end of life for CentOS Linux and the End-of-Maintenance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (along with some tips):The good news is that these events won't require a complete infrastructure overhaul. Tools are available to move from your current configuration to a place where you'll have years of support. While June of '24 may sound a ways off, do not delay. It will be here faster than you think. Start planning now. Start moving soon. Give yourself plenty of runway, and don't forget that we aren't just your software vendor at Red Hat. We are your partners and are here to help you with these transitions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from USA Today:A new study reinforces the importance of lowering cholesterol in people at risk for, but who haven't had a heart attack or stroke. The study looked at a statin alternative, called bempedoic acid, and found that as it reduced levels of LDL cholesterol, it also lowered the risk for heart attack, stroke and death. Researchers are quick to say bempedoic acid shouldn't be used instead of statins. It's far more expensive and doesn't have the decades-long track record of safety and effectiveness. But for people who can't tolerate statins or a high enough dose to bring their cholesterol levels down adequately, the new study suggests it's important to find alternatives, and that bempedoic acid can be at least part of the solution.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Interesting Engineering reports:Chinese authorities have officially given the green light to commission a working thorium-based molten salt nuclear reactor. Currently under construction since 2018, the reactor in question, "Thorium Molten Salt Reactor - Liquid Fuel 1" (TMSR-LF1), is being built at the Hongshagang Industrial Cluster, Wuwei City, Gansu Province. If successful, the TMSR-LF1 has the potential to open doors for developing and constructing a more extensive demonstration facility by 2030. Additionally, it could lead to constructing a TMSR fuel salt batch pyro-process demonstration facility, which would enable the utilization of the thorium-uranium cycle by the early 2040s... It runs on a combination of thorium and uranium-235, enriched at 19.75 percent by weight, and can operate at a maximum temperature of 650C for up to 10 years. The liquid fuel design is based on the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s... China intends to construct a reactor with a capacity of 373 MWt by 2030 if the TMSR-LF1 succeeds. Thorium is more abundant than uranium, notes the South China Morning Post - and China is thought to have one of the world's largest thorium reserves. But a thorium reactor should also produce less waste, and using molten salts as both a fuel and a coolant "potentially eliminates the need for large quantities of water, which is a significant advantage in areas where water resources are limited." India has also been pursuing thorium-based nuclear technologies, including MSRs. The Indian Molten Salt Breeder Reactor project, initiated in the 1980s, aimed to develop a thorium-based breeder reactor. However, the project has faced challenges related to materials compatibility, fuel reprocessing and overall system complexity and has not progressed to commercial-scale use... China reportedly plans to sell small thorium reactors to other countries as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing's global infrastructure plan. Thanks to Slashdot reader sonlas for sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"User protests against Reddit's plan to charge new fees to access its content are about to enter their third week," writes Axios. 2,503 subreddits remain dark, including at least three with more than 20 million subscribers apiece, the Guardian points out, arguing that CEO Steve Huffman "may win, but the short history of the web is littered with the corpses of predecessors who alienated their fanbases." The New York Times adds that in an interview Wednesday, "Mr. Huffman said his goal had been to make Reddit better for newcomers and veteran users and to build a lasting business. "He said he regretted that developers were surprised by the company's pricing changes and wished he had been more upfront about how the changes would affect them..."Reddit is now further away from a public offering than it was last year, Mr. Huffman said, but will continue building its business. He added that the community revolt was a part of what made Reddit Reddit and said he and his team planned to continue engaging with top moderators who were upset with the changes. "For better or for worse, this is a very uniquely Reddit moment," he said. "This could only happen on Reddit." The Times also spoke to a man who moderates 80 different forums on Reddit - and has been volunteering to moderate Reddit forums for 11 years. He calls Huffman's API move "really demoralizing... I take all this abuse for you, and keep your website clean, and this is how you repay us?'" He's now active in Reddit's "Save3rdPartyApps" subreddit, "which was formed to organize protests on the site that are allowed under Reddit's rules."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reuters reports:The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is working on a platform for central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) to enable transactions between countries, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday. "CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions... To have more efficient and fairer transactions we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability," Georgieva told a conference attended by African central banks in Rabat, Morocco. "For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform," she said. The IMF wants central banks to agree on a common regulatory framework for digital currencies that will allow global interoperability. Failure to agree on a common platform would create a vacuum that would likely be filled by cryptocurrencies, she said... Already 114 central banks are at some stage of CBDC exploration, "with about 10 already crossing the finish line", she said. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader Zak3056 shared this report from the Washington Post:U.S. Navy acoustic sensors detected the likely implosion of the Titan submersible hours after the vessel began its fatal descent on Sunday, U.S. Navy officials said Thursday, a revelation that means the sprawling search for the vessel was conducted even though senior officials already had some indication the Titan was destroyed... The acoustic detection was one significant piece of information, but the search had to continue to exhaust all possibilities, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies... The United States has used a network of devices to detect undersea noises for decades. The fact that the Titan's implosion was detected this way isn't surprising, Cancian said. "I would be surprised if they hadn't heard it." A Las Vegas financier had bought tickets on the ill-fated submarine for himself, plus his 20-year-old son Sean and a friend. The son now tells People that "The whole reason my dad didn't go was because I told him, 'Dude, this submarine cannot survive going that deep in the ocean.'" OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush told the financier that their submarine was safer than crossing the street. "He was a good guy, great heart, really believed in what he was doing and saying," the financier tells People. "But he didn't want to hear anything that conflicted with his world view, and he would just dismiss it... He was so passionate about this project, and he was such a believer. He drank his own Kool-Aid, and there was just no talking him out of it." For Sean, the first red flag that alarmed him about Rush was his arrival in Las Vegas, where Sean, Jay and Rush were set to meet. He says they asked why Rush was landing at a North Las Vegas airport rather than the commercial airports like McCarran. "He's like, 'Yeah, I built this plane with my hands, and I'm test-flying it right now.' And we're like, 'What?' That was my first red flag," he explains. OceanGate's CEO later even tried offering the financier a substantial discount on the three tickets, calling his son "uninformed." OceanGate had also claimed their submarine was designed and engineered in collaboration with experts from NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington - but now ABC News says the company exaggerated those partnerships:OceanGate's founder and CEO Stockton Rush - who was aboard the missing vessel - made similar statements about his company's partnerships during an interview with CBS News correspondent David Pogue in 2022, who asked about the construction of the Titan submersible, which Rush said used some minor parts purchased from consumer retailers like Camping World. "The pressure vessel is not MacGyvered at all because that's where we worked with Boeing and NASA, [and] University of Washington," Rush said... Kevin Williams, the executive director of the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, told ABC News the school and laboratory were also not involved in the "design, engineering or testing" of the Titan submersible. Victor Balta, a UW spokesperson, added that OceanGate and UW's Applied Physics Laboratory initially signed a $5 million collaborative research agreement, but the two entities "parted ways" after only $650,000 of work was completed. That research only resulted in the development of another OceanGate submersible, the shallow-diving Cyclops I submersible, according to Balta. The steel-hulled Cyclops I is only rated to reach 500 meters, compared to the Titan, which is constructed from carbon fiber and titanium to reach depths of 4,000 meters, the company said... When asked about the details of those relationships with OceanGate, a Boeing representative told ABC News that the aerospace company was not involved in designing or building the deep-sea submersible. "Boeing was not a partner on the Titan and did not design or build it," a Boeing spokesperson told ABC News in a statement... In a statement to ABC News, NASA confirmed it consulted on materials and manufacturing for the Titan submersible pursuant to an agreement with OceanGate. "NASA did not conduct testing and manufacturing via its workforce or facilities, which was done elsewhere by OceanGate," the statement said. CNN reports that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are now exploring whether "criminal, federal, or provincial laws may possibly have been broken."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:Working from home appears to be here to stay, especially for women and college-educated workers, according to economic data released Thursday that revealed how Americans spent their time in 2022. The data, from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), suggests that the pandemic changes that upended the workplace, family life and social interactions continue to have a lasting effect on life in the United States. Many white-collar workers who hunkered down at home during pandemic shutdowns have returned to the office, but extraordinarily high numbers have not. For many, remote work appears to be a new normal... Working from home "is a permanent shift," said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. "We're now seeing many companies start as remote-first companies." The new data is a "continuation of what we've been seeing" in the American workforce, she said... The annual survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau asks thousands of Americans how they spent the past 24 hours of their lives across different categories of activities. Results from 2019 through 2021 showed that the pandemic dramatically shifted how much time people spend working at home. The new data suggests those changes persisted through 2022, even as much of life returned to normal as more people got vaccinated and boosted against the coronavirus, and case counts fell... There is a clear benefit to remote work for employees, Pollak said. Working from home saves time and money on commuting, and many employees want the flexibility to work from anywhere, to better support their parents or children. She said remote work also is "part of the reason for this huge spike in new business formation. It has lowered the barriers to starting a business." The 2022 figures show 34% of workers over the age of 15 still said they were working at home - and 54% of workers with a workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. (Meanwhile, workers without a high school diploma "were even less likely to work from home in 2022 than they were before the pandemic.") The Post also reports another interesting finding in the data. "Americans ages 20 to 24 are the only group that spent more time socializing than before the pandemic. Teenagers, and adults ages 55 to 64, reported an overall decline in time spent socializing since before the pandemic."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Motherboard reports:Scientists are currently searching for the submerged remains of an interstellar object that crashed into the skies near Papua New Guinea in January 2014 and probably sprinkled material from another star system into the Pacific Ocean, according to an onboard diary by Avi Loeb, the Harvard astronomer who is leading the expedition. The effort, which kicked off on June 14, aims to recover what is left of the otherworldly fireball using a deep-sea magnetic sled. The team has already turned up "anomalous" magnetic spherules, steel shards, curious wires, and heaps of volcanic ash, but has not identified anything that is unambiguously extraterrestrial - or interstellar - at this point. However, Loeb is optimistic that the crew will identify pieces of Interstellar Meteor 1 (IM1), the mysterious half-ton object that struck Earth nearly a decade ago, which he thinks could be an artifact, or "technosignature," from an alien civilization... The fireball that sparked the hunt smashed into the atmosphere on January 8, 2014, and was detected by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which keeps track of extraterrestrial impacts using a network of sensors around the world. Years later, Loeb and his student, Amir Siraj, concluded that the meteor's high velocity at impact suggested that it was interstellar in origin, a hypothesis that was ultimately supported by the United States Space Command using classified sensor data. Today Loeb posted on Medium that "by now, we have 25 spherules from the site of the first recognized interstellar meteor," with a cumulative weight of about 30 milligrams - estimated to be one part in ten million of the original fireball's mass:The success of the Interstellar Expedition constitutes the first opportunity for astronomers to learn about interstellar space by using a microscope rather than a telescope. It opens the door for a new branch of observational astronomy. Updates about the expedition are running on the Mega Screen in New York's Times Square, Motherboard reports. And Loeb writes that "If further analysis of the 50 milligrams retrieved from IM1's site will inform us that IM1's composition requires a technological origin, we will know that we are not alone." He also shared an email that responded to his online diaries:I had a heart attack four weeks ago and am now in rehab. I read your IM1 diary every day and it always gives me new courage to face life. There are still so many things to discover and I want to live long enough to see some of them. I wish you and your team all the best.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares news from Bakersfield, California:Four men were arrested in the shooting death of a 61-year-old Bakersfield woman who died after police said she confronted suspects who reportedly stole her car, according to a news release issued Wednesday. Victoria Anne Marie Hampton tracked her reportedly stolen car with an Apple air tag on March 19 without telling law enforcement, according to the Bakersfield Police Department. The coroner reported she was shot at 6:32 p.m. Two of the four suspects were 19 years old, one was 18, and one was 23.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Thursday San Francisco's mayor London Breed "proposed remaking the city's struggling downtown by tearing down abandoned retail space..." reports CNN, "and building new structures to reshape the struggling city..."Breed's comments come as San Francisco faces empty offices, a cratering commercial real estate market, and an exodus of retailers from its once-bustling downtown area, especially as pandemic work-from-home policies saw many residents leaving for less expensive parts of the country... Breed argued that an overall shift to online shopping post-pandemic has contributed to declining foot traffic in the area. "You can convert certain spaces. A Westfield Mall could become something completely different than what it currently is," she said. "We can even tear down the whole building and build a whole new soccer stadium. We can create lab space or look at it as another company in some other capacity," she added... Many tech companies in the city were quick to switch to remote work or flexible hybrid policies over the last few years, resulting in many workers filtering out of the city. Office vacancies in San Francisco have reached a 30-year high, negatively impacting the city's commercial real estate market and local retailers and restaurants, which have experienced declining sales and foot traffic. "Would I like for everyone to come back to the office five days a week? Of course, I would. But is that going to happen? Probably not. So, let's make some adjustments to do everything we can to reimagine what parts of San Francisco can be," Breed said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings," writes the New York Times. The Harvard Crimson student newspaper has the details:At least four papers authored by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino contain fraudulent data, three business school professors allege... The professors wrote that they first contacted Harvard Business School in fall 2021 with concerns of academic misconduct by Gino. "Specifically, we wrote a report about four studies for which we had accumulated the strongest evidence of fraud. We believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data," the three wrote in a blog post last week. "Perhaps dozens." Their allegations appear in several blog posts on a blog called Data Colada - the first of which offers this update:As you can see on her Harvard home page (.htm), Gino has gone on "administrative leave", and the name of her chaired position at Harvard Business School is no longer listed... We have learned (from knowledgeable sources outside of Harvard) that a few days ago Harvard requested that three of the four papers in our report be retracted. A fourth paper, discussed in today's post, had already been retracted, but we understand that Harvard requested the retraction notice be amended to include mention of this (additional) fraud. The business professors concluded there was fraud based on a quirk of Microsoft's Excel files:A little known fact about Excel files is that they are literal zip files, bundles of smaller files that Excel combines to produce a single spreadsheet. (If curious or incredulous, run any .xlsx file in your computer through the program you use for unzipping files; you will find a bunch of files organized in folder.) For instance, one file in that bundle has all the numeric values that appear on a spreadsheet, another has all the character entries, another the formatting information (e.g., Calibri vs. Cambria font), etc. Most relevant to us is a file called calcChain.xml. CalcChain tells Excel in which order to carry out the calculations in the spreadsheet. It tells Excel something like "First solve the formula in cell A1, then the one in A2, then B1, etc." CalcChain is short for 'calculation chain'. The image below shows how, when one unzips the posted Excel file, one can navigate to this calcChain.xml file. CalcChain is so useful here because it will tell you whether a cell (or row) containing a formula has been moved, and where it has been moved to. That means that we can use calcChain to go back and see what this spreadsheet may have looked like back in 2010, before it was tampered with...! We used calcChain to see whether there is evidence that the rows that were out of sequence, and that showed huge effects on the key dependent variables, had been manually tampered with. And there is. In addition, a second blog post notes that one study on honesty had also asked college students what year they were in school - and somehow 35 had all replied with a non-answer, giving as their year in school "Harvard." And suspiciously, all but one of these 35 entries were especially likely to confirm the authors' hypothesis. "This strongly suggests that these 'Harvard' observations were altered to produce the desired effect." The New York Times points out that this paper "has been cited hundreds of times by other scholars, but more recent work had cast serious doubt on its findings."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases..." Red Hat posted this week on its blog, arguing that "The engagement around CentOS Stream, the engineering levels of investment, and the new priorities we're addressing for customers and partners now make maintaining separate, redundant, repositories inefficient." Long-time Slashdot reader slack_justyb notes this means patches and changes will now hit CentOS Stream before actually hitting RHEL, which "will make it difficult for other distributions such as Alma Linux, Rocky Linux, and Oracle Linux to provide assured binary compatibility as their only source now will be ahead of what RHEL is actually using." "Some commentators are pointing out that it's possible to sign up for a free Red Hat Developer account, and obtain the source code legitimately that way," writes the Register. "This is perfectly true, but the problem is that the license agreement that you have to sign to get that account prevents you from redistributing the software." Hackaday notes that beyond the the GPL v2 license on the kernel, Red Hat also has "an additional user agreement that terminates access to updates if the code is re-published." Rocky Linux officially "remains confident in its ability to continue as a bug-for-bug compatible and freely available alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, despite changes in accessibility."While this decision does change the automation we use for building Rocky Linux, we have already created a short term mitigation and are developing the longer term strategy. There will be no disruption or change for any Rocky Linux users, collaborators, or partners... The project pledges to keep its promise to maintain the full life-span of support for Rocky 8 and 9, and to continue to produce future RHEL-compatible versions as long as the option remains, allowing organizations to maintain the flexibility, control, and freedom they rely upon for their critical infrastructure. This is the open source way. Gregory Kurtzer, founder of the Rocky Linux project, calls Red Hat's move "a minor inconvenience for the Rocky Linux team," but with "no disruption to Rocky Linux users. Moving forward we are becoming even more stable, supported, and secure." AlmaLinux also weighs in: Can you just use CentOS Stream sources? No, we are committed to remaining a downstream RHEL clone, and using CentOS Stream sources would make us upstream of RHEL. CentOS Stream sources, while being upstream of RHEL, do not always include all patches and updates that are included in RHEL packages. Is Red Hat trying to kill downstream clones? We cannot speak to Red Hat's intentions, and can only point to the things they have said publicly. We have had an incredible working relationship with Red Hat through the life of AlmaLinux OS and we hope to see that continue.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases..." Red Hat posted this week on its blog, arguing that "The engagement around CentOS Stream, the engineering levels of investment, and the new priorities we're addressing for customers and partners now make maintaining separate, redundant, repositories inefficient." Long-time Slashdot reader slack_justyb notes this means patches and changes will now hit CentOS Stream before actually hitting RHEL, which "will make it difficult for other distributions such as Alma Linux, Rocky Linux, and Oracle Linux to provide assured binary compatibility as their only source now will be ahead of what RHEL is actually using." "Some commentators are pointing out that it's possible to sign up for a free Red Hat Developer account, and obtain the source code legitimately that way," writes the Register. "This is perfectly true, but the problem is that the license agreement that you have to sign to get that account prevents you from redistributing the software." Hackaday notes that beyond the the GPL v2 license on the kernel, Red Hat also has "an additional user agreement that terminates access to updates if the code is re-published." Rocky Linux officially "remains confident in its ability to continue as a bug-for-bug compatible and freely available alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, despite changes in accessibility."While this decision does change the automation we use for building Rocky Linux, we have already created a short term mitigation and are developing the longer term strategy. There will be no disruption or change for any Rocky Linux users, collaborators, or partners... The project pledges to keep its promise to maintain the full life-span of support for Rocky 8 and 9, and to continue to produce future RHEL-compatible versions as long as the option remains, allowing organizations to maintain the flexibility, control, and freedom they rely upon for their critical infrastructure. This is the open source way. Gregory Kurtzer, founder of the Rocky Linux project, calls Red Hat's move "a minor inconvenience for the Rocky Linux team," but with "no disruption to Rocky Linux users. Moving forward we are becoming even more stable, supported, and secure." AlmaLinux also weighs in: Can you just use CentOS Stream sources? No, we are committed to remaining a downstream RHEL clone, and using CentOS Stream sources would make us upstream of RHEL. CentOS Stream sources, while being upstream of RHEL, do not always include all patches and updates that are included in RHEL packages. Is Red Hat trying to kill downstream clones? We cannot speak to Red Hat's intentions, and can only point to the things they have said publicly. We have had an incredible working relationship with Red Hat through the life of AlmaLinux OS and we hope to see that continue.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LED streetlights "shine brightly while using less energy than traditional bulbs," reports the Washington Post. After switching to LED streetlights one county in Washington state conserved 2,612,491 kilowatt-hours. But they also discovered a downside. "One year after the change began, the additional glare masked about half of the previously visible stars."Over the past decade, scientists found, the night sky has become nearly 10% brighter each year because of artificial lights, mainly LEDs emitting too much glare. Streetlights are part of the problem, as are sources such as illuminated billboards and stadium lights. Those same outdoor lights are also affecting our health. Common types of LED lights contain higher proportions of bluer wavelengths, which can affect people's nighttime patterns... Without melatonin to trigger sleepiness, people are more likely to stay awake longer. Disruptions in our circadian rhythm have been linked to cancer cases, such as breast cancer, and labeled probably carcinogenic by the World Health Organization. Other research has shown interruptions to our circadian rhythm are linked to some heart problems. The article has suggestions for your home - everything from blackout curtains to equipping lights with motion detectors or timers and dimmers. And when shopping for new bulbs, "Because our eyes are sensitive to blue light at night, doctors recommend buying LED lights with warmer-color hues, such as yellow or amber. That means using LED lights below 4,000 Kelvin." City governments are already taking this seriously, according to the article. ("Some cities, such as the District of Columbia, paused a transition to LEDs after residents complained about the bright lights disrupting their sleep.") The article even includes a photo from the International Space Station showing how two cities appear differently from space because they used a different shade of LED light for their street lights. One thing's certain: the popularity of LED lights is expected to continue:They consume up to 90% less energy and can last up to 25 times longer than traditional incandescent lights. As the most energy-efficient bulb on the market, it's no surprise that so many people are adopting the technology. The Energy Department estimated LEDs made up about 19 percent of all lighting installations in 2017, saving about 1 percent of total energy consumed in the United States. By 2035, the lights are expected to comprise 84 percent of lighting installations. Roadways, parking, building exteriors and area lights - which are applications typically high in lumens, a measure of brightness - are expected to see nearly full conversion to LED lights by 2035.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin heads the Russia-backed paramilitary Wagner Group - and was also "a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin until he launched an alleged coup," according to Wikipedia. The New York Times notes Prigozhin's remarkable ability to bypass government censorship:Despite years of creeping Kremlin control over the internet, the mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin continued to comment live on Saturday through videos, audio recordings and statements posted on the messaging app Telegram. His remarkable continued access to a public platform amid a crisis demonstrated both the limits of official restrictions and the rise of Telegram as a powerful mode of communication since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. The app, along with the proliferation of virtual private networks, has effectively loosened the information controls that the Russian authorities had tightened for years. Russian internet service providers began blocking access to Google News shortly after the authorities accused Mr. Prigozhin of organizing an armed uprising on Friday. But while unconfirmed reports surfaced of Telegram outages in some Russian cities, people within Russia continued to post on the app. CNN just reported that Prigozhin's paramilitary group "has claimed control of several military facilities and has dispatched some of his troops towards Moscow... Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons have taken up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia, according to photos published by the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti Saturday." UPDATE: CNN now reports Prigozhin "says he is turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow shortly after the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Prigozhin to halt the march."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Bitcoin on Friday shot up to its highest level in about a year," reports CNN:The cryptocurrency rose above $31,400 a coin on Friday, its highest level since 2022, before paring back its gains. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, earlier this week traded above $30,000 for the first time since April, when the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank sent investors in search of safer places to hold their cash. Bitcoin is up by about 87% this year. Its most recent gains come after a wave of interest in crypto from financial giants. BlackRock last week applied to register a bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Crypto exchange EDX Markets, backed by firms such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity Digital Assets and Citadel, also launched its digital asset trading platform this week... Despite its surge this year, bitcoin remains well below its all-time highs of more than $60,000 in 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A magical material that could effortlessly conduct electricity at room temperatures would likely transform civilization, reclaiming energy otherwise lost to electrical resistance and opening possibilities for novel technologies. Yet a claim of such a room-temperature superconductor published in March in the prestigious journal Nature, drew doubts, even suspicion by some that the results had been fabricated. But now, a group of researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago reports that it has verified a critical measurement: the apparent vanishing of electrical resistance. This result does not prove that the material is a room-temperature superconductor, but it may motivate other scientists to take a closer look. Ranga P. Dias, a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Rochester in New York and a key figure in the original research, had reported that the material appeared to be a superconductor at temperatures as warm as 70 degrees Fahrenheit -- much warmer than other superconductors -- when squeezed at a pressure of 145,000 pounds per square inch, or about 10 times what is exerted at the bottom of the ocean's deepest trenches. The high pressure means the material is unlikely to find practical use, but if the discovery is true, it could point the way to other superconductors that truly work in everyday conditions. The claim was met with skepticism because several scientific controversies have swirled around Dr. Dias, and other scientists trying to replicate the results had failed to detect any signs of superconductivity. Dr. Dias has founded a company, Unearthly Materials, to commercialize the research, raising $16.5 million in financing so far from investors. The new measurements, revealed in a preprint paper posted this month, come from a team led by Russell J. Hemley, a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Hemley declined to comment because the paper had not yet been accepted by a scientific journal. Nonetheless, he is well regarded in the field, and his report could lead to a more positive reconsideration of Dr. Dias's superconducting claim. "It may convince some people," said James J. Hamlin, a professor of physics at the University of Florida who has been a persistent critic of Dr. Dias's research. "It makes me think there might be something to it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: By pretending to be legitimate music rightsholders, two men managed to extract over $23 million in revenue from YouTube's content-ID system. Both were arrested, pleaded guilty (PDF), and now face multi-year prison terms. This week, the U.S. requested a 70-month sentence against the 'number two' of the operation, in part to deter future fraud. [...] Last year, one of the defendants confessed to his part in the copyright swindle by pleading guilty. Webster Batista admitted it was a simple scheme: find Latin American music that wasn't yet monetized on YouTube and claim the content as their own. In February of this year, the second defendant pleaded guilty. Jose Teran signed a plea agreement admitting that he was part of the conspiracy, engaging in wire fraud and money laundering. The Content ID scam was straightforward, Teran's plea agreement revealed. The defendants simply identified unmonetized music and uploaded those songs to YouTube. [W]e discovered there were recorded songs of musicians and bands on the internet that were not being monetized. We began searching and downloading these songs. Once songs were downloaded, Batista would then upload them to Y.T. as mp3 files." "We falsely claimed legal ownership over these songs to receive royalty payments," Teran adds, noting that the scheme brought in millions. To collect these payments Batista launched the company MediaMuv, which became a trusted YouTube Content ID member through a third-party company referred to by the initials A.R. As the scheme grew, more employees were hired and tasked with finding more unmonetized tracks. Despite pleading guilty, both defendants face a multi-year stint in prison. Teran will be the first to be sentenced and this week, the defendant and the prosecution announced their respective positions. According to the defense, Teran wasn't the lead of the operation. As an aspiring musician he looked up to his co-defendant, who is portrayed as the brains behind the operation. [...] Teran and Batista at one point had between five and eight people working for them. These employees used special software to find unmonetized music which they would then add to their catalog, to exploit YouTube's Content ID system. "Defendant, Jose Teran, engaged in a concerted effort -- over nearly five years -- to steal royalty proceeds from approximately 50,000 song titles, causing a loss of more than $23,000,000.00," the prosecution writes (PDF). "A 70-month sentence is undoubtedly substantial but given Mr. Teran's conduct and the need to deter future fraud, it is entirely warranted," the Government's sentencing memorandum concludes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

3M will pay $10.3 billion to settle lawsuits over contamination of drinking water with PFAS, a class of chemicals known as "forever chemicals" that have been linked to health problems. NPR reports: The deal would compensate water providers for pollution with per- and polyfluorinated substances, known collectively as PFAS -- a broad class of chemicals used in nonstick, water- and grease-resistant products such as clothing and cookware. Described as "forever chemicals" because they don't degrade naturally in the environment, PFAS have been linked to a variety of health problems, including liver and immune-system damage and some cancers. The compounds have been detected at varying levels in drinking water around the nation. The Environmental Protection Agency in March proposed strict limits on two common types, PFOA and PFOS, and said it wanted to regulate four others. Water providers would be responsible for monitoring their systems for the chemicals. The agreement would settle a case that was scheduled for trial earlier this month involving a claim by Stuart, Florida, one of about 300 communities that have filed similar suits against companies that produced firefighting foam or the PFAS it contained. 3M chairman Mike Roman said the deal was "an important step forward" that builds on the company's decision in 2020 to phase out PFOA and PFOS and its investments in "state-of-the-art water filtration technology in our chemical manufacturing operations." The company, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, will halt all PFAS production by the end of 2025, he said. The settlement will be paid over 13 years and could reach as high as $12.5 billion, depending on how many public water systems detect PFAS during testing that EPA has required in the next three years, said Dallas-based attorney Scott Summy, one of the lead attorneys for those suing 3M and other manufacturers. The payment will help cover costs of filtering PFAS from systems where it's been detected and testing others, he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon plans to more than double its investment in India in the next seven years, the e-commerce group said, joining a roster of other high-profile American giants ramping up commitment to the South Asian market after meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week. From a report: The e-commerce group has invested about $11 billion in India to date and plans to pour another $15 billion more by 2030, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy said Friday. The vast majority of the new capital is likely earmarked for AWS expansion in India. The company said last month that it plans to invest $12.7 billion into its cloud business in the South Asian nation by 2030.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In August, white-hat hackers at the DEFCON hacker convention will compete to try and breach the computer systems on a satellite in orbit. It took four years, but "this year, we are in space for real," said Steve Colenzo, Technology Transfer Lead for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate in Rome, New York, and one of the contest organizers. From a report: Hack-A-Sat 4, taking place live at DEFCON Aug. 10-13 in Las Vegas, will be the first-ever hacking contest staged on a vehicle in orbit. In previous years, the contests used genuine working satellite hardware, but running safely on the ground. [...] Hack-A-Sat 4 is an attack/defend contest in which teams compete to hack each other's systems while defending their own. It is being staged by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Space Force. More than 380 teams signed up for the qualification round in April, and the eight top-scoring ones, which include contestants from Australia, Germany, Italy and Poland, as well as the U.S., will participate in the finals at DEFCON. "We always knew our objective was to do this in space," Colenzo said. But when, back in 2020, organizers asked satellite operators if they could stage a hacking contest on their space assets, "The answer, and there was really no hesitation, the answer was always no." Hack-A-Sat organizers realized that, if they wanted to reach their objective of staging such a contest in space, they would have to launch their own satellite, Colenzo said. The Moonlighter satellite was launched on a SpaceX rideshare rocket to the International Space Station June 5 by the U.S. government-backed non-profit The Aerospace Corporation. It's a foot-long toaster-sized cubesat satellite with extendable solar panels. If all goes according to plan, Moonlighter will be deployed into orbit early in July, Project leader Aaron Myrick told Newsweek. Moonlighter is designed to be hacked, he said, and there are numerous safety measures in place. "The first thing that we said was that propulsion was off the table," Moonlighter can't change its own orbit, which might make it a hazard to other satellites. And its ground controllers have the ability to reboot the system, kicking out any intruders and restoring their control.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last year, the CEO of messaging app IRL repeatedly said it had 20 million monthly active users, who chatted about shared interests and planned real-world events together. Today, a spokesperson for the startup said an investigation by the board of directors concluded 95% of those users were "automated or from bots." The Information: As a result of the probe, the spokesperson said the company would shut down and return capital to shareholders, two months after it suspended the founder and CEO, Abraham Shafi, for alleged misconduct. IRL raised $200 million from SoftBank's Vision Fund, Founders Fund and others, before coming under scrutiny in a series of articles in The Information, which questioned its user number claims.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reuters reports:U.S. intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said. America's Director of National Intelligence was responding to March legislation requiring declassification (within 90 days) of any information on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (or "WIV") and the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. One key finding in the just-released report? "We continue to have no indication that the Wuhan Institute of Virology's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic." The information available to the U.S. Intelligence Community "indicates that the WIV first possessed SARS-CoV-2 in late December 2019, when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes." And in addition, "All Intelligence Community agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon." Beyond that, the report also emphasizes that "Almost all Intelligence Community agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered," adding "Most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination."The National Intelligence Council and four other Intelligence Community agencies assess that the initial human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was caused by natural exposure to an infected animal that carried SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2... The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting. The only two outliers appear to be the Department of Energy, which gives "low confidence" support to the lab-leak theory, and the FBI (whose Trump-appointed director "said he couldn't share many details of the agency's assessment because they were classified.") Addressing rumors online, the report notes that the lab has performed public health-related research with the army, such as work on vaccines and therapeutics. This included working "with several viruses, including coronaviruses, but no known viruses that could plausibly be a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2." And while several researchers were ill in the fall of 2019, their symptoms "were consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19... [T]he researchers' symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19... [T]hey experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with COVID-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to COVID-19." And there's no indication any of them were ever hospitalized for COVID-19 symptoms.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build includes improved support for passkeys, a new standard for passwordless authentication, as well as support for Unicode 15 emoji, changes to Windows' location-based time zone setting, and a handful of bug fixes. Microsoft has also rolled back proposed changes to the File Explorer that would have removed several relatively obscure settings from the Folder Options window. Ars Technica reports: Though the Microsoft Edge browser has supported passkeys for a while now, this week's Insider build expands support to "any app or website that supports passkeys," which can use built-in Windows Hello authentication (either via a PIN, fingerprint reader, or face-scanning camera) to sign you in without requiring a password. You can also view the full list of passkeys that have been created on your device and delete individual passkeys if you no longer want to use them. If your browser natively supports passkeys and has its own user interface for handling them, you'll need to select "Windows Hello or external security key" to use the built-in Windows UI instead. The new Insider build also adds support for Unicode 15 emoji, a few changes to Windows' location-based time zone setting, and a handful of fixes. But most notably for people who complained about last week's Insider build, Microsoft has rolled back proposed changes that would have removed several relatively obscure settings from the Folder Options window in the File Explorer. "As is normal for the Dev Channel, we will often try things out and get feedback and adjust based on the feedback we receive," wrote Microsoft's Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc in a post detailing the new build's changes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ben Lang, writing for Road to VR: In a somewhat surprising move, Apple confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will support WebXR. Prior to the reveal of the headset, it was an open question whether the company would entertain the idea of XR experiences through the browser, and even more so if the company would adopt the relatively new WebXR standard. But now Apple has confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will indeed support WebXR. The company confirmed as much in its WWDC 2023 developer talk titled Meet Safari for Spatial Computing, in which the Apple explained the version of Safari running on Vision Pro is "truly is Safari with the same WebKit engine underneath, plus some thoughtful additions for [Vision Pro]." Thanks to Safari on visionOS being a fully-featured version of the browser, existing websites should work exactly as expected, the company says. But to go beyond flat web pages, Safari on visionOS includes support for WebXR for immersive experriences and the new tag for 3D models. For the time being, WebXR capabilities on Safari for visionOS are still hidden through a developer toggle, but once enabled it will support the 'immersive-vr' session type, and the 'hand-tracking' feature for user input. WebXR allows developers to build fully immersive content that can be delivered through a web browser. It's possible to create fully interactive VR games and experiences, like this Beat Saber clone, which can run across various headsets and browsers using the same code, just like a web page can render the same way between different devices and browsers. Apple plans to make WebXR a mainline feature in visionOS Safari after more time collaborating with the rest of the industry on the WebXR standard. With Apple now officially supporting WebXR, the standard can claim truly widespread support [...].Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The NFC Forum has revealed a roadmap for NFC technology that extends from now to 2028. The roadmap outlines five key initiatives for the direction of the technology over the next two to five years, including increasing the range of NFC connections, increasing wireless charging over NFC, enabling multiple-purpose taps, giving NFC-enabled smartphones Point-of-Sale functionality, and the ability to share how products should be recycled. Android Authority reports: Currently, NFC connections only work at a distance of 5mm. However, the NFC Forum wants to extend this distance by four to six times. Not only would this allow contactless payments to become truly contactless, but it would also make transactions faster and easier. Even a modest change is said to be enough to reduce the precision needed to align the antenna. Improving the range was far from the only matter the collective was looking into. The group shared that it wanted to increase wireless charging over NFC from 1W to 3W. Doing so would allow for wireless power and charging in smaller devices. It could even allow the creation of new applications previously left unexplored. Another initiative is to enable multiple-purpose taps. This would reportedly make supporting several actions with a single tap possible. Additionally, the group mentioned giving NFC-enabled smartphones Point-of-Sale functionality and the ability to share how products should be recycled.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Police forces in the UK are seeing a "record number" of false calls to 999, the UK's emergency services number, and the culprit is apparently Android. As the BBC reports, Android 12 added an easy-access feature for emergency services: just press the power button five times, and your phone will dial emergency services for you. That's apparently pretty easy to do accidentally when a phone is sitting in your pocket, or if you have a wonky power button, resulting in a surge of totally silent accidental calls to emergency dispatch. The National Police Chiefs Council tweeted earlier this month that "Nationally, all emergency services are currently experiencing record high 999 call volumes. There's a few reasons for this, but one we think is having a significant impact is an update to Android smartphones." The BBC report says one department "received 169 silent 999 calls between 00:00 and 19:00 BST on Sunday alone." In response to these most recent complaints, Google says it's working on a fix with Android OEMs. The funny thing is, Android 12 -- and this easy emergency call feature -- came out a year and a half ago. Thanks to the unique (uniquely bad) way that Android is rolled out, the feature is only now hitting enough people to become a national problem. Google's Pixel devices get new Android updates immediately, but everyone else can take months or years to get new versions of Android because it's up to your device manufacturer to make new, bespoke Android builds for every device they have ever released. When this landed on Pixel devices in 2021, it was immediately flagged as a problem by some people, with one Reddit post calling it "dangerous." Since then, there has been a steady stream of posts warning people about it. Until a patch comes out, Google's current recommendation is to turn the feature off. While Google developed the feature, it's up to the manufacturers to decide how and when the emergency SOS feature works. Google said in a statement: "To help these manufacturers prevent unintentional emergency calls on their devices, Android is providing them with additional guidance and resources. We anticipate device manufacturers will roll out updates to their users that address this issue shortly. Users that continue to experience this issue should switch Emergency SOS off for the next couple of days."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The SEC has approved the first leveraged cryptocurrency ETF in the United States, which will allow customers to gain bitcoin exposure by putting up only half the value of the bitcoin. The ETF is set to launch on Tuesday and corresponds with the CME Bitcoin Futures Daily Roll Index. CoinDesk reports: The regulator has not denied the application for the 2x ETF, Volatility Shares Chief Investment Officer Stuart Barton said, paving the way for its launch this upcoming Tuesday. "It's exciting to see digital assets in the ETF wrapper," Barton said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TeleSign, a U.S.-based fraud prevention company, has allegedly collected data from millions of EU citizens and processed it in the United States using automated tools without their knowledge. The complaint "alleges that TeleSign is in violation of the GDPR's provisions that ban use of automated profiling tools, as well as rules that require affirmative consent be given to process EU citizen's data," reports The Register. From the report: The complaint was filed by Austrian privacy advocacy group noyb, helmed by lawyer Max Schrems, and it doesn't pull any punches in its claims that TeleSign, through its former Belgian parent company BICS, secretly collected data on cellphone users around the world. That data, noyb alleges, was fed into an automated system that generates "reputation scores" that TeleSign sells to its customers, which includes TikTok, Salesforce, Microsoft and AWS, among others, for verifying the identity of a person behind a phone number and preventing fraud. BICS, which acquired TeleSign in 2017, describes itself as "a global provider of international wholesale connectivity and interoperability services," in essence operating as an interchange for various national cellular networks. Per noyb, BICS operates in more than 200 countries around the world and "gets detailed information (e.g. the regularity of completed calls, call duration, long-term inactivity, range activity, or successful incoming traffic) [on] about half of the worldwide mobile phone users." That data is regularly shared with TeleSign, noyb alleges, without any notification to the customers whose data is being collected and used. "Your phone provider likely forwards data to BICS who then forwards it to TeleSign. TeleSign generates a 'trust score' about you and sells phone data to third parties like Microsoft, Salesforce or TikTok -- without anyone being informed or giving consent," Schrems said. [...] When BICS acquired TeleSign in 2017, it began to fall under the partial control of BICS' parent company, Belgian telecom giant Proximus. Proximus held a partial stake in BICS, which Proximus spun off from its own operations in 1997. In 2021, Proximus bought out BICS' other shareholders, making it the sole owner of both the telecom interchange and TeleSign. With that in mind, noyb is also leveling charges against Proximus and BICS. In its complaint, noyb said Proximus was asked by EU citizens from various countries to provide records of the data TeleSign processed, as is their right under Article 15 of the GDPR. [...] Noyb is seeking cessation of all data transfers from BICS to TeleSign, processing of said data, and is requesting deletion of all unlawfully transmitted data. It's also asking for Belgian data protection authorities to fine Proximus, which noyb said could reach as high as $257 million -- a mere 4 percent of Proximus's global turnover.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A US judge has fined two lawyers and a law firm $5,000 after fake citations generated by ChatGPT were submitted in a court filing. A district judge in Manhattan ordered Steven Schwartz, Peter LoDuca and their law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman to pay the fine after fictitious legal research was used in an aviation injury claim. Schwartz had admitted that ChatGPT, a chatbot that churns out plausible text responses to human prompts, invented six cases he referred to in a legal brief in a case against the Colombian airline Avianca. The judge P Kevin Castel said in a written opinion there was nothing "inherently improper" about using artificial intelligence for assisting in legal work, but lawyers had to ensure their filings were accurate. "Technological advances are commonplace and there is nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance," Castel wrote. "But existing rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings." The judge said the lawyers and their firm "abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted nonexistent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question." Levidow, Levidow & Oberman said in a statement on Thursday that its lawyers "respectfully" disagreed with the court that they had acted in bad faith. "We made a good-faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth," it said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

American retailers see opportunities in the primary-care business. From a report: With his long white coat, stethoscope, genially soothing manner and wonky eagerness to discuss "population health management" and "patient-centred" medicine, Ronald Searcy seems the Platonic ideal of a primary-care doctor. The most unusual thing about him is where he works: a compact facility complete with examination rooms, dentist's office, phlebotomy lab and X-ray room tucked into a Walmart in north-west Arkansas. Since 2019, Walmart has opened 32 of these "health centres" in five states; by the end of next year it plans to more than double that number, and expand into two more states. Walmart is not the only big company expanding its medical offerings. [...] What do these companies see in the medical business? The answer, befitting America's Byzantine and rent-filled health-care system, is both simple and complex. The simple answer is money. Americans spend a stunning amount of it on health: roughly 18% of GDP in 2021, far exceeding the rich-country average of about 10% and more than double the ratio of some, such as South Korea, with healthier and longer-lived populations. Americans' spending is forecast to rise by 5.4% per year over the next eight years, outpacing economic growth and accounting for almost 20% of GDP by 2031. The bulk of that spending will come from Medicaid and Medicare, federal programmes that cover health-care costs for, respectively, poor people and over-65s. The complex part reflects changes in how insurers, including Medicaid and Medicare, pay for coverage; as well as changes in how consumers are willing to get it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Warnings over the safety of OceanGate's Titan submersible were repeatedly dismissed by the CEO of the company, email exchanges with a leading deep sea exploration specialist show. From a report: In messages seen by the BBC, Rob McCallum told OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush that he was potentially putting his clients at risk and urged him to stop using the sub until it had been classified by an independent body. Mr Rush responded that he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation". The tense exchange ended after OceanGate's lawyers threatened legal action, Mr McCallum said. "I think you are potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic," he wrote to the OceanGate boss in March 2018. "In your race to Titanic you are mirroring that famous catch cry: 'She is unsinkable'". In the messages, Mr Rush, who was among five passengers who died when the Titan experienced what officials believe was a "catastrophic implosion" on Sunday, expresses frustration with the criticism of Titan's safety measures. "We have heard the baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone' way too often," he wrote. "I take this as a serious personal insult." Mr McCallum told the BBC that he repeatedly urged the company to seek certification for the Titan before using it for commercial tours. The vessel was never certified or classed. "Until a sub is classed, tested and proven it should not be used for commercial deep dive operations," he wrote in one email. "I implore you to take every care in your testing and sea trials and to be very, very conservative," he added. "As much as I appreciate entrepreneurship and innovation, you are potentially putting an entire industry at risk." In his response a few days later, Mr Rush defended his business and his credentials. He said OceanGate's "engineering focused, innovative approach... flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy, but that is the nature of innovation".Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The EPA is assembling its first-ever National Environmental Youth Advisory Council, a group of young people to weigh in on issues that affect their communities. From a report: "We can't tackle the environmental challenges of our time without input from our younger communities, who've long been at the forefront of social movements," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release yesterday. The worst effects of climate change are still ahead as greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels keep building up in Earth's atmosphere. The actions policymakers take today to curb that pollution will decide what kind of planet younger generations will inherit. So it makes sense for the EPA to create seats for them at the table.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A stark business reality faced Reddit before a user uprising engulfed its site this month: slowing sales growth. From a report: Reddit's revenue rose 38% in 2022 to about $670 million last year, two people familiar with the matter said, faster than many other internet ad firms but a steep slowdown from the more than doubling of revenue the company experienced in 2021 over 2020. The slowdown adds to uncertainty about Reddit's hopes of going public. It comes in the wake of a highly public battle between Reddit and third-party apps that connect to Reddit and are popular with users and moderators. The battle has highlighted the challenges for many internet firms that rely on content from users but are trying to build profit-making businesses. And the 2022 sales figure, which hasn't been previously reported, suggests Reddit would face a significant valuation haircut from its last private round if public investors valued it similarly to peer companies. The 2022 revenue multiple at which Snap and Meta Platforms are trading suggests Reddit is worth just over $3.3 billion. That's about one-third the value private investors put on the company less than two years ago, when Reddit last raised money.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cyberattacks on US hospitals are on the rise, adding a layer of financial pressure onto an industry still struggling to recover from the pandemic. From a report: Health facilities have been hit with 226 digital incursions affecting 36 million people this year, on track to be more widespread than 2022 attacks, according to John Riggi, the national advisor for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association. Cyber raids on hospitals more than tripled in the past five years and have become more sophisticated, just when hospitals are coping with higher costs for labor and supplies and grappling with staff shortages. The industry in 2022 had what Moody's Investors Service analyst Matthew Cahill called "arguably the worst year in health-care history" for financial performance. "There's really no wiggle room for hospitals to deal with this," Cahill said in an interview. He said cyber risk has contributed to downgrades, including one at Missouri's Capital Region Medical Center last year following a breach. Health-care facilities are attractive targets for cybercriminals because they hold ample personal data on patients, Matt Fabian and Lisa Washburn of Municipal Market Analytics wrote in a research note. Staffing shortages and wide use of third-party technology make the sector particularly vulnerable. The problem is particularly dire at smaller and rural hospitals, which have more financial distress and tend to use older technology. In an April note, Moody's cited an IBM survey that showed hospitals for 12 years have had the highest average cyberattack cost per industry, with $10.1 million in 2022. The AHA's Riggi said that while most hospitals have insurance, the cost to recover from attacks could be up to 10 times what insurance pays out.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta plans to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada once a parliament-approved legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers comes into effect, the company said on Thursday. From a report: The legislation, known as the Online News Act, was approved by the Senate upper chamber earlier on Thursday and will become law after receiving royal assent from the governor general, a formality. The legislation was proposed after complaints from Canada's media industry, which wants tighter regulation of tech companies to prevent them from elbowing news businesses out of the online advertising market. "Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act taking effect," Meta said in a statement. Facebook had telegraphed such a move for weeks, saying news has no economic value to the company and that its users do not use the platform for news. The act outlines rules to force platforms such as Facebook and Alphabet's Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content, a step similar to a groundbreaking law passed in Australia in 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The US Supreme Court sided with a Coinbase unit in a ruling that reinforces the ability of companies to channel customer and employee disputes into arbitration. From a report: The justices, voting 5-4, ruled that lawsuits filed in federal court must be put on hold while a defendant presses an appeal that would send the case to arbitration. Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said allowing district courts to move forward as the appeal is ongoing would reduce the benefits of arbitration. "If the district court could move forward with pre-trial and trial proceedings while the appeal on arbitrability was ongoing, then many of the asserted benefits of arbitration (efficiency, less expense, less intrusive discovery, and the like) would be irretrievably lost," Kavanaugh wrote. Business groups rallied behind Coinbase in the case, saying that letting litigation go forward would impose unnecessary costs. Consumer advocates said judges should have the discretion to decide which claims should proceed during appeal, as courts do with other areas of the law. Coinbase is battling claims by Abraham Bielski, who said the crypto company should compensate him for $31,000 he lost after he gave a scammer remote access to his account. In a second suit that was before the high court, Coinbase is accused of holding a $1.2 million Dogecoin sweepstakes without adequately disclosing that entrants didn't have to buy or sell the cryptocurrency.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Sony's PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, believed that Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard wasn't about locking games as Xbox exclusives, according to a newly unsealed email. Microsoft counsel revealed the exchange between Ryan and Chris Deering, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, discussing the announcement of the deal last year. "It is not an exclusivity play at all," said Ryan. "They're thinking bigger than that and they have the cash to make moves like this. I've spent a fair amount of time with both Phil [Spencer] Bobby [Kotick] over the past day and I'm pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for many years to come." The surprise revelation runs counter to Sony's arguments against Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal and its filings with regulators. Sony has maintained it fears Microsoft could make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox or even sabotage the PlayStation versions of the game. Ryan went on to say, "We have some good stuff cooking," referring to Sony's Bungie acquisition which Sony announced just days after the email exchange. "I'm not complacent, and I'd rather this hadn't happened, but we'll be OK, we'll be more than OK." Microsoft initially offered Call of Duty on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement between Activision and Sony ends. Ryan called that offer "inadequate on many levels." Microsoft eventually offered Sony a 10-year deal for Call of Duty on PlayStation, but the company has refused to sign this so far.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The United Parcel Service (UPS) says fraudsters have been harvesting phone numbers and other information from its online shipment tracking tool in Canada to send highly targeted SMS phishing (a.k.a. "smishing") messages that spoofed UPS and other top brands. The missives addressed recipients by name, included details about recent orders, and warned that those orders wouldn't be shipped unless the customer paid an added delivery fee. In a snail mail letter sent this month to Canadian customers, UPS Canada Ltd. said it is aware that some package recipients have received fraudulent text messages demanding payment before a package can be delivered, and that it has been working with partners in its delivery chain to try to understand how the fraud was occurring. "During that review, UPS discovered a method by which a person who searched for a particular package or misused a package look-up tool could obtain more information about the delivery, potentially including a recipient's phone number," the letter reads. "Because this information could be misused by third parties, including potentially in a smishing scheme, UPS has taken steps to limit access to that information." The written notice goes on to say UPS believes the data exposure "affected packages for a small group of shippers and some of their customers from February 1, 2022 to April 24, 2023." [...] In a statement provided to KrebsOnSecurity, Sandy Springs, Ga. based UPS [NYSE:UPS] said the company has been working with partners in the delivery chain to understand how that fraud was being perpetrated, as well as with law enforcement and third-party experts to identify the cause of this scheme and to put a stop to it. "Law enforcement has indicated that there has been an increase in smishing impacting a number of shippers and many different industries," reads an email from Brian Hughes, director of financial and strategy communications at UPS. "Out of an abundance of caution, UPS is sending privacy incident notification letters to individuals in Canada whose information may have been impacted," Hughes said. "We encourage our customers and general consumers to learn about the ways they can stay protected against attempts like this by visiting the UPS Fight Fraud website."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Quality of new vehicles sold in the United States is declining as factors such as growing use of technology and lower build quality of certain parts are making the models more "problematic", according to automotive consultant J.D. Power. Reuters reports: Build quality of certain parts such as audio systems and cup-holders have resulted in quality issues, the report said, which collected data from 93,380 purchasers and lessees of 2023 model-year vehicles. Automakers have been leaning on software and technology as they rush to roll out innovative models amid easing supply constraints and labor shortages. Problems per 100 vehicles (PP100) rose 30 PP100 during the past two years, the report said. A lower score reflects higher vehicle quality. Quality ratings of Tesla, which is not officially ranked among other brands in the study as it did not meet ranking criteria, increased by 31 PP100 year-over-year to 257 PP100 in 2023. Electronic touch-point designed door handles offered on new vehicles have also become an issue, with seven of the 10 most problematic models seen in battery electric vehicles, the report said. Dodge ranked the highest overall in terms of initial quality, while Chrysler and Volvo were jointly ranked lowest, according to J.D. Power. The wide range of quality problems in the automotive industry is "a phenomenon not seen in the 37-year history of the Initial Quality Study," said J.D Power's senior director of auto benchmarking Frank Hanley. "Today's new vehicles are more complex -- offering new and exciting technology -- but not always satisfying owners," Hanley added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a report (PDF) from the Los Angeles City Tourism Commission, E3 has been canceled in LA in 2024 and 2025. The Verge reports: Apparently, the city does not expect E3 to return in 2024 or 2025. This news seems at odds with the messaging from E3's organizers, ReedPop and the ESA. Earlier this year, the ESA -- the trade organization that runs E3 -- announced it was partnering with ReedPop, the entertainment company that runs large fan conventions like New York Comic-Con and Penny Arcade Expo, to run E3 2023. After the covid-19 pandemic shuttered in-person events between 2020 and 2022, 2023 was meant to mark the in-person return of the video game industry's biggest event of the year. However, E3 2023 was canceled, with ReedPop global vice president of gaming Kyle Marsden-Kish stating the reason why was out of consideration that publishers wouldn't have game demos or reels available in time. But if E3 2024 and 2025 are also canceled, it suggests there is something else preventing E3's return or that its organizers are considering moving it out of Los Angeles. [...] The press release announcing E3 2023's cancellation hinted that ESA and ReedPop would work on future E3 events. In an email to The Verge, the ESA wrote, "ESA is currently having conversations about E3 2024 (and beyond), and no final decisions about the event have been made at this time."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: A significant proportion of people paid to train AI models may be themselves outsourcing that work to AI, a new study has found. It takes an incredible amount of data to train AI systems to perform specific tasks accurately and reliably. Many companies pay gig workers on platforms like Mechanical Turk to complete tasks that are typically hard to automate, such as solving CAPTCHAs, labeling data and annotating text. This data is then fed into AI models to train them. The workers are poorly paid and are often expected to complete lots of tasks very quickly. No wonder some of them may be turning to tools like ChatGPT to maximize their earning potential. But how many? To find out, a team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) hired 44 people on the gig work platform Amazon Mechanical Turk to summarize 16 extracts from medical research papers. Then they analyzed their responses using an AI model they'd trained themselves that looks for telltale signals of ChatGPT output, such as lack of variety in choice of words. They also extracted the workers' keystrokes in a bid to work out whether they'd copied and pasted their answers, an indicator that they'd generated their responses elsewhere. They estimated that somewhere between 33% and 46% of the workers had used AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT. It's a percentage that's likely to grow even higher as ChatGPT and other AI systems become more powerful and easily accessible, according to the authors of the study, which has been shared on arXiv (PDF) and is yet to be peer-reviewed. Using AI-generated data to train AI could introduce further errors into already error-prone models. Large language models regularly present false information as fact. If they generate incorrect output that is itself used to train other AI models, the errors can be absorbed by those models and amplified over time, making it more and more difficult to work out their origins, says Ilia Shumailov, a junior research fellow in computer science at Oxford University, who was not involved in the project. Even worse, there's no simple fix. "The problem is, when you're using artificial data, you acquire the errors from the misunderstandings of the models and statistical errors," he says. "You need to make sure that your errors are not biasing the output of other models, and there's no simple way to do that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The US government is providing a conditional $9.2 billion loan to Ford for the construction of three battery factories, the largest government backing for a US automaker since the 2009 financial crisis. "The enormous loan [...] marks a watershed moment for President Joe Biden's aggressive industrial policy meant to help American manufacturers catch up to China in green technologies," reports Bloomberg. From the report: The new factories that will eventually supply Ford's expansion into electric vehicles are already under construction in Kentucky and Tennessee through a joint venture called BlueOval SK, owned by the Michigan automaker and South Korean battery giant SK On Co. Ford plans to make as many as 2 million EVs by 2026, a huge increase from the roughly 132,000 it produced last year. The three-factory buildout by BlueOval plus an adjacent Ford EV assembly unit have an estimated price tag of $11.4 billion. BlueOval was previously awarded subsidies by both state governments. That means taxpayers would be providing low-interest financing for almost all of the cost. Ford's cars and SUVs made with domestic batteries will also be eligible for billions of dollars in incentives embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act's $370 billion in clean-energy funding, part of the historic climate measure narrowly passed into law about a year ago. The US government will subsidize manufacturing of batteries, and buyers could qualify for additional tax rebates of up to $7,500 per vehicle. The rush of incentives, government lending and private-sector investment has led to a manufacturing boom in the wake of the IRA. More than 100 battery and electric-vehicle production projects are announced or already under construction in the US, representing about $200 billion in total investments. "Not since the advent of the auto industry 100 years ago have we seen an investment like that," says Gary Silberg, KPMG's global automotive sector leader.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this week, Twitch introduced Content Classification Labels to help streamers label their content when they're doing something "mature." Streamers are supposed to use Content Classification Labels when their content contains the following: Mature-Rated Games; Sexual Themes; Drugs, Intoxication or Excessive Tobacco Use; Violent and Graphic Depictions; Significant Profanity or Vulgarity; and/or Gambling. Interestingly, kissing or licking a microphone falls under "Sexual Themes." From a report: According to Twitch's FAQ, "Examples of sexual themes include prolonged or repeated kissing of another individual or object, detailed non-educational discussions of sexual topics or experiences, and content or behavior that is very likely to elicit a mature chat conversation." Those who love ASMR will know that repeating kisses on a mic is a classic ASMR move. The FAQ addresses this, saying: "To be more direct -- many ASMR practices are focused on mindfulness and are not sexual, but we consider kissing or licking a microphone to fall within Sexual Themes." Additionally, hot tub streams and pole dancing will fall under Sexual Themes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Starting this fall, students enrolled in Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science (CS50) will be encouraged to use AI to help them debug code, give feedback on their designs, and answer individual questions about error messages and unfamiliar lines of code. PCMag reports: "Our own hope is that, through AI, we can eventually approximate a 1:1 teacher [to] student ratio for every student in CS50, as by providing them with software-based tools that, 24/7, can support their learning at a pace and in a style that works best for them individually," says CS50 professor David J. Malan, as reported by The Harvard Crimson. It's a swift turnaround from the last school year: Harvard did not have an AI policy at the end of the fall 2022 semester. The new approach will not use ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot, both of which are popular among programmers. Malan says the tools are "currently too helpful." Instead, Harvard has developed its own large language model, a "CS50 bot" that will be "similar in spirit," but will focus on "leading students toward an answer rather than handing it to them," he says. CS50 is also available for non-Harvard students to take on the online platform edX. The new AI policy will extend to the edX version. "Even if you are not a student at Harvard, you are welcome to "take" this course for free by working your way through the course's eleven weeks of material," says the site. Teachers at other institutions can also license the material for their own courses. "Providing support that's tailored to students' specific questions has long been a challenge at scale via edX and OpenCourseWare more generally, with so many students online, so these features will benefit students both on campus and off," Malan says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: The legal research and public records data broker LexisNexis is providing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with tools to target people who may potentially commit a crime -- before any actual crime takes place, according to a contract document obtained by The Intercept. LexisNexis then allows ICE to track the purported pre-criminals' movements. The unredacted contract overview provides a rare look at the controversial $16.8 million agreement between LexisNexis and ICE, a federal law enforcement agency whose surveillance of and raids against migrant communities are widely criticized as brutal, unconstitutional, and inhumane. "The purpose of this program is mass surveillance at its core," said Julie Mao, an attorney and co-founder of Just Futures Law, which is suing LexisNexis over allegations it illegally buys and sells personal data. Mao told The Intercept the ICE contract document, which she reviewed for The Intercept, is "an admission and indication that ICE aims to surveil individuals where no crime has been committed and no criminal warrant or evidence of probable cause." While the company has previously refused to answer any questions about precisely what data it's selling to ICE or to what end, the contract overview describes LexisNexis software as not simply a giant bucket of personal data, but also a sophisticated analytical machine that purports to detect suspicious activity and scrutinize migrants -- including their locations. The document, a "performance of work statement" made by LexisNexis as part of its contract with ICE, was obtained by journalist Asher Stockler through a public records request and shared with The Intercept. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a subsidiary of LexisNexis's parent company, inked the contract with ICE, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, in 2021. The document reveals that over 11,000 ICE officials, including within the explicitly deportation-oriented Enforcement and Removal Operations branch, were using LexisNexis as of 2021. "This includes supporting all aspects of ICE screening and vetting, lead development, and criminal analysis activities," the document says. In practice, this means ICE is using software to "automate" the hunt for suspicious-looking blips in the data, or links between people, places, and property. It is unclear how such blips in the data can be linked to immigration infractions or criminal activity, but the contract's use of the term "automate" indicates that ICE is to some extent letting computers make consequential conclusions about human activity. The contract further notes that the LexisNexis analysis includes "identifying potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize." (ICE did not respond to a request for comment.) "LexisNexis Risk Solutions prides itself on the responsible use of data, and the contract with the Department of Homeland Security encompasses only data allowed for such uses," said LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman. She says the company's work with ICE doesn't violate the law or federal policy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed new rules to crack down on hidden fees charged by cable and satellite video providers. "My administration's top priority is lowering the cost of living for the middle class, and that includes cracking down on companies' use of junk fees to hide true costs from families, who end up paying more as a result," Biden said in a statement on Tuesday. Ars Technica reports: As Biden noted, the FCC "proposed a new rule that would require cable and satellite TV providers to give consumers the all-in price for the service they're offering up front." The proposed rule would force companies like Comcast, Charter Spectrum, and DirecTV to publish more accurate prices. Biden continued: "Too often, these companies hide additional junk fees on customer bills disguised as "broadcast TV" or "regional sports" fees that in reality pay for no additional services. These fees really add up: according to one report, they increase customer bills by nearly 25 percent of the price of base service." FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel first floated pricing transparency rules for the TV services offered by cable and satellite companies in March. That effort took a step forward on Tuesday when the commission approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that seeks public comment on rules that would force video providers to offer accurate prices in advertising. "Consumers who choose a video service based on an advertised monthly price may be surprised by unexpected fees related to the cost of video programming that raise the amount of the bill significantly," the NPRM said. The cable and satellite TV companies' practice of listing "Broadcast TV" and "Regional Sports Network" fees separately from the advertised price "can be potentially misleading and interpreted as a government-imposed tax or fee, instead of a company-imposed service fee increase," and make it hard for customers to compare prices across providers, the FCC said. The docket is available here, and comments will be accepted for 60 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register. The FCC said its proposal "would require cable operators and DBS [direct broadcast satellite] providers to clearly and prominently display the total cost of video programming service." The FCC is also seeking comment on whether it has the authority to impose similar requirements on other types of video providers. But Rosenworcel reportedly said in a congressional hearing that the FCC's authority under US law doesn't extend to streaming services.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The courtroom showdown between the FTC and Microsoft over the tech company's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard kicked off this morning. First announced in early 2022, the pending transaction has been scrutinized by various global regulatory bodies. Xbox has frantically worked to appease their concerns. While addressing its potentially dominant position, Microsoft lamented its third-place position and admitted defeat in the ongoing "console wars." Part of Microsoft's current legal strategy is demonstrating the domineering lead PlayStation and Nintendo have established in the gaming industry. Xbox entered the market in 2001, and according to Microsoft's own documentation, their consoles have been outperformed by Nintendo and Sony by a "significant margin." Despite hard-fought success in the Xbox 360 generation and notable financial gain in recent quarters, Xbox claims it's never stopped "losing the console wars." As it stands, Xbox is confidently one of "big three" players in the console market, alongside PlayStation and Nintendo. However, Microsoft states its market share is trailing notably behind the most prominent competition.Read more of this story at Slashdot.