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Samsung announced its new flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone lineup today, with loads of new artificial intelligence features. CNBC reports: For Samsung's top-tier S24 Ultra, which is the company's biggest of the three devices and comes with punchier specs and features, Samsung is using a version of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 optimized for Galaxy. The company is using a mix of Qualcomm systems-on-chips (SoCs) and its own Exynos chipset for its S24 and S24+ models. [...] The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is the main event for most tech gadget enthusiasts -- and, for the most part, it isn't a whole lot different to the Galaxy S23 Ultra looks-wise. That's because Samsung isn't changing an awful lot with the hardware. It still comes in the same size as its predecessor -- the display is 6.8 inches, measured diagonally, though the phone is flatter this time round. The S23 Ultra had more curvature to it. The big upgrade to the external hardware with this model is that it's cased in titanium, so it's a lot sturdier than the S23 Ultra. The main difference this time round is what's inside: Samsung is going big on artificial intelligence. A key focus for Samsung, like other smartphone makers, now is on "on-demand" AI -- or, the ability to carry out AI workloads directly on a device, rather than over the cloud. Samsung said its new Galaxy S24 Ultra will come with a bunch of new AI features, a lot of which is being powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset for mobile, which is tailored for AI devices. One feature Samsung's loading into the Galaxy S24 range is the ability to circle locations or items a user is directing their camera at, or on a picture they've taken, and then look up results on what those things are. So, for instance, if you see a landmark or a shoe you want to buy, you can make a circle around that object and then the AI shows you appropriate results on Google. Another feature Samsung touted is the ability to use AI to edit photos. So users can edit reflections out of pictures they've taken, for instance if you took a picture of yourself in front of a window. Or you can move a person from one side of the room to another by dragging them from left to right. Samsung also showcased live transcription features with its latest smartphones. When calling someone who's speaking in French, for instance, a user can pull up a transcription that's being fed through to them in real time. You can also record a conversation between two people and get it transcribed, while the AI assigns a label to each person speaking, similar to transcription products like Otter AI. Samsung is also incorporating AI watermarking into these features, helping to combat misinformation and copyright infringement. "So when a Galaxy S24 user uses AI to modify a photo, Samsung will keep a log of what was changed with AI and store it in the metadata," reports CNBC. "It'll also have an icon in the bottom left corner to show that the image has been edited using AI, kind of like a watermark."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Fortnite maker Epic Games is not happy about how Apple intends to comply with a district court's injunction that permitted app developers to direct users to their own websites and payment platforms -- a court order that came into effect following the Supreme Court's decision to not hear the Apple antitrust case, leaving the current ruling to stand. Though Apple had largely won the case, as the court decided it was not a monopolist, a judge ruled that app makers should be able to steer their customers to the web from links or buttons inside their apps, something that forced Apple to change its App Store rules. But Apple's compliance doesn't give app makers the victory they had hoped, as the tech giant aims to still charge commissions on purchases made outside of apps -- a decision Epic aims to challenge in court. According to statements made by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, shared on X, Apple's "bad-faith" compliance undermines the judge's order that would have allowed buttons or external links "in addition to [in-app purchases.]" The Ninth Circuit District Court had ruled on one count of out ten in favor of Epic in its decision, finding that Apple violated California's Unfair Competition law. The decision meant Apple had to remove the "anti-steering" clause from its agreement with App Store developers. This clause for years had prevented app developers from directing their customers to other ways to pay for in-app purchases or subscriptions from inside their apps, leading to confusing screens or broken features, where customers would have to figure out on their own how to make the necessary purchases from the developer's website.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon is revamping its Alexa voice assistant as it prepares to launch a new paid subscription plan this year, Business Insider reported Wednesday, citing internal documents and people familiar with the matter. But the change is causing internal conflict and may lead to further delay, the report added. From the report: Tentatively called "Alexa Plus," the paid version of Alexa is intended to offer more conversational and personalized AI technology, said one of the documents obtained by Business Insider. The team is working towards a June 30 launch deadline, and has been testing the underlying voice technology, dubbed "Remarkable Alexa," with 15,000 external customers, these people said. But the quality of the new Alexa's answers is still falling short of expectations, often sharing inaccurate information, external tests have found. Amazon is now going through a major overhaul of Alexa's technology stack to address this issue, though the team is experiencing some discord.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's hard to think of a more self-explanatory feature than Circle to Search: it does exactly what it sounds like it does. You circle something on your phone screen, tap a button, and voila! A page full of Google search results telling you about the thing you circled. The Verge: The new feature is launching on five phones to start -- the three members of Samsung's brand-new Galaxy S24 series, as well as Google's Pixel 8 and 8 Pro -- before it comes to other "select, premium" Android phones. Well, maybe it does need a little explaining. If the feature sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Google Lens, which is similar. But instead of opening up the Google app, you can use Circle to Search anywhere on your device. Just long-press the home button if you're using three-button navigation -- or the navigation handle if you're using gesture nav -- and it will appear on top of whatever app or screen you're currently using. You can circle, highlight, or tap a subject, including text as well as images.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

samleecole writes: A food delivery robot company instructed a public university to promote its service on campus with photographs and video featuring only students who "have a healthy-looking BMI," [body mass index] according to emails and documents I obtained via a public records request. The emails also discuss how ordering delivery via robot should become a "habit" for a "captured" customer base of students on campus. These highly specific instructions show how universities around the country are going to extreme lengths to create a welcoming environment on campus for food delivery robots that sometimes have trouble crossing the street and need traffic infrastructure redesigned for them in order to navigate campus, a relatively absurd cache of public records obtained by 404 Media reveals.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Verizon is writing down the value of its business services division by $5.8 billion, a sign of the company's declining enterprise operations. From a report: The wireless carrier said in a filing Wednesday that the non-cash goodwill impairment charge was due to "secular declines, as well as continuing competitive and macroeconomic pressure." As a result of the impairment, Verizon said the balance of its business unit was $1.7 billion at the end of 2023. The decline is tied to the telecommunications giant's legacy wireline operations, which provide fixed-line communications services for businesses, through copper or fiber wires. This segment has seen demand drop considerably as its mobile business service has surged. Verizon's wireline business revenue fell 8.1% through the third quarter and is likely to stay muted in 2024, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fujitsu has apologized for its role in the British Post Office scandal, acknowledging that its buggy accounting software contributed to the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of postal employees. From a report: "Fujitsu would like to apologize for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice," Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division, said in a hearing held by the UK Parliament's Business and Trade Committee. "We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters. For that we are truly sorry." The committee hearing focused on possible compensation for victims of what has been called "the worst miscarriage of justice in British history." Patterson said that Fujitsu has "a moral obligation" to contribute to the compensation for victims. A BBC report explains that between 1999 and 2015, "more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses were prosecuted for theft and false accounting after money appeared to be missing from their branches, but the prosecutions were based on evidence from faulty Horizon software. Some sub-postmasters wrongfully went to prison, many were financially ruined. Some have since died."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google will tweak online search results to give comparison sites more prominence, the company said in a blogpost on Wednesday, as it outlined efforts to comply with new EU tech rules that could hit revenues for some companies. Reuters: Under the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which the company will have to comply with by March 7, Google is obligated to treat rival services and products the same way as it treats its own when it ranks them in search results. It is also required to allow business users to access the data that they generate when using Google's platform.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: India has warned tech companies that it is prepared to impose bans if they fail to take active measures against deepfake videos, a senior government minister said, on the heels of warning by a well-known personality over a deepfake advertisement using his likeness to endorse a gaming app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Speaking of cyber attacks, JPMorgan Chase is targeted by hackers trying to infiltrate its systems 45 billion times a day -- twice the rate at which it was attacked a year earlier -- the bank's head of asset and wealth management has said. FT: Speaking at Davos on Wednesday, Mary Erdoes said the bank spent $15bn on technology every year and employed 62,000 technologists, with many focused solely on combating the rise in cyber crime. "We have more engineers than Google or Amazon. Why? Because we have to," she said. "The fraudsters get smarter, savvier, quicker, more devious, more mischievous." Western lenders have suffered a surge in cyber attacks in the past two years, which has been partly blamed on Russian hackers acting in response to sanctions placed on the country and its banks following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the use of artificial intelligence by cyber criminals has also increased the number of incidents and level of sophistication of attacks.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An increase in cyber attacks on the healthcare sector is jeopardising patient safety, and prompting some governments to publish new cyber security standards. From a report: Publicly disclosed global cyber security breaches between January and September last year showed that the healthcare sector suffered more attacks (241) than any other sector, ahead of government (147), and information technology including software, hardware and IT services (91), according to research by Omdia, a technology research provider. The most common type of cyber breach in healthcare was hacking, followed by supply chain attacks, "phishing" (where cyber criminals pose as legitimate organisations to trick people into disclosing passwords and payment details), and "ransomware," in which hackers use malicious software -- "malware" -- to encrypt data until the victim pays a ransom to unlock it. "The healthcare sector is such a tempting target [for cyber security criminals] because ... you can put lives at risk," says James Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US think-tank. The UK's National Health Service has been hit by significant ransomware attacks. In 2017, the "WannaCry" attack is estimated to have cost the NHS $116.3mn and caused the cancellation of 19,000 patient appointments. Another hacking, in 2022, took down the non-emergency 111 service, and disrupted management systems for mental health services and emergency prescriptions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Paul Copplestone, co-founder of Supabase, writing in a blog post: On February 1st 2024, AWS will start charging for IPv4 addresses. This will cost $0.005 per hour -- around $4 month. A more accurate title for this post would be "Brace yourself, IPv4 is leaving," because I can't imagine many companies will pay to keep using the IPv4 address. While $4 is relatively small for an individual, my hypothesis is that AWS is a foundational layer to many infrastructure companies, like Supabase -- we offer a full EC2 instance for every Postgres database, so this would add millions to our AWS bill. Infrastructure companies on AWS have a few choices:1. Pass on the cost to the customer.2. Provide a workaround (for example, a proxy).3. Only offer IPv6 and hope the world will catch up.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last week, Austria-based Swarovski Optik introduced the AX Visio 10x32 binoculars, which the company says can identify over 9,000 species of birds and mammals using image recognition technology. The company is calling the product the world's first "smart binoculars," and they come with a hefty price tag -- $4,799. "The AX Visio are the world's first AI-supported binoculars," the company says in the product's press release. "At the touch of a button, they assist with the identification of birds and other creatures, allow discoveries to be shared, and offer a wide range of practical extra functions." The binoculars, aimed mostly at bird watchers, gain their ability to identify birds from the Merlin Bird ID project, created by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As confirmed by a hands-on demo conducted by The Verge, the user looks at an animal through the binoculars and presses a button. A red progress circle fills in while the binoculars process the image, then the identified animal name pops up on the built-in binocular HUD screen within about five seconds. In 2014, a famous xkcd comic strip titled Tasks depicted someone asking a developer to create an app that, when a user takes a photo, will check whether the user is in a national park (deemed easy due to GPS) and check whether the photo is of a bird (to which the developer says, "I'll need a research team and five years"). The caption below reads, "In CS, it can be hard to explain the difference between the easy and the virtually impossible." It's been just over nine years since the comic was published, and while identifying the presence of a bird in a photo was solved some time ago, these binoculars arguably go further by identifying the species of the bird in the photo (it also keeps track of location due to GPS). While apps to identify bird species already exist, this feature is now packed into a handheld pair of binoculars.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a new paper published in the journal Science Progress, author Joseph Merz argues that climate issues are symptoms of ecological overshoot, driven by exploited human behaviors such as overconsumption, waste, and population growth. The paper emphasizes the need to change societal norms and behaviors through various means, including using marketing and media strategies to promote sustainable living, rather than solely focusing on technological or policy solutions. The Guardian reports: Merz and colleagues believe that most climate "solutions" proposed so far only tackle symptoms rather than the root cause of the crisis. This, they say, leads to increasing levels of the three "levers" of overshoot: consumption, waste and population. They claim that unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster. "We can deal with climate change and worsen overshoot," says Merz. "The material footprint of renewable energy is dangerously underdiscussed. These energy farms have to be rebuilt every few decades -- they're not going to solve the bigger problem unless we tackle demand." "Overshoot" refers to how many Earths human society is using up to sustain -- or grow -- itself. Humanity would currently need 1.7 Earths to maintain consumption of resources at a level the planet's biocapacity can regenerate. Where discussion of climate often centers on carbon emissions, a focus on overshoot highlights the materials usage, waste output and growth of human society, all of which affect the Earth's biosphere. "Essentially, overshoot is a crisis of human behavior," says Merz. "For decades we've been telling people to change their behavior without saying: 'Change your behavior.' We've been saying 'be more green' or 'fly less', but meanwhile all of the things that drive behavior have been pushing the other way. All of these subtle cues and not so subtle cues have literally been pushing the opposite direction -- and we've been wondering why nothing's changing." The paper explores how neuropsychology, social signaling and norms have been exploited to drive human behaviors which grow the economy, from consuming goods to having large families. The authors suggest that ancient drives to belong in a tribe or signal one's status or attract a mate have been co-opted by marketing strategies to create behaviors incompatible with a sustainable world. "People are the victims -- we have been exploited to the point we are in crisis. These tools are being used to drive us to extinction," says the evolutionary behavioral ecologist and study co-author Phoebe Barnard. "Why not use them to build a genuinely sustainable world?" Just one-quarter of the world population is responsible for nearly three-quarters of emissions. The authors suggest the best strategy to counter overshoot would be to use the tools of the marketing, media and entertainment industries in a campaign to redefine our material-intensive socially accepted norms. "We're talking about replacing what people are trying to signal, what they're trying to say about themselves. Right now, our signals have a really high material footprint -- our clothes are linked to status and wealth, their materials sourced from all over the world, shipped to south-east Asia most often and then shipped here, only to be replaced by next season's trends. The things that humans can attach status to are so fluid, we could be replacing all of it with things that essentially have no material footprint -- or even better, have an ecologically positive one."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The Apple-versus-Beeper saga is not over yet it seems, even though the iMessage-on-Android Beeper Mini was removed from the Play Store last week. Now, Apple customers who used Beeper's apps are reporting that they've been banned from using iMessage on their Macs -- a move Apple may have taken to disable Beeper's apps from working properly, but ultimately penalizes its own customers for daring to try a non-Apple solution for accessing iMessage. The latest follows a contentious game of cat-and-mouse between Apple and Beeper, which Apple ultimately won. [...] According to users' recounting of their tech support experiences with Apple, the support reps are telling them their computer has been flagged for spam, or for sending too many messages - even though that's not the case, some argued. This has led many Beeper users to believe this is how Apple is flagging them for removal from the iMessage network. One Beeper customer advised others facing this problem to ask Apple if their Mac was in a "throttled status" or if their Apple ID was blocked for spam to get to the root of the issue. Admitting up front that third-party software was to blame would sometimes result in the support rep being able to lift the ban, some noted. The news of the Mac bans was earlier reported by Apple news site AppleInsider and Times of India, and is being debated on Y Combinator forum site Hacker News. On the latter, some express their belief that the retaliation against Apple's own users is justified as they had violated Apple's terms, while others said that iMessage interoperability should be managed through regulation, not rogue apps. Far fewer argued that Apple is exerting its power in an anticompetitive fashion here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has announced several new experiences launching with their upcoming Vision Pro spatial computing headset, including 3D content from Disney Plus. "Other apps announced with Vision Pro support include ESPN, MLB, PGA Tour, Max, Discovery Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Pluto TV, Tubi, Fubo, Crunchyroll, Red Bull TV, IMAX, TikTok, and MUBI," reports The Verge, noting that Netflix's existing app "will work unmodified on Apple's new headset." From the report: The announcement lists some of the movies that will be in 3D, and naturally, Avatar: The Way of Water is among them. But Vision Pro owners will also get 3D versions of movies like Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Encanto. The movies will be available to rent through the Apple TV app, and the company says that anyone who has already bought the movies will now get 3D versions without paying extra. Otherwise, "more titles, including those available exclusively to Disney Plus subscribers, will be announced at a later date." Among the four screening environments for Disney Plus subscribers, one is called the Disney Plus Theater, which the company says takes inspiration from Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre, as well as others based on Pixar's Monsters, Inc., the fictional Avengers Tower from Marvel Avengers films, and one set in the cockpit of a landspeeder sitting in Star Wars' Tatooine desert. Besides Disney content, Apple mentioned the Apple TV app will have some free "immersive entertainment" that includes Alicia Keys: Rehearsal Room and a film from Planet Earth producers called Prehistoric Planet Immersive. The $3,499 Vision Pro headset will start shipping on February 2nd. Pre-orders begin January 19th at 8AM ET.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Uber is shutting down alcohol delivery service Drizly three years after the company acquired it for $1.1 billion. Axios reports: Drizly was always a bit of an odd match for Uber, in that it didn't hire or contract its own delivery workers. Instead, Drizly provided backend tech that let local liquor stores provide their own deliveries. The bigger issue, however, might have been cybersecurity. Drizly in 2020 confirmed a hack that exposed information on around 2.5 million customers. What it didn't say, however, was that the company had been aware of the security flaw for two years without fixing it. That information was discovered by the Federal Trade Commission, after Uber's acquisition of Drizly, and led to an FTC order that restricted the types of customer information that Drizly could collect and retain. "After three years of Drizly operating independently within the Uber family, we've decided to close the business and focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything -- from food to groceries to alcohol -- all on a single app," said Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber's SVP of delivery. "We're grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An LG washing machine owner discovered that his smart home appliance was uploading an average of 3.66GB of data daily. "Concerned about the washer's internet addiction, Johnie forced the device to go cold turkey and blocked it using his router UI," reports Tom's Hardware. From the report: Johnie's initial screenshot showed that on a chosen day, the device uploaded 3.57GB and downloaded about 100MB, and the data traffic was almost constant. Meanwhile, according to the Asus router interface screenshot, the washing machine accounted for just shy of 5% of Johnie's internet traffic daily. The LG washing machine owner saw the fun in his predicament and joked that the device might use Wi-Fi for "DLCs (Downloadable Laundry Cycles)." He wasn't entirely kidding: The machine does download presets for various types of apparel. However, the lion's share of the data transferred was uploaded. Working through the thread, we note that Johnie also pondered the possibility of someone using his washing machine for crypto mining. "I'd gladly rent our LPU (Laundry Processing Unit) by the hour," he quipped. Again, there was the glimmer of a possibility that there could be truth behind this joke. Another social media user highlighted a history of hackers taking over LG smart-connected appliances. The SmartThinQ home appliances HomeHack vulnerability was patched several weeks after being made public. A similar modern hack might use the washing machine's computer resources as part of a botnet. Taking control of an LG washing machine as part of a large botnet for cryptocurrency mining or nefarious networking purposes wouldn't be as far-fetched as it sounds. Large numbers of relatively low-power devices can be formidable together. One of the more innocent theories regarding the significant data uploads suggested laundry data was being uploaded to LG so it could improve its LLM (Large Laundry Model). It sought to do this to prepare for the launch of its latest "AI washer-dryer combo" at CES, joked Johnie. For now, it looks like the favored answer to the data mystery is to blame Asus for misreporting it. We may never know what happened with Johnie, who is now running his LG washing machine offline. Another relatively innocent reason for the supposed high volume of uploads could be an error in the Asus router firmware. In a follow-up post a day after his initial Tweet, Johnie noted "inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool," with regard to Apple iMessage data use. Other LG smart washing machine users showed device data use from their router UIs. It turns out that these appliances more typically use less than 1MB per day.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has announced changes to its U.S. App Store, allowing developers to link to alternative payment methods, "provided that the app also offer purchases through Apple's own In-App Purchase system," reports 9to5Mac. The change comes in light of the Supreme Court declining to hear Apple's appeal in its legal battle with Epic Games. From the report: The guideline says that developers can apply for an entitlement that allows them to include buttons or links directing users to out-of-app purchasing mechanisms: "Developers may apply for an entitlement to provide a link in their app to a website the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to purchase such items. Learn more about the entitlement. In accordance with the entitlement agreement, the link may inform users about where and how to purchase those in-app purchase items, and the fact that such items may be available for a comparatively lower price. The entitlement is limited to use only in the iOS or iPadOS App Store on the United States storefront. In all other storefronts, apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase." According to Apple, the link to an alternative payment platform can only be displayed on "one app page the end user navigates to (not an interstitial, modal, or pop-up), in a single, dedicated location on such page, and may not persist beyond that page." Apple has provided templates that developers can use for communicating with customers about alternative in-app payment systems [...]. Apple has also confirmed that it will charge a commission on purchases made through alternative payment platforms. This commission will be 12% for developers who are a member of the App Store Small Business Program and 27% for other apps. The commission will apply to "purchases made within seven days after a user taps on an External Purchase Link and continues from the system disclosure sheet to an external website." Apple says developers will be required to provide accounting of qualifying out-of-app purchases and remit the appropriate commissions. [...] However, Apple also says that collecting this commission will be "exceedingly difficult and, in many cases, impossible." [...] The other anti-steering change that Apple is required to make is to allow developers to communicate with customers outside of their apps about alternative purchasing options, such as via email. Apple made this change in 2021 as part of its settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought on by small developers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Google search really has been taken over by low-quality SEO spam, according to a new, year-long study by German researchers (PDF). The researchers, from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, set out to answer the question "Is Google Getting Worse?" by studying search results for 7,392 product-review terms across Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo over the course of a year. They found that, overall, "higher-ranked pages are on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality ... we find that only a small portion of product reviews on the web uses affiliate marketing, but the majority of all search results do." They also found that spam sites are in a constant war with Google over the rankings, and that spam sites will regularly find ways to game the system, rise to the top of Google's rankings, and then will be knocked down. "SEO is a constant battle and we see repeated patterns of review spam entering and leaving the results as search engines and SEO engineers take turns adjusting their parameters," they wrote. They note that Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are regularly tweaking their algorithms and taking down content that is outright spam, but that, overall, this leads only to "a temporary positive effect." "Search engines seem to lose the cat-and-mouse game that is SEO spam," they write. Notably, Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo all have the same problems, and in many cases, Google performed better than Bing and DuckDuckGo by the researchers' measures. The researchers warn that this rankings war is likely to get much worse with the advent of AI-generated spam, and that it genuinely threatens the future utility of search engines: "the line between benign content and spam in the form of content and link farms becomes increasingly blurry -- a situation that will surely worsen in the wake of generative AI. We conclude that dynamic adversarial spam in the form of low-quality, mass-produced commercial content deserves more attention."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Version 9.0 of Wine, the free and open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps on Unix-like operating systems, has been released. "Highlights of Wine 9.0 include an experimental Wayland graphics driver with features like basic window management, support for multiple monitors, high-DPI scaling, relative motion events, as well as Vulkan support," reports 9to5Linux. From the report: The Vulkan driver has been updated to support Vulkan 1.3.272 and later, the PostScript driver has been reimplemented to work from Windows-format spool files and avoid any direct calls from the Unix side, and there's now a dark theme option on WinRT theming that can be enabled in WineCfg. Wine 9.0 also adds support for many more instructions to Direct3D 10 effects, implements the Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder DirectX Media Object (DMO), implements the DirectShow Audio Capture and DirectShow MPEG-1 Video Decoder filters, and adds support for video and system streams, as well as audio streams to the DirectShow MPEG-1 Stream Splitter filter. Desktop integration has been improved in this release to allow users to close the desktop window in full-screen desktop mode by using the "Exit desktop" entry in the Start menu, as well as support for export URL/URI protocol associations as URL handlers to the Linux desktop. Audio support has been enhanced in Wine 9.0 with the implementation of several DirectMusic modules, DLS1 and DLS2 sound font loading, support for the SF2 format for compatibility with Linux standard MIDI sound fonts, Doppler shift support in DirectSound, Indeo IV50 Video for Windows decoder, and MIDI playback in dmsynth. Among other noteworthy changes, Wine 9.0 brings loader support for ARM64X and ARM64EC modules, along with the ability to run existing Windows binaries on ARM64 systems and initial support for building Wine for the ARM64EC architecture. There's also a new 32-bit x86 emulation interface, a new WoW64 mode that supports running of 32-bit apps on recent macOS versions that don't support 32-bit Unix processes, support for DirectInput action maps to improve compatibility with many old video games that map controller inputs to in-game actions, as well as Windows 10 as the default Windows version for new prefixes. Last but not least, the kernel has been updated to support address space layout randomization (ASLR) for modern PE binaries, better memory allocation performance through the Low Fragmentation Heap (LFH) implementation, and support memory placeholders in the virtual memory allocator to allow apps to reserve virtual space. Wine 9.0 also adds support for smart cards, adds support for Diffie-Hellman keys in BCrypt, implements the Negotiate security package, adds support for network interface change notifications, and fixes many bugs. For a full list of changes, check out the release notes. You can download Wine 9.0 from WineHQ.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Bloomberg, China's chip import value dropped significantly by 15.4% in 2023, from $413 billion to $349 billion. "Chip sales were down across the board in 2023 thanks to a weakening global economy, but China's chip imports indicate that its economy might be in trouble," reports Tom's Hardware. "The country's inability to import cutting-edge silicon is also certainly a factor in its decreasing chip imports." From the report: In 2022, the value of chip imports to China stood at $413 billion, and in 2023 the country only imported chips worth a total of $349 billion, a 15.4% decrease in value. That a drop happened at all isn't surprising; even TSMC, usually considered to be one of the most advanced fabbing corporation in the world, saw its sales decline by 4.5%. However, a 15.4% decrease in shipments is much more significant, and indicates China has particular issues other than weaker demand across the world. China's ongoing economic issues, such as its high deflation could play a part. Deflation is when currency increases in value, the polar opposite of inflation, when currency loses value. As inflation has been a significant problem for countries such as the U.S. and UK, deflation might sound much more appealing, but economically it can be problematic. A deflationary economy encourages consumers not to spend, since money is increasing in value, meaning buyers can purchase more if they wait. In other words, deflation decreases demand for products like semiconductors. However, shipment volume only decreased by 10.8% compared to the 15.4% decline in value, meaning the chips that China didn't buy in 2023 were particularly valuable. This likely reflects U.S. sanctions on China, which prevents it from buying top-end graphics cards, especially from Nvidia. The H100, H200, GH200, and the RTX 4090 are illegal to ship to China, and they're some of Nvidia's best GPUs. The moving target for U.S. sanctions could also make exporters and importers more tepid, as it's hard to tell if more sanctions could suddenly upend plans and business deals.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google is updating the warning on Chrome's Incognito mode to make it clear that Google and websites run by other companies can still collect your data in the web browser's semi-private mode. The change is being made as Google prepares to settle a class-action lawsuit that accuses the firm of privacy violations related to Chrome's Incognito mode. The expanded warning was recently added to Chrome Canary, a nightly build for developers. The warning appears to directly address one of the lawsuit's complaints, that the Incognito mode's warning doesn't make it clear that Google collects data from users of the private mode. Many tech-savvy people already know that while private modes in web browsers prevent some data from being stored on your device, they don't prevent tracking by websites or Internet service providers. But many other people may not understand exactly what Incognito mode does, so the more specific warning could help educate users. The new warning seen in Chrome Canary when you open an incognito window says: "You've gone Incognito. Others who use this device won't see your activity, so you can browse more privately. This won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google." The wording could be interpreted to refer to Google websites and third-party websites, including third-party websites that rely on Google ad services. The new warning was not yet in the developer, beta, and stable branches of Chrome as of today. It also wasn't in Chromium. The change to Canary was previously reported by MSPowerUser. Incognito mode in the stable version of Chrome still says: "You've gone Incognito. Now you can browse privately, and other people who use this device won't see your activity." Among other changes, the Canary warning replaces "browse privately" with "browse more privately." The stable and Canary warnings both say that your browsing activity might still be visible to "websites you visit," "your employer or school," or "your Internet service provider." But only the Canary warning currently includes the caveat that Incognito mode "won't change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google." The old and new warnings both say that Incognito mode prevents Chrome from saving your browsing history, cookies and site data, and information entered in forms, but that "downloads, bookmarks and reading list items will be saved." Both warnings link to this page, which provides more detail on Incognito mode.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Maps is about to get better at showing directions inside tunnels. A new feature spotted by SmartDroid allows the Android version of the app to use Bluetooth beacons to track your location in areas where GPS signals typically can't reach. The Verge: These beacons transmit Bluetooth signals that give location data to your phone, according to the Google-owned Waze, which already supports the feature. The app then uses this information along with the device's mobile connectivity to "provide real-time traffic data as it would with a typical GPS connection."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remedy Entertainment, the developer that created the Max Payne and Alan Wake video game franchises, is embroiled in a trademark dispute with Take-Two Interactive over claims that Remedy's new "R" logo too closely resembles that of its subsidiary Rockstar Games. From a report: As first reported by RespawnFirst, the Rockstar parent company has objected to trademark filings Remedy submitted to the Intellectual Property Offices in the UK and EU last year, over grounds that the logo is likely to cause "confusion on the part of the public." Remedy publicly unveiled its updated "R" logo in a blog post on April 14th, 2023 -- one day after the company filed its trademark application with the EU -- saying that the "bullet in the letter R in the old logo represented the era of Max Payne," and that it no longer reflected its wider game portfolio.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI tools already allow people to generate eerily convincing voice clones and deepfake videos. Soon, AI could also be used to mimic a person's handwriting style. Bloomberg: Researchers at Abu Dhabi's Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) say they have developed technology that can imitate someone's handwriting based on just a few paragraphs of written material. To accomplish that, the researchers used a transformer model, a type of neural network designed to learn context and meaning in sequential data. The team at MBZUAI, which calls itself the world's first AI university, has been granted a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office for the artificial intelligence system. The researchers have not yet released the feature, but it represents a step forward in an area that has drawn interest from academics for years. There have been apps and even robots that can generate handwriting, but recent advances in AI have accelerated character recognition techniques dramatically. As with other AI tools, however, it's unclear if the benefits will outweigh the harms. The technology could help the injured to write without picking up a pen, but it also risks opening the door to mass forgeries and misuse. The tool will need to be deployed thoughtfully, two of the researchers said in an interview.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is laying off hundreds of employees in its advertising sales team, the Alphabet-owned company said on Tuesday, marking the latest cuts at the search giant. From a report: The move adds to signs that job cuts will continue this year, as companies look to adopt AI software and automation to lighten workloads. Last week, Google said it would lay off several employees in its Voice Assistant units, hardware teams responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, as well as in its augmented reality team.Google's customer solutions unit, which serves medium-level advertiser clients, will be the core team for growth moving forward, the company said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI is working with the Pentagon on a number of projects including cybersecurity capabilities, a departure from the startup's earlier ban on providing its artificial intelligence to militaries. From a report: The ChatGPT maker is developing tools with the US Defense Department on open-source cybersecurity software, and has had initial talks with the US government about methods to assist with preventing veteran suicide, Anna Makanju, the company's vice president of global affairs, said in an interview at Bloomberg House at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. The company had recently removed language in its terms of service banning its AI from "military and warfare" applications. Makanju described the decision as part of a broader update of its policies to adjust to new uses of ChatGPT and its other tools.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ken Fritz turned his home into an audiophile's dream -- the world's greatest hi-fi. What would it mean in the end? From a report: Ken Fritz was years into his quest to build the world's greatest stereo when he realized it would take more than just gear. It would take more than the Krell amplifiers and the Ampex reel-to-reel. More than the trio of 10-foot speakers he envisioned crafting by hand. And it would take more than what would come to be the crown jewel of his entire system: the $50,000 custom record player, his "Frankentable," nestled in a 1,500-pound base designed to thwart any needle-jarring vibrations and equipped with three different tone arms, each calibrated to coax a different sound from the same slab of vinyl. "If I play jazz, maybe that cartridge might bloom a little more than the other two," Fritz explained to me. "On classical, maybe this one." No, building the world's greatest stereo would mean transforming the very space that surrounded it -- and the lives of the people who dwelt there. The faded photos tell the story of how the Fritz family helped him turn the living room of their modest split-level ranch on Hybla Road in Richmond's North Chesterfield neighborhood into something of a concert hall -- an environment precisely engineered for the one-of-a-kind acoustic majesty he craved. In one snapshot, his three daughters hold up new siding for their expanding home. In another, his two boys pose next to the massive speaker shells. There's the man of the house himself, a compact guy with slicked-back hair and a thin goatee, on the floor making adjustments to the system. He later estimated he spent $1 million on his mission, a number that did not begin to reflect the wear and tear on the household, the hidden costs of his children's unpaid labor.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For the first time ever, Apple beat out Samsung to ship the most smartphones in a year according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. From a report: Although IDC cautions that its data is preliminary and subject to change, a second research agency, Canalys, also has Apple taking its top spot for all of 2023. IDC has Apple's total mobile shipments at 234.6 million, versus 226.6 million for Samsung. Xiaomi, Oppo, and Transsion round out the top five with 145.9, 103.1 and 94.9 million smartphones shipped, respectively. IDC notes that the last time Samsung wasn't on top of the annual board was 13 years ago in 2010. Back then Apple didn't even feature in the top five. Instead it was Nokia in first place, Samsung in second, LG Electronics in third, ZTE in fourth, and Research in Motion (manufacturers of BlackBerry devices) in fifth.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A quarter of global chief executives expect the deployment of generative AI to lead to headcount reductions of at least 5 percent this year, according to a survey unveiled as world and business leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland. FT: Industries led by media and entertainment, banking, insurance, and logistics were most likely to predict job losses because of cutting-edge AI tools, according to the poll of top directors conducted by PwC ahead of this week's World Economic Forum. Engineering and construction firms were least likely to anticipate cuts because of automation, alongside technology companies. Some 46 percent of those surveyed said they expect the use of generative AI -- systems that can spew out humanlike text, images, and code in seconds -- to boost profitability in the next 12 months, the survey added. However, 47 percent said the technology will deliver little or no change. The findings, based on interviews with 4,702 company chiefs spread across 105 countries, point to the far-reaching impacts that AI models are expected to have on economies and societies, a topic that will feature prominently at the annual meetings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a challenge by Apple to a lower court's decision requiring changes to certain rules in its lucrative App Store, as the justices shunned the lengthy legal battle between the iPhone maker and Epic Games, maker of the popular video game "Fortnite." Reuters: The justices also turned away Epic's appeal of the lower court's ruling that Apple's App Store policies limiting how software is distributed and paid for do not violate federal antitrust laws. The justices gave no reasons for their decision to deny the appeals. In a series of posts on X, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote: The Supreme Court denied both sides' appeals of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. The court battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States. A sad outcome for all developers. Now the District Court's injunction against Apple's anti-steering rule is in effect, and developers can include in their apps "buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP." As of today, developers can begin exercising their court-established right to tell US customers about better prices on the web. These awful Apple-mandated confusion screens are over and done forever. The fight goes on. Regulators are taking action and policymakers around the world are passing new laws to end Apple's illegal and anticompetitive app store practices. The European Union's Digital Markets Act goes into effect March 7.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Adobe has introduced new AI features to Premiere Pro to streamline audio editing workflows. Updates in the public beta launching Tuesday include interactive fade handles for quicker custom audio transitions, and enhanced speech correction tools to improve dialogue quality. Other additions are AI-powered tagging that automatically identifies and labels audio clips by category, reducing time spent manually locating editing tools. Redesigned clip badges also aim to speed up identifying and applying audio effects. The updates ultimately target reducing repetitive editing tasks and giving users easier access to common audio editing functions directly in Premiere Pro's main timeline interface. The Verge adds: Additional quality-of-life improvements being added to the Premiere Pro beta include having waveforms (the graphical representation of sound patterns) automatically resize when track height is adjusted in the editing timeline, and updated colors for clips that make them easier to see. These should grant editors more control over how their timeline can be visually customized to achieve a layout that best complements their personal workflow.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Synopsys, a chip-design company, agreed to acquire software developer Ansys for about $35 billion in enterprise value. From a report: Ansys shareholders will receive $197 in cash and 0.345 shares of Synopsys stock per share, according to an announcement by the companies Tuesday. The takeover of Ansys is one of the largest transactions globally of the past 12 months and provides an early boost for dealmakers in 2024 as they seek to move on from a lackluster period of mergers and acquisitions activity. Synopsys, based in Sunnyvale, California, is one of a few major companies that make software used to design semiconductors, competing primarily with Cadence Design Systems Inc.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With the pre-release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown started, Ubisoft has chosen this week to rebrand its Ubisoft+ subscription services, and introduce a PC version of the "Classics" tier at a lower price. And a big part of this, says the publisher's director of subscriptions, Philippe Tremblay, is getting players "comfortable" with not owning their games. Kotaku: It's hard to keep up with how often Ubisoft has rebranded its online portals for its games, with Uplay, Ubisoft Game Launcher, Ubisoft Connect, Uplay+, Uplay Passport, Ubisoft Club, and now Ubisoft+ Premium and Ubisoft+ Classics, all names used over the last decade or so. It's also seemed faintly bewildering why there's a demand for any of them, given Ubisoft released only five non-mobile games last year. However, a demand there apparently is, says Tremblay in an interview with GI.biz. He claims the company's subscription service had its biggest ever month October 2023, and that the service has had "millions" of subscribers, and "over half a billion hours" played. [...] What's more chilling about all this, however, is when Tremblay moves on to how Ubisoft wishes to see a "consumer shift," similar to that of the market for CDs and DVDs, where people have moved over to Spotify and Netflix, instead of buying physical media to keep on their own shelves. Given that most people, while being a part of the problem (hello), also think of this as a problem, it's so weird to see it phrased as if some faulty thinking in the company's audience. He said: "One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games. That's the consumer shift that needs to happen. They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That's a transformation that's been a bit slower to happen [in games]. As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect... you don't lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That's not been deleted. You don't lose what you've built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it's about feeling comfortable with not owning your game."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The world could have its first trillionaire within a decade, anti-poverty organization Oxfam International said Monday in its annual assessment of global inequalities timed to the gathering of political and business elites at the Swiss ski resort of Davos. Oxfam, which for years has been trying to highlight the growing disparities between the super-rich and the bulk of the global population during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, reckons the gap has been "supercharged" since the coronavirus pandemic. The group said the fortunes of the five richest men -- Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault and his family of luxury company LVMH, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison and investment guru Warren Buffett -- have spiked by 114% in real terms since 2020, when the world was reeling from the pandemic. Oxfam's interim executive director said the report showed that the world is entering a "decade of division." "We have the top five billionaires, they have doubled their wealth. On the other hand, almost 5 billion people have become poorer," Amitabh Behar said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, where the forum's annual meeting takes place this week. "Very soon, Oxfam predicts that we will have a trillionaire within a decade," Behar said, referring to a person who has a thousand billion dollars. "Whereas to fight poverty, we need more than 200 years." If someone does reach that trillion-dollar milestone -- and it could be someone not even on any list of richest people right now -- he or she would have the same value as oil-rich Saudi Arabia. [...] To calculate the top five richest billionaires, Oxfam used figures from Forbes as of November 2023. Their total wealth then was $869 billion, up from $340 billion in March 2020, a nominal increase of 155%. For the bottom 60% of the global population, Oxfam used figures from the UBS Global Wealth Report 2023 and from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2019. Both used the same methodology. Some of the measures Oxfam said should be considered to reduce global inequality include the permanent taxation of the wealthiest in every country, more effective taxation of big corporations and a renewed drive against tax avoidance. "To end extreme inequality, governments must radically redistribute the power of billionaires and corporations back to ordinary people," reports Oxfam. "A more equal world is possible if governments effectively regulate and reimagine the private sector."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bluesky, the Twitter alternative backed by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, has released its new RSS feeds. openrss.org reports: The link to a user's RSS feed is quite lengthy, making it not so easy to remember, and you can't really tell which user's profile an RSS feed is for just by looking at it. Here's the RSS feed link for Bluesky's CEO Jay Graber, for example: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oky5czdrnfjpqslsw2a5iclo/rss. But thankfully, this doesn't matter much, because they're embedded on each user's profile on the Bluesky website. This makes each user's RSS feed automatically discoverable by any RSS reader app. You can simply copy and paste the link to a user's profile into the app, and it will find the user's RSS feed for you automatically. Some RSS apps will even allow you to get a Bluesky user's RSS feed simply by typing their username in the search. This setup also works well with RSS browser extensions. So if you're using one with RSS detection, it will automatically detect a user's RSS feed after visiting their Bluesky profile in your browser.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Japanese startup EX-Fusion plans to eliminate small pieces of space junk with laser beams fired from the ground. Nikkei Asia reports: EX-Fusion stands apart in that it is taking the ground-based approach, with the startup tapping its arsenal of laser technology originally developed in pursuit of fusion power. In October, EX-Fusion signed a memorandum of understanding with EOS Space Systems, an Australian contractor that possesses technology used to detect space debris. EX-Fusion plans to place a high-powered laser inside an observatory operated by EOS Space outside of Canberra. The first phase will be to set up laser technology to track debris measuring less than 10 cm. Pieces of this size have typically been difficult to target from the ground using lasers. For the second phase, EX-Fusion and EOS Space will attempt to remove the space debris by boosting the power of the laser beams fired from the surface. The idea is to fire the laser intermittently against the debris from the opposing direction of its travel in order to slow it down. With a decreased orbiting speed, the debris will enter the Earth's atmosphere to burn up. High-powered lasers are often associated with weapons that blast objects into smithereens. Indeed, the EOS Space group supplies laser weapon systems used to destroy drones. But lasers designed to remove space debris are completely different from weapon-grade lasers, EOS Space's executive vice president James Bennett said during a visit to Japan in November. Current laser weaponry often uses fiber lasers, which are capable of cutting and welding metal and can destroy targets like drones through heat created from continuous firing. Capturing and removing space junk instead involves diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) lasers, which are pulsed to apply force to fast moving debris, stopping it like a brake. EX-Fusion's signature laser fusion process also involves DPSS lasers, which strike the surface of a hydrogen fuel pellet just millimeters in diameter, compressing it to trigger a fusion reaction. This makes space debris removal a useful test along the path to commercializing the fusion technology.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The world's first floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Scotland, is coming offline for three to four months for "heavy maintenance." Hywind Scotland's operator, Norwegian power giant Equinor, says that operational data has indicated that its wind turbines need work. The pilot project has been in operation since 2017. The five Siemens Gamesa turbines will be towed to Norway this summer. An Equinor spokesperson said, "This is the first such operation for a floating farm, and the safest method to do this is to tow the turbines to shore and execute the operations in sheltered conditions." Norwegian contractor Wergeland Group will undertake the work. The spokesperson added, "Wergeland is the closest port with offshore wind experience and sufficient water depth that can service these turbines." As the world's first floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Scotland has trailblazed for much larger floating wind farms now in the pipeline. Its five floating wind turbines have a total capacity of 30 megawatts (MW). It generates enough electricity to power the equivalent of 34,000 households in the UK. Each turbine's maximum height, base to turbine, is 253 meters (830 feet). [...] Equinor said in December 2022, when Hywind Scotland turned five, that it was the world's best-performing offshore wind farm, achieving a capacity factor of 54% over its five years of operations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rich Stanton reports via PC Gamer: Ned Luke, the actor whose roles include GTA 5's Michael De Santa, has gone off on an AI company that released an unlicensed voice chatbot based on the character, and succeeded in having the offending bot nuked from the internet. AI company WAME had tweeted a link to its Michael chatbot on January 14 along with the text: "Any GTA fans around here? Now take your gaming experience to another level. Try having a realistic voice conversation with Michael De Santa, the protagonist of GTA 5, right now!" Unfortunately for WAME, it quickly attracted the attention of Luke, who does not seem like the type of man to hold back. "This is fucking bullshit WAME," says Luke (though I am definitely hearing all this in Michael's voice). "Absolutely nothing cool about ripping people off with some lame computer estimation of my voice. Don't waste your time on this garbage." Luke also tagged Rockstar Games and the SAG-AFTRA union, since when the chatbot and tweets promoting it have been deleted. Fellow actors including Roger Clark weighed in with sympathy about how much this kind of stuff sucks, and our boy wasn't done by a long shot: "I'm not worried about being replaced, Roger," says Luke. "I just hate these fuckers, and am pissed as fuck that our shitty union is so damn weak that this will soon be an issue on legit work, not just some lame douchebag tryna make $$ off of our voices." Luke is here referring to a recent SAG-AFTRA "ethical AI" agreement which has gone down with some of its members like a cup of cold sick. Musician Marilou A. Burnel (not affiliated with WAME) pops up to suggest that "creative people make remarkable things with AI, and the opposite is also true." "Not using my voice they don't," says Luke. WAME issued a statement expressing their "profound understanding and concern." "This incident has highlighted the intricate interplay between the advancement of AI technology and the ethical and legal realms," says WAME. "WAME commits to protecting the rights of voice actors and creators while advancing ethical AI practices."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sara Fischer reports via Axios: ChatGPT maker OpenAI says it's rolling out new policies and tools meant to combat misinformation and abuse ahead of 2024 elections worldwide. 2024 is one of the biggest election years in history -- with high-stakes races in over 50 countries globally. It's also the first major election cycle where generative AI tools will be widely available to voters, governments and political campaigns. In a statement published Monday, OpenAI said it will lean into verified news and image authenticity programs to ensure users get access to high-quality information throughout elections. The company will add digital credentials set by a third-party coalition of AI firms that encode details about the origin of images created using its image generator tool, DALL-E 3. The firm says it's experimenting with a new "provenance classifier" tool that can detect AI-generated images that have been made using DALL-E. It hopes to make that tool available to its first group of testers, including journalists, researchers and other tech platforms, for feedback. OpenAI will continue integrating its ChatGPT platform with real-time news reporting globally, "including attribution and links," it said. That effort builds on a first-of-its-kind deal announced with German media giant Axel Springer last year that offers ChatGPT users summaries of select global news content from the company's outlets. In the U.S., OpenAI says it's working with the nonpartisan National Association of Secretaries of State to direct ChatGPT users to CanIVote.org for authoritative information on U.S. voting and elections. Because generative AI technology is so new, OpenAI says it's still working to understand how effective its tools might be for political persuasion. To hedge against abuse, the firm doesn't allow people to build applications for political campaigning and lobbying, and it doesn't allow engineers to create chatbots that pretend to be real people, such as candidates. Like most tech firms, it doesn't allow users to build applications for its ChatGPT platform that deter people from participating in the democratic process.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has formally discontinued its efforts to bring the full Chrome browser experience to its Fuchsia operating system. 9to5Google reports: In 2021, we reported that the Chromium team had begun an effort to get the full Chrome/Chromium browser running on Google's in-house Fuchsia operating system. Months later, in early 2022, we were even able to record a video of the progress, demonstrating that Chromium (the open-source-only variant of Chrome) could work relatively well on a Fuchsia-powered device. This was far from the first time that the Chromium project had been involved with Fuchsia. Google's full lineup of Nest Hub smart displays is currently powered by Fuchsia under the hood, and those displays have limited web browsing capabilities through an embedded version of the browser. In contrast to that minimal experience, Google was seemingly working to bring the full might of Chrome to Fuchsia. To observers, this was yet another signal that Google intended for Fuchsia to grow beyond the smart home and serve as a full desktop operating system. After all, what good is a laptop or desktop without a web browser? Fans of the Fuchsia project have anticipated its eventual expansion to desktop since Fuchsia was first shown to run on Google's Pixelbook hardware. However, in the intervening time -- a period that also saw significant layoffs in the Fuchsia division -- it seems that Google has since shifted Fuchsia in a different direction. The clearest evidence of that move comes from a Chromium code change (and related bug tracker post) published last month declaring that the "Chrome browser on fuchsia won't be maintained."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Logistics company FedEx announced its own commerce platform called FDX today. The platform will likely compete against Amazon by offering merchants services like demand generation, fulfillment, tracking, and post-purchase experiences including returns. The company said that FDX is currently in private preview with plans for a wider launch in fall 2024. Businesses can register their interest in trying it out through a form. The company didn't mention any brands that are part of the pilot program. FedEx's announcement has a lot of marketing buzzwords including "data-driven," "digitally-led" and "end-to-end e-commerce solution for businesses of all sizes" but is thin on details like how it will compete with existing platforms. The company said that merchants could use FedEx's services such as ShopRunner -- an e-commerce platform it acquired in 2020 -- to reach customers, show estimated delivery time on websites, handle carts, track packages, record the carbon emission impact of deliveries, and manage returns. Further reading: Amazon Tops UPS and FedEx To Become Biggest US Delivery BusinessRead more of this story at Slashdot.

A new report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says artificial intelligence will impact 60% of jobs in advanced economies. That number "goes down to 40 percent for emerging markets, 26 percent for low-income countries," added IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Overall, almost 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI, notes the report. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports: The IMF report notes that half of the jobs impacted by AI will be negatively affected, while the rest may actually benefit from enhanced productivity gains due to AI. "Your job may disappear altogether -- not good -- or artificial intelligence may enhance your job, so you actually will be more productive and your income level may go up," Georgieva told AFP. While AI will initially have a lower impact on emerging markets and developing economies, they are also less likely to benefit from the advantages of the novel technology, according to the IMF. "This could exacerbate the digital divide and cross-country income disparity," the report continued, adding that older workers are likely to be more vulnerable to the change brought about by AI. The IMF sees an important opportunity for policy prescriptions to help address these concerns, Georgieva told AFP. "We must focus on helping low-income countries in particular to move faster to be able to catch the opportunities that artificial intelligence will present," she said. "In other words, embrace it, it is coming," she added. "So artificial intelligence, yes, a little scary. But it is also a tremendous opportunity for everyone."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Papua New Guinea declared a two-week state of emergency following riots and multiple deaths, triggered by a payroll system error that incorrectly applied higher tax rates to government employees' salaries. The Register reports: The pacific nation recently extended COVID-era tax reductions into 2024, but the payroll system used for government employees was not configured correctly and in the first pay run of 2024 reverted to older and higher tax rates. Government workers were therefore taxed at a higher rate and their pay packets were around $100 less than expected -- about half the pay for many employees. That situation was misinterpreted as a surprise tax hike and some workers, including Police, went on strike to protest the situation. Some saw the absence of law enforcement as an opportunity, and riots quickly spread across the city, accompanied by looting. Prime Minister James Marape described the situation as a "technical glitch," before later declaring a state of emergency that has seen troops stationed in the capital to restore order. Commissioner general of the Internal Revenue Commission, Sam Koin, apologized "for the loss of lives and properties during these regrettable and avoidable incidents."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: YouTube recently started slowing down its entire site whenever ad blockers are used. A new wave of slowdowns is hitting users, with the only resolutions being disabling the ad blocker or upgrading to premium. To combat the increasing frequency of ads on YouTube, people have employed the use of ad blockers for years. According to YouTube, that method of avoiding ads is deemed a violation of the terms of service. Of course, pre-video ads are a huge source of income for the service, and the only way to avoid them without the use of a third-party application is to pay YouTube directly for premium. YouTube has since started discouraging the use of ad blockers in a couple of ways. The first is with a pop-up message that reads, "Ad blockers violate YouTube's Term of Service." The message then suggests you turn off your ad blocker. The user is not allowed to continue watching without doing so. The second method is one that's now starting to roll out to more users. YouTube has recently started slowing the entire site when an ad blocker is being used, referring to it as "suboptimal viewing." According to a post on Reddit, multiple users have noted that YouTube has become laggy and unresponsive, seemingly all of a sudden. It was quickly discovered that disabling whichever ad blocker is being used immediately revitalizes the site.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An Oxford researcher measured the effect of popular workplace mental health interventions, and discovered little to none. From a report: Employee mental health services have become a billion-dollar industry. New hires, once they have found the restrooms and enrolled in 401(k) plans, are presented with a panoply of digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and sleep apps. These programs are a point of pride for forward-thinking human resource departments, evidence that employers care about their workers. But a British researcher who analyzed survey responses from 46,336 workers at companies that offered such programs found that people who participated in them were no better off than colleagues who did not. The study, published this month in Industrial Relations Journal, considered the outcomes of 90 different interventions and found a single notable exception: Workers who were given the opportunity to do charity or volunteer work did seem to have improved well-being. Across the study's large population, none of the other offerings -- apps, coaching, relaxation classes, courses in time management or financial health -- had any positive effect. Trainings on resilience and stress management actually appeared to have a negative effect.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Verizon has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its monthly "Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge." The telecom giant will distribute the funds to customers who submit claims, with individuals receiving up to $100 each. Though admitting no wrongdoing, Verizon said it "continues to deny that it did anything wrong." The company defended its right to impose the charge, which was recently raised from $1.95 to $3.30 per month per line, and warned it may increase the fee again in the future. Settlement emails are still going out to eligible customers, who have until April 15 to file.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is removing a blood-oxygen feature from its latest smartwatches -- the Series 9 and Ultra 2 -- to get around a US ban stemming from a patent dispute with Masimo. From a report: The disclosure was made Monday by Masimo, which said that US Customs and Border Protection approved the change on Jan. 12. The agency "decided that Apple's redesign falls outside the scope" of an import ban by the US International Trade Commission, signaling that the adjustment will let Apple keep its watches on the market. The ITC had ruled in October that Apple's devices violated Masimo patents related to blood-oxygen measurement. That led Apple to pause sales of the smartwatches just ahead of Christmas, though an interim stay allowed the company to bring the products back late last month. The iPhone maker developed a software workaround intended to sidestep the dispute and presented the solution last week to the customs agency, which is in charge of enforcing import bans. Apple explained that the redesigned watches "definitively" do not contain the technology at issue, known as pulse oximetry, according to Masimo.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

quonset writes: When self-checkout at stores was rolled out, many people, including on /., cheered. No longer would they have to wait behind the senior citizen who couldn't remember the PIN for their debit card. No longer would they have to wait in long lines trying to ignore the idle chitchat from fellow shoppers. From now on it would be a breeze to get in and get out without human interaction. Except that hasn't happened. For shoppers, self-checkout was supposed to provide convenience and speed. Retailers hoped it would usher in a new age of cost savings. Their thinking: why pay six employees when you could pay one to oversee customers at self-service registers, as they do their own labour of scanning and bagging for free? While self-checkout technology has its theoretical selling points for both consumers and businesses, it mostly isn't living up to expectations. Customers are still queueing. They need store employees to help clear kiosk errors or check their identifications for age-restricted items. Stores still need to have workers on-hand to help them, and to service the machines. The technology is, in some cases, more trouble than it's worth. "It hasn't delivered anything that it promises," says Christopher Andrews, associate professor and chair of sociology at Drew University, US, and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy. "Stores saw this as the next frontier If they could get the consumer to think that [self-checkout] was a preferable way to shop, then they could cut labour costs. But they're finding that people need help doing it, or that they'll steal stuff. They ended up realising that they're not saving money, they're losing money."Read more of this story at Slashdot.