Slashdot

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: It will soon be illegal for public and private universities in California to consider an applicant's relationship to alumni or donors when deciding whether to admit them. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a ban on the practice known as legacy admissions, a change that will affect prestigious institutions including Stanford University and the University of Southern California. California's law, which will take effect Sept. 1, 2025, is the nation's fifth legacy admissions ban, but only the second that will apply to private colleges. "In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work," Newsom said in a statement. "The California Dream shouldn't be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we're opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly." Like other states, California won't financially penalize violators, but it will post the names of violators on the state Department of Justice's website. California will also add to data reporting requirements that it implemented in 2022, when private colleges had to start sharing the percentage of admitted students who were related to donors and alumni. Schools that run afoul of the new law will also have to report more granular demographic information about their incoming classes to the state, including the race and income of enrolled students as well as their participation in athletics. [...] Public universities in California won't be affected by the change. California State University does not consider legacy or donor ties, and the University of California system stopped doing so in 1998, two years after California voters banned race-conscious admissions through a statewide ballot measure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand. He points to several moves by Mazda as reasons for his anger toward them. However, it turns out that customers might still have a workaround. Previously, the Japanese carmaker offered connected services, that included several features such as remote start, without the need for a subscription. At the time, the company informed customers that these services would eventually transition to a paid model. It's important to clarify that there are two very different types of remote start we're talking about here. The first type is the one many people are familiar with where you use the key fob to start the vehicle. The second method involves using another device like a smartphone to start the car. In the latter, connected services do the heavy lifting. What is wild is that Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda's subscription fees.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More American workers are seeing their compensation tied to performance metrics, a shift from traditional fixed salaries. A 2024 survey by Alexander Group found 28% of over 300 companies are incorporating incentive pay into new roles, extending a practice once limited to sales and executive positions. Employers argue this model boosts productivity, while some workers report earning less than expected, WSJ reported Monday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Udemy, an e-learning platform with more than 250,000 online classes, recently announced that it would train generative AI on the classes that its users contribute to the site. Not only were class teachers automatically opted in to having their classes used as training, Udemy said teachers would have only a three-week "window" to opt-out of training. That window has now passed. "We want to officially announce that the opt-out period for our Generative AI Program (GenAI Program) begins today, August 21st, and goes through September 12th. The choice to participate in the GenAI program is yours. If you want to participate, no action is needed!," Udemy said in a post on its community forums August 21. In an "Instructor Generative AI Policy" document, it says it plans to offer "Annual Periods designated by us" during which instructors can opt-out of having their classes trained on, and said that when people opt-out of training, it will remove the instructors' classes from its dataset "by the end of the calendar year." It has also told instructors that "By opting out, you'll lose access to all AI features and benefits, which may affect your course visibility and potential earnings." With the first opt-out window having passed, instructors are now seeing a grayed-out option in their settings if they didn't know about the window or would like to opt-out now.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DirecTV has agreed to acquire struggling rival Dish Network, creating a satellite TV behemoth with nearly 20 million subscribers. The complex transaction, announced Monday, involves private equity firm TPG acquiring a majority stake in DirecTV from AT&T for $7.6 billion. DirecTV will then purchase Dish for $1 and assume its debt. The deal provides a lifeline for Dish, which faces $2 billion in debt due November with only $500 million in available cash. EchoStar, Dish's parent company, will retain its wireless spectrum investments and operate independently. Subject to regulatory approval and creditor agreement, the merger is expected to close in late 2025. DirecTV and TPG will provide $2.5 billion to cover Dish's immediate financial needs. The deal's fate remains uncertain, as a similar 2002 merger attempt was blocked on antitrust grounds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reddit has implemented new restrictions on moderators' ability to alter community visibility settings, the social media platform announced Monday. Moderators must now obtain admin approval before switching subreddits between public, private, or NSFW status. The move comes in response to last year's widespread protests against API pricing changes, during which thousands of subreddits went private, disrupting platform accessibility. Reddit VP Laura Nestler stated the policy aims to prevent actions that "deliberately cause harm" and protect the site's long-term health.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Energy Department said on Monday that it had finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help a company restart a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan -- the latest sign of rising government support for nuclear power. From a report: Two rural electricity providers that planned to buy power from the reactor would also receive $1.3 billion in federal grants [Editor's note: the link is likely paywalled; alternative source] under a program approved by Congress to help rural communities tackle climate change. The moves will help Holtec International reopen the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert Township, Mich., which ceased operating in 2022. The company plans to inspect and refurbish the plant's reactor and seek regulatory approval to restart the plant by October 2025. After years of stagnation, America's nuclear industry is seeing a resurgence of interest. Both Congress and the Biden administration have offered billions of dollars in subsidies to prevent older nuclear plants from closing and to build new reactors. Despite concerns about high costs and hazardous waste, nuclear plants can generate electricity at all hours without emitting the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. David Turk, the deputy secretary of energy, said he expected U.S. electricity demand would grow by 15 percent over the next few years, driven by an increase in electric vehicles, a boom in battery and solar factories as well as a surge of new data centers for artificial intelligence. That meant the nation needs new low-carbon sources of power that could run 24/7 and complement wind and solar plants.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AmiMoJo writes: The UK is about to stop producing any electricity from burning coal -- ending its 142-year reliance on the fossil fuel. The country's last coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, finishes operations on Monday after running since 1967. This marks a major milestone in the country's ambitions to reduce its contribution to climate change. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel producing the most greenhouse gases when burnt. The UK was the birthplace of coal power, and from tomorrow it becomes the first major economy to give it up. The first coal-fired power station in the world, the Holborn Viaduct power station, was built in 1882 in London by the inventor Thomas Edison -- bringing light to the streets of the capital. In the early 1990s, coal began to be forced out of the electricity mix by gas, but coal still remained a crucial component of the UK grid for the next two decades. In 2012, it still generated 39% of the UK's power. In 2010, renewables generated just 7% of the UK's power. By the first half of 2024, this had grown to more than 50% -- a new record. The rapid growth of green power meant that coal could even be switched off completely for short periods, with the first coal-free days in 2017.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thousands of Verizon users across the United States reported having little or no cellphone service on Monday morning in major cities, including in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, New York and Phoenix. From a report: According to the website Downdetector, which tracks user reports of internet disruptions, more than 104,000 cases of Verizon outages were reported across the country as of 11:20 a.m. Eastern, more than an hour after the first issues were reported. A map posted on the site showed cities with the most reports. On the site, many users said their cellphones were intermittently displaying SOS mode and that they could not place calls or send or receive text messages. "We're aware of the issue affecting service for some customers," a spokesman for Verizon, Ilya Hemlin, said in a telephone interview at 11:30 a.m. "Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to solve the issue," he added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, R.E.M., Burna Boy, Rush and many others are currently unplayable on YouTube in the U.S. due to a legal dispute between the platform and the performing rights organization SESAC. Attempts to play many, but not all, songs by those artists on Saturday met with the following message: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country." A similar dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok raged on for several months earlier this year before being resolved. In a statement to Variety, a YouTube rep said: "We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible." A source close to the situation tells Variety that the previous deal actually does not expire until next week, and suggests that YouTube's move is a negotiating tactic. SESAC is far smaller than ASCAP and BMI -- with approximately 30,000 members and 1.5 million compositions while ASCAP has nearly 800,000 members -- but as the caliber of artists affected by the block shows, it represents a comparatively large percentage of the marketplace.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AMD has released BIOS updates to boost performance and reduce latency for its Ryzen 9600X and 9700X processors. The updates come a month after disappointing Zen 5 desktop CPU reviews and coincide with Windows 11 optimizations for AMD chips. The new AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 firmware addresses high core-to-core latency issues and introduces a 105-watt cTDP option, promising up to 10% performance gains for multithreaded workloads.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Epic Games filed a new antitrust lawsuit against Google and Samsung, alleging they conspired to undermine third-party app stores. The suit focuses on Samsung's "Auto Blocker" feature, now enabled by default on new phones, which restricts app installations to "authorized sources" - primarily Google and Samsung's stores. Epic claims Auto Blocker creates significant barriers for rival stores, requiring users to navigate a complex process to install third-party apps. The company argues this feature does not actually assess app safety, but is designed to stifle competition. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney stated the lawsuit aims to benefit all developers, not secure special privileges for Epic. The company seeks either default deactivation of Auto Blocker or creation of a fair whitelisting process for legitimate apps. This legal action follows Epic's December victory against Google in a separate antitrust case. Epic recently launched its own mobile app store, which it claims faces unfair obstacles due to Auto Blocker.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Newsweek writes that the missing atmosphere of Mars "may be locked up in the planet's clay-rich surface, a new study by MIT geologists has suggested."According to the researchers, ancient water trickling through Mars' rocks could have triggered a series of chemical reactions, converting CO2 into methane and trapping the carbon in clay minerals for billions of years... The dominant explanation relies on an interaction between the sun's rays and gases in the atmosphere. Mars lost its protective magnetic field billions of years ago, likely allowing high-energy solar particles to strike the upper atmosphere, kicking molecules off into space, according to NASA... But this might not be the whole story. The researchers focused on a type of clay mineral called smectite, known for its ability to trap carbon. These minerals, abundant on Mars, contain tiny folds that can store carbon molecules for aeons. The study was published in the journal Science Advances. "There is plenty of evidence for a thick clay layer on the Martian surface. Almost 80 percent of satellite spectra detect these high-surface-area clay minerals on the Martian surface. Clay has been detected in craters as deep as 17 kilometers [10.5 miles]," [lead author Joshua] Murray said... Their model suggested that Mars' surface could contain up to 1.7 bar of CO2 - roughly 80 percent of its early atmospheric volume - sequestered as methane within clay deposits. This methane could still be present today, lying beneath the planet's dry and barren crust. "We know this process happens, and it is well-documented on Earth. And these rocks and clays exist on Mars," Oliver Jagoutz, the study's author, said in a statement. "So, we wanted to try and connect the dots." The discovery that Mars' ancient atmosphere could be hidden within its surface clays offers a new perspective on the planet's history and raises intriguing possibilities for future exploration. For example, if the sequestered carbon could be recovered and converted, it could serve as a propellant for future space missions between Earth, Mars and beyond. "In some ways, Mars' missing atmosphere could be hiding in plain sight," says the study's lead author - and the article adds that this raises some interesting possibilities. "For example, if the sequestered carbon could be recovered and converted, it could serve as a propellant for future space missions between Earth, Mars and beyond..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:In recent years - as longstanding efforts to recycle plastics have faltered - Exxon Mobil has touted advanced recycling as a groundbreaking technology that will turn the tide on the plastic crisis. But despite its seemingly eco-friendly name, the attorney general's lawsuit denounced advanced recycling as a "public relations stunt" that largely involves superheating plastics to convert them into fuel. At Exxon Mobil's only "advanced recycling" facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned. [California attorney general Rob] Bonta's lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit the company from describing the practice as "advanced recycling," arguing the vast majority of plastic is destroyed. Many environmental advocates and policy experts lauded the legal action as a major step toward ending greenwashing by Exxon Mobil - the world's largest producer of single-use plastic polymer... Advanced recycling, which is also called chemical recycling, is an umbrella term that typically involves heating or dissolving plastic waste to create fuel, chemicals and waxes - a fraction of which can be used to remake plastic. The most common techniques yield only 1% to 14% of the plastic waste, according to a 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Exxon Mobil has largely used reclaimed plastic for fuel production while ramping up its virgin plastic production, according to Bonta. The executive director of California Communities Against Toxics complains Exxon Mobil's "advanced" recycling is "the same technology we've had since the Industrial Revolution... a blast furnace." (The article also quotes her as asking "How is that better than coal?") And a UCLA researcher who studied the issue blames misperceptions about plastic recycling on "an industry-backed misinformation campaign." He agrees that the reality is "having to burn more oil to turn that plastic back into oil, which you then burn." California's attorney general "alleges Exxon Mobil has had a patent for this technology since 1978, and the company is falsely rebranding it as 'new' and 'advanced'... It recently reemerged after the company learned that the term 'advanced recycling' resonated with members of the public..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientific American has surprising news about the possibility of black holes the size of an atom but containing the mass of an asteroid - the so-called "primordial black holes" formed after the birth of the universe which could solve the ongoing mystery of the missing dark matter. These atom-sized black holes "may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade, scientists say... And if they sneak by the moon or Mars, scientists should be able to detect them, a new study shows."If one of these black holes comes near a planet or large moon, it should push the body off course enough to be measurable by current instruments. "As it passes by, the planet starts to wobble," says Sarah R. Geller, a theoretical physicist now at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of the study, which was published on September 17 in Physical Review D. "The wobble will grow over a few years but eventually it will damp out and go back to zero." Study team member Tung X. Tran, then an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, built a computer model of the solar system to see how the distance between Earth and nearby solar system objects would change after a black hole flyby. He found that such an effect would be most noticeable for Mars, whose distance scientists know within about 10 centimeters. For a black hole in the middle of the mass range, "we found that after three years the signal would grow to between one to three meters," Tran says. "That's way above the threshold of precision that we can measure." The Earth-Mars distance is particularly well tracked because scientists have been sending generations of probes and landers to the Red Planet... In a coincidence, an independent team published a paper about its search for signs of primordial black holes flying near Earth in the same issue of Physical Review D. The researchers' simulations found that such signals could be detectable in orbital data from Global Navigation Satellite Systems, as well as gravimeters that measure variations in Earth's gravitational field. "For decades physicists thought dark matter was likely to take the form of so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs)," the article points out. "Yet generations of ever more sensitive experiments meant to find these particles have come up empty." California astrophysicist Kevork Abazajian tells the site that now in the scientific community, "Primordial black holes are really gaining popularity."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the Vice President of the United States travelled in a motorcade Saturday to a San Francisco hotel, they ended up stopped behind "a Waymo vehicle that had to be driven away from the motorcade route by police," according to a local newscast (which called it an "only in San Francisco moment"). And that's not all. One local reporter following the vice president's motorcade said "we saw not one but two driverless cars get stuck." The San Francisco Standard adds that on Friday, California's governor "signed a bill that allows law enforcement to cite driverless car companies for traffic violations."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. real estate developers "are having a hard time keeping up with demand," reports the Los Angeles Times, "as businesses in search of secure spots for their servers rent nearly every square foot that becomes available..."Construction of new data centers is at "extraordinary levels" driven by "insatiable demand," a recent report on the industry by real estate brokerage JLL found. "Never in my career of 25 years in real estate have I seen demand like this on a global scale," said JLL real estate broker Darren Eades, who specializes in data centers... The biggest drivers are AI and cloud service providers that include some of the biggest names in tech, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle. With occupancy in conventional office buildings still down sharply following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and property values falling, data centers represent a rare ripe opportunity for real estate developers, who are pursuing opportunities in major markets like Los Angeles and less urban locales that are served by plentiful and preferably cheap power needed to run data centers. "If you can find a cluster of power to build a site, they'll come," Eades said of developers. Construction is taking place at an "extraordinary" pace nationwide and still not keeping up, the JLL data center report said. [Data center] "Vacancy declined to a record low of 3% at midyear due to insatiable demand and despite rampant construction." Development increased more than sevenfold in two years, with the pipeline of new projects leveling off in the first half of 2024, a potential signal that the U.S. power grid cannot support development at a faster pace. But when projects currently under construction or planned are complete, the U.S. colocation market, in which businesses rent space in a data center owned by another company for their servers and other computing hardware, will triple in size from current levels... Real estate investors and landlords are being drawn into the market because demand from tenants is high and they are likely to renew their leases after shouldering the costs of setting up data centers. "They invest in their space and in your space and they tend to stick around longer," said Mark Messana, president of Downtown Properties, which owns offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. "As we all know, the office market is struggling a little bit, so it's nice to be able to have some data customers in the mix..." Power demand for computing is growing so intense that it threatens to strain the nation's electrical grid, sending users to remote locations where power is plentiful and preferably cheap. Data center developers are working in Alabama, the Dakotas and Indiana, "traditionally states that wouldn't have data centers," Eades said. The article includes "the mother of all data centers" in the western U.S. - a 30-story building where "thousands of miles of undersea fiber-optic cables disappear into an ordinary-looking office tower." Once a prestigious location for businesses, "The recent departure of a law firm that had been in the building more than 50 years cleared out five floors that will quickly be re-leased to data tenants, said Eades, who represents the landlord..." To retrofit the building for data centers, "two elevators were removed so the empty shafts could hold water pipes used to help keep the temperature cool enough for the heat-producing servers" - and developers are happy rents "can be double what they are at newer downtown office high-rises, according to real estate data provider CoStar... "By 2030, data centers could account for as much as 11% of U.S. power demand - up from 3% now, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB 1047, a high-profile bill that would have regulated the development of AI," reports TechCrunch.The bill "would have made companies that develop AI models liable for implementing safety protocols to prevent 'critical harms'."The rules would only have applied to models that cost at least $100 million and use 10^26 FLOPS (floating point operations, a measure of computation) during training. SB 1047 was opposed by many in Silicon Valley, including companies like OpenAI, high-profile technologists like Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, and even Democratic politicians such as U.S. Congressman Ro Khanna. That said, the bill had also been amended based on suggestions by AI company Anthropic and other opponents. In a statement about today's veto, Newsom said, "While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data. Instead, the.." bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions - so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology." "Over the past 30 days, Governor Newsom signed 17 bills covering the deployment and regulation of GenAI technology..." according to a statement from the governor's office, "cracking down on deepfakes, requiring AI watermarking, protecting children and workers, and combating AI-generated misinformation... The Newsom Administration will also immediately engage academia to convene labor stakeholders and the private sector to explore approaches to use GenAI technology in the workplace." In a separate statement the governor pointed out California " is home to 32 of the world's 50 leading Al companies," and warned that the bill "could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology. Smaller, specialized models may emerge as equally or even more dangerous than the models targeted by SB 1047 - at the potential expense of curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good..." "While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data. Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions - so long as a large system deploys it. "I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology." Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times reported that the vetoed bill had been supported by Mark Hamill, J.J. Abrams, and "more than 125 Hollywood actors, directors, producers, music artists and entertainment industry leaders" who signed a letter of support. (And that bill also cited the support of "over a hundred current and former employees of OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"For the first time, scientists have created a flexible programmable chip that is not made of silicon..." reports IEEE Spectrum - opening new possibilities for implantable devices, on-skin computers, brain-machine interfaces, and soft robotics. U.K.-based Pragmatic Semiconductor produced an "ultralow-power" 32-bit microprocessor, according to the article, and "The microchip's open-source RISC-V architecture suggests it might cost less than a dollar..." This shows potential for inexpensive applications like wearable healthcare electronics and smart package labels, according to the chip's inventors:For example, "we can develop an ECG patch that has flexible electrodes attached to the chest and a flexible microprocessor connected to flexible electrodes to classify arrhythmia conditions by processing the ECG data from a patient," says Emre Ozer, senior director of processor development at Pragmatic, a flexible chip manufacturer in Cambridge, England. Detecting normal heart rhythms versus an arrhythmia "is a machine learning task that can run in software in the flexible microprocessor," he says... Pragmatic sought to create a flexible microchip that cost significantly less to make than a silicon processor. The new device, named Flex-RV, is a 32-bit microprocessor based on the metal-oxide semiconductor indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). Attempts to create flexible devices from silicon require special packaging for the brittle microchips to protect them from the mechanical stresses of bending and stretching. In contrast, pliable thin-film transistors made from IGZO can be made directly at low temperatures onto flexible plastics, leading to lower costs... "Our end goal is to democratize computing by developing a license-free microprocessor," Ozer says... Other processors have been built using flexible semiconductors, such as Pragmatic's 32-bit PlasticARM and an ultracheap microcontroller designed by engineers in Illinois. Unlike these earlier devices, Flex-RV is programmable and can run compiled programs written in high-level languages such as C. In addition, the open-source nature of RISC-V also let the researchers equip Flex-RV with a programmable machine learning hardware accelerator, enabling artificial intelligence applications. Each Flex-RV microprocessor has a 17.5 square millimeter core and roughly 12,600 logic gates. The research team found Flex-RV could run as fast as 60 kilohertz while consuming less than 6 milliwatts of power... The Pragmatic team found that Flex-RV could still execute programs correctly when bent to a curve with a radius of 3 millimeters. Performance varied between a 4.3 percent slowdown to a 2.3 percent speedup depending on the way it was bent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"SpaceX has temporarily grounded its Falcon 9 rocket," reports Space.com, "after the vehicle experienced an issue on the Crew-9 astronaut launch for NASA."Crew-9 lifted off on Saturday (Sept. 28) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aloft aboard the Crew Dragon capsule "Freedom" [for a 5-month stay, returning in February with Starliner's two astronauts]. Everything appeared to go well. The Falcon 9's first stage aced its landing shortly after liftoff, and the rocket's upper stage deployed Freedom into its proper orbit; the capsule is on track to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 29) as planned. But the upper stage experienced an issue after completing that job, SpaceX announced early Sunday morning. "After today's successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9's second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn. As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area. We will resume launching after we better understand root cause," SpaceX wrote in a post on X. Indeed, a Falcon 9 had been scheduled to launch 20 broadband satellites for the company Eutelsat OneWeb from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday night, but that liftoff has been postponed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader AsylumWraith writes: Visual Capitalist has posted an article and graph showing that, on average, 67% of US tech workers would be interested in joining a union. The percentage is highest at companies like Intuit, with 94% or respondents indicating they'd be interested in joining a union. On the other end of the scale, fewer than half of the employees at Apple, Tesla, and Google, who were surveyed were interested in such a move.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:Look at the top right corner of your phone. You might see an icon with "5G" and another with vertical bars showing the strength of your internet connection. Those symbols don't mean what you think they do. If your phone shows "5G," you're not necessarily connected to the latest and zippiest cellphone network technology. It might just mean that 5G connections are available nearby. And the bars are a cellular version of a shrug. There is no standard measure of how much signal strength each bar represents. "The connection icon is a lie," said Avi Greengart, president of the technology analysis firm Techsponential... The good news is you might not need 5G, anyway. Most of the time, your phone calls, texting and web surfing are perfectly fine on the prior generation of wireless technology called 4G or sometimes "LTE." Many phone networks will funnel you over 5G service when it makes a real difference, like if you're on a video call or playing an intense video game. If you see more specific types of 5G icons, like "5G UW" used by Verizon or "5G UC" if you're on T-Mobile service, Hyers said you're probably connected to a 5G network at that moment. Those extra letters or symbols sometimes indicate types of 5G technology that are capable of faster and more reliable connections, but they aren't always better, depending on your circumstances. Confusingly, AT&T has showed "5G E" icons on phones. That is not 5G service at all. Here's how major carriers responded to the Post's reporter:"AT&T said its '5G' indicators on phones line up with a telecommunications standards organization that established the icon to mean 5G networks are available.""Verizon didn't respond to my questions.""T-Mobile said for most of its cellphone network, your phone accurately reflects if you're on 5G."The article suggests setting your phone to just automatically switch to 5G networks when high-bandwidth applications are in use...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thursday America's Food and Drug Administration approved Cobenfy, "the first new drug to treat people with schizophrenia in more than 30 years," reports ABC News:Most schizophrenia medications, broadly known as antipsychotics, work by changing dopamine levels, a brain chemical that affects mood, motivation, and thinking [according to Jelena Kunovac, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the Department of Psychiatry]. Cobenfy takes a different approach by adjusting acetylcholine, another brain chemical that aids memory, learning and attention, she said. By focusing on acetylcholine instead of dopamine, Cobenfy may reduce schizophrenia symptoms while avoiding common side effects like weight gain, drowsiness and movement disorders, clinical trials suggest. These side effects often become so severe and unpleasant that, in some studies mirroring real-world challenges, many patients stopped treatment within 18 months of starting it. In clinical trials, only 6% of patients stopped taking Cobenfy due to side effects, noted Dr. Samit Hirawat, chief medical officer at Bristol Myers Squibb. "That's a significant improvement over the 20-30% seen with older antipsychotic drugs," he added... Schizophrenia is a mental health disorder that affects about 24 million people worldwide, or roughly one in 300 people, according to the World Health Organization. "Studies for additional therapeutic uses, including the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and bipolar disorder, are also underway."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

J. Doyne Farmer is the director of the complexity economics program at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in Oxford's research and policy unit. And he reminds us that solar and wind energy "are very likely to get even less expensive and grow quickly," pointing out that "the rate at which a given kind of technology improves is remarkably predictable."The best-known example is Moore's Law... Like computer chips, many other technologies also get exponentially more affordable, though at different rates. Some of the best examples are renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, lithium batteries and wind turbines. The cost of solar panels has dropped an average of 10% a year, making them about 10,000 times cheaper than they were in 1958, the year of their pioneering use to power the Vanguard 1 satellite. Lithium batteries have cheapened at a comparable pace, and the cost of wind turbines has dropped steadily too, albeit at a slower rate. Not all technologies follow this course, however. Fossil fuels cost roughly what they did a century ago, adjusted for inflation, and nuclear power is no cheaper than it was in 1958. (In fact, partly due to heightened safety concerns, it's somewhat more expensive.) The global deployment of technologies follows another pattern, called an S curve, increasing exponentially at first and then leveling out. Careful analysis of the spread of many technologies, from canals to the internet, makes it possible to predict the pace of technological adoption. When a technology is new, predictions are difficult, but as it develops, they get easier. Applying these ideas to the energy transition indicates that key technologies such as solar, wind, batteries and green-hydrogen-based fuels are likely to grow rapidly, dominating the energy system within the next two decades. And they will continue to get cheaper and cheaper, making energy far more affordable than it has ever been. This will happen in electricity generation first and then in sectors that are harder to decarbonize, including aviation and long-range shipping. And in addition, "The future savings more than offset present investments to the extent that the transition would make sense from a purely economic standpoint even if we weren't worried about climate change. "The sooner we make investments and adopt policies that enable the transition, the sooner we will realize the long-term savings."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Uplevel provides insights from coding and collaboration data, according to a recent report from CIO magazine - and recently they measured "the time to merge code into a repository [and] the number of pull requests merged" for about 800 developers over a three-month period (comparing the statistics to the previous three months). Their study "found no significant improvements for developers" using Microsoft's AI-powered coding assistant tool Copilot, according to the article (shared by Slashdot reader snydeq):Use of GitHub Copilot also introduced 41% more bugs, according to the study... In addition to measuring productivity, the Uplevel study looked at factors in developer burnout, and it found that GitHub Copilot hasn't helped there, either. The amount of working time spent outside of standard hours decreased for both the control group and the test group using the coding tool, but it decreased more when the developers weren't using Copilot. An Uplevel product manager/data analyst acknowledged to the magazine that there may be other ways to measure developer productivity - but they still consider their metrics solid. "We heard that people are ending up being more reviewers for this code than in the past... You just have to keep a close eye on what is being generated; does it do the thing that you're expecting it to do?" The article also quotes the CEO of software development firm Gehtsoft, who says they didn't see major productivity gains from LLM-based coding assistants - but did see them introducing errors into code. With different prompts generating different code sections, "It becomes increasingly more challenging to understand and debug the AI-generated code, and troubleshooting becomes so resource-intensive that it is easier to rewrite the code from scratch than fix it." On the other hand, cloud services provider Innovative Solutions saw significant productivity gains from coding assistants like Claude Dev and GitHub Copilot. And Slashdot reader destined2fail1990 says that while large/complex code bases may not see big gains, "I have seen a notable increase in productivity from using Cursor, the AI powered IDE."Yes, you have to review all the code that it generates, why wouldn't you? But often times it just works. It removes the tedious tasks like querying databases, writing model code, writing forms and processing forms, and a lot more. Some forms can have hundreds of fields and processing those fields along with doing checks for valid input is time consuming, but can be automated effectively using AI. This prompted an interesting discussion on the original story submission. Slashdot reader bleedingobvious responded:Cursor/Claude are great BUT the code produced is almost never great quality. Even given these tools, the junior/intern teams still cannot outpace the senior devs. Great for learning, maybe, but the productivity angle not quite there.... yet. It's damned close, though. GIve it 3-6 months. And Slashdot reader abEeyore posted:I suspect that the results are quite a bit more nuanced than that. I expect that it is, even outside of the mentioned code review, a shift in where and how the time is spent, and not necessarily in how much time is spent. Agree? Disagree? Share your own experiences in the comments. And are developers really saving time with AI coding assistants?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

California governor Gavin Newsom "vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit," reports the Associated Press:In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already dictates vehicle safety standards and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations. The National Highway Traffic Safety "is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments," the Democratic governor said... The legislation would have likely impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely just make all of their vehicles comply... Starting in July, the European Union will require all new cars to have the technology, although drivers would be able to turn it off. At least 18 manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, have already offered some form of speed limiters on some models sold in America, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Thanks to Slashdot reader Gruntbeetle for sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bryan Choi, an associate professor of law and computer science focusing on software safety, proposes shifting AI liability onto the builders of the systems:To date, most popular approaches to AI safety and accountability have focused on the technological characteristics and risks of AI systems, while averting attention from the workers behind the curtain responsible for designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining such systems... I have previously argued that a negligence-based approach is needed because it directs legal scrutiny on the actual persons responsible for creating and managing AI systems. A step in that direction is found in California's AI safety bill, which specifies that AI developers shall articulate and implement protocols that embody the "developer's duty to take reasonable care to avoid producing a covered model or covered model derivative that poses an unreasonable risk of causing or materially enabling a critical harm" (emphasis added). Although tech leaders have opposed California's bill, courts don't need to wait for legislation to allow negligence claims against AI developers. But how would negligence work in the AI context, and what downstream effects should AI developers anticipate? The article suggest two possibilities. Classifying AI developers as ordinary employees leaves employers then sharing liability for negligent acts (giving them "strong incentives to obtain liability insurance policies and to defend their employees against legal claims.") But AI developers could also be treated as practicing professionals (like physicians and attorneys). "{In this regime, each AI professional would likely need to obtain their own individual or group malpractice insurance policies."AI is a field that perhaps uniquely seeks to obscure its human elements in order to magnify its technical wizardry. The virtue of the negligence-based approach is that it centers legal scrutiny back on the conduct of the people who build and hype the technology. To be sure, negligence is limited in key ways and should not be viewed as a complete answer to AI governance. But fault should be the default and the starting point from which all conversations about AI accountability and AI safety begin. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader david.emery for sharing the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

America's National Transportation Safety Board "is issuing 'urgent safety recommendations' for some Boeing 737s..." reports CNN, "warning that critical flight controls could jam."The independent investigative agency is issuing the warning that an actuator attached to the rudder on some 737 NG and 737 MAX airplanes could fail... "Boeing's 737 flight manual instructs pilots confronted with a jammed or restricted rudder to 'overpower the jammed or restricted system (using) maximum force, including a combined effort of both pilots,'" the NTSB said in a news release. "The NTSB expressed concern that this amount of force applied during landing or rollout could result in a large input to the rudder pedals and a sudden, large, and undesired rudder deflection that could unintentionally cause loss of control or departure from a runway," the statement said. "The FAA said United was the only U.S. airline flying planes with the manufacturing defect in the rudder control system," notes the Seattle Times, "and that United has already replaced the component on nine 737s, the only jets in its fleet where it was identified as faulty. However, the NTSB alert may cause the grounding of some 737 MAXs and older model 737NGs flown by foreign air carriers that have not yet replaced the defective part."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last weekend Boeing announced that its CEO of Defense, Space, and Security "had left the company," according to Barrons. "Parting ways like this, for upper management, is the equivalent to firing," they write - though they add that setbacks on Starliner's first crewed test flight is "far too simple an explanation."Starliner might, however, have been the straw that broke the camel's back. [New CEO Kelly] Ortberg took over in early August, so his first material interaction with the Boeing Defense and Space business was the spaceship's failed test flight... Starliner has cost Boeing $1.6 billion and counting. That's lot of money, but not all that much in the context of the Defense business, which generates sales of roughly $25 billion a year.... [T]he overall Defense business has performed poorly of late, burdened by fixed price contracts that have become unprofitable amid years of higher than expected inflation. Profitability in the defense business has been declining since 2020 and started losing money in 2022. From 2022 to 2024 losses should total about $6 billion cumulatively, including Wall Street's estimates for the second half of this year. Still, it felt like something had to give. And the change shows investors something about new CEO Ortberg. "At this critical juncture, our priority is to restore the trust of our customers and meet the high standards they expect of us," read part of an internal email sent to Boeing employees announcing the change. "Why his predecessor - David Calhoun - didn't pull this trigger earlier this year is a mystery," wrote Gordon Haskett analyst Don Bilson in a Monday note. "Can't leave astronauts behind." "Ortberg's logic appears sound," the article concludes. "In recent years, Boeing has disappointed its airline and defense customers, including NASA... "After Starliner, defense profitability, and the strike, Ortberg has to tackle production quality, production rates, and Boeing's ailing balance sheet. Boeing has amassed almost $60 billion in debt since the second tragic 737 MAX crash in March 2019." Thanks to Slashdot reader Press2ToContinue for sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader dmitrygr writes: Debian Linux booted on a 4-bit intel microprocessor from 1971 - the first microprocessor in the world - the 4004. It is not fast, but it is a real Linux kernel with a Debian rootfs on a real board whose only CPU is a real intel 4004 from the 1970s. There's a detailed blog post about the experiment. (Its title? "Slowly booting full Linux on the intel 4004 for fun, art, and absolutely no profit.") In the post dmitrygr describes testing speed optimizations with an emulator where "my initial goal was to get the boot time under a week..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"After complaining that Gen Z grads are difficult to work with for the best part of two years, bosses are no longer all talk, no action - now they're rapidly firing young workers who aren't up to scratch just months after hiring them," writes Fortune. "According to a new report, six in 10 employers say they have already sacked some of the Gen Z workers they hired fresh out of college earlier this year."Intelligent.com, a platform dedicated to helping young professionals navigate the future of work, surveyed nearly 1,000 U.S. leaders... After experiencing a raft of problems with young new hires, one in six bosses say they're hesitant to hire college grads again. Meanwhile, one in seven bosses have admitted that they may avoid hiring them altogether next year. Three-quarters of the companies surveyed said some or all of their recent graduate hires were unsatisfactory in some way... Employers' gripe with young people today is their lack of motivation or initiative - 50% of the leaders surveyed cited that as the reason why things didn't work out with their new hire. Bosses also pointed to Gen Z being unprofessional, unorganized and having poor communication skills as their top reasons for having to sack grads. Leaders say they have struggled with the latest generation's tangible challenges, including being late to work and meetings often, not wearing office-appropriate clothing, and using language appropriate for the workspace. Now, more than half of hiring managers have come to the conclusion that college grads are unprepared for the world of work. Meanwhile, over 20% say they can't handle the workload. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat for sharing the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Past studies have suggested a major ocean current could collapse, quickly changing temperatures and climate patterns, reports the Washington Post. "But scientists disagree on whether the the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is already slowing, and questions remain as to whether a variety of proxy measurements actually indicate a slowdown" - including a new analysis arguing that the current "has remained remarkably stable."One way to detect AMOC weakening is to monitor the strength of its components such as the Florida Current, which flows swiftly from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic. The current is a "major contributor" to the AMOC, the researchers write, and a slowdown of the current might indicate a slowdown of the AMOC. Scientists have been tracking its strength since the 1980s using a submarine cable that measures the volume of water it transports. In the current study, researchers reconsider the data, correcting for a gradual shift in Earth's magnetic field that they say affected the cable measurements. Previous assessments of the uncorrected data showed a slight slowing in the Florida Current. But when they corrected for the shift in Earth's magnetic field, the researchers write, they found that the current "has remained remarkably stable" and not declined significantly over the past 40 years. The researchers' announcement acknowledges that "It is possible that the AMOC is changing without a corresponding change in the Florida Current..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How were the Pyramids built? NBC News reported on "a possible answer" after new evidence was published earlier this year in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The theory? "[A]n extinct branch of the Nile River once weaved through the landscape in a much wetter climate."Dozens of Egyptian pyramids across a 40-mile-long range rimmed the waterway, the study says, including the best-known complex in Giza. The waterway allowed workers to transport stone and other materials to build the monuments, according to the study. Raised causeways stretched out horizontally, connecting the pyramids to river ports along the Nile's bank. Drought, in combination with seismic activity that tilted the landscape, most likely caused the river to dry up over time and ultimately fill with silt, removing most traces of it. The research team based its conclusions on data from satellites that send radar waves to penetrate the Earth's surface and detect hidden features. It also relied on sediment cores and maps from 1911 to uncover and trace the imprint of the ancient waterway. Such tools are helping environmental scientists map the ancient Nile, which is now covered by desert sand and agricultural fields... The study builds on research from 2022, which used ancient evidence of pollen grains from marsh species to suggest that a waterway once cut through the present-day desert. Granite blocks weighing several tons were transported hundreds of miles, according to a professor of Egyptology at Harvard University - who tells NBC they were moved without wheels. But this new evidence that the Nile was closer to the pyramids lends further support to the evolving "canals" theory. In 2011 archaeologist Pierre Tallet found 30 different man-made caves in remote Egyptian hills, according to Smithsonian magazine. eventually locating the oldest papyrus rolls ever discovered - which were written by the builders of the Great Pyramid of Giza, describing a team of 200 workers moving limestone upriver. And in a 2017 documentary archaeologists were already reporting evidence of a waterway underneath the great Giza plateau. Slashdot reader Smonster found an alternate theory in this 2001 announcement from Caltech:Mory Gharib and his team raised a 6,900-pound, 15-foot obelisk into vertical position in the desert near Palmdale by using nothing more than a kite, a pulley system, and a support frame... One might ask whether there was and is sufficient wind in Egypt for a kite or a drag chute to fly. The answer is that steady winds of up to 30 miles-per-hour are not unusual in the areas where the pyramids and obelisks are found. "We're not Egyptologists," Gharib added. "We're mainly interested in determining whether there is a possibility that the Egyptians were aware of wind power, and whether they used it to make their lives better."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ars Technica reports NASA officials operating the International Space Station "are seriously concerned about a small Russian part of the station" - because it's leaking. The "PrK" tunnel connecting a larger module to a docking port "has been leaking since September 2019... In February of this year NASA identified an increase in the leak rate from less than 1 pound of atmosphere a day to 2.4 pounds a day, and in April this rate increased to 3.7 pounds a day." A new report, published Thursday by NASA's inspector general, provides details not previously released by the space agency that underline the severity of the problem... Despite years of investigation, neither Russian nor US officials have identified the underlying cause of the leak. "Although the root cause of the leak remains unknown, both agencies have narrowed their focus to internal and external welds," the report, signed by Deputy Inspector General George A. Scott, states. The plan to mitigate the risk is to keep the hatch on the Zvezda module leading to the PrK tunnel closed. Eventually, if the leak worsens further, this hatch might need to be closed permanently, reducing the number of Russian docking ports on the space station from four to three. Publicly, NASA has sought to minimize concerns about the cracking issue because it remains, to date, confined to the PrK tunnel and has not spread to other parts of the station. Nevertheless, Ars reported in June that the cracking issue has reached the highest level of concern on the space agency's 5x5 "risk matrix" to classify the likelihood and consequence of risks to spaceflight activities. The Russian leaks are now classified as a "5" both in terms of high likelihood and high consequence. "According to NASA, Roscosmos is confident they will be able to monitor and close the hatch to the Service Module prior to the leak rate reaching an untenable level. However, NASA and Roscosmos have not reached an agreement on the point at which the leak rate is untenable." The article adds that the Space Station should reach its end of life by either 2028 or 2030, and NASA "intends to transition its activities in low-Earth orbit onto private space stations," and has funded Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Voyager Space for initial development. "There is general uncertainty as to whether any of the private space station operators will be ready in 2030."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world's oldest and largest cancer research association "found excessive levels of alcohol consumption increase the risk for six different types of cancer," reports CBS News:"Some of this is happening through chronic inflammation. We also know that alcohol changes the microbiome, so those are the bacteria that live in your gut, and that can also increase the risk," Dr. Celine Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, recently said on "CBS Mornings." But how much is too much when it comes to drinking? We asked experts what to know. "Excessive levels of alcohol" equates to about three or more drinks per day for women and four or more drinks per day for men, Gounder said... Other studies have shown, however, there is no "safe amount" of alcohol, Gounder said, particularly if you have underlying medical conditions. "If you don't drink, don't start drinking. If you do drink, really try to keep it within moderation," she said. Dr. Amy Commander, medical director of the Mass General Cancer Center specializing in breast cancer, told CBS News alcohol is the third leading modifiable risk factor that can increase cancer risk after accounting for cigarette smoking and excess body weight. [Other factors include physical inactivity - and diet]. "There really isn't a safe amount of alcohol for consumption," she said. "In fact, it's best to not drink alcohol at all, but that is obviously hard for many people. So I think it's really important for individuals to just be mindful of their alcohol consumption and certainly drink less." The article also includes an interesting statistic from the association's latest Cancer Progress Report: from 1991 to 2021 there's been a 33% reduction in overall cancer deaths in the U.S. That's 4.1 million lives saved - roughly 136,667 lives saved each year. "So that is hopeful," Commander said, adding that when it comes to preventing cancer, alcohol is just "one piece of the puzzle."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm shared this report from NBC News:Octopuses don't always hunt alone - but their partners aren't who you'd expect. A new study shows that some members of the species Octopus cyanea maraud around the seafloor in hunting groups with fish, which sometimes include several fish species at once. The research, published in the journal Nature on Monday, even suggests that the famously intelligent animals organized the hunting groups' decisions, including what they should prey upon. What's more, the researchers witnessed the cephalopod species - often called the big blue or day octopus - punching companion fish, apparently to keep them on task and contributing to the collective effort... "If the group is very still and everyone is around the octopus, it starts punching, but if the group is moving along the habitat, this means that they're looking for prey, so the octopus is happy. It doesn't punch anyone..." [said Eduardo Sampaio, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the lead author of the research]. NBC News says the study is "an indication that at least one octopus species has characteristics and markers of intelligence that scientists once considered common only in vertebrates." Lead author Sampaio agrees that "We are very similar to these animals. In terms of sentience, they are at a very close level or closer than we think toward us."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers propose a "deceptively simple" way to sequester carbon, reports the Washington Post: burying wood underground:Forests are Earth's lungs, sucking up six times more carbon dioxide (CO2) than the amount people pump into the atmosphere every year by burning coal and other fossil fuels. But much of that carbon quickly makes its way back into the air once insects, fungi and bacteria chew through leaves and other plant material. Even wood, the hardiest part of a tree, will succumb within a few decades to these decomposers. What if that decay could be delayed? Under the right conditions, tons of wood could be buried underground in wood vaults, locking in a portion of human-generated CO2 for potentially thousands of years. While other carbon-capture technologies rely on expensive and energy-intensive machines to extract CO2, the tools for putting wood underground are simple: a tractor and a backhoe. Finding the right conditions to impede decomposition over millennia is the tough part. To test the idea, [Ning Zeng, a University of Maryland climate scientist] worked with colleagues in Quebec to entomb wood under clay soil on a crop field about 30 miles east of Montreal... But when the scientists went digging in 2013, they uncovered something unexpected: A piece of wood already buried about 6A feet underground. The craggy, waterlogged piece of eastern red cedar appeared remarkably well preserved. "I remember standing there looking at other people, thinking, 'Do we really need to continue this experiment?'" Zeng recalled. "Because here's the evidence...." Radiocarbon dating revealed the log to be 3,775 years old, give or take a few decades. Comparing the old chunk of wood to a freshly cut piece of cedar showed the ancient log lost less than 5 percent of its carbon over the millennia. The log was surrounded by stagnant, oxygen-deprived groundwater and covered by an impermeable layer of clay, preventing fungi and insects from consuming the wood. Lignin, a tough material that gives trees their strength, protected the wood's carbohydrates from subterranean bacteria... The researchers estimate buried wood can sequester up 10 billion tons of CO2 per year, which is more than a quarter of annual global emissions from energy, according to the International Energy Agency.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When it comes to professional certifications, the long-running nonprofit Linux Professional Institute boasts they've issued 250,000, making them the world's largest Linux/Open Source certification body. And last week they announced a "strategic alliance" with the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which will now be "participating in development and maintenance of these programs." The announcement points out that the Open Source Initiative already has many distinct responsibilities. Besides creating the Open Source Definition - and certifying that Open Source licenses meet the requirements of Open Source software - the OSI's mission is to "encourage the growth of Open Source communities around the world," which includes "educational and outreach efforts to spread Open Source principles." So the ultimate goal is "strengthening Linux and Open Source communities," according to the announcement, by "nurturing the growth of more highly skilled professionals," with the OSI encouraging more people to get certifications for employers. The Open Source movement "has never been in greater need of educated professionals," says OSI executive director Stefano Maffulli, "to drive the next leap forward in Open Source understanding, innovation, and adoption... "This partnership with LPI is one in a series of initiatives that will increase accessibility to the certifications and community participation that Open Source needs to thrive." And the LPI's executive director says it's their group's mission "to promote the use of open source by supporting the people who work with it. A closer relationship with OSI makes a valuable contribution to this effort." The move "reaffirms the commitment of LPI and OSI to enhance the adoption of Linux and Open Source technology," according to the announcement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge in California has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen regulations for fluoride in drinking water, saying the compound poses an unreasonable potential risk to children at levels that are currently typical nationwide. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco on Tuesday sided (PDF) with several advocacy groups, finding the current practice of adding fluoride to drinking water supplies to fight cavities presented unreasonable risks for children's developing brains. Chen said the advocacy groups had established during a non-jury trial that fluoride posed an unreasonable risk of harm sufficient to require a regulatory response by the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act. "The scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present; fluoride is associated with reduced IQ," wrote Chen, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama. But the judge stressed he was not concluding with certainty that fluoridated water endangered public health. [...] The EPA said it was reviewing the decision. "The court's historic decision should help pave the way towards better and safer fluoride standards for all," Michael Connett, a lawyer for the advocacy groups, said in a statement on Wednesday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Black hole jets, which spew near-light-speed particle beams, can trigger nearby white dwarf stars to explode by igniting hydrogen layers on their surfaces. "We don't know what's going on, but it's just a very exciting finding," said Alec Lessing, an astrophysicist at Stanford University and lead author of a new study describing the phenomenon, in an ESA release. Gizmodo reports: In the recent work -- set to publish in The Astrophysical Journal and is currently hosted on the preprint server arXiv -- the team studied 135 novae in the galaxy M87, which hosts a supermassive black hole of the same name at its core. M87 is 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun and was the first black hole to be directly imaged, in work done in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. The team found twice as many novae erupting near M87's 3,000 light-year-long plasma jet than elsewhere in the galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope also directly imaged M87's jet, which you can see below in luminous blue detail. Though it looks fairly calm in the image, the distance deceives you: this is a long tendril of superheated, near-light speed particles, somehow triggering stars to erupt. Though previous researchers had suggested there was more activity in the jet's vicinity, new observations with Hubble's wider-view cameras revealed more of the novae brightening -- indicating they were blowing hydrogen up off their surface layers. "There's something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently," Lessing said in the release. "But it's not clear that it's a physical pushing. It could be the effect of the pressure of the light emanating from the jet. When you deliver hydrogen faster, you get eruptions faster." The new Hubble images of M87 are also the deepest yet taken, thanks to the newer cameras on Hubble. Though the team wrote in the paper that there's between a 0.1% to 1% chance that their observations can be chalked up to randomness, most signs point to the jet somehow catalyzing the stellar eruptions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader penciling_in shares a report from CircleID: Starlink, SpaceX's satellite-based internet service, has hit a major milestone by surpassing 4 million subscribers worldwide. SpaceX confirmed the news on Thursday after company President Gwynne Shotwell hinted earlier in the week that the service would reach the mark within days. Since its beta launch in October 2020, Starlink has rapidly scaled, growing from 1 million subscribers by December 2022, to 2 million by September 2023, and now 4 million just months later. The service operates through a vast constellation of nearly 6,000 satellites, providing satellite internet to users in almost 100 countries, including expanding into previously underserved regions like Africa and the Pacific islands. [While competition from OneWeb and Amazon's Project Kuiper looms, Starlink remains the market leader. However, challenges like slowing U.S. growth and concerns over satellite interference with radio astronomy persist.] Starlink is coming to United Airlines' entire fleet and Hawaiian Airlines Airbus flights. Air France also announced yesterday that it, too, will support free Starlink Wi-Fi on all its aircraft.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The Dutch Supreme Court has requested guidance from the EU's top court on geo-blocking, VPNs, and copyright in a case involving the online publication of Anne Frank's manuscripts. The CJEU's response has the potential to reshape the online content distribution landscape, impacting streaming platforms and other services that rely on geo-blocking. VPNs services will monitor the matter with great interest too. [...] While early versions are presumably in the public domain in several countries, the original manuscripts are protected by copyright in the Netherlands until 2037. As a result, the copies published by the Dutch Anne Frank Stichting, are blocked for Dutch visitors. "The scholarly edition of the Anne Frank manuscripts cannot be made available in all countries, due to copyright considerations," is the message disallowed visitors get to see. This blocking effort is the result of a copyright battle. Ideally, Anne Frank Stichting would like to make the manuscripts available worldwide, but the Swiss 'Fonds' has not given permission for it to do so. And since some parts of the manuscript were first published in 1986, Dutch copyrights are still valid. In theory, geo-blocking efforts could alleviate the copyright concerns but, for the Fonds, these measures are not sufficient. After pointing out that people can bypass the blocking efforts with a VPN, it took the matter to court. Around the world, publishers and streaming services use geo-blocking as the standard measure to enforce geographical licenses. This applies to the Anne Frank Stichting, as well as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, news sites, and gaming platforms. The Anne Frank Fonds doesn't dispute this, but argued in court that people can circumvent these restrictions with a VPN, suggesting that the manuscripts shouldn't be published online at all. The lower court dismissed this argument, stating the defendants had taken reasonable measures to prevent access from the Netherlands. The Fonds appealed, but the appeal was also dismissed, and the case is now before the Dutch Supreme Court. The Fonds argues that the manuscript website is (in part) directed at a Dutch audience. Therefore, the defendants are making the manuscripts available in the Netherlands, regardless of the use of any blocking measures. The defendants, in turn, argue that the use of state-of-the-art geo-blocking, along with additional measures like a user declaration, is sufficient to prevent a communication to the public in the Netherlands. The defense relied on the opinion in the GO4YU case, which suggests that circumventing geo-blocking with a VPN does not constitute a communication to the public in the blocked territory, unless the blocking is intentionally ineffective.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A U.S. Trademark Office tribunal canceled Marvel and DC's jointly owned "Super Hero" trademarks after the companies failed to respond to a request by London-based Superbabies Ltd, which argued the marks couldn't be owned collectively or monopolize the superhero genre. The ruling was "not just a win for our client but a victory for creativity and innovation," said Superbabies attorney Adam Adler of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg. "By establishing SUPER HEROES' place in the public domain, we safeguard it as a symbol of heroism available to all storytellers."Reuters reports: Rivals Marvel and DC jointly own four federal trademarks covering the terms "Super Hero" and "Super Heroes," the oldest of which dates back to 1967. Richold writes comics featuring a team of super-hero babies called the Super Babies. According to Richold, DC accused his company of infringing the "Super Hero" marks and threatened legal action after Superbabies Ltd applied for U.S. trademarks covering the "Super Babies" name. Marvel and DC have cited their marks in opposing dozens of superhero-related trademark applications at the USPTO, according to the office's records. Superbabies petitioned the office to cancel the marks in May. It argued that Marvel and DC cannot "claim ownership over an entire genre" with their trademarks, and that the two competitors cannot own trademarks together.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register's Tobias Mann reports: Oracle could choose to take control of Ampere Computing, the Arm processor designer it has backed and uses in its cloud. A proxy statement [PDF] filed on Wednesday reveals that Oracle held 29 percent stake in Ampere as of May 31, 2024, and has the option to gain majority control over the chip house in 2027. "The total carrying value of our investments in Ampere, after accounting for losses under the equity method of accounting, was $1.5 billion as of May 31, 2024," the filing reads. Oracle also revealed it extended $600 million in loans in the form of convertible debt to Ampere during its 2024 fiscal year, on top of $400 million in debt given during the prior fiscal year. Ampere's debts are set to mature beginning June 2026, when Oracle will have the option of converting those investments into additional equity in the chip startup. "If either of such options is exercised by us or our co-investors, we would obtain control of Ampere and consolidate its results with our results of operations," the filing explains. According to the document, Oracle spent roughly $48 million on Ampere processors during its 2023 fiscal year -- some of it direct with Ampere and some through a third party. By comparison, Big Red spent just $3 million on Ampere's chips and had $101.1 million worth of products available under a pre-payment order by the end of fiscal year 2024. This is despite the fact that Oracle is aggressively expanding its datacenter footprint to address growing demand for AI infrastructure. These efforts have included the deployment of massive clusters of GPUs from Nvidia and AMD with the largest campus developments nearing a gigawatt in scale. The filing also revealed that Ampere founder and CEO Renee James will not seek re-election to Oracle's board of directors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At its Connect event earlier this week, Meta said it'll be adding conversational voices to its AI chatbot from celebrities like Awkwafina, John Cena, Dame Judi Dench, Keegan-Michael Key and Kristen Bell. The Verge reports: These celebrity voices will only be available to US users of Meta's apps to start. And if you prefer a voice that is a little more mundane, you can also pick from non-celeb voices with names like "Aspen," "Atlas," or "Clover." [...] Meta is explicitly announcing celebrity partnerships, which likely involve payment or some other deal. Meta hasn't shared those details, but the company has paid each celebrity "millions of dollars" for their voices, according to The Wall Street Journal. And in negotiations, some of the people reportedly wanted to limit what their voices could say and to make sure they weren't liable if Meta AI was used. [...] Meta's AI updates aren't just about voice conversations. Its chatbot will also now "answer questions about your photos" when you upload images. Send a picture of a cake, ask how to make it, and it'll grab you a recipe that hopefully does just that. And if you want something "added, changed, or removed" from an image, Meta says you can describe anything from "changing your outfit to replacing the background with a rainbow," and it'll carry out that request.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Jack Ryan from San Diego was recently being interviewed for a job. On a video call, the interviewer, a woman with red hair, said, "I find it helps when candidates tell me a story in answering the questions." "I'm looking for examples from your work experience," the woman added. During the conversation, Ryan had a smirk on his face. That's because the woman is not real. She is an AI avatar from a company called Fairgo.ai, which uses AI agents to interview job candidates on behalf of other companies. On its website, Fairgo says its AI agent "talks to candidates any time, any where." The company claims that it can "Ensure every candidate is evaluated on a level playing field with consistent and unbiased interview practices." Julian Bright, founder and CEO of Fairgo, told 404 Media in an email that after an introductory video voiced by the AI avatar, candidate interviews are done by an audio-only AI. "At no point is any of the video or audio captured used to evaluate the candidate," he wrote. Instead, that is done with a transcript afterwards. Bright said that Fairgo does not make decisions on who to shortlist for a role; that instead falls to the hirers. Fairgo also says on its site that the interview process is low stress, and that "candidates consistently love the interview experience." "This HR AI avatar is a perfect demonstration of late stage capitalism," Ryan told 404 Media in an online chat. "While Fairgo's intent is to provide a fair and equitable interview process, I can't imagine AI, LLMs, and other tools are able to interpret the human emotion and facial reactions to provide an actual, well rounded interview." "As someone who has interviewed upwards of 50 candidates for prior roles, human connection and interaction is the single most important indicator of how a team will mesh and jive together. If an AI is running the early stage process, it eliminates potential candidates because of its algorithmic design," he added. "It shows how executives and corporations are further trying to cut costs on the human side of business. As someone who has seen these layoffs at numerous top tech companies that then go on to rehire 6-12-18 months later for the same roles because they realized their strategy failed and they actually need good people to do the work, it's laughable at best and terrifying at worst."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta has been fined $101.5 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) for storing over half a billion user passwords in plain text for years, with some engineers having access to this data for over a decade. The issue, discovered in 2019, predominantly affected non-US users, especially those using Facebook Lite. AppleInsider reports: Meta Ireland was found guilty of infringing four parts of GDPR, including how it "failed to notify the DPC of a personal data breach concerning storage of user passwords in plain text." Meta Ireland did report the failure, but only some months after it was discovered. "It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data," said Graham Doyle, Deputy Commissioner at the DPC, in a statement about the fine. "It must be borne in mind, that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users' social media accounts." Other than the fine and an official reprimand, the full extent of the DPC's ruling is yet to be released publicly. The details published so far do not reveal whether the passwords included any of US users as well as ones in Ireland or across the rest of the European Union. It's most likely that the issue concerns only non-US users, however. That's because in 2019, Facebook told CNN that the majority of the plain text passwords were for a service called Facebook Lite, which it described as being a cut-down service for areas of the world with slower connectivity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iFixit's iPhone 16 teardown revealed a new battery removal process that does away with the usual pull tabs, instead opting for an adhesive that debonds when exposed to a low electrical current. "It only takes about a minute and a half for it to come unstuck," reports Engadget, citing Apple's repair guide. iFixit tech Shahram Mokhtari said, "I'm not sure we've ever had a battery removal process go so cleanly and smoothly." From the report: Only the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus have the new adhesive, and they've earned a 7/10 on iFixit's repairability scale. "Apple definitely seems to be leveling up on repairability," Mokhtari, adding Apple has "landed another repairability win" with this year's base iPhones thanks to the new battery removal procedure. Further reading: iPhone's 80% Charge Cap Barely Boosts Battery Life, Year-Long Test RevealsRead more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by John Timmer: [P]art of the software stack that companies are developing to control their quantum hardware includes software that converts abstract representations of quantum algorithms into the series of commands needed to execute them. IBM's version of this software is called Qiskit (although it was made open source and has since been adopted by other companies). Recently, IBM made a couple of announcements regarding Qiskit, both benchmarking it in comparison to other software stacks and opening it up to third-party modules. [...] Right now, the company is supporting six third-party Qiskit functions that break down into two categories. The first can be used as stand-alone applications and are focused on providing solutions to problems for users who have no expertise programming quantum computers. One calculates the ground-state energy of molecules, and the second performs optimizations. But the remainder are focused on letting users get more out of existing quantum hardware, which tends to be error prone. But some errors occur more often than others. These errors can be due to specific quirks of individual hardware qubits or simply because some specific operations are more error prone than others. These can be handled in two different ways. One is to design the circuit being executed to avoid the situations that are most likely to produce an error. The second is to examine the final state of the algorithm to assess whether errors likely occurred and adjust to compensate for any. And third parties are providing software that can handle both of these. One of those third parties is Q-CTRL, and we talked to its CEO, Michael Biercuk. "We build software that is really focused on everything from the lowest level of hardware manipulation, something that we call quantum firmware, up through compilation and strategies that help users map their problem onto what has to be executed on hardware," he told Ars. (Q-CTRL is also providing the optimization tool that's part of this Qiskit update.) "We're focused on suppressing errors everywhere that they can occur inside the processor," he continued. "That means the individual gate or logic operations, but it also means the execution of the circuit. There are some errors that only occur in the whole execution of a circuit as opposed to manipulating an individual quantum device." Biercuk said Q-CTRL's techniques are hardware agnostic and have been demonstrated on machines that use very different types of qubits, like trapped ions. While the sources of error on the different hardware may be distinct, the manifestations of those problems are often quite similar, making it easier for Q-CTRL's approach to work around the problems. Those work-arounds include things like altering the properties of the microwave pulses that perform operations on IBM's hardware, and replacing the portion of Qiskit that converts an algorithm to a series of gate operations. The software will also perform operations that suppress errors that can occur when qubits are left idle during the circuit execution. As a result of all these differences, he claimed that using Q-CTRL's software allows the execution of more complex algorithms than are possible via Qiskit's default compilation and execution. "We've shown, for instance, optimization with all 156 qubits on [an IBM] system, and importantly -- I want to emphasize this word -- successful optimization," Biercuk told Ars. "What it means is you run it and you get the right answer, as opposed to I ran it and I kind of got close."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta Platforms' claims that Facebook doesn't polarize Americans came under new doubt as the journal Science raised questions about a prominent research paper the tech giant has cited to support its position. WSJ: In an editorial Thursday, Science said that Meta's emergency efforts to calm its platforms in the wake of the 2020 election may have swayed the conclusions of the paper, which the journal published in July 2023. The editorial, titled "Context matters in social media," was prompted by a letter that Science also published presenting new criticism of the paper. Because the study of Facebook's algorithms relied on data provided by Meta when it was undertaking extraordinary efforts to restrain incendiary political content, the letter's authors argue that the paper may have overstated the case that social media algorithms didn't contribute to political polarization. Such criticisms of peer-reviewed research often appear below papers in academic journals, but Science's editors felt their editorial was needed to more prominently caveat this original paper's conclusions, said Holden Thorp, Science's editor in chief. "It was incumbent on us to come up with a way somehow that people who would come to the paper would know of these concerns,a Thorp said in an interview. While no correction was warranted, he said, "There's an election coming up, and we care about people citing this paper." Meta said it had been transparent with researchers about its actions during the time of the study, and the company and its research partners say it had no control over the Science paper's conclusions. Meta called debates of the sort aired on Thursday as part of the research process.Read more of this story at Slashdot.