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Linus Torvalds had "some robust exchanges" on the Linux kernel mailing list with a contributor from Google. The subject was inodes, notes the Register, "which as Red Hat puts it are each 'a unique identifier for a specific piece of metadata on a given filesystem.'"Inodes have been the subject of debate on the Linux Kernel Mailing list for the last couple of weeks, with Googler Steven Rostedt and Torvalds engaging in some robust exchanges on the matter. In a thread titled, "Have the inodes all for files and directories all be the same," posters noted that inodes may still have a role when using tar to archive files. Torvalds countered that inodes have had their day. "Yes, inode numbers used to be special, and there's history behind it. But we should basically try very hard to walk away from that broken history," he wrote. "An inode number just isn't a unique descriptor any more. We're not living in the 1970s, and filesystems have changed." But debate on inodes continued. Rostedt eventually suggested that inodes should all have unique numbers... In response... Torvalds opened: "Stop making things more complicated than they need to be." Then he got a bit shouty. "And dammit, STOP COPYING VFS LAYER FUNCTIONS. It was a bad idea last time, it's a horribly bad idea this time too. I'm not taking this kind of crap." Torvalds's main criticism of Rostedt's approach is that the Google dev didn't fully understand the subject matter - which Rostedt later acknowledged. "An inode number just isn't a unique descriptor any more," Torvalds wrote at one point. "We're not living in the 1970s, and filesystems have changed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The New York Times reports on a potential fix for global warming being proiposed by "a small but growing number of astronomers and physicists... the equivalent of a giant beach umbrella, floating in outer space. "The idea is to create a huge sunshade and send it to a far away point between the Earth and the sun to block a small but crucial amount of solar radiation, enough to counter global warming. Scientists have calculated that if just shy of 2% of the sun's radiation is blocked, that would be enough to cool the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit, and keep Earth within manageable climate boundaries. The idea has been at the outer fringes of conversations about climate solutions for years. But as the climate crisis worsens, interest in sun shields has been gaining momentum, with more researchers offering up variations. There's even a foundation dedicated to promoting solar shields. A recent study led by the University of Utah explored scattering dust deep into space, while a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is looking into creating a shield made of "space bubbles." Last summer, Istvan Szapudi, an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, published a paper that suggested tethering a big solar shield to a repurposed asteroid. Now scientists led by Yoram Rozen, a physics professor and the director of the Asher Space Research Institute at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, say they are ready to build a prototype shade to show that the idea will work. To block the necessary amount of solar radiation, the shade would have to be about 1 million square miles, roughly the size of Argentina, Rozen said. A shade that big would weigh at least 2.5 million tons - too heavy to launch into space, he said. So, the project would have to involve a series of smaller shades. They would not completely block the sun's light but rather cast slightly diffused shade onto Earth, he said. Rozen said his team was ready to design a prototype shade of 100 square feet and is seeking between $10 million and $20 million to fund the demonstration. "We can show the world, 'Look, there is a working solution, take it, increase it to the necessary size," he said... Rozen said the team was still in the predesign phase but could launch a prototype within three years after securing funds. He estimated that a full-size version would cost trillions (a tab "for the world to pick up, not a single country," he said) but reduce the Earth's temperature by 1.5 Celsius within two years. "We at the Technion are not going to save the planet," Rozen said. "But we're going to show that it can be done."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: Over the last decade, police departments across the U.S. have spent millions of dollars equipping their officers with body-worn cameras that record what happens as they go about their work. Everything from traffic stops to welfare checks to responses to active shooters is now documented on video. The cameras were pitched by national and local law enforcement authorities as a tool for building public trust between police and their communities in the wake of police killings of civilians like Michael Brown, an 18 year old black teenager killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Video has the potential not only to get to the truth when someone is injured or killed by police, but also to allow systematic reviews of officer behavior to prevent deaths by flagging troublesome officers for supervisors or helping identify real-world examples of effective and destructive behaviors to use for training. But a series of ProPublica stories has shown that a decade on, those promises of transparency and accountability have not been realized. One challenge: The sheer amount of video captured using body-worn cameras means few agencies have the resources to fully examine it. Most of what is recorded is simply stored away, never seen by anyone. Axon, the nation's largest provider of police cameras and of cloud storage for the video they capture, has a database of footage that has grown from around 6 terabytes in 2016 to more than 100 petabytes today. That's enough to hold more than 5,000 years of high definition video, or 25 million copies of last year's blockbuster movie "Barbie." "In any community, body-worn camera footage is the largest source of data on police-community interactions. Almost nothing is done with it," said Jonathan Wender, a former police officer who heads Polis Solutions, one of a growing group of companies and researchers offering analytic tools powered by artificial intelligence to help tackle that data problem. The Paterson, New Jersey, police department has made such an analytic tool a major part of its plan to overhaul its force. In March 2023, the state's attorney general took over the department after police shot and killed Najee Seabrooks, a community activist experiencing a mental health crisis who had called 911 for help. The killing sparked protests and calls for a federal investigation of the department. The attorney general appointed Isa Abbassi, formerly the New York Police Department's chief of strategic initiatives, to develop a plan for how to win back public trust. "Changes in Paterson are led through the use of technology," Abbassi said at a press conference announcing his reform plan in September, "Perhaps one of the most exciting technology announcements today is a real game changer when it comes to police accountability and professionalism." The department, Abassi said, had contracted with Truleo, a Chicago-based software company that examines audio from bodycam videos to identify problematic officers and patterns of behavior. For around $50,000 a year, Truleo's software allows supervisors to select from a set of specific behaviors to flag, such as when officers interrupt civilians, use profanity, use force or mute their cameras. The flags are based on data Truleo has collected on which officer behaviors result in violent escalation. Among the conclusions from Truleo's research: Officers need to explain what they are doing. "There are certain officers who don't introduce themselves, they interrupt people, and they don't give explanations. They just do a lot of command, command, command, command, command," said Anthony Tassone, Truleo's co-founder. "That officer's headed down the wrong path." For Paterson police, Truleo allows the department to "review 100% of body worn camera footage to identify risky behaviors and increase professionalism," according to its strategic overhaul plan. The software, the department said in its plan, will detect events like uses of force, pursuits, frisks and non-compliance incidents and allow supervisors to screen for both "professional and unprofessional officer language." There are around 30 police departments currently use Truleo, according to the company. Christopher J. Schneider, a professor at Canada's Brandon University who studies the impact of emerging technology on social perceptions of police, is skeptical the AI tools will fix the problems in policing because the findings might be kept from the public just like many internal investigations. "Because it's confidential," he said, "the public are not going to know which officers are bad or have been disciplined or not been disciplined."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jennifer Ouellette reports via Ars Technica: A typical lawn sprinkler features various nozzles arranged at angles on a rotating wheel; when water is pumped in, they release jets that cause the wheel to rotate. But what would happen if the water were sucked into the sprinkler instead? In which direction would the wheel turn then, or would it even turn at all? That's the essence of the "reverse sprinkler" problem that physicists like Richard Feynman, among others, have grappled with since the 1940s. Now, applied mathematicians at New York University think they've cracked the conundrum, per a recent paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters -- and the answer challenges conventional wisdom on the matter. "Our study solves the problem by combining precision lab experiments with mathematical modeling that explains how a reverse sprinkler operates," said co-author Leif Ristroph of NYU's Courant Institute. "We found that the reverse sprinkler spins in the 'reverse' or opposite direction when taking in water as it does when ejecting it, and the cause is subtle and surprising." [...] Enter Leif Ristroph and colleagues, who built their own custom sprinkler that incorporated ultra-low-friction rotary bearings so their device could spin freely. They immersed their sprinkler in water and used a special apparatus to either pump water in or pull it out at carefully controlled flow rates. Particularly key to the experiment was the fact that their custom sprinkler let the team observe and measure how water flowed inside, outside, and through the device. Adding dyes and microparticles to the water and illuminating them with lasers helped capture the flows on high-speed video. They ran their experiments for several hours at a time, the better to precisely map the fluid-flow patterns. Ristroph et al. found that the reverse sprinkler rotates a good 50 times slower than a regular sprinkler, but it operates along similar mechanisms, which is surprising. "The regular or 'forward' sprinkler is similar to a rocket, since it propels itself by shooting out jets," said Ristroph. "But the reverse sprinkler is mysterious since the water being sucked in doesn't look at all like jets. We discovered that the secret is hidden inside the sprinkler, where there are indeed jets that explain the observed motions." A reverse sprinkler acts like an "inside-out rocket," per Ristroph, and although the internal jets collide, they don't do so head-on. "The jets aren't directed exactly at the center because of distortion of the flow as it passes through the curved arm," Ball wrote. "As the water flows around the bends in the arms, it is slung outward by centrifugal force, which gives rise to asymmetric flow profiles." It's admittedly a subtle effect, but their experimentally observed flow patterns are in excellent agreement with the group's mathematical models.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Although hydrogen-dedicated renewable energy capacity is expected to increase by 45 GW between 2022 and 2028, the estimates are 35% lower than what the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasted a year ago. Reuters reports: There is growing political momentum for low-emission hydrogen but actual implementation has been held up by uncertain demand outlooks, a lack of clarity in regulatory frameworks, and a lack of infrastructure to deliver hydrogen to end users, the IEA said in an emailed response to questions. Slow progress on real-world implementation "is a consequence of barriers that could be expected in a sector that needs to build up new and complex value chains," the IEA said. Uncertainties have been exacerbated by inflation and sluggish policy implementation. Expected renewable energy capacity for hydrogen production represents just 7% of the capacity pledged for the same period and one tenth the sum of government targets for 2030, IEA said in its report. Around 75% of expected capacity is based in three countries, with China taking the lion's share, followed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the IEA says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing that nine PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," be categorized as hazardous to human health. The EPA signed a proposal Wednesday that would deem the chemicals "hazardous constituents" under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. For the agency to consider a substance a hazardous constituent, it has to be toxic or cause cancer, genetic mutation or the malformations of an embryo. The full list of the nine substances can be found here. The agency cited various studies in which forever chemicals were found to cause a litany of "toxic effects" in humans and animals, including, but not limited to cancer, a decreased response to vaccinations, high cholesterol, decrease in fertility in women, preeclampsia, thyroid disorders and asthma, the EPA said. Short for "per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances," PFAS cover thousands of man-made chemicals. PFAS are often used for manufacturing purposes, such as in nonstick cookware, adhesives, firefighting foam, turf and more. PFAS have been called "forever chemicals" because they break down very slowly and can accumulate in people, animals and the environment. Further reading: 'Forever Chemicals' Taint Nearly Half of US Tap Water, Study EstimatesRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Kyle Orland reports via Ars Technica: Even massive Sega fans would be forgiven for not being too familiar with the Sega AI Computer. After all, the usually obsessive documentation over at Sega Retro includes only the barest stub of an information page for the quixotic, education-focused 1986 hardware. Thankfully, the folks at the self-described "Sega 8-bit preservation and fanaticism" site SMS Power have been able to go a little deeper. The site's recently posted deep dive on the Sega AI Computer includes an incredible amount of well-documented information on this historical oddity, including ROMs for dozens of previously unpreserved pieces of software that can now be partially run on MAME. [...] While the general existence of the Sega AI Computer has been known in certain circles for a while, detailed information about its workings and software was extremely hard to come by, especially in the English-speaking world. That began to change in 2014 when a rare Yahoo Auctions listing offered a boxed AI Computer along with 15 pieces of software. The site was able to crowdfund the winning bid on that auction (which reportedly ran the equivalent of $1,100) and later obtained a keyboard and more software from the winner of a 2022 auction.SMS Power notes that the majority of the software it has uncovered "had zero information about them on the Internet prior to us publishing them: no screenshots, no photos or scans of actual software." Now, the site's community has taken the trouble to preserve all those ROMs and create a new MAME driver that already allows for "partial emulation" of the system (which doesn't yet include a keyboard, tape drive, or speech emulation support). That dumped software is all "educational and mostly aimed at kids," SMS Power notes, and is laden with Japanese text that will make it hard for many foreigners to even tinker with. That means this long-lost emulation release probably won't set the MAME world on fire as 2022's surprise dump of Marble Madness II did. Still, it's notable how much effort the community has put in to fill a formerly black hole in our understanding of this corner of Sega history. SMS Power's write-up of its findings is well worth a full look, as is the site's massive Google Drive, which is filled with documentation, screenshots, photos, contemporaneous articles and ads, and much more.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In an effort to boost tourism and innovation, Japan will launch a new visa program for digital nomads, allowing remote workers to work in the country for up to six months while enjoying sightseeing trips. Tech Times reports: Starting from the end of March, Japan will introduce a unique visa status aimed at IT engineers and remote workers employed by overseas companies. The program is designed to cater to the evolving work landscape, recognizing the surge in digital nomads-individuals who can seamlessly work from anywhere in the world. Nikkei Asia (paywalled) tells us that to be eligible for this digital nomad visa, applicants must boast an annual income of at least 10 million yen ($68,000). Citizens from 50 countries and regions, including the U.S., Australia, and Singapore, which have existing visa waiver agreements with Japan, can apply. Private health insurance is a prerequisite, ensuring the well-being of the visa holders during their stay. Self-employed individuals engaged in overseas business can also benefit from this innovative program. Moreover, they have the option to bring their family members along, provided they are covered by private health insurance. While the program offers the freedom to explore Japan, it has unique conditions. Digital nomads under this visa will not receive a residence card or certificate, limiting access to specific government benefits. The visa is non-renewable, requiring reapplication after a six-month interval, and applicants must spend that time outside the country. Japan joins the ranks of over 50 countries issuing digital nomad visas. Notably, South Korea allows up to two years, while Taiwan offers a three-year stay, with the possibility of permanent residency. The diverse offerings cater to digital nomads' varied needs and preferences, seeking a balance between work and exploration.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ivan Mehta reports via TechCrunch: Nearly a week after Apple announced big changes to the App Store because of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules, the company said that the market represents 7% of its global App Store revenues. The company's chief financial officer Luca Maestri said that the monetary impact of these changes will depend on choices made by developers to adopt different systems. "A lot will depend on the choices that will be made. Just to keep it in context, the changes applied to the EU market, which represents roughly 7% of our global app store revenue," he said in reply to an analyst's question. Because of DMA, Apple has to allow alternative app stores and let developers use third-party payment processors. The company plans to charge a core tech fee if an app crosses a million annual downloads across different app stores. Amid these changes, Apple noted a record quarter for App Store revenues. The company's overall services revenue was $23.1 billion with an 11% jump year-on-year. Apple continued its narrative of defending the App Store and its commission ecosystem by saying that it provides the best privacy and security. CEO Tim Cook emphasized that the company will fall short of providing the best experience to users because of these changes. "If you think about what we've done over the years is, we've really majored on privacy, security and usability. And we've tried our best to get as close to the past in terms of the things that are -- that people love about our ecosystem as we can, but we are going to fall short of providing the maximum amount that we could supply, because we need to comply with the regulation," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A California teenager prosecutors say is responsible for hundreds of swatting attacks around the United States was exposed after law enforcement pieced together a digital trail left on some of the internet's largest platforms, according to court records released this week. Alan Winston Filion, a 17-year-old from Lancaster, California, faces four felony charges in Florida's Seminole County related to swatting, or fake threats called into the police to provoke a forceful response, according to Florida state prosecutors. Police arrested Filion on January 18, and he was extradited to Seminole County this week. Filion's arrest, first reported by WIRED on January 26, marks the culmination of a multi-agency manhunt for the person police claim is responsible for swatting attacks on high schools, historically black colleges and universities, mosques, and federal agents, and for threats to bomb the Pentagon, members of the United States Senate, and the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, a YouTube channel, Discord chats, and usernames related to The Lord of the Rings helped lead authorities to Filion's doorstep. Florida prosecutors charged Filion with four felony counts, including three related to allegedly making false reports to law enforcement and one for unlawful use of a two-way radio for "facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism" that authorities say targeted people based on race, religion, or other protected classes. While prosecutors alleged that Filion "is responsible for hundreds of swatting and bomb threat incidents throughout the United States," the charges Filion faces relate to a single May 12, 2023, swatting attack against the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida. [...] At 2 pm EST on Wednesday, Filion shuffled into a Seminole County courtroom and stood quietly as the judge read the charges against him. He is currently being held without bond.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a job listing spotted by AFTVNews, Amazon makes it clear that the company plans to ditch Android for its own "VegaOS" operating system. "The new platform is said to rely on React Native and would require new apps to be built," reports 9to5Google. From the report: As spotted by AFTVNews, a job listing from Amazon was looking for a "Fire TV Experience Software Development Engineer." The job listing's description makes it abundantly clear that a key part of the role is focused on the transition from Android to the rumored "VegaOS," because it quite literally says that's what is happening, with Amazon saying that Fire TV is transitioning from "FOS/Android" (Fire OS/Android) to "native/Rust" and even explicitly mentioning React Native. The listing, which has since been removed, provides extremely strong evidence of Amazon's plans, which is probably why it was so quickly removed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, the defunct cryptocurrency exchange suffered a hack that resulted in more than $380 million in crypto stolen from FTX's virtual wallets. It turns out that FTX was hit with a SIM-swapping scam orchestrated by ringleader Robert Powell. Powell, along with Carter Rohn and Emily Hernandez, have been indicted and are due to appear in Chicago federal court later Friday for a detention hearing. CNBC reports: The three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud, in a scheme that ran from March 2021 to last April, and involved the co-conspirators traveling to cellphone retail stores in more than 15 states. The indictment says the trio shared the personal identifying information of more than 50 victims, created fake identification documents in the victims' names, impersonated them and then accessed their victims' "online, financial and social media accounts for the purpose of stealing money and data." The scheme relied on duping phone companies into swapping the Subscriber Identity Module of cell phone subscribers into a cellphone controlled by members of the conspiracy, the indictment said. That in turn allowed the conspirators to defeat the multifactor authentication protection on the victims' accounts, giving them access to the money in those accounts. The indictment does not identify FTX by name as the main victim of the conspiracy, but the details of the hack described in that charging document align with the details publicly known about the theft from FTX, which was collapsing at the time of the attack.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Meta is poised to become Wall Street's top comeback kid. It was only a couple of years back the Facebook owner suffered the single biggest market value destruction in stock-market history. But the company has come a long way since then, on Thursday it dazzled shareholders with yet another impressive quarterly earnings report as the social media giant focuses on cutting back costs and shoring up billions in profits. The stock rose as much as 21% Friday, poised to add roughly $200 billion to its market capitalization. This would be the biggest single-session market value addition, eclipsing the $190 billion gains made by Apple and Amazon in 2022. "Solid execution, faster growth, and increased capital structure efficiency improve the outlook from here," Brian Nowak, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note Friday. "Meta's AI pipeline for both users and advertisers is robust, with more tools set to launch and scale throughout '24," he added. Meta, which reduced headcount by 22% in 2023, unveiled plans for a $50 billion stock buyback, and announced its first quarterly dividend on Thursday, a sign to investors that it has money to spare and a reason for them to stick around. While the company is making big cost cuts, it continues to spend aggressively on artificial intelligence advancements, namely in generative AI but also on the background technologies to help feed its social media products and power its ad targeting.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Layoffs are being mentioned on US earnings calls at the highest rate since the pandemic -- and as Meta Platforms shows, such cost cutting can pay off for investors. Bloomberg: Efforts by the Facebook parent to slash costs and refocus its business upended the lives of thousands of workers, but has since helped propel its stock 340% from a 2022 low. With an economic soft landing being the base case for many, positioning by firms to protect margins -- particularly in the technology sector -- is being welcomed by investors. Mentions of job cuts and synonyms per earnings calls this season have jumped to the highest levels since the second quarter of 2020, according to a Bloomberg transcript analysis of S&P 1500 Composite Index firms. For the technology industry in particular, "more recent cuts come out of a position of strength," said Wolf von Rotberg, equity strategist at Bank J. Safra Sarasin. "Confidence in the sector appears high that growth can persist even with a smaller workforce," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has tossed another crumb to investors wondering when the world will get to see some 'Made in Cupertino' GenAI: Expect Apple to reveal what it's been working on in this buzzy slice of AI "later this year," per CEO Tim Cook. TechCrunch: During an earnings call yesterday, Apple's chief exec emphasized its ongoing investment in AI, alongside other -- as he put it -- "groundbreaking innovation," such as the technologies which underpin Apple's Vision Pro VR/AR headset, saying: "We continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort and we're excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year." Very unusual for Apple to publicly admit anything in its future roadmap.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the founding father of cryptocurrency -- and a mystery. In October 2008, Nakamoto gave Bitcoin to the world. Then they disappeared. To this day, nobody knows who Nakamoto is. Amongst the speculation, one man stepped forward: Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who has, since 2016, maintained that he is Nakamoto. Now he'll have to prove it in court. Wired: On February 5, a trial will begin in the UK High Court, the purpose of which is to challenge Wright's claim to Satoshi-hood. The case is being brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a nonprofit consortium of crypto and tech firms, in response to a slew of lawsuits filed by Wright against Bitcoin developers and other parties, in which he is trying to assert intellectual property rights over Bitcoin as its ostensible creator. In its complaint, COPA claims that Wright's behavior has had a "chilling effect," obstructing the progress of Bitcoin by scaring away developers. It is seeking a declaration that Wright does not own the copyright to the white paper that first proposed Bitcoin and did not author the original code, and an injunction preventing him from saying otherwise. In effect, COPA is asking the court to rule that Wright is not Nakamoto. The verdict will have direct implications for a tangle of interlocking cases, which will determine whether Wright can prevent developers from working on Bitcoin without his permission and dictate the terms under which the Bitcoin system can be used. Wright was first nominated as a potential candidate by both WIRED and Gizmodo on the same day in December 2015. The original story, based on a trove of leaked documents, proposed that Wright had "either invented Bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did." A few days later, WIRED published a second story, pointing to discrepancies in the evidence that supported the latter interpretation. Wright did not respond initially to reports that he was Nakamoto, although he did largely scrub his online accounts. By the following year, though, he had begun to present himself publicly as Bitcoin's creator. He has tried on multiple occasions -- through various means -- to categorically prove the claim, earning himself a band of supporters who swear by his credibility. In 2016, Wright was able to convince Gavin Andresen, an early contributor to Bitcoin's underlying software, and Jon Matonis, former director of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple's Vision Pro virtual reality headset officially launched in the U.S. on Friday. Customers who preordered the headset will begin to receive it or pick it up at Apple Store locations. CNBC adds: Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared at the company's flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City on Friday morning to celebrate the headset's release. Speaking to CNBC's Jim Cramer at the event about the Vision Pro's high sticker price, Cook called it "tomorrow's technology today." The Vision Pro starts at $3,500. "People can spread their payments out over time, and so that's one affordability kind of thing," Cook said, referring to a monthly financing plan that buyers can choose. "It's chock-full of invention. It's got 5,000 patents on it. We think we priced it at the right level considering the value of it," Cook added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mozilla claims in a new 74-page research report that Microsoft "repeatedly uses harmful design" and "dark patterns" to push users toward Microsoft Edge and away from rival browsers like Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome browser. PCMag: "Microsoft uses the harmful preselection, visual interference, trick wording, and disguised ads patterns to skew user choice," the report argues, adding that "Microsoft's harmful design practices mean users are unable to download, install, use, or set as default an alternative browser without interference." The researchers claim this harms consumers because they can experience "distortion of choice," lose trust in the broader tech industry, and even possibly experience "emotional distress" as a result of Microsoft's efforts. For the study, user experiences were tested on Windows 10 Home and Windows 11 Pro as well as the Windows 11 Home Insider Preview Version. The UK-based testers did not attempt to use a VPN to change or hide their IP addresses during their investigation. While Microsoft recently said it will allow users in the European Union to uninstall Edge as part of its efforts to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), it's unclear whether US, UK, or other users around the globe could ever get the same option. Some Windows 11 users can remove five other apps that come preinstalled, however.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has removed links to page caches from its search results page, the company's search liaison Danny Sullivan has confirmed. From a report: "It was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn't depend on a page loading," Sullivan wrote on X. "These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it." The cache feature historically let you view a webpage as Google sees it, which is useful for a variety of different reasons beyond just being able to see a page that's struggling to load. SEO professionals could use it to debug their sites or even keep tabs on competitors, and it can also be an enormously helpful news gathering tool, giving reporters the ability to see exactly what information a company has added (or removed) from a website, and a way to see details that people or companies might be trying to scrub from the web. Or, if a site is blocked in your region, Google's cache can work as a great alternative to a VPN.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotify has reached a new deal with star podcaster Joe Rogan that will allow his hit show to be distributed broadly. From a report: Rogan's fresh deal, estimated to be worth as much as $250 million over its multiyear term, involves an upfront minimum guarantee, plus a revenue sharing agreement based on ad sales. Under the new licensing agreement, Spotify will sell ads for and distribute "The Joe Rogan Experience" across several podcast platforms, including in a video format on YouTube, the company said Friday. Under his previous deal, the show was exclusive to Spotify. The new deal is emblematic of shifting economics in podcasting, which has matured in both audience reach and advertising spending since Rogan's last deal. Spotify is working to revise the terms of its deals with top talent so that shows are distributed on several platforms to maximize their audience and ad sales, rather than requiring exclusivity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shiftall, the Japan-based VR hardware creator, is no longer owned by Panasonic, as the company has been effectively sold off to the Tokyo-based company CREEK & RIVER. From a report: As first noted by tech analyst and YouTuber Brad Lynch, Panasonic today announced it has transferred all shares of Shiftall to the Tokyo-based company CREEK & RIVER Co., Ltd., which specializes in outsourcing, consulting, content management and distribution services. Acquired by Panasonic in 2018, Shiftall primarily focused on niche consumer devices, but shifted over the years to focusing on VR hardware, such as its MeganeX PC VR headset, HaritoraX wireless body trackers, FlipVR motion controllers, and mutalk soundproof microphones.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Software developer Alex debunked the myth of a 381 km x 381 km maximum PDF size. While limitations exist in reader apps, the format itself allows for much larger documents, she found. She even created a PDF exceeding Germany's size.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA is starting to take its first steps toward opening a commercial pathway to Mars. From a report: This week, the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued a new solicitation to the industry titled "Exploring Mars Together: Commercial Services Studies." This is a request for proposals from the US space industry to tell NASA how they would complete one of four private missions to Mars, including delivering small satellites into orbit or providing imaging services around the red planet. "The Mars Exploration Program Draft Plan through the next two decades would utilize more frequent lower cost missions to achieve compelling science and exploration for a larger community," the document states. "To realize the goals of the plan, government and US industry would partner to leverage current and emerging Earth and lunar products and commercial services to substantially lower the overall cost and accelerate leadership in deep space exploration." NASA will pay proposers $200,000 for a study of one of the reference missions or $300,000 for a maximum of two studies. The space agency said it intends to award "multiple" contract awards. In its 496-page solicitation, NASA outlines four "design reference missions" that companies can bid on. Basically, the space agency is asking companies how they would go about fulfilling these tasks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cybercriminals are selling ready-made "pig-butchering" scam kits on the dark web to conduct "DeFi savings" cryptocurrency fraud, according to Sophos. The kits expedite scamming worldwide. In these scams, criminals build online relationships then persuade victims to invest in fake crypto schemes, manipulating them to drain digital wallets. The bundled kits contain websites enabling wallet access via Ethereum blockchain plus chat support posing as technical staff. Victims open legitimate crypto apps but enter malicious sites letting criminals steal funds. The report details the mass distribution of these DIY crypto fraud kits.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

wiredmikey writes: Web security and CDN giant Cloudflare said it was hacked by a threat actor using stolen credentials to access internal systems, code repositories, along with an AWS environment, as well as Atlassian Jira and Confluence. The goal of the attack, Cloudflare says, was to obtain information on the company's infrastructure, likely to gain a deeper foothold. According to Cloudflare, more than 5,000 individual production credentials were rotated following the incident, close to 5,000 systems were triaged, test and staging systems were physically segmented, and every machine within the Cloudflare global network was reimaged and rebooted.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Intel is delaying the construction timeline for its $20 billion chipmaking project in Ohio amid market challenges and the slow rollout of U.S. grant money, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Its initial timeline had chip-making starting next year. Construction on the manufacturing facilities now is not expected to be finished until late 2026, the report said, citing people involved in the project. Shares of the chipmaker were last down 1.5% in extended trading. "We are fully committed to completing the project, and construction is continuing. We have made a lot of progress in the last year," an Intel spokesperson said, adding that managing large-scale projects often involves changing timelines. Uncertain demand for its chips used in the traditional server and personal computer markets had led the company to forecast revenue for the first quarter below market estimates late last month. This came as a shift in spending to AI data servers, dominated by rivals Nvidia and aspiring AI competitor Advanced Micro Devices sapped demand for traditional server chips -- Intel's core data center offering.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg explaining why Meta open-sources its AI on an earnings call Thursday: I know that some people have questions about how we benefit from open sourcing, the results of our research and large amounts of compute. So I thought it might be useful to lay out the strategic benefits here. The short version is that open sourcing improves our models. And because there's still significant work to turn our models into products because there will be other open-source models available anyway, we find that there are mostly advantages to being the open-source leader, and it doesn't remove differentiation for our products much anyway. And more specifically, there are several strategic benefits. First, open-source software is typically safer and more secure as well as more compute-efficient to operate due to all the ongoing feedback, scrutiny and development from the community. Now this is a big deal because safety is one of the most important issues in AI. Efficiency improvements and lowering the compute costs also benefit everyone, including us. Second, open-source software often becomes an industry standard. And when companies standardize on building with our stack, that then becomes easier to integrate new innovations into our products. That's subtle, but the ability to learn and improve quickly is a huge advantage. And being an industry standard enables that. Third, open source is hugely popular with developers and researchers. And we know that people want to work on open systems that will be widely adopted. So this helps us recruit the best people at Meta, which is a very big deal for leading in any new technology area. And again, we typically have unique data and build unique product integrations anyway, so providing infrastructure like Llama as open source doesn't reduce our main advantage. This is why our long-standing strategy has been to open source general infrastructure and why I expect it to continue to be the right approach for us going forward.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Thursday for carrying out the largest theft of classified information in the agency's history and possessing child pornography. The Guardian reports: The 40-year sentence by US district judge Jesse Furman was for "crimes of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography," federal prosecutors said in a statement. The judge did not impose a life sentence as sought by prosecutors. Joshua Schulte was convicted in July 2022 on four counts each of espionage and computer hacking and one count of lying to FBI agents, after giving classified materials to the whistleblowing agency WikiLeaks in the so-called Vault 7 leak. Last August, a judge mostly upheld the conviction. WikiLeaks in March 2017 began publishing the materials, which concerned how the CIA surveilled foreign governments, alleged extremists and others by compromising their electronics and computer networks. Prosecutors characterized Schulte's actions as "the largest data breach in the history of the CIA, and his transmission of that stolen information to WikiLeaks is one of the largest unauthorized disclosures of classified information" in US history. Prosecutors also said Schulte received thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse, and that they found the material in Schulte's New York apartment, in an encrypted container beneath three layers of password protection, during the CIA leaks investigation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

doc1623 shares a report from Ars Technica: Scientists at the University of Arizona decided to investigate whether closing the toilet lid before flushing reduces cross-contamination of bathroom surfaces by airborne bacterial and viral particles via "toilet plumes." The bad news is that putting a lid on it doesn't result in any substantial reduction in contamination, according to their recent paper published in the American Journal of Infection Control. The good news: Adding a disinfectant to the toilet bowl before flushing and using disinfectant dispensers in the tank significantly reduce cross-contamination. [...] The scientists conducted their experiment with E. coli (as a host bacteria) and coliphage MS2; the latter is not a human or animal pathogen but serves as a useful model. The public toilet used in the experiment was located in a stall in the restroom of an office building. That toilet was tankless, relying on water-line pressure for flushing, with no lid and a U-shaped seat with a gap in the front. The home toilet was a standard siphonic toilet with a tank and lid in a private residence; there was no gap on the center of the seat. Toilet bowls were seeded with MS2 and flushed. After one minute, samples were taken from various restroom surfaces: the top and bottom of toilet seats, the bowl rim, three locations on the floor, and the right and left walls. The team also conducted a similar experiment involving cleaning the bowls with toilet brushes, both with and without Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. All those samples were then tested for MS2 contamination. The results: both the tops and bottoms of the lidless public toilet seats had more contamination compared to household seats, but otherwise, there was no statistical significance in the degree of contamination between lidless public toilets and household toilets with lids. And the surface contamination did indeed persist even after repeated flushes. The toilet seat was the worst offender with the greatest degree of contamination, which the authors suggest "reflects the airflow that occurs during toilet flushing, i.e., largely around the top and bottom of the toilet seat." That same airflow is likely a factor in spreading the contamination to restroom floors and walls. Perhaps the least surprising finding is that rigorous cleaning with a toilet bowl brush and Lysol reduced the contamination by 99.99 percent compared to cleaning with just a brush. Therefore, "The most effective strategy for reducing restroom cross-contamination associated with toilet flushing include the addition of a disinfectant to the toilet bowl before flushing and the use of disinfectant/detergent dispensers in the toilet tank," the authors concluded. They also recommend regularly disinfecting all restroom surfaces after flushing or cleaning with a toilet brush in health care facilities -- which often have a lot of immunocompromised people -- and if someone in your house has an active infection like norovirus. The findings have been published in the journal American Journal of Infection Control. Slashdot reader doc1623 writes: "This headline brought me joy today, so I thought I would share (I could honestly care less about reading the article but joy is joy, I take it where I can find it.)"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter Smonster shares a report from the New York Times: With restrictions on space and weight, what would you bring if you were going to Mars? An ideal option might be a single material that can shift shapes into any object you imagine. In the morning, you could mold that material into utensils for eating. When breakfast is done, you could transform your fork and knife into a spade to tend to your Martian garden. And then when it's happy hour on the red planet, that spade could become a cup for your Martian beer. What sounds like science fiction is, perhaps, one step closer to reality. Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have created a new type of plastic with properties that can be set with heat and then locked in with rapid cooling, a process known as tempering. Unlike classic plastics, the material retains this stiffness when returned to room temperature. The findings, published in the journal Science on Thursday, could someday change how astronauts pack for space. "Rather than taking all the different plastics with you, you take this one plastic with you and then just give it the properties you need as you require," said Stuart Rowan, a chemist at the University of Chicago and an author of the new study. But space isn't the only place the material could be useful. Dr. Rowan's team also sees its potential in other environments where resources are scare -- like at sea or on the battlefield. It could also be used to make soft robots and to improve plastics recycling.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Visual effects artists working on James Cameron's Avatar movies have voted to unionize in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election. From the Hollywood Reporter: Of an eligible 88 workers at Walt Disney Studios subsidiary TCF US Productions 27, Inc. who assist with productions for Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment, 57 voted to join the union and 19 voted against, while two ballots were void. These workers include creatures costume leads and environment artists as well as others in the stage, environments, render, post viz, sequence, turn over and kabuki departments. Management and labor now have a few days to file any objections, and if none are raised, the election results will be certified. This bargaining unit doesn't include employees of VFX facility vendors, notably Weta FX, which is the lead VFX house on the Avatar films and employs the vast majority of the more than 1,000 artists who work on a typical Avatar movie. But unionizing the group represents a major inroad for the VFX industry labor movement, believes one VFX industry source who spoke with THR. "While insignificant as a number, this is the core team that answers to Jim Cameron," says the source. "They are not necessarily impressive in size, but in influence." The workers first went public with their organizing bid in December, when they filed for a union election with the NLRB. At the time, participating workers said in public statements that they were aiming to gain comparable benefits and pay to their unionized peers and have greater input into in working conditions. "Every one of my coworkers has dedicated so much time, creativity and passion to make these films a reality. So when you see them struggling to cover their health premiums, or being overworked because they took on multiple roles, or are just scraping by on their wages ... you cannot keep silent," said kabuki lead Jennifer Anaya.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Palworld, a viral "Pokemon with guns" game, has become Microsoft's biggest third-party launch on Game Pass. According to developer Pocketpair, the game sold 12 million copies on Steam and seven million on Xbox since its January 19 launch. A million of the copies were sold in its first eight hours. Engadget reports: In addition to being the biggest third-party Game Pass launch ever, Palworld had the largest third-party day-one launch on Xbox Cloud Gaming (included with Game Pass Ultimate). The game's highest peak since launch was nearly three million daily active users on Xbox. Microsoft says it was the most-played game on Xbox platforms during that period. Palworld uses Pokemon-esque characters and themes -- enough to catch the attention of Nintendo's lawyers. It has battles with monsters similar to those in the creature-collecting series, including the ability to capture them inside a sphere after winning. But Palworld also includes biting social commentary and incorporates themes you'd never see in Pokemon -- like labor exploitation. "Don't worry, there are no labor laws for Pals," a game FAQ reads. One of the title's trailers showed a player circling hard-at-work Pals with an assault rifle. "Creating a productive base like this is the secret to living a comfortable life in Palworld," the narration reads.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The pace is picking up for the Apple Vison Pro apps ahead of the spatial computing device's Friday launch as developers ready their apps for the new platform. While just last week, only 150-plus apps had been specifically designed for the Vision Pro so far, according to a third-party analysis of the App Store, Apple announced today that more than 600 new apps and games are being readied for the Vison Pro ahead of its debut. These join the more than 1 million already compatible apps across iOS and iPadOS, the company says. [...] The company says more than 600 apps and games have been designed to take advantage of the Vision Pro's capabilities and its 3D user interface that's navigated using your eyes, hands and voice. Several streaming apps have already announced their support, including Disney+, ESPN, MLB, PGA Tour, Max, Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock, Pluto TV, Tubi, Fubo, Crunchyroll, Red Bull TV, IMAX, TikTok and MUBI. The PGA Tour Vision app offers a golf game with real-time shot tracking across models of real golf courses, while the NBA app will allow streaming up to five broadcasts live or on-demand at once, Apple notes. Red Bull TV will include 3D maps of races. Soccer fans will also be able to stream MLS Season Pass via Apple's own Apple TV app. That app will offer access to Apple's Originals, more than 200 3D movies and Apple Immersive Video.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube has announced it has surpassed 100 million YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscribers globally. Variety reports: The 100 million figure includes uses who are on free trials, according to YouTube. The company didn't break down how many are on YouTube Music versus YouTube Premium, the subscription service for ad-free viewing, background listening, offline video downloads and full access to YouTube Music. In November 2022, the company said YouTube Music and YouTube Premium topped 80 million paying subscribers combined. The announcement comes after Alphabet, in reporting fourth-quarter 2023 earnings, boasted that YouTube and Google subscription services generated more than $15 billion in revenue last year. That includes YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, as well as YouTube TV and Google One cloud storage.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snap is recalling all 71,000 of its Pixy flying selfie camera drones because their batteries pose a fire hazard. The Verge reports: Snap and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission say you should "immediately stop using the Pixy Flying Camera, remove the battery and stop charging it" now that there have been four reports of the battery bulging, one fire, and one "minor injury." Then, you can get a full refund for the entire drone and / or any batteries you own -- sounds like we're talking at least $185 back to you, unless you bought it on sale. You don't need a receipt: you can apply for the refund even if you got it as a gift. You can fill out this form to receive a prepaid return label to return the drone. Snap says you will need to safely dispose of the batteries yourself.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission plans to vote on making the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal. The FCC said that AI-generated voices in robocalls have "escalated during the last few years" and have "the potential to confuse consumers with misinformation by imitating the voices of celebrities, political candidates, and close family members." FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's proposed Declaratory Ruling would rule that "calls made with AI-generated voices are 'artificial' voices under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which would make voice cloning technology used in common robocalls scams targeting consumers illegal," the commission announced yesterday. Commissioners reportedly will vote on the proposal in the coming weeks. The TCPA, a 1991 US law, bans the use of artificial or prerecorded voices in most non-emergency calls "without the prior express consent of the called party." The FCC is responsible for writing rules to implement the law, which is punishable with fines. As the FCC noted yesterday, the TCPA "restricts the making of telemarketing calls and the use of automatic telephone dialing systems and artificial or prerecorded voice messages." Telemarketers are required "to obtain prior express written consent from consumers before robocalling them. If successfully enacted, this Declaratory Ruling would ensure AI-generated voice calls are also held to those same standards." Rosenworcel said her proposed ruling will "recognize this emerging technology as illegal under existing law, giving our partners at State Attorneys General offices across the country new tools they can use to crack down on these scams and protect consumers. "AI-generated voice cloning and images are already sowing confusion by tricking consumers into thinking scams and frauds are legitimate," Rosenworcel said. "No matter what celebrity or politician you favor, or what your relationship is with your kin when they call for help, it is possible we could all be a target of these faked calls."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is bringing generative AI to Google Maps, promising to help users find cool places through the use of large language models (LLM). From a report: The feature will answer queries for restaurant or shopping recommendations, for example, using its LLM to "analyze Maps' detailed information about more than 250 million places and trusted insights from our community of over 300 million contributors to quickly make suggestions for where to go." Google says the feature will first become available in the US, but there's no word yet on when other countries will also get it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration is poised to lend $1.5 billion for what what would be the first restart of a shuttered US nuclear reactor, the latest sign of strengthening federal government support for the atomic industry. Bloomberg: The funding, which is set to get conditional backing from the US Energy Department, will be offered as soon as next month to closely held Holtec International to restart its Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, according to people familiar with the matter. Holtec has said a restart of the reactor is contingent on a federal loan. Without such support, the company has said it would decommission the site. The financing comes as the Biden administration prioritizes maintaining the nation's fleet of nuclear plants to help meet its ambitious climate goals -- including a plan to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035. More than a dozen reactors have closed since 2013 amid competition from cheaper power from natural gas and renewables, and the Energy Department has warned that as many of half of the nation's nuclear reactors are at risk of closing due to economic factors.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's adoption of Rust continues apace if a posting on the IT titan's careers website is anything to go by. Although headcount at Microsoft might currently be down -- by two percent compared to the previous year -- recruitment persists at the Windows giant. In this case, the company is forming a team of Rustaceans to tackle a platform move away from C#. The job, a principal software architect for Microsoft 365, has responsibilities that include "guiding technical direction, design and implementation of Rust component libraries, SDKs, and re-implementation of existing global scale C# based services to Rust." According to the post, the job lurks within the Substrate App Platform group, part of the Microsoft 365 Core Platform organization. The Substrate does the heavy lifting behind the scenes for Microsoft's cloud services, making a rewrite into Rust quite a statement of intent. Microsoft said: "We are forming a new team focused on enabling the adoption of the Rust programming language as the foundation to modernizing global scale platform services, and beyond."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's Bard chatbot is adding AI image generation, catching up on a feature that rival ChatGPT Plus has had for months. From a report: Users can prompt Bard to generate photos using Google's Imagen 2 text-to-image model. Bard, now powered by Google's Gemini Pro large language model, was always going to have image generation. It was assumed the more powerful Gemini Ultra model would power it; however, that model remains in development. Google has been positioning Bard as a worthy competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus, which runs GPT-4 and lets users generate images thanks to DALL-E 3 integration. Both chatbots perform well, but Bard's lack of text-to-image features gave ChatGPT Plus a bit of an edge. People can use the updated Bard with Imagen 2 at no cost, unlike ChatGPT Plus, which relies on a paid subscription.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Identity management company Okta said on Thursday in a message to employees that it would lay off 400 employees, about 7% of the company's headcount. From a report: CEO Todd McKinnon said in his message that the "reality is that costs are still too high." Okta is only the latest tech company to trim headcount in the opening weeks of 2024. Nearly 24,000 tech workers lost their jobs in January alone, even as many tech companies saw their stock prices continue to grow.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has discontinued support for the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro, the last model to include an optical drive. Products are considered obsolete when Apple ceased distribution over 7 years ago, making service and parts unavailable. The laptop was removed from Apple's lineup in 2016 but remained compatible with macOS until Big Sur in 2020. While optical drives had already fallen out of favor, the phase out marks the end of an era for pro users requiring discs for media production.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Biotechnology company Biogen is abandoning Aduhelm, its questionable Alzheimer's drug that has floundered on the market since its scandal-plagued regulatory approval in 2021 and brow-raising pricing. On Wednesday, the company announced it had terminated its license for Aduhelm (aducanumab) and will stop all development and commercialization activities. The rights to Aduhelm will revert back to the Neurimmune, the Swiss biopharmaceutical company that discovered it. Biogen will also end the Phase 4 clinical trial, ENVISION, that was required by the Food and Drug Administration to prove Biogen's claims that Aduhelm is effective at slowing progression of Alzheimer's in its early stages -- something two Phase 3 trials failed to do with certainty. In the announcement, Biogen noted it took a financial hit of $60 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 to close out its work on Aduhelm, which the company at one point reportedly estimated would bring in as much as $18 billion in revenue per year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hulu updated its Terms of Service to explicitly ban password sharing outside of "your primary personal residence." Subscribers will need to comply by March 14th, 2024. Here's the new ToS section in full: m. Account Sharing. Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household. "Household" means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein. Additional usage rules may apply for certain Service Tiers. For more details on our account sharing policy, please visit our Help Center. We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement (including those set forth in Section 6 of this Agreement). You will be responsible for any use of your account by your household, including compliance with this section. The Verge reports: The new ToS is dated January 25th, 2024; previous versions of the ToS didn't mention account sharing at all. "We're adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations," the most important paragraph reads. Neither the email nor the ToS say how Hulu will measure compliance or how quickly it'll take action, but Hulu will apparently "analyze the use of your account" and it reserves the right to "limit or terminate access" if it decides you've broken the policy. The ToS also suggests there's more info about its account sharing policy at the Hulu Help Center, but we're not seeing any help articles about account sharing right now. Netflix started cracking down on password sharing in the U.S. last May, resulting in the "four single largest days of U.S. user sign-ups since January 2019." The streaming giant later went on to add 2.6 million U.S. subscribers. Disney Plus enacted a similar plan a few months later.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX's Starship rocket has been selected by Starlab to launch its private space station into orbit. "SpaceX's history of success and reliability led our team to select Starship to orbit Starlab," Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, said in a statement. "SpaceX is the unmatched leader for high-cadence launches, and we are proud Starlab will be launched to orbit in a single flight by Starship." Space.com reports: Today's announcement didn't give a target launch date. But NASA and Starlab's developers want the four-person commercial station to be up and running before 2030, when the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to cease operations (though that retirement date is apparently not set in stone). [...] The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, capable of hauling up to 150 tons to low Earth orbit. It will send the fully outfitted Starlab up in just one launch, as Taylor noted above. "Starlab's single-launch solution continues to demonstrate not only what is possible, but how the future of commercial space is happening now," Tom Ochinero, senior vice president of commercial business at SpaceX, said in the same statement. "The SpaceX team is excited for Starship to launch Starlab to support humanity's continued presence in low Earth orbit on our way to making life multiplanetary," Ochinero added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Stretching thousands upon thousands of miles under your feet, a web of fibrous ears is listening. Whether you walk over buried fiber optics or drive a car across them, above-ground activity creates a characteristic vibration that ever-so-slightly disturbs the way light travels through the cables. With the right equipment, scientists can parse that disturbance to identify what the source was and when exactly it was roaming there. This quickly proliferating technique is known as distributed acoustic sensing, or DAS, and it's so sensitive that researchers recently used it to monitor the cacophony of a mass cicada emergence. Others are using the cables as an ultra-sensitive instrument for detecting volcanic eruptions and earthquakes: Unlike a traditional seismometer stuck in one place, a web of fiber optic cables can cover a whole landscape, providing unprecedented detail of Earth's rumblings at different locations. Now scientists are experimenting with bringing DAS to a railroad near you. When a train runs along a section of track, it creates vibrations that analysts can monitor over time -- if that signal suddenly changes, it might indicate a problem with the rail, like a crack, or a snapped tie. Or if on a mountain pass a rockslide blasts across the track, DAS might "hear" that too, warning railroad operators of a problem that human eyes hadn't yet glimpsed. More gradual changes in the signal might betray the development of faults in track alignment. It just so happens that fiber optic cables already run along many railways to connect all the signaling equipment or for telecommunications. "You're utilizing the already available facilities and infrastructure for that, which can reduce the cost," says engineer Hossein Taheri, who is studying DAS for railroads at Georgia Southern University. "There could be some railroads where they don't have the fiber, and you need to lay down. But yes, most of them, usually they do already have it." To tap into that fiber, you need a device called an interrogator, which fires laser pulses down the cables and analyzes the tiny bits of light that bounce back. So, say a rock hits the track 20 miles away from the interrogator. That creates a characteristic ground vibration that disturbs the fiber optics near the track, which shows up in the light signal. Because scientists know the speed of light, they can precisely measure the time it took for that signal to travel back to their interrogator, pinpointing the distance to the disturbance to within 10 meters, or about 30 feet. For a given stretch of track, you'd have already analyzed the DAS signals for a length of time, building a vibration profile for a normal, healthy railway. When the DAS data suddenly starts showing something different, you might have an issue, which shows up like an EKG picking up a problem with a human heartbeat. "What we're doing is profiling the track, looking for changes in the acoustic signature," says Daniel Pyke, a rail expert and spokesperson for Sensonic, which develops DAS technology for railroads. "We know what track should sound like, we know what a train should sound like. And we know that if it's changing -- so let's say this joint is coming loose -- that needs someone to go and fix it before it becomes a problem."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dan Robinson reports via The Register: Quantum companies received 50 percent less venture cap funding last year as investors switched to generative AI or shied away from risky bets on Silicon Valley startups. Progress in quantum computing is being made, but practical applications of the technology are still likely years away. Investment in quantum technology reached a high of $2.2 billion in 2022, as confidence (or hype) grew in this emerging market, but that funding fell to about $1.2 billion last year, according to the latest State of Quantum report, produced by The Quantum Insider, with quantum computing company IQM, plus VCs OpenOcean and Lakestar. The picture is even starker in the US, where there was an 80 percent decline in venture capital for quantum, while the APAC region dropped by 17 percent, and EMEA grew slightly by three percent. But the report denies that we have reached a "quantum winter," comparable with the "AI winter" periods of scarce funding and little progress. Instead, the quantum industry continues to progress towards useful quantum systems, just at a slower pace, and the decline in funding must be seen as part of broader venture capital trends, it insists. "Calendar year 2023 was an interesting year with regards to quantum," Heather West, research manager for Quantum Computing, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms, and Technology at IDC told The Register. "With the increased interest in generative AI, we started to observe that some of the funding that was being invested into quantum was transferred to AI initiatives and companies. Generative AI was seen as the new disruptive technology which end users could use immediately to gain an advantage or value, whereas quantum, while expected to be a disruptive technology, is still very early in development," West told The Register. Gartner Research vice president Matthew Brisse agreed. "It's due to the slight shift of CIO priorities toward GenAI. If organizations were spending 10 innovation dollars on quantum, now they are spending five. Not abandoning it, but looking at GenAI to provide value sooner to the organization than quantum," he told us. Meanwhile, venture capitalists in America are fighting shy of risky bets on Silicon Valley startups and instead keeping their powder dry as they look to more established technology companies or else shore up their existing portfolio of investments, according to the Financial Times.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"China's hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike," said FBI Director Christopher Wray in a prepared testimony before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. NBC News reports: Wray also argued that "there has been far too little public focus" that Chinese hackers are targeting critical infrastructure in the U.S. such as water treatment plants, electrical grids, oil and natural gas pipelines, and transportation systems, according to the prepared remarks. "And the risk that poses to every American requires our attention -- now," his prepared testimony said. As Wray testified, the Justice Department and FBI announced they had disabled a Chinese hacking operation that had infected hundreds of small office and home routers with botnet malware that targeted critical infrastructure. The DOJ said the hackers, known to the private sector as "Volt Typhoon," used privately owned small routers that were infected with "KV botnet" malware to conceal further Chinese hacking activities against U.S. and foreign victims. Wray addressed the malware in his testimony, emphasizing that it targets critical infrastructure in the U.S. [...] At Wednesday's hearing, the director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, testified that Americans should expect efforts by China to wage influence campaigns online relating to the 2024 election. However, Easterly added that she was confident that voting systems and other election infrastructure are well-defended. "To be very clear, Americans should have confidence in the integrity of our election infrastructure because of the enormous amount of work that's been done by state and local election officials, by the federal government, by vendors, by the private sector since 2016," Easterly said in her testimony. Wray emphasized in the remarks that the "cyber onslaught" of Chinese hackers "goes way beyond prepositioning for future conflict," saying in the prepared remarks that every day the hackers are "actively attacking" U.S. economic security, engaging in "wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data." "And they don't just hit our security and economy. They target our freedoms, reaching inside our borders, across America, to silence, coerce, and threaten our citizens and residents," the excerpts said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jess Weatherbed reports via The Verge: Bullitt Group, the UK-based smartphone manufacturer behind the rugged handsets of Cat, Land Rover, and Motorola, has seemingly shut down. On Monday, Mobile World Live spotted several Bullitt Group employees on LinkedIn saying that the company folded on January 26th after a "critical planned restructuring" failed. The Telegraph reported earlier this month that the company was on the brink of insolvency. Bullitt Group has yet to issue an official statement confirming the closure. The manufacturer previously told The Telegraph that it planned to transfer its satellite connectivity business and all 100 of its employees to a new company owned by its creditors, though one former employee now claims the entire workforce has been laid off. Founded in 2009, Bullitt found its niche producing mobile devices and accessories for other companies. The most notable are the hardy, rugged handsets like the Land Rover Explore and Motorola Defy series, though it also made more traditional smartphones like the Kodak Ektra. In recent years, the company placed greater focus on satellite connectivity projects like the Motorola Defy Satellite Link as it struggled to compete against larger phone providers like Apple and Samsung.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: The past few days have been a wild ride for the growing open source AI community -- even by its fast-moving and freewheeling standards. Here's the quick chronology: on or about January 28, a user with the handle "Miqu Dev" posted a set of files on HuggingFace, the leading open source AI model and code sharing platform, that together comprised a seemingly new open source large language model (LLM) labeled "miqu-1-70b." The HuggingFace entry, which is still up at the time of this article's posting, noted that new LLM's "Prompt format," how users interact with it, was the same as Mistral, the well-funded open source Parisian AI company behind Mixtral 8x7b, viewed by many to be the top performing open source LLM presently available, a fine-tuned and retrained version of Meta's Llama 2. The same day, an anonymous user on 4chan (possibly "Miqu Dev") posted a link to the miqu-1-70b files on 4chan, the notoriously longstanding haven of online memes and toxicity, where users began to notice it. Some took to X, Elon Musk's social network formerly known as Twitter, to share the discovery of the model and what appeared to be its exceptionally high performance at common LLM tasks (measured by tests known as benchmarks), approaching the previous leader, OpenAI's GPT-4 on the EQ-Bench. Machine learning (ML) researchers took notice on LinkedIn, as well. "Does 'miqu' stand for MIstral QUantized? We don't know for sure, but this quickly became one of, if not the best open-source LLM," wrote Maxime Labonne, an ML scientist at JP Morgan & Chase, one of the world's largest banking and financial companies. "Thanks to @152334H, we also now have a good unquantized version of miqu here: https://lnkd.in/g8XzhGSM. Quantization in ML refers to a technique used to make it possible to run certain AI models on less powerful computers and chips by replacing specific long numeric sequences in a model's architecture with shorter ones. Users speculated "Miqu" might be a new Mistral model being covertly "leaked" by the company itself into the world -- especially since Mistral is known for dropping new models and updates without fanfare through esoteric and technical means -- or perhaps an employee or customer gone rouge. Well, today it appears we finally have confirmation of the latter of those possibilities: Mistral co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch took to X to clarify: "An over-enthusiastic employee of one of our early access customers leaked a quantized (and watermarked) version of an old model we trained and distributed quite openly... To quickly start working with a few selected customers, we retrained this model from Llama 2 the minute we got access to our entire cluster -- the pretraining finished on the day of Mistral 7B release. We've made good progress since -- stay tuned!" Hilariously, Mensch also appears to have taken to the illicit HuggingFace post not to demand a takedown, but leaving a comment that the poster "might consider attribution." Still, with Mensch's note to "stay tuned!" it appears that not only is Mistral training a version of this so-called "Miqu" model that approaches GPT-4 level performance, but it may, in fact, match or exceed it, if his comments are to be interpreted generously.Read more of this story at Slashdot.