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The classic 1997 vidoegame GoldenEye 007 "has finally landed on Xbox and Nintendo Switch," writes the Verge:On Xbox, the remaster includes 4K resolution, smoother frame rates, and split-screen local multiplayer, similar to a 2008-era bound-for-Xbox 360 version that was canceled amid licensing and rights issues but leaked out in 2021. Meanwhile CNET describes the Switch version:You'll need to be subscribed to Switch Online's $50-a-year Expansion Pack tier to access GoldenEye and other N64 games. Online multiplayer is exclusive to the Switch release, the official 007 website noted, but this version is otherwise the same as the N64 original. But "No high-def for them," adds Esquire:GoldenEye 007 marks a rare case in gaming history, where the title never left the gamer zeitgeist. It has been talked about, wished over, remade, and totally Frankensteined in the modding and emulation community.... Rare, a favorite game studio of mine — its crew is responsible for many of my childhood memories, making Banjo Kazzoie, Donkey Kong Country, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and so many more — was always a Nintendo sweetheart. Until it was acquired back in 2002 by Microsoft. While Rare didn't pump out as many massive hits after the acquisition, the studio is responsible for one of my favorite games, Sea of Thieves. But arguably no game from those folks made more of a splash than Goldeneye. CNN reports:Based on the 1995 film "GoldenEye," the game follows a block-like version of Pierce Brosnan's 007 as he shoots his way through various locales, all while a synthy version of the signature Bond theme plays.... The return of "GoldenEye 007," often referred to as one of the greatest video games of all time, has been years in the making. The Verge reported last year that rights issues blocked developers from releasing it on newer consoles, including Xbox, since at least 2008. Undeterred N64 fans even attempted to remake the game themselves on several occasions, though the original rights holders usually shut them down. Modern players "may not realise how many of the features we now take for granted in shooters were inspired by this one game," writes the Guardian. "The game that would introduce a lot of players to the concept of using an analogue stick to look around in a 3D game — it's difficult to overstate how important that was."But it was the multiplayer mode that really counted. Four players, one screen, an array of locations and weapons, and all the characters from the single-player campaign.... We would usually play in Normal mode, but as the hours dragged on and the sunlight began to creep in behind the blinds, we'd switch to Slaps Only, in which players could only get kills by slapping each other to death.... It is interesting how fables around the game and its development have survived — and still intrigue. The fact that it is officially cheating to play as Oddjob in multiplayer mode; the brilliance of the pause music, which has been heavily memed on TikTok, and how it was written in just 20 minutes by Rare newcomer Grant Kirkhope. The fact that Nintendo legend and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto was so concerned by the death in the game that he suggested a post-credit sequence where James Bond went to a hospital to meet all the enemy soldiers he "injured". I think the sign of a truly great game — like any work of art — is how many legends become attached to its making. It is lovely now, to see the game getting a release on Nintendo Switch and Xbox Game Pass.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Washington Post reports that "there are only seven working offshore wind turbines in the entire United States at the moment. In Europe, there are more than 5,000. China also has thousands." And yet 17 wind-power projects in the eastern U.S. are facing "considerable" resistance, while shareholders "are pressuring companies not to invest in more projects beyond the wave that has already begun, said Paul Zimbardo, an analyst at Bank of America."Surging costs from inflation and labor shortages have developers saying their projects may not be profitable. A raft of lawsuits and pending federal restrictions to protect sensitive wildlife could further add to costs. The uncertainty has clouded bright expectations for massive growth in U.S. offshore wind, which the Biden administration and several state governments have bet big on in their climate plans. "We're trying to stand up an entire industry in the United States, and we're having natural growing pains," said Cindy Muller, a lawyer who runs the Houston office and co-chairs the offshore wind initiative at the law firm Jones Walker. State leaders and the Biden administration have homed in on the industry because the power of offshore winds can produce a rare round-the-clock source of greenhouse-gas-free electricity — and one difficult for future administrations to undo once turbines are in the ground. The administration set a goal for 30 gigawatts of new power from offshore wind by 2030. That is about 3 percent of what the country needs to get to 80 percent clean electricity by that time, according to estimates from a team led by University of California at Berkeley researchers.... Delays make it unlikely that the Biden administration will meet its 2030 goal, lawyers and analysts said. The article notes that last fall three wind developers"moved to renegotiate their contracts, saying they can no longer afford to deliver power for the prices promised because of soaring costs." And meanwhile a massive wind project south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts "is years behind schedule amid regulatory delays and litigation from opponents." Though the project has finally started laying cable, now an oil company-funded advocacy group "is providing the financial backing and legal expertise for litigation...taking up the cause of the whales in court." (This despite the fact that America's ocean-montoring agency, the NOAA, says whales aren't affected by wind power.) The Post notes that the project's construction finally began "a little more than a year ago...in the same area where a die-off of humpback whales began seven years ago." NOAA says about 40% of the whales showed evidence they'd been struck by a ship or entangled in nets, and both whales and fishermen "may be following their prey (small fish) which are reportedly close to shore this winter." Ironically, the Sierra Club tells the Washington Post that "The biggest threat to the ocean ecosystem is climate change."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Avatar: The Way of Water "has passed Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the fourth highest-grossing movie of all time," reports Variety:Director James Cameron's sci-fi epic has now earned $2.075 billion at the global box office. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, another sci-fi sequel released long after previous installments, finished its theatrical run with $2.064 billion after hitting theaters in December 2015. With this latest box office milestone, Cameron now has three of the top four highest-grossing movies in history — the original Avatar is still the champion [with $2.92 billion], while Titanic sits in third place [with $2.2 billion]. [The second-highest grossing film of all time is Avengers: Endgame with $2.79 billion.] Avatar: The Way of Water has quickly moved up in the record books, surpassing Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.92 billion) on Jan. 18 and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.05 billion) shortly after on Jan. 26.... A third "Avatar" entry has already been set for release in December 2024 and there are plans for a fourth and fifth to continue the intergenerational saga Some context from The A.V. Club:The highlight of that big pile of planetary currency being a massive $229 million turnout in China, where it's one of the first Disney movies to play in the country's lucrative markets in some time. As it happens, James Cameron told GQ back in November, ahead of his sequel's release, that his "fucking expensive" movie would have to post these kinds of numbers to be anything other than a loss for the studio. "You have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history," he noted at the time. "That's your threshold. That's your break even." Wikipedia points out that when box office figures are adjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing film of all time is still the 1939 Civil War drama Gone with the Wind. And the next top-grossing films of all-time?The original Avatar Titanic The original Star Wars (1977) Avengers: Endgame The Sound of Music (1965) E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) The Ten Commandments (1956) Doctor Zhivago (1965) Star Wars: the Force AwakensRead more of this story at Slashdot.

GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI "told a San Francisco federal court that a proposed class-action lawsuit for improperly monetizing open-source code to train their AI systems cannot be sustained," reports Reuters:The companies said in Thursday court filings that the complaint, filed by a group of anonymous copyright owners, did not outline their allegations specifically enough and that GitHub's Copilot system, which suggests lines of code for programmers, made fair use of the source code. A spokesperson for GitHub, an online platform for housing code, said Friday that the company has "been committed to innovating responsibly with Copilot from the start" and that its motion is "a testament to our belief in the work we've done to achieve that...." Microsoft and OpenAI said Thursday that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case because they failed to argue they suffered specific injuries from the companies' actions. The companies also said the lawsuit did not identify particular copyrighted works they misused or contracts that they breached. Microsoft also said in its filing that the copyright allegations would "run headlong into the doctrine of fair use," which allows the unlicensed use of copyrighted works in some situations. The companies both cited a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision that Google's use of Oracle source code to build its Android operating system was transformative fair use. Slashdot reader guest reader shares this excerpt from the plaintiffs' complaint:GitHub and OpenAI have offered shifting accounts of the source and amount of the code or other data used to train and operate Copilot. They have also offered shifting justifications for why a commercial AI product like Copilot should be exempt from these license requirements, often citing "fair use." It is not fair, permitted, or justified. On the contrary, Copilot's goal is to replace a huge swath of open source by taking it and keeping it inside a GitHub-controlled paywall. It violates the licenses that open-source programmers chose and monetizes their code despite GitHub's pledge never to do so.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares this report from OMG! Ubuntu:Developers have just uncorked a brand new release of Wine, the open source compatibility layer that allows Windows apps to run on Linux. A substantial update, Wine 8.0 is fermented from a year's worth of active development (roughly 8,600 changes in total). From that, a wealth of improvements are provided across every part of the Wine experience, from app compatibility, through to performance, and a nicer looking UI.... Notable highlights in Wine 8.0 include the completion of PE conversion, meaning all modules can be built in PE format. Wine devs say this work is an important milestone towards supporting "copy protection, 32-bit applications on 64-bit hosts, Windows debuggers, x86 applications on ARM", and more.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week the automotive site Edmunds discussed "the pros and cons of software running your car." One advantage is that software "allows for the introduction of features that wouldn't have been possible in the past.Genesis, Hyundai's luxury arm, is using facial recognition and fingerprint scanning with its new all-electric GV60 crossover. The physical key is required to set up both functions, but after that the owner can basically operate the car as easily as a smartphone. Established companies are jumping in as well. Last summer, Ford used software to enable its BlueCruise hands-free driving system in tens of thousands of F-150s and Mustang Mach-Es. The vehicles had the hardware for the system already installed; the over-the-air update made it complete. It applied to the cars wirelessly, without the need for a dealer visit. Maintenance is another potential advantage. These highly digital vehicles can monitor preventive and predictive maintenance and even diagnose problems from afar. It takes the guesswork out of what could go wrong and what needs to be adjusted without a visit to a mechanic shop or dealership.... The downside of this new tech.... Issues that PC users are all too familiar with can crop up in cars. It might be a touchscreen that goes blank and is inoperable while driving, glitchy operation of certain controls, or advanced driver assist features that aren't as fully vetted as they should be before being added to vehicles. The risks of software crashes and privacy breaches are real issues. It's not outside the realm of possibility for someone with malicious intentions to take over the operation of a car and cause damage. Also, some experts are both applauding the technology and advising caution as it relates to personal data privacy: the more data collected from drivers, the more potential for hacking. Their conclusion? "Software will continue to evolve to change the vehicle ownership experience.... "But technology-averse shoppers will likely prefer a vehicle with a more traditional design, which might include buying used."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Associated Press reports that America's Federal Reserve Board "has denied a Wyoming cryptocurrency bank's application for Federal Reserve System membership, officials announced Friday, dealing a setback to the crypto industry's attempts to build acceptance in mainstream U.S. banking."Many in crypto have been looking to Cheyenne-based Custodia Bank's more than 2-year-old application as a bellwether for crypto banking. Approval would have meant access to Federal Reserve services including its electronic payments system. The rejection adds to doubts about crypto banking's viability, particularly in Wyoming, a state that has sought to become a hub of crypto banking, exchanges and mining.... Custodia sued the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in Wyoming federal court last year, accusing them of taking an unreasonably long time on its application. In a statement Friday, the company said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the rejection and pledged to continue to litigate the issue. In a statement, America's Federal Reserve Board argued argued that Custodia's "novel business model" and focus on crypto-assets "presented significant safety and soundness risks.""The Board has previously made clear that such crypto activities are highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices. "The Board also found that Custodia's risk management framework was insufficient to address concerns regarding the heightened risks associated with its proposed crypto activities, including its ability to mitigate money laundering and terrorism financing risks."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Linux:Ubuntu maker Canonical announced Thursday the general availability of its Ubuntu Pro comprehensive subscription for Ubuntu users who want to expand the security updates and compliance of their systems. First released in a beta version in October 2022 with free subscriptions for personal and small-scale commercial use on up to 5 machines, Ubuntu Pro is only available for Ubuntu LTS (Long-Term Support) releases, starting with Ubuntu 16.04, and promises up to 10 years of security updates, as well as access to exclusive tools. These include Ansible, Apache Tomcat, Apache Zookeeper, Docker, Drupal, Nagios, Node.js, phpMyAdmin, Puppet, PowerDNS, Python 2, Redis, Rust, WordPress, ROS, and many others. The Ubuntu Pro subscription promises patches for critical CVEs in less than 24 hours and expands the optional technical support to an additional 23,000 open-source packages and toolchains beyond the main operating system, not just for Ubuntu's main software repository.... Canonical says that if you need Ubuntu Pro for more than five PCs, you will have to purchase a paid plan, which is currently priced at $25 USD per year for workstations or $500 USD per year for servers with a 30-day free trial. Official Ubuntu Community members get free support for up to 50 machines.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report from PC Gamer:In a blog post published Friday, Wizards of the Coast announced that it is fully putting the kibosh on the proposed Open Gaming License (OGL) 1.2 that threw the tabletop RPG community into disarray at the beginning of this month. Instead, Wizards will leave the previously enshrined OGL 1.0 in place, while also putting the latest D&D Systems Reference Document (SRD 5.1) under a Creative Commons License (thanks to GamesRadar for the spot). The original OGL was put in place with the third edition of D&D in 2000, and allowed other companies and creators to base their work off D&D and the d20 system without payment to or oversight from Wizards. A draft of a revised OGL 1.1 leaked early in January, which proposed royalty payments and creative control by Wizards over derivative works. This immediately incited a backlash from fans. Wizards backpedaled, introducing a softer OGL 1.2 that would still replace the original, and opened the community survey cited in today's announcement. With 15,000 respondents in, the results of the survey were pretty damning. 88% didn't "want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2," while 89% were "dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a." 62% were happy that Wizards would put prior SRD versions under Creative Commons, with most of the dissenters wanting more Creative Commons-protected content. In response, Wizards of the Coast caved. "We welcome today's news from Wizards of the Coast regarding their intention not to de-authorize OGL 1.0a," tweeted Pathfinder publisher Paizo, who'd launched an effort to move the industry away from WotC's OGL. But "We still believe there is a powerful need for an irrevocable, perpetual independent system-neutral open license that will serve the tabletop community via nonprofit stewardship. "Work on the ORC license will continue, with an expected first draft to release for comment to participating publishers in February."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares Reuters' report from earlier this week:Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it had recovered all of its cloud services after a networking outage took down its cloud platform Azure along with services such as Teams and Outlook used by millions around the globe. Azure's status page showed services were impacted in Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Only services in China and its platform for governments were not hit. By late morning Azure said most customers should have seen services resume after a full recovery of the Microsoft Wide Area Network (WAN). An outage of Azure, which has 15 million corporate customers and over 500 million active users, according to Microsoft data, can impact multiple services and create a domino effect as almost all of the world's largest companies use the platform.... Microsoft did not disclose the number of users affected by the disruption, but data from outage tracking website Downdetector showed thousands of incidents across continents.... Azure's share of the cloud computing market rose to 30% in 2022, trailing Amazon's AWS, according to estimates from BofA Global Research.... During the outage, users faced problems in exchanging messages, joining calls or using any features of Teams application. Many users took to Twitter to share updates about the service disruption, with #MicrosoftTeams trending as a hashtag on the social media site.... Among the other services affected were Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, according to the company's status page. "I think there is a very big debate to be had on resiliency in the comms and cloud space and the critical applications," Symphony Chief Executive Brad Levy said. From Microsoft's [preliminary] post-incident review:We determined that a change made to the Microsoft Wide Area Network (WAN) impacted connectivity between clients on the internet to Azure, connectivity across regions, as well as cross-premises connectivity via ExpressRoute. As part of a planned change to update the IP address on a WAN router, a command given to the router caused it to send messages to all other routers in the WAN, which resulted in all of them recomputing their adjacency and forwarding tables. During this re-computation process, the routers were unable to correctly forward packets traversing them. The command that caused the issue has different behaviors on different network devices, and the command had not been vetted using our full qualification process on the router on which it was executed.... Due to the WAN impact, our automated systems for maintaining the health of the WAN were paused, including the systems for identifying and removing unhealthy devices, and the traffic engineering system for optimizing the flow of data across the network. Due to the pause in these systems, some paths in the network experienced increased packet loss from 09:35 UTC until those systems were manually restarted, restoring the WAN to optimal operating conditions. This recovery was completed at 12:43 UTC.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Ethan Mollick has a message for the humans and the machines: can't we all just get along? After all, we are now officially in an A.I. world and we're going to have to share it, reasons the associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School. "This was a sudden change, right? There is a lot of good stuff that we are going to have to do differently, but I think we could solve the problems of how we teach people to write in a world with ChatGPT," Mollick told NPR. [...] This year, Mollick is not only allowing his students to use ChatGPT, they are required to. And he has formally adopted an A.I. policy into his syllabus for the first time. He teaches classes in entrepreneurship and innovation, and said the early indications were the move was going great. "The truth is, I probably couldn't have stopped them even if I didn't require it," Mollick said. This week he ran a session where students were asked to come up with ideas for their class project. Almost everyone had ChatGPT running and were asking it to generate projects, and then they interrogated the bot's ideas with further prompts. "And the ideas so far are great, partially as a result of that set of interactions," Mollick said. He readily admits he alternates between enthusiasm and anxiety about how artificial intelligence can change assessments in the classroom, but he believes educators need to move with the times. "We taught people how to do math in a world with calculators," he said. Now the challenge is for educators to teach students how the world has changed again, and how they can adapt to that. Mollick's new policy states that using A.I. is an "emerging skill"; that it can be wrong and students should check its results against other sources; and that they will be responsible for any errors or omissions provided by the tool. And, perhaps most importantly, students need to acknowledge when and how they have used it. "Failure to do so is in violation of academic honesty policies," the policy reads. [...] "I think everybody is cheating ... I mean, it's happening. So what I'm asking students to do is just be honest with me," he said. "Tell me what they use ChatGPT for, tell me what they used as prompts to get it to do what they want, and that's all I'm asking from them. We're in a world where this is happening, but now it's just going to be at an even grander scale." "I don't think human nature changes as a result of ChatGPT. I think capability did."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have developed an innovative method for existing furnaces that could reduce steelmaking's CO2 emission by nearly 90%. The Next Web reports: The iron and steel industry is a major cause of greenhouse gasses, accounting for 9% of global emissions. That's because of the inherent carbon-intensive nature of steel production in blast furnaces, which currently represent the most-widely used practice. In blast furnace steel manufacturing, coke (a type of coal) is used to produce metallic iron from ore obtained from mining -- which releases large quantities of carbon dioxide in the process. According to Dr Harriet Kildahl, who co-devised the method with Professor Yulong Ding, their technology aims to convert this carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide that can be reused in the iron ore reaction. This is realized using a thermochemical cycle which performs chemical reactions through changes in temperature. That way, the typically damaging CO2 is turned into a useful part of the reaction, forming "an almost perfect closed carbon loop." This drastically reduces emission by the amount of coke needed and, subsequently, lowers steelmaking's emissions by up to 88%. As per the researchers, if this method was implemented in the remaining two blast furnaces in the UK, it could save 1.28 billion pounds in 5 years, all while reducing the country's overall emissions by 2.9%. "Current proposals for decarbonizing the steel sector rely on phasing out existing plants and introducing electric arc furnaces powered by renewable electricity. However, an electric arc furnace plant can cost over 1 billion pounds to build, which makes this switch economically unfeasible in the time remaining to meet the Paris Climate Agreement," Professor Ding said. "The system we are proposing can be retrofitted to existing plants, which reduces the risk of stranded assets, and both the reduction in CO2, and the cost savings, are seen immediately." The study has been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A tiny radioactive capsule with the potential to cause skin burns has gone missing as it was transported from a mine in Western Australia. The Guardian reports: Hazardous material experts are searching for the 8mm by 6mm capsule, which is believed to have fallen from a truck as it was traveling the 1,400km between a mine site north of Newman in the Pilbara and a depot in Perth. At an emergency press conference on Friday, the WA chief health officer, Andy Robertson, said the capsule, which is only 6mm by 8mm, emits a "reasonable" amount of radiation. [...] The radioactive gauges are often used in the mining industry. Health authorities said the amount of radiation exposure was comparable to receiving 10 X-rays in the space of an hour. Robertson said the capsule was understood to have fallen from a truck during the 1,400km journey, after vibrations worked loose a bolt, and the capsule fell through the bolt hole. The Department of Emergency and Fire Services issued a health alert on Friday saying there was "radioactive substance risk in parts of the Pilbara, Midwest Gascoyne, Goldfields-Midlands and Perth Metropolitan regions." DFES country north chief superintendent David Gill said areas around the mine site, north of Newman, and the transport depot had unsuccessfully been searched. Drivers who had travelled along the Great Northern Highway between Newman and Perth were being asked to check their tyres in case the capsule had become stuck in them.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Eight years ago, a patient lost her power of speech because of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, which causes progressive paralysis. She can still make sounds, but her words have become unintelligible, leaving her reliant on a writing board or iPad to communicate. Now, after volunteering to receive a brain implant, the woman has been able to rapidly communicate phrases like "I don't own my home" and "It's just tough" at a rate approaching normal speech. That is the claim in a paper published over the weekend on the website bioRxiv by a team at Stanford University. The study has not been formally reviewed by other researchers. The scientists say their volunteer, identified only as "subject T12," smashed previous records by using the brain-reading implant to communicate at a rate of 62 words a minute, three times the previous best. [...] People without speech deficits typically talk at a rate of about 160 words a minute. Even in an era of keyboards, thumb-typing, emojis, and internet abbreviations, speech remains the fastest form of human-to-human communication. The brain-computer interfaces that [co-lead author Krishna Sehnoy's] team works with involve a small pad of sharp electrodes embedded in a person's motor cortex, the brain region most involved in movement. This allows researchers to record activity from a few dozen neurons at once and find patterns that reflect what motions someone is thinking of, even if the person is paralyzed. In previous work, paralyzed volunteers have been asked to imagine making hand movements. By "decoding" their neural signals in real time, implants have let them steer a cursor around a screen, pick out letters on a virtual keyboard, play video games, or even control a robotic arm. In the new research, the Stanford team wanted to know if neurons in the motor cortex contained useful information about speech movements, too. That is, could they detect how "subject T12" was trying to move her mouth, tongue, and vocal cords as she attempted to talk? These are small, subtle movements, and according to Sabes, one big discovery is that just a few neurons contained enough information to let a computer program predict, with good accuracy, what words the patient was trying to say. That information was conveyed by Shenoy's team to a computer screen, where the patient's words appeared as they were spoken by the computer. [...] The current system already uses a couple of types of machine learning programs. To improve its accuracy, the Stanford team employed software that predicts what word typically comes next in a sentence. "I" is more often followed by "am" than "ham," even though these words sound similar and could produce similar patterns in someone's brain. Adding the word prediction system increased how quickly the subject could speak without mistakes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon is developing a TV series based on the Tomb Raider video game franchise with scripts written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Verge reports: Details are light on this new Tomb Raider series, but THR says that while Waller-Bridge will serve as a writer and executive producer, she won't be starring in the show. The show is apparently still in the development stages, so we probably shouldn't expect to see it anytime soon. This new series could be another potentially big video game franchise adaptation for Amazon, which announced in December that it would be making a God of War TV show. But it also marks a further investment from Amazon into the Tomb Raider franchise, as the company will also be publishing the next Tomb Raider game from Crystal Dynamics. Amazon didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The United States and European Union on Friday announced an agreement to speed up and enhance the use of artificial intelligence to improve agriculture, healthcare, emergency response, climate forecasting and the electric grid. Reuters reports: A senior U.S. administration official, discussing the initiative shortly before the official announcement, called it the first sweeping AI agreement between the United States and Europe. Previously, agreements on the issue had been limited to specific areas such as enhancing privacy, the official said. AI modeling, which refers to machine-learning algorithms that use data to make logical decisions, could be used to improve the speed and efficiency of government operations and services. "The magic here is in building joint models (while) leaving data where it is," the senior administration official said. "The U.S. data stays in the U.S. and European data stays there, but we can build a model that talks to the European and the U.S. data because the more data and the more diverse data, the better the model." The initiative will give governments greater access to more detailed and data-rich AI models, leading to more efficient emergency responses and electric grid management, and other benefits, the administration official said. The partnership is currently between just the White House and the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-member European Union. The senior administration official said other countries will be invited to join in the coming months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jody Serrano writes via Gizmodo: In a 1,669-word email to employees, [PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada] echoed the script many tech CEOs have recited in recent months, stating that today's "volatile economy requires additional transformation" by the company. As a result, PagerDuty would be "refining" its operating model by cutting about 7% of its staff globally. That wasn't the only "refinement" the company would undertake, though. According to Tejada, PagerDuty will reduce its discretionary spend, negotiate "more favorable commercial agreements with key vendors," and "rationalize [its] real estate footprint." Up to this point, Tejada's email, while overly complex, weird, and tone deaf, still was not that bad. She goes on to acknowledge employees and their contributions to PagerDuty and announces a decent severance pay of 11 weeks, with extended healthcare coverage and job support. Nonetheless, it all starts to go downhill when she decides to use the same email where she announces layoffs to celebrate recent employee promotions, reveal good financial results for the fourth quarter of last year, and state that the company expects to end the year strong. As if she couldn't do so in another email where people weren't told they were possibly losing their jobs. "We expect to finish the year strong -- in fact, we have reaffirmed our guidance for FY23 today -- and those results, combined with the refinements outlined above, put PagerDuty in a position of strength to successfully execute on our platform strategy regardless of what the market and the macroenvironment bring," Tejada said. While it's clearly a CEO's job to cheer on their company, Tejada makes things sound so good that it's perplexing to think the company has to lay off any people to begin with. Alas, the PagerDuty CEO was not done sticking her foot in her mouth and ended her note with a reference a quote from King's sermons published in The Measure of a Man in 1959. She used brackets to change the quote slightly to accommodate her message. "I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that 'the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy,'" Tejada said. "It doesn't seem to have been written with ill intent, but rather with the goal to save time (by announcing layoffs, promotions, and predictions for a solid year) and save face (by refusing to say the word layoffs)," adds Serrano. "In these difficult situations, though, it's just better to be upfront."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Aerospace giant Boeing entered a plea of not guilty to a criminal charge at an arraignment in federal court in Texas Thursday. The company is charged with felony fraud related to the crashes of two of its 737 Max airplanes that killed a total of 346 people. About a dozen relatives of some of those who were killed in the crashes gave emotional testimony during the three-hour arraignment hearing about how they've been affected by what they call "the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history." They testified after Boeing's chief aerospace safety officer Mike Delaney entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of the airplane manufacturer to the charge of conspiracy to commit fraud. The company is accused of deceiving and misleading federal regulators about the safety of a critical automated flight control system that investigators found played a major role in causing the crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and in Ethiopia in 2019. Boeing and the Justice Department had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to settle the charge two years ago but many of the families of the crash victims objected to the agreement, saying that they were not consulted about what they called a "secret, sweetheart deal." Under the terms of the agreement, Boeing admitted to defrauding the FAA by concealing safety problems with the 737 Max, but pinned much of the blame on two technical pilots who they say misled regulators while working on the certification of the aircraft. Only one of those pilots was prosecuted and a jury acquitted him at trial last year. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion, including $1.7 billion in compensation to airlines that had purchased 737 Max planes but could not use them while the plane was grounded for 20 months after the second plane crashed. The company also agreed to pay $500 million in compensation to the families of those killed in the two Max plane crashes, and to pay a $243 million fine. The agreement also required Boeing to make significant changes to its safety policies and procedures, as well as to the corporate culture, which many insiders have said had shifted in recent years from a safety first focus to one that critics say put profits first. After three years, if the aerospace giant and defense contractor lived up to the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, the criminal charge against Boeing would be dismissed and the company would be immune from further prosecution. But last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor agreed that under the Crime Victims' Rights Act, the relatives' rights had been violated and they should have been consulted before the DOJ and Boeing reached the agreement. Last week, he ordered Boeing to appear Thursday to be arraigned. On Thursday, the families asked Judge O'Connor to impose certain conditions on Boeing as a condition of release, including appointing an independent monitor to oversee Boeing's compliance with the terms of the previous deferred prosecution agreement, and that the company's compliance efforts "be made public to the fullest extent possible." O'Connor did not rule on whether to impose those conditions yet, as Boeing and the Justice Department opposed the request. But he did impose a standard condition that Boeing commit no new crimes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AWS, Google and Microsoft are among creditors owed money after the FTX crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy in November. From a report: Since the once-hyped company went south, founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas in December, with charges including campaign finance violations and money laundering offences. He has maintained his innocence. In the meantime, Judge John Dorsey, overseeing the case, said names of creditors owed money should not be published until after a hearing in early January. Although names of individual investors have not been released, companies and institutional investors have been published. Among them are a long list of enterprise tech companies presumably providing FTX's supporting technology. Cloud providers AWS, Microsoft and Google are among them. Data analytics platform Looker -- owned by Google -- is also on the list, as is marketing software HubSpot, file-sharing outfit Dropbox, and code repository GitHub. Device manufacturer Apple and webhosting firm GoDaddy are also named. It is impossible to say how much each company might be owed, although FTX has said $3.1 billion was outstanding to its top 50 creditors. Estimates suggest there are in the region of 1 million creditors, with the greatest two single claims being $226 million and $203 million.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First, Yale Law School. Now, Harvard Medical School. One by one, some of the nation's top graduate programs are quitting the great who's-up-who's-down scorecards of higher ed: US News & World Report's rankings. From a report: Harvard, No. 1 on the publication's latest medical-school list for research, joins a growing boycott of the most famous name in US college rankings. This week, the medical schools of Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania announced they will no longer participate. Yale kicked off the movement in November, and was followed soon after by Harvard, Penn and Georgetown University law schools. The big question now is whether the movement will trickle down to undergraduate institutions. Critics of the rankings say their methodology is flawed and fail to represent the student experience, while supporters argue the lists are valuable guides for students. While this may put pressure on undergraduate colleges to reconsider their participation, those who study the rankings say the exodus might take some time. Love 'em or hate 'em, they exert a powerful hold over institutions, students, parents and even recruiters. For some schools, sliding in the rankings can mean lost funding. Undergraduate schools have been tight-lipped about what happens next, although many admissions officers privately question the rankings' value. The criticism has been mounting for years. "I am convinced that the rankings game is a bit of mishegoss -- a slightly daft obsession that does harm when colleges, parents, or students take it too seriously," Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber wrote in a 2021 op-ed in the Washington Post. In August, US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called rankings "a joke."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel's disastrous Q4 2022 earnings found the company losing $661 million and its margins crashing to the lowest point in decades, so it isn't surprising that the company announced new cost-cutting measures. From a report: That includes news that it would no longer invest in new products for its networking switch business, effectively sunsetting the unit much like it recently decided to end its Optane Memory business. Surprisingly, Intel also pulled the rug from under its respected RISC-V Pathfinder program without a formal announcement, raising questions about its commitment to its other broad investments in the RISC-V ecosystem. "NEX continues to do well and is a core part of our strategic transformation, but we will end future investments in our network switching product line, while still fully supporting existing products and customers," said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. "Since my return, we have exited seven businesses, providing in excess of $1.5 billion in savings," he added. However, Gelsinger also noted that he is still doing a thorough analysis across Intel's portfolio to look for other cost-saving measures in areas that don't generate strong returns. Intel's networking switch business stems from acquiring Barefoot networks in 2019 for an undisclosed sum (the company had raised $144 million over several investment rounds). The Tofino series of network switches gave Intel yet another tool in its arsenal of data center 'adjacencies' that it could leverage to expand its data center revenue. However, this unit faces stiff competition from entrenched players like Broadcom, Cisco, and Nvidia's Mellanox, making it an easy cost-cutting target.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Home Depot's Canadian arm was found to be sharing details from e-receipts related to in-store purchases with Facebook owner Meta Platforms without the knowledge or consent of its customers, according to Canada's privacy regulator. From a report: An investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) found that by participating in Meta's offline conversions program Home Depot shared the e-receipts that included encoded email addresses and purchase information. The regulator added that the home goods chain stopped sharing customer information with Meta in October 2022, which was among the recommendations made by OPC, until the company is able to implement measures to ensure valid consent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The publishers of thousands of scientific journals have banned or restricted contributors' use of an advanced AI-driven chatbot amid concerns that it could pepper academic literature with flawed and even fabricated research. From a report: ChatGPT, a fluent but flaky chatbot developed by OpenAI in California, has impressed or distressed more than a million human users by rattling out poems, short stories, essays and even personal advice since its launch in November. But while the chatbot has proved a huge source of fun -- its take on how to free a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR, in the style of the King James Bible, is one notable hit -- the program can also produce fake scientific abstracts that are convincing enough to fool human reviewers. ChatGPT's more legitimate uses in article preparation have already led to it being credited as a co-author on a handful of papers. The sudden arrival of ChatGPT has prompted a scramble among publishers to respond. On Thursday, Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of the leading US journal Science, announced an updated editorial policy, banning the use of text from ChatGPT and clarifying that the program could not be listed as an author. Leading scientific journals require authors to sign a form declaring that they are accountable for their contribution to the work. Since ChatGPT cannot do this, it cannot be an author, Thorp says. But even using ChatGPT in the preparation of a paper is problematic, he believes. ChatGPT makes plenty of errors, which could find their way into the literature, he says, and if scientists come to rely on AI programs to prepare literature reviews or summarise their findings, the proper context of the work and the deep scrutiny that results deserve could be lost. "That is the opposite direction of where we need to go," he said. Other publishers have made similar changes. On Tuesday, Springer-Nature, which publishes nearly 3,000 journals, updated its guidelines to state that ChatGPT cannot be listed as an author. But the publisher has not banned ChatGPT outright. The tool, and others like it, can still be used in the preparation of papers, provided full details are disclosed in the manuscript.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Israel's technology sector is pushing back against the new government's planned judicial overhaul, saying the proposed changes are spooking investors worried about economic stability, the independence of the courts and a right-wing legislative agenda. From a report: This week, a large Israeli software company said it would move its money out of Israel and the general partner of two venture-capital firms said future money raised could be kept abroad. Those moves followed a letter from hundreds of Israeli economists warning that the judicial changes would concentrate political power and remove democratic checks and balances in a way that "could cripple the country's economy." Two former Bank of Israel governors warned in an opinion column about the negative economic impacts of changes to the top court. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his recently sworn-in government are advancing plans that would give the ruling coalition control over which judges are appointed, and allow a simple majority of lawmakers to override decisions by the Supreme Court. The plan would also limit which cases the court can hear. Top members of the justice system and the political opposition have criticized the overhaul as an attempt to concentrate all power in the hands of the ruling coalition. Israel is highly reliant on its technology sector, which accounts for 15% of the country's gross domestic product and around half of its exports. The country has prospered in recent decades, attracting foreign investment that has fueled an explosion of startups and technology companies. Many Israeli tech companies are based in or have workers who live in the Tel Aviv area, a base for secular and liberal Israelis, many of whom oppose Mr. Netanyahu's government.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Intel's December earnings showed significant declines in the company's sales, profit, gross margin, and outlook, both for the quarter and the full year. [...] In short: Intel had a difficult 2022, and 2023 is shaping up to be tough as well. Here are some of the most concerning bits from Intel's earnings report and analyst call: Intel didn't give full-year guidance for 2023, citing economic uncertainty. But the data points for the current quarter suggest tough times. Intel guided for about $11 billion in sales in the March quarter, which would be a 40% year-over-year decline. Gross margin will be 34.1%, a huge decrease from the 55.2% in the same quarter in 2021, [CEO Pat Gelsinger's] first at the helm. But the biggest issue for investors is that Intel guided to a 15 cent non-GAAP loss per share, a big decline for a company that a year ago was reporting $1.13 in profit per share. It would be the first loss per share since last summer, which was the first loss for the company in decades. Management gave several reasons for the tough upcoming quarter, but one theme that came through was that its customers simply have too many chips and need to work through inventory, so they won't be buying many new chips. Both the PC and server markets have slowed after a two-year boom spurred by remote work and school during the pandemic. Now, PC sales have slowed and the computer makers have too many chips. Gelsinger is predicting PC sales during the year to be around 270 million to 295 million -- a far cry from the "million units-a-day" he predicted in 2021. Now, Intel's customers have to "digest" the chips they already have, or "correct" their inventories, and the company doesn't know when this dynamic will shift back. "While we know this dynamic will reverse, predicting when is difficult," Gelsinger told analysts. Underpinning all of this is that Intel's gross margin continues to decline, hurting the company's profitability. One issue is "factory load," or how efficiently factories run around the clock. Intel said that its gross margin would be hit by 400 basis points, or 4 percentage points, because of factories running under load because of soft demand. Ultimately, Intel forecasts a 34.1% gross margin in the current quarter -- a far cry from the 51% to 53% goal the company set at last year's investor day. The company says it's working on it, and the margin could get back to Intel's goal "in the medium-term" if demand recovers. "We have a number of initiatives under way to improve gross margins and we're well under way. When you look at the $3 billion reduction [in costs] that we talked about for 2023, 1 billion of that is in cost of sales and we're well on our way to getting that billion dollars," Gelsinger said. The bright spot for Intel: Mobileye, its self-driving subsidiary that went public during the December quarter. According to CNBC, the company reported earnings per share of 27 cents and revenue growth of 59%, to $656 million. "It also forecast strong 2023 revenue of between $2.19 billion and $2.28 billion," the report adds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A wearable ultrasound imager for the heart that is roughly the size of a postage stamp, can be worn for up to 24 hours, and works even during exercise may one day help doctors spot cardiac problems that current medical technology might miss, a new study finds. IEEE Spectrum reports: Now scientists have developed a wearable ultrasound device that can enable safe, continuous, real-time, long-term, and highly detailed imaging of the heart. They detailed their findings online on January 25 in the journal Nature. "Potential applications include continuously monitoring the heart in daily life, during exercise, during surgery, and much more," says study coauthor Ray Wu, a nanoengineer at UC San Diego. "This will open up the possibility to detect previously undetectable symptoms of disease, identify symptoms in their very early stages, and greatly improve patient outcomes." The new device is a patch 1.9 centimeters long by 2.2 cm wide and only 0.9 millimeters thick. It uses an array of piezoelectric transducers to send and receive ultrasound waves in order to generate a constant stream of images of the structure and function of the heart. The researchers were able to get such images even during exercise on a stationary bike. No skin irritation or allergy was seen after 24 hours of continuous wear. "The most exciting result is that our patch performs well when an individual is moving," Hu says. "Our patch allows us to evaluate heart performance throughout exercise, providing valuable information about the heart when it is under high stress." The new patch is about as flexible as human skin. It can also stretch up to 110 percent of its size, which means it can survive far more strain than typically experienced on human skin. These features help it stick onto the body, something not possible with the rigid equipment often used for cardiac imaging. In the new study, the researchers focused on imaging the left ventricle, the largest of the heart's four chambers "and strongly considered to be the most important in terms of cardiovascular health, as it is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to the entire body," Wu says. Cardiac imaging generally focuses on the left ventricle, but the new device can image all of the heart's four chambers simultaneously, "so it may be possible for future research to focus on other or multiple chambers," he adds. In addition, "the imager can be applied to image various other organs, such as the stomach, kidney, or liver." Traditional cardiac ultrasound imaging constantly rotates an ultrasound probe to analyze the heart in multiple dimensions. To eliminate the need for this rotation, the array of ultrasound sensors and emitters in the new device is shaped like a cross so that ultrasonic waves can travel at right angles to each other. The scientists developed a custom deep-learning AI model that can analyze the data from the patch and automatically and continuously estimate vital details, such as the percentage of blood pumped out of the left ventricle with each beat, and the volume of blood the heart pumps out with each beat and every minute. The root of most heart problems is the heart not pumping enough blood, issues that often manifest only when the body is moving, the researchers note.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A small asteroid is flying very close to Earth on Thursday night, less than a week after astronomers discovered the object. The New York Times reports: The asteroid, named 2023 BU, was scheduled to pass over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. Eastern time. The asteroid is fairly small -- less than 30 feet across, about the size of a truck -- and will be best visible in the skies to the west of southern Chile. For space watchers unable to view 2023 BU firsthand, the Virtual Telescope Project will be broadcasting the event on its website and YouTube channel. The asteroid will not hit Earth but will make one of the closest approaches ever by such an object, hurtling past Earth at just 2,200 miles above its surface, according to a news release from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This encounter puts the asteroid "well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites," the statement noted, but the asteroid is not on track to hit any. 2023 BU was unknown to NASA, or anyone, until last Saturday. Gennadiy Borisov, an amateur astronomer in Crimea, noticed the asteroid from the MARGO Observatory, a setup of telescopes that he has used to discover other interstellar objects. Astronomers then determined 2023 BU's orbit around the sun and impending trip past Earth using data from the Minor Planet Center, a project sanctioned by the International Astronomical Union. It publishes positions of newly found space objects, including comets and satellites, from information of several observatories worldwide.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: New York City's largest fossil-fuel plant, which powers 20% of the city, will be replaced with offshore wind power. Ravenswood Generating Station is the New York City fossil fuel plant that will become an offshore wind hub. It's a 2,480-megawatt (MW) power plant in Long Island City, Queens, across from Roosevelt Island, and it's the Big Apple's largest power plant. Rise Light & Power, a New York based energy asset manager and developer that holds Ravenswood as its core asset, is submitting a proposal today, with support from community and state leaders, to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) in response to the state's offshore wind solicitation. In a nutshell, the 27-acre waterfront oil and gas industrial site is going to be converted into a clean energy hub that will power one-fifth of New York City with offshore wind power. The Ravenswood offshore wind project will reuse existing physical and electrical infrastructure, and that's going to save New York ratepayers money. An HVDC conductor cable will be brought onshore at the existing power plant site. The cable will interconnect via underground HVAC cables to the NYISO bulk electric system at existing substations adjacent to the site. It will also become an offshore wind operations and maintenance hub that will support the just transition of the existing fossil fuel plant workforce, and drive economic investment into a historically underserved community. Rise Light & Power states that the project will, with training programs and job opportunities, justly transition and upskill Ravenswood's current Local 1-2 UWUA union workers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The FBI revealed today that it had shut down the prolific ransomware gang called Hive, "a maneuver that allowed the bureau to thwart the group from collecting more than $130 million in ransomware demands from more than 300 victims," reports Reuters. Slashdot readers wiredmikey and unimind shared the news. From the report: At a news conference, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said government hackers broke into Hive's network and put the gang under surveillance, surreptitiously stealing the digital keys the group used to unlock victim organizations' data. They were then able to alert victims in advance so they could take steps to protect their systems before Hive demanded the payments. "Using lawful means, we hacked the hackers," Monaco told reporters. "We turned the tables on Hive." News of the takedown first leaked on Thursday morning when Hive's website was replaced with a flashing message that said: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized this site as part of coordinated law enforcement action taken against Hive Ransomware." Hive's servers were also seized by the German Federal Criminal Police and the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit. The undercover infiltration, which started in July 2022, went undetected by the gang until now. The Justice Department said that over the years, Hive has targeted more than 1,500 victims in 80 different countries, and has collected more than $100 million in ransomware payments. Although there were no arrests announced on Wednesday, Garland said the investigation was ongoing and one department official told reporters to "stay tuned."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The International Data Corporation has the latest numbers for worldwide smartphone sales in Q4 2022, and it's a disaster. Shipments declined 18.3 percent year-over-year, making for the largest-ever decline in a single quarter and dragging the year down to an 11.3 percent decline. With overall shipments of 1.21 billion phones for the year, the IDC says this is the lowest annual shipment total since 2013. Ars Technica reports: In the top five for Q4 2022 -- in order, they were Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo -- Apple was, of course, the least affected, but not by much. Apple saw a year-over-year drop of 14.9 percent for Q4 2022, Samsung was down 15.6 percent, and the big loser, Xiaomi, dropped 26.5 percent. For the year, Samsung still took the No. 1 spot with 21.6 percent market share, Apple was No. 2 with 18.8 percent, and Xiaomi took third place at 12.7 percent. The IDC also notes consumers are keeping smartphones longer than ever now, with "refresh rates" or the time that passes before people buy a new phone 'climb[ing] past 40 months in most major markets.' The report closes saying: "2023 is set up to be a year of caution as vendors will rethink their portfolio of devices while channels will think twice before taking on excess inventory. However, on a positive note, consumers may find even more generous trade-in offers and promotions continuing well into 2023 as the market will think of new methods to drive upgrades and sell more devices, specifically high-end models."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss read a speech on the floor of the U.S. House that was generated by AI chatbot ChatGPT. "Auchincloss said he prompted the system in part to 'write 100 words to deliver on the floor of the House of Representatives' about the legislation," reports the Associated Press. "Auchincloss said he had to refine the prompt several times to produce the text he ultimately read. His staff said they believe it's the first time an AI-written speech was read in Congress." From the report: The bill, which Auchincloss is refiling, would establish a joint U.S.-Israel AI Center in the United States to serve as a hub for AI research and development in the public, private and education sectors. Auchincloss said part of the decision to read a ChatGPT-generated text was to help spur debate on AI and the challenges and opportunities created by it. He said he doesn't want to see a repeat of the advent of social media, which started small and ballooned faster than Congress could react. "I'm the youngest parent in the Democratic caucus, AI is going to be part of my life and it could be a general purpose technology for my children," said Auchincloss, 34. The text generated from Auchincloss's prompt includes sentences like: "We must collaborate with international partners like the Israeli government to ensure that the United States maintains a leadership role in AI research and development and responsibly explores the many possibilities evolving technologies provide." "There were probably about a dozen of my colleagues on the floor. I bet none of them knew it was written by a computer," he said. Lawmakers and others shouldn't be reflexively hostile to the new technology, but also shouldn't wait too long before drafting policies or new laws to help regulate it, Auchincloss said. In particular, he argued that the country needs a "public counterweight" to the big tech firms that would help guarantee that smaller developers and universities have access to the same cloud computing, cutting edge algorithms and raw data as larger companies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: The Department of Motor Vehicles has never been an agency that screams innovation. The agency is better know for bureaucracy and endless lines than technological transformation. But this may be changing after a collaboration between California's DMV and open-source blockchain Tezos and Oxhead Alpha, a crypto-focused software development firm. Together, the three partners are building a DMV-run blockchain that will not only digitize car titles for California drivers, but also seek to streamline title transfers between owners. Ajay Gupta, the chief digital officer at the California DMV, said that the agency hopes to finalize its "shadow ledger," or a full replication of the state's title database on the blockchain, within the next three months before building consumer-facing applications, including digital wallets that hold car title NFTs. "The DMV's perception of lagging behind should definitely change," Gupta told Fortune in an exclusive interview. [...] Andrew Smith, the president of Oxhead Alpha, said that he was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the Gupta-led DMV wanted to move with the initiative. He described the current system as using 18th-century paper-based technology to solve 21st-century transaction fraud, pointing to the common sense solutions presented by digitizing car titles and tracing their movement. For example, if someone buys a "lemon," or faulty car, in California, it will have a special designation on their title. If they then move out of state and back into California with the car, they can shirk the "lemon" branding and sell the car without the new buyer knowing. "As far as the benefit for having a persistent digital title, this is a very obvious use case," Smith said. The DMV worked with Oxhead Alpha and Tezos to create a private instance of the Tezos blockchain, which would increase security compared to relying on a public blockchain. Smith said that the DMV chain is currently operational and running DMV validator nodes. For now, the blockchain will operate in the background, but Gupta hopes to create consumer-facing applications soon. An obvious application would be allowing people to transfer car ownership between digital wallets through an NFT version of their title, with the DMV acting as a middleman to ensure that all the sale obligations are completed. Gupta said that type of functionality is on the horizon. Another possible use case is transferring titles between states. Smith said that he's seen a lot of appetite from municipal-level governments, with mayors such as Miami's Francis Suarez advocating for crypto, and that generating interest from states would come next.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

schwit1 shares a report from NPR: A British man who planned to have a "robot lawyer" help a defendant fight a traffic ticket has dropped the effort after receiving threats of possible prosecution and jail time. [...] The first-ever AI-powered legal defense was set to take place in California on Feb. 22, but not anymore. As word got out, an uneasy buzz began to swirl among various state bar officials, according to Browder. He says angry letters began to pour in. "Multiple state bar associations have threatened us," Browder said. "One even said a referral to the district attorney's office and prosecution and prison time would be possible." In particular, Browder said one state bar official noted that the unauthorized practice of law is a misdemeanor in some states punishable up to six months in county jail. "Even if it wouldn't happen, the threat of criminal charges was enough to give it up," [said Joshua Browden, the CEO of the New York-based startup DoNotPay]. "The letters have become so frequent that we thought it was just a distraction and that we should move on." State bar associations license and regulate attorneys, as a way to ensure people hire lawyers who understand the law. Browder refused to cite which state bar associations in particular sent letters, and what official made the threat of possible prosecution, saying his startup, DoNotPay, is under investigation by multiple state bar associations, including California's. "The truth is, most people can't afford lawyers," he said. "This could've shifted the balance and allowed people to use tools like ChatGPT in the courtroom that maybe could've helped them win cases." "I think calling the tool a 'robot lawyer' really riled a lot of lawyers up," Browder said. "But I think they're missing the forest for the trees. Technology is advancing and courtroom rules are very outdated."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stripe, the fintech company once valued at $95 billion by private market investors, will make a decision on its plans to go public within the next year, CNBC has confirmed. From the report: Co-founders and brothers John and Patrick Collison told employees on Thursday that they will set a goal of taking the company public or letting staffers sell shares through a secondary offering, The Information first reported. In July, Stripe cut its internal valuation by 28%, from $95 billion to $74 billion. Earlier this month, The Information reported that Stripe again lowered its valuation to $63 billion. Stripe, which provides payments software for e-commerce businesses, topped CNBC's Disruptor 50 list in 2020. Founded in 2010, Stripe's business took off as the U.S. economy and labor market began to recover from the financial crisis. Revenue was turbocharged during Covid from the boom in e-commerce. But in November, the company laid off roughly 14% of its staff as the Nasdaq headed for its worst year since 2008. Stripe is considering a direct listing or private market transaction and has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to advise on the deal, CNBC has learned.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ArsTechnica: The operator of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall is being probed by New York's attorney general over the company's use of facial recognition technology to identify and exclude lawyers from events. AG Letitia James' office said the policy may violate civil rights laws. Because of the policy, lawyers who work for firms involved in litigation against MSG Entertainment Corp. can be denied entry to shows or sporting events, even when they have no direct involvement in any lawsuits against MSG. A lawyer who is subject to MSG's policy may buy a ticket to an event but be unable to get in because the MSG venues use facial recognition to identify them. In December, attorney Kelly Conlon was denied entry into Radio City Music Hall in New York when she accompanied her daughter's Girl Scout troop to a Rockettes show. Conlon wasn't personally involved in any lawsuits against MSG but is a lawyer for a firm that "has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment," NBC New York reported. James' office sent a letter (PDF) Tuesday to MSG Entertainment, noting reports that it "used facial recognition software to forbid all lawyers in all law firms representing clients engaged in any litigation against the Company from entering the Company's venues in New York, including the use of any season tickets." "We write to raise concerns that the Policy may violate the New York Civil Rights Law and other city, state, and federal laws prohibiting discrimination and retaliation for engaging in protected activity," Assistant AG Kyle Rapinan of the Civil Rights Bureau wrote in the letter. "Such practices certainly run counter to the spirit and purpose of such laws, and laws promoting equal access to the courts: forbidding entry to lawyers representing clients who have engaged in litigation against the Company may dissuade such lawyers from taking on legitimate cases, including sexual harassment or employment discrimination claims." The AG's office also said it is concerned that "facial recognition software may be plagued with biases and false positives against people of color and women." The letter asked MSG Entertainment to respond by February 13 "to state the justifications for the Company's Policy and identify all efforts you are undertaking to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and that the Company's use of facial recognition technology will not lead to discrimination." "To be clear, our policy does not unlawfully prohibit anyone from entering our venues and it is not our intent to dissuade attorneys from representing plaintiffs in litigation against us," said an MSG spokesperson in a statement. "We are merely excluding a small percentage of lawyers only during active litigation. Most importantly, to even suggest anyone is being excluded based on the protected classes identified in state and federal civil rights laws is ludicrous. Our policy has never applied to attorneys representing plaintiffs who allege sexual harassment or employment discrimination."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft just forged a strategic alliance with a major solar panel manufacturer to try to make good on its clean energy goals. From a report: The deal comes as supply chain woes and allegations of labor abuse are making it increasingly difficult to deploy solar energy across the US. The plan is for solar energy heavyweight Qcells to provide more than 2.5 gigawatts of solar panels and related services to developers working with Microsoft. That's enough to power some 400,000 homes, according to Microsoft, which hailed the collaboration as a "first-of-its-kind." The company has a goal of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by "more than half" by 2030 and to counteract its remaining pollution by trying to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Microsoft also has a 2030 renewable energy commitment -- one that it won't be able to meet unless it can encourage more solar and wind energy to come online.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In his State of the City speech Thursday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that Uber and Lyft will be required to be zero emission by 2030. The decision by one of the world's largest markets for app-based ridehailing has the potential to affect an estimated 100,000 for-hire vehicles. From a report: Adams said the move will build on efforts his administration has made to electrify the city's fleet of vehicles while installing charging infrastructure to power those vehicles throughout the five boroughs. The mayor will likely implement his plan through the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission, which regulates the for-hire vehicle industry, including Uber and Lyft. Uber and Lyft, which normally chafe at new requirements and have been known to sue to block rules they don't like, sound largely positive toward the new development in New York.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If it's still too early to declare platform-exclusive podcast deals dead as we move into 2023, it's becoming ever clearer that this business model is likely not long for this world. From a report: Spotify in particular has spent the past few years building up its arsenal of exclusive podcast content, shelling out more than $1 billion to acquire studios, lock down popular shows and secure marquee names. Those include podcasting behemoth Joe Rogan, former Presidential couple the Obamas (through their Higher Ground media company) and even the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. But the tide is turning as we enter what many observers project to be a difficult year for the podcasting industry. As in the streaming video space, the major audio players are reportedly reining in their spending amid economic pressures, bringing the booming market of the last several years toward a close. [...] For one thing, as the digital ad market continues to sag in the months ahead, competition for podcast ad dollars is going to intensify further -- bad news for any creator whose show is limited to a single platform. Despite exponential growth in the number of shows available to listeners -- on Spotify alone, that number grew from around 700,000 at the end of 2019 to 4.7 million in September 2022, per company reports -- the podcast ad market, while still growing, has not expanded nearly as rapidly. Spotify's U.S. podcast ad revenue is projected to steadily increase by about 40 percent year-over-year through 2024, far down from the explosive growth rates of 2020 and 2021 as its podcast operations expanded.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Dutch hacker arrested in November obtained and offered for sale the full name, address and date of birth of virtually everyone in Austria, the Alpine nation's police said on Wednesday. From a report: A user believed to be the hacker offered the data for sale in an online forum in May 2020, presenting it as "the full name, gender, complete address and date of birth of presumably every citizen" in Austria, police said in a statement, adding that investigators had confirmed its authenticity. The trove comprised close to nine million sets of data, police said. Austria's population is roughly 9.1 million. The hacker had also put "similar data sets" from Italy, the Netherlands and Colombia up for sale, Austrian police said, adding that they did not have further details.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. government's cybersecurity agency has warned that criminal financially motivated hackers compromised federal agencies using legitimate remote desktop software. From a report: CISA said in a joint advisory with the National Security Agency on Wednesday that it had identified a "widespread cyber campaign involving the malicious use of legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) software" that had targeted multiple federal civilian executive branch agencies -- known as FCEBs -- a list that includes Homeland Security, the Treasury, and the Justice Department. CISA said it first identified suspected malicious activity on two FCEB systems in October while conducting a retrospective analysis using Einstein, a government-operated intrusion detection system used for protecting federal civilian agency networks. Further analysis led to the conclusion that many other government networks were also affected.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Yandex source code repository allegedly stolen by a former employee of the Russian technology company has been leaked as a Torrent on a popular hacking forum. From a report: Yesterday, the leaker posted a magnet link that they claim are 'Yandex git sources' consisting of 44.7 GB of files stolen from the company in July 2022. These code repositories allegedly contain all of the company's source code besides anti-spam rules.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Africa is less safe, secure and democratic than a decade ago, with insecurity holding back progress in health, education and economic opportunities, according to an assessment of the continent. From a report: The Ibrahim index of African governance, which examines how well governments have delivered on policies and services, including security, health, education, rights and democratic participation, said Covid had contributed to the stalling of progress over the past three years. Mo Ibrahim, a Sudan-born businessman who launched the index in 2007, said economic opportunities and human development had improved "quite a lot" across Africa over the past 10 years. "But on the other hand, we see other forces pulling us back. The security and safety of our people is deteriorating," he said. Ibrahim said he was concerned the climate crisis would lead to more conflict over resources, as already seen in parts of Nigeria, Darfur and the Sahel, and worried about the impact of the war in Ukraine on development indicators across the continent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The University of Texas at Austin, one of the nation's leading computer science schools, said on Thursday that it was starting a large-scale, low-cost online Master of Science degree program in artificial intelligence. From a report: The first of its kind among elite computing schools, the new program could help swiftly expand the A.I. work force in the United States as tech giants like Microsoft rush to invest billions in the field. The university announced the initiative amid a clamor over new technology powered by artificial intelligence that can generate humanlike art and texts. And while some of the technology industry's biggest companies are laying off workers after years of rapid growth, hiring in A.I. is expected to stay strong. University officials said they planned to train thousands of graduate students in sought-after skills like machine learning, for a tuition of about $10,000, starting in the spring of 2024. School officials said the cost was intended to make A.I. education more affordable. By contrast, Johns Hopkins University offers an online M.S. degree in artificial intelligence for more than $45,000.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A 13-minute segment on a recent episode of CBS's 60 Minutes appeared to be a news story on Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy, but was actually a sponsored promotion violating federal regulations, according to the nonprofit public health advocacy organization Physicians Committee. From a report: The group filed a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration last week, arguing that the segment, which aired on January 1, violates the FDA's "fair balance" requirement. This law requires that drug advertisements give a fair balance to a drug's risks and benefits. The Physicians Committee claims that CBS's 60 Minutes received advertising payments from Novo Nordisk prior to the coverage, and that the aired segment only included experts who had also been paid by Novo Nordisk. The segment lauded the drug with words and phrases such as "highly effective," "safe," "impressive," "fabulous," and "robust," but didn't delve into side effects or alternative treatments and strategies for weight loss.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SoftBank Group's new startup bets hit a record low last quarter as valuations continued to slide, chilling an already frosty startup winter. From a report: The world's largest tech investor -- which at one point took part in $30 billion worth of financing rounds in more than 90 startups in a single quarter -- participated in just eight investment rounds totaling $2.1 billion in the three months ending in December, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. It was the first time the number of SoftBank's deals fell to single digits since the launch of its Vision Fund. Startup investments by SoftBank's Vision Fund unit came below $350 million in the quarter just ended, a person familiar with the matter said. In total, the segment invested more than $144 billion in five-and-a-half years, which averages out to more than $6 billion per quarter. SoftBank is not alone. Rivals Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital and Coatue Management have also tightened their spigots after shouldering big writedowns in 2022. Denied lucrative exits by a rout in tech valuations, deep-pocketed investors have pulled back, hitting pause on billion-dollar funding rounds that had become common in recent years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The EU's proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which aims to "bolster cybersecurity rules to ensure more secure hardware and software products," could have severe unintended consequences for open source software, according to leaders in the open source community. From a report: The proposed Act can be described as CE marking for software products and has four specific objectives. One is to require manufacturers to improve the security of products with digital elements "throughout the whole life cycle." Second is to offer a "coherent cybersecurity framework" by which to measure compliance. Third is to improve the transparency of digital security in products, and fourth is to enable customers to "use products with digital elements securely." The draft legislation includes an impact assessment that says "for software developers and hardware manufacturers, it will increase the direct compliance costs for new cybersecurity requirements, conformity assessment, documentation and reporting obligations." This extra cost is part of a total cost of compliance, including the burden on businesses and public authorities, estimated at EUR 29 billion ($31.54 billion), and consequent higher prices for consumers. However, the legislators foresee a cost reduction from security incidents estimated at EUR 180 to 290 billion annually. The question is though: how can free software developers afford the cost of compliance, when lack of funding is already a critical issue for many projects? Mike Milinkovich, director of the Eclipse Foundation, said it is "deeply concerned that the CRA could fundamentally alter the social contract which underpins the entire open source ecosystem: open source software provided for free, for any purpose, which can be modified and further distributed for free, but without warranty or liability to the authors, contributors, or open source distributors. Legally altering this arrangement through legislation can reasonably be expected to cause unintended consequences to the innovation economy in Europe."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

European Commission: Have you ever struggled to understand whether you were buying directly from Google or from a different brand, or had difficulty finding information about final costs? In order to further align its practices with EU law -- mainly on lack of transparency and clear information to consumers -- Google has committed to introduce changes in several of its products and services. Following a dialogue started in 2021 with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC), coordinated by the European Commission and led by the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets and the Belgian Directorate-General for Economic Inspection, Google has agreed to address issues raised by the authorities and to introduce changes in Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels and Google Flights to ensure compliance with EU consumer rules. Following the dialogue, Google has committed to limit its capacity to make unilateral changes related to orders when it comes to price or cancellations, and to create an email address whose use is reserved to consumer protection authorities, so that they can report and request the quick removal of illegal content. Moreover, Google agreed to introduce a series of changes to its practices, such as: Google Flights and Google Hotels:1. Make clear to consumers whether they contract directly with Google or whether it is simply acting as an intermediary;2. Clarify the price used as a reference when discounts are advertised on the platform, as well as the fact that reviews are not verified on Google Hotels;3. Accept the same transparency commitments as other big accommodation platforms as regards the way it presents information to consumers, for example, on prices or availability. Google Play Store and Google Store:1. Provide clear pre-contractual information on delivery costs, right of withdrawal and availability of repair or replacement options. Furthermore, Google will facilitate also information on the company (e.g. legal name and address) and direct and effective contact points (e.g. a live telephone agent);2. Clarify how to browse different country versions of the Google Play Store and inform developers about their obligations under the Geo-blocking Regulation to make their apps accessible EU-wide, as well as enable consumers to use means of payment from any EU country.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: More than 700 miles from Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange's backup data center on Cermak Road in Chicago is supposed to safeguard US markets, standing by at all hours in case disaster ever strikes the world's largest venue for trading shares. When markets are closed, it participates in a well-worn routine, with NYSE staffers turning on and off systems to ensure everything works. But heading into Tuesday, an NYSE employee failed to properly shut down Cermak's disaster-recovery system -- leading to a disaster. That human error, described by people with direct knowledge of NYSE's internal operations, is what triggered wild market swings when trading opened Tuesday morning in Manhattan. The chaos affected more than 250 companies including Wells Fargo, McDonald's, Walmart and Morgan Stanley, in some cases sending stock prices swinging by 25 percentage points in a matter of minutes. The episode has prompted the exchange to cancel thousands of trades at a cost that's still being determined. Meanwhile, market professionals and day traders are rattled and waiting for the exchange to elaborate on what it publicly called a "manual error" involving its "disaster recovery configuration."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British cybersecurity officials are warning that hacking groups linked to Russia and Iran are duping people into clicking malicious links by impersonating journalists and experts. From a report: The hackers, who have similar goals but are said to be working separately, have sought to steal emails from people working in academia, defense, the media and government, as well as from activists and non-governmental organizations, according to an advisory released on Thursday by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. "These campaigns by threat actors based in Russia and Iran continue to ruthlessly pursue their targets in an attempt to steal online credentials and compromise potentially sensitive systems," said Paul Chichester, the center's director of operations. "We strongly encourage organizations and individuals to remain vigilant to potential approaches and follow the mitigation advice in the advisory to protect themselves online."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: If you recently made a purchase from an overseas online store selling knockoff clothes and goods, there's a chance your credit card number and personal information were exposed. Since January 6, a database containing hundreds of thousands of unencrypted credit card numbers and corresponding cardholders' information was spilling onto the open web. At the time it was pulled offline on Tuesday, the database had about 330,000 credit card numbers, cardholder names, and full billing addresses -- and rising in real-time as customers placed new orders. The data contained all the information that a criminal would need to make fraudulent transactions and purchases using a cardholder's information. The credit card numbers belong to customers who made purchases through a network of near-identical online stores claiming to sell designer goods and apparel. But the stores had the same security problem in common: Any time a customer made a purchase, their credit card data and billing information was saved in a database, which was left exposed to the internet without a password. Anyone who knew the IP address of the database could access reams of unencrypted financial data. Anurag Sen, a good-faith security researcher, found the exposed credit card records and asked TechCrunch for help in reporting it to its owner. Sen has a respectable track record of scanning the internet looking for exposed servers and inadvertently published data, and reporting it to companies to get their systems secured. But in this case, Sen wasn't the first person to discover the spilling data. According to a ransom note left behind on the exposed database, someone else had found the spilling data and, instead of trying to identify the owner and responsibly reporting the spill, the unnamed person instead claimed to have taken a copy of the entire database's contents of credit card data and would return it in exchange for a small sum of cryptocurrency. A review of the data by TechCrunch shows most of the credit card numbers are owned by cardholders in the United States. [...] Internet records showed that the database was operated by a customer of Tencent, whose cloud services were used to host the database. TechCrunch contacted Tencent about its customer's database leaking credit card information, and the company responded quickly. The customer's database went offline a short time later. Many of the stores leaking customers' information claim to operate out of Hong Kong and were set up in the past few weeks. Some of the websites include: spraygroundusa.com, ihuahebuy.com, igoodlinks.com, ibuysbuy.com, lichengshop.com, hzoushop.com, goldlyshop.com, haohangshop.com, twinklebubble.store, and spendidbuy.com.Read more of this story at Slashdot.