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Google could be about to launch a new branding initiative for Chromebooks dubbed "Chromebook X," according to a new report from 9to5Google. From a report: The publication has pulled together several code commits referencing the new name, which suggests that the branding could be used for laptops that meet certain spec requirements and allow them to offer exclusive features. One source tells 9to5Google that the first Chromebook X laptops could launch before the end of the year. Although the ChromeOS operating system is best known for running on affordable laptops used in places like schools, over the years, it's picked up some higher-end features like support for productivity apps like LumaFusion and the ability to run Linux programs. 9to5Google speculates that the Chromebook X branding could be Google's way of helping buyers distinguish between a baseline laptop that's best suited to basic web browsing and office work and a device with a bit more oomph, like HP's recent Dragonfly Pro Chromebook.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: Microsoft researchers have made a controversial claim that they have seen evidence of an elusive particle that could solve some of the biggest headaches in quantum computing, but some experts are questioning the discovery. Quantum computers process information using quantum bits, or qubits, but current iterations can be prone to error. "What the field needs is a new kind of qubit," says Chetan Nayak at Microsoft Quantum. He and his colleagues say they have taken a significant step towards building qubits from quasiparticles, which are not true particles but collective vibrations that can emerge when particles like electrons act together. The quasiparticles in question are called Majorana zero modes, which act as their own antiparticle and have a charge and energy that equate to zero. That makes them resilient to disturbances -- so they could make unprecedentedly reliable qubits -- but also makes them notoriously hard to find. The Microsoft researchers say devices they built exhibited behaviors consistent with Majorana zero modes. The main components of each device were an extremely thin semiconducting wire and a piece of superconducting aluminum. This isn't the first time Microsoft has claimed to have found Majorana zero modes. A 2018 paper by a different group of researchers at the company was retracted from the scientific journal Nature in 2021 after it didn't hold up to scrutiny. At the time, Sergey Frolovat the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and his colleagues found that imperfections in the semiconductor wire could produce quantum effects easily mistaken for Majorana zero modes. "To see Majorana zero modes, the wire must be like a very long, very even road with no bumps. If there is any disorder in the wire, electrons can get stuck on these imperfections and assume quantum states that mimic Majorana zero modes," says Frolov. In the new experiment, the team used a more complex test called the topological gap protocol. To pass the test, a device must simultaneously show signatures of Majorana zero modes at each end of the wire, and also show that the electrons are in an energy range where a special kind of superconductivity emerges. "Rather than look for one particular simple signature of Majorana zero modes, we looked for a mosaic of signatures," says Nayak. The researchers tested this protocol on hundreds of computer simulations of devices, which considered any impurities in the wires, before using it on experimental data. Nayak says they calculated that for any device that passed the topological gap protocol, the probability of there not actually being a Majorana zero mode within it was less than 8 per cent. Not all researchers in the field are convinced.Henry Leggat the University of Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues recently published a set of calculations showing that this test can be fooled by impurities in the wires. "The topological gap protocol as currently implemented is certainly not loophole free," he says. Frolov says that a few details imply that what seem to be Majorana zero modes would be revealed as an effect of disorder if the experiment were repeated with even more sensitive measurements. These include small differences between measurements for the left and right edges of the wire, as well as the measurements of electrons' energies -- the same energies can be indicative of emerging Majorana zero modes or of dirt trapping the electrons. Anton Akhmerovat the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands says that for him, the new experiment is not viable evidence that Majorana zero modes have been detected until another team of researchers reproduces it. But this may be difficult as some details of how Microsoft's devices were manufactured have not been published on account of being trade secrets, he says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Elissaveta M. Brandon writes via Fast Company: There's a new font in town -- and it's already causing rifts on Reddit. The font is called Intel One Mono, and as its name implies, it was designed by tech giant Intel, together with New York-based type design practice Frere-Jones Type and marketing agency VMLY&R. It joins a group of monospaced fonts designed primarily for developers -- think JetBrains Mono, Fira Code, and Consolas. By definition, monospaced fonts consist of characters that have the same width and occupy the same horizontal space, making it easy for coders and programmers to tell the difference between long strings of characters. But here's where Intel One Mono stands out: it was designed with and for low-vision developers. (It's free to download on GitHub and will soon be available on Google Fonts, too.) To ensure the font was legible and readable to its target audience, the team ran more than a dozen "live testing sessions" with visually impaired developers who were asked to write code using Intel One Mono. [...] Some of the feedback the designers received was particularly surprising. For example, some people were struggling to tell apart a capital "M" from a capital "N," most likely because both letters have two vertical stems and some diagonals in between, which can be confusing. To make the letters more legible, the designers sloped the vertical stems on the "M" so it looks close to an inverted W. "The point at which the two diagonals meet in the middle gets shifted up to make it clearly a V shape in the middle, and then the two verticals get flared out a little bit to give it slightly more differentiable shape from the capital N," says Fred Shallcrass, a type designer at Frere-Jones Type. Similar challenges kept coming back with the "x" and the "y" which people struggled to distinguish, and the "e" and the "c." In every instance, the designers meticulously tweaked the letters to make them highly distinctive, resulting in a fairly idiosyncratic font where every glyph is as different as possible from the other -- all the way down to the curly brackets, which can best be described as extra curly. This brings us to that Reddit rift. "This font would be great were it not for those curly braces," one person wrote. "For someone that hates fonts sometimes because of curly brackets not being clear and evident, I'm officially switching to this font set because of the curly brackets," wrote another. The developers were equally torn, but the designers stand by them. "Part of our thinking in negotiating those responses is that reinforcing the identity of any shape is not just amplifying what is unique about that letter, but also making it clearly not some other letter, so foreclosing any confusion," says Tobias Frere-Jones, the founder and lead designer at his eponymous studio. "If there's a thing the curly braces do, which is that extra back and forth movement, the parentheses don't do that, the brackets don't do that, therefore these ought to do a lot of that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is launching the "Chromebook X" program, aiming to differentiate high-quality laptops and tablets from standard Chromebooks by improving hardware specifications and adding exclusive features such as enhanced video conferencing capabilities and unique wallpapers. Chromebook X devices, expected to be priced between $350 and $500, will provide users with an elevated experience beyond the basic functionality of traditional Chromebooks. The devices are anticipated to be available in stores by the end of the year, coinciding with the release of ChromeOS version 115 or newer. 9to5Google reports: For the past few months, Google has been preparing new branding for above average devices from various Chromebook makers. Notably, we haven't yet seen any signs of Google making a Chromebook X device of its own, which is honestly a shame considering how long it's been since a Pixelbook has been released. The Chromebook X brand, which could change before launch, will appear somewhere on a laptop/tablet's chassis, with a mark that could be as simple as an "X" next to the usual "Chromebook" logo. There should also be a special boot screen instead of the standard "chromeOS" logo that's shown on all machines today. Aside from the added "X," what actually sets a Chromebook X apart from other devices is the hardware inside. Specifically, Google appears to require a certain amount of RAM, a good-quality camera for video conferencing, and a (presumably) higher-end display. Beyond that, Google has so far made specific preparations for Chromebook X models to be built on four types of processors from Intel and AMD (though newer generations will likely also be included): AMD Zen 2+ (Skyrim), AMD Zen 3 (Guybrush), and Intel Core 12th Gen (Brya & Nissa). To further differentiate Chromebook X models from low-end Chromebooks, Google is also preparing an exclusive set of features. As mentioned, one of the key focuses of Chromebook X is video conferencing, with Google requiring an up-to-spec camera. Complementing that hardware, Google is bringing unique features like Live Caption (adding generated captions to video calls), a built-in portrait blur effect, and "voice isolation." Earlier this year, we reported that ChromeOS was readying a set of "Time Of Day" wallpapers and screen savers that would change in appearance throughout the day, particularly to match the sunrise and sunset. We now know that these are going to be exclusive to Chromebook X devices. To ensure that those wallpapers only appear on Chromebook X and can't be forcibly enabled, Google is preparing a system it calls "feature management." At the moment, feature management is only used to check whether to enable Chromebook X exclusives. Based on that, some other exclusive features of Chromebook X include: Support for up to 16 virtual desks; "Pinned" (available offline) files from Google Drive; and A revamped retail demo mode.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to AST SpaceMobile, the company managed to successfully transmit a 4G LTE signal from space that was picked up by "everyday, off-the-shelf smartphones." Next, AST will try and transmit a 5G connection via its BlueWalker 3 (BW3) satellite. The Verge reports: Testing was conducted in Hawaii on AT&T's spectrum using Nokia RAN technology, and the signal, which was beamed from AST's satellite in low Earth orbit, reached speeds of up to 10.3Mbps. That's fast enough for some video streaming, general internet use, and more ordinary cell phone usage. AST's testing followed a recent April test by the same company, where it was able to route an audio call between a Samsung Galaxy S22 in Texas to an iPhone in Japan via satellite. The BW3 is a massive commercial communication array at 693 square feet -- about the size of a two- or three-car garage -- and the largest ever deployed in low Earth orbit, says AST's release. It operates using the same 3GPP standard found in ground-based cell networks. The achievement is "an important step toward AST SpaceMobile's goal of bringing broadband services to parts of the world where cellular coverage is either unreliable or simply does not exist today," according to AST's chairman and CEO, Abel Avellan, who said this would allow users to text and call, browse the internet, download files, and even stream video using a signal beamed from space.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After threatening to do so last week, Reddit has now removed the moderators of some of the subreddits that were protesting Reddit's new API pricing scheme. Some of these subreddits have new mods in the protesters' place, while other affected subreddits have been left unmoderated. Still others, oddly, saw their moderators reinstated. Reddit claims the moves are a response to mods breaking its Moderator Code of Conduct by allowing "not safe for work" (NSFW) content in previously "safe for work" subreddits. However, moderators who spoke to Ars Technica believe Reddit's actions are designed to silence their protests over the new fees. Various Reddit moderators reached out to Ars Technica this week, informing us that mods for r/Celebrities, r/InterestInGasFuck_, r/mildlyinteresting, r/self, r/ShittyLifeProTips, and r/TIHI have been removed. Other subreddits are reportedly affected, too, including r/toyota, r/garmin, and r/IllegalLifeProTips. All of the communities recently started allowing NSFW content as a form of API pricing protest. Reddit can't sell ads on NSFW content, and Redditors have accused the company of covertly switching some subreddits back to SFW. As of this writing, some of the subreddits whose mods were removed remain unmoderated. Other subreddits have new mods. One example, r/Celebrities, has already seen resistance from community members, claiming the new mods "don't represent" them and that these mods weren't active in the community before the protests. Meanwhile, the feeling around the general mod community is one of disgust, while some are seriously considering abandoning their volunteer posts or have already done so. "We put up with a lot as Reddit mods-death threats, doxing, sorting through lewd and even illegal material (that Reddit continually ignores)-and deserve to be treated with basic respect," a Reddit moderator, who asked to be referred to only as Jess for privacy reasons, said regarding the removal of some mods. The mod has started erasing their account and has resigned as a moderator. "I have no desire to be associated with a company that conducts itself in such a manner," Jess said. Confusingly, the moderators of some of the subreddits, including r/mildlyinteresting, were restored. Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said in a statement: "It's not OK to show people NSFW content when they don't want to see it. In line with our Moderator Code of Conduct, we'll remove moderators and restrict communities where moderators are engaging in malicious conduct, like allowing rule-violating behavior or encouraging the submission of sexually explicit content in previously safe-for-work spaces." He added that mods "incorrectly marking a community as NSFW is a violation of both our Content Policy and Moderator Code of Conduct." Ars notes that replacing Reddit moderators isn't so simple. "The free work Reddit moderators do has been valued at $3.4 million annually, and as detailed on the r/hentai subreddit, the work mods do is both complex and extensive," reports Ars. "Reddit itself calculated that manual mod removals represented 30.9 percent of content removed in 2022. Reddit would be a different website, one perhaps incapable of functioning, without the tens of thousands of volunteers it uses to keep content safe, enjoyable, relevant, and valuable. Relying on volunteers saves the unprofitable company plenty of money."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The average test scores for 13-year-old students in the U.S. have decreased in reading and math since 2020, reaching the lowest levels in decades, with more significant declines in math. NPR reports: The average scores, from tests given last fall, declined 4 points in reading and 9 points in math, compared with tests given in the 2019-2020 school year, and are the lowest in decades. The declines in reading were more pronounced for lower performing students, but dropped across all percentiles. The math scores were even more disappointing. On a scale of 500 points, the declines ranged from 6 to 8 points for middle and high performing students, to 12 to 14 points for low performing students. The math results also showed widening gaps based on gender and race. Scores decreased by 11 points for female students over 2020 results, compared with a 7-point decrease for male students. Among Black students, math scores declined 13 points, while white students had a 6-point drop. Compared with the 35-point gap between Black and white students in 2020, the disparity widened to 42 points. While the scores show a drop from the pre-pandemic years, the results also show that there are other factors at work. The decline is even more substantial when compared with scores of a decade ago: The average scores declined 7 points in reading and 14 points in mathematics. The Education Department says plans are underway to address the learning loss. [...] The latest results are from the NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment, traditionally administered every four years by the National Center for Education Statistics.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dropbox is introducing two new AI-powered services into its platform. One is a tool for summarizing and querying documents, while the other is a universal search engine that can access your files in Dropbox but also across the entire web. "It's called Dash and comes from Dropbox's 2021 acquisition of a company called Command E," reports The Verge. From the report: The idea behind Dash, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston tells me, is that your stuff isn't all files and folders anymore, and so Dropbox can't be, either. "What used to be 100 files or icons on your desktop," he says, "is now 100 tabs in your browser, with your Google Docs and your Airtables and Figmas and everything else." All the tools are better, but they resist useful organization. "So you're just like, okay, I think someone sent that to me. Was it in an email? Was it Slack? Was it a text? Maybe it was pasted in the Zoom chat during the meeting." Dash aims to be the "Google for your personal stuff" app that so many others have tried and failed to pull off. The Dash app comes in two parts. There's a desktop app, which you can invoke from anywhere with the CMD-E keyboard shortcut, that acts as a universal search for everything on your device and in all your connected apps. (If you've ever used an app like Raycast or Alfred as a launcher, Dash will look very familiar.) There's also a browser extension, which offers the same search but also turns your new tab page into a curated list of your stuff. One section of the Dash start page might include the docs Dropbox thinks you'll need for the meeting starting in five minutes; another might pull together a bunch of similar documents you've been working on recently into what Dropbox calls a "Stack." You can also create your own stacks, and as you create files and even browse the internet, Dash will suggest files and links you might add. [...] As of today, Dropbox AI available to all Pro customers and a few teams, and there's a waitlist to get into the Dash beta as well. The next phase for Dropbox, Houston says, is to learn what people want and how they use the products. He says he's happy to be somewhat conservative at first in the name of not making huge mistakes -- you really can't have an AI hallucinating information out of your most sensitive work docs -- but he sees this stuff getting better fast.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer "lab-grown" meat to the nation's restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves. The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn't come from slaughtered animals -- what's now being referred to as "cell-cultivated" or "cultured" meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates. The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the U.S. The action came months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products. Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside's case, it comes out in large sheets that are then formed into shapes like chicken cutlets and sausages. Good Meat, which already sells cultivated meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, turns masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat and satays. But don't look for this novel meat in U.S. grocery stores anytime soon. Cultivated chicken is much more expensive than meat from whole, farmed birds and cannot yet be produced on the scale of traditional meat, said Ricardo San Martin, director of the Alt:Meat Lab at University of California Berkeley. The companies plan to serve the new food first in exclusive restaurants: Upside has partnered with a San Francisco restaurant called Bar Crenn, while Good Meat dishes will be served at a Washington, D.C., restaurant run by chef and owner Jose Andres.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After years of publicly alleging that Microsoft used its dominant position in enterprise software to push customers toward Microsoft's cloud services, Google on Tuesday formally filed a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which has been examining such issues, according to a copy of the document reviewed by The Information. From the report: Microsoft used the licensing terms in its Office 365 productivity software to lock customers into separate contracts with its Azure cloud server business, Google's complaint said. Microsoft is the second largest cloud provider after Amazon, and Google is a distant third. Google previously complained about Microsoft's cloud licensing practices to European regulators. Under pressure, last year Microsoft agreed to change its licensing practices in the region to make it more affordable for Azure customers to use additional cloud providers, but the changes didn't apply to U.S. customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ArsTechnica says: Back in March, the editor-in-chief of the 25-year-old, Amazon-owned camera review site DPReview.com announced that the site was shutting down. The site was the casualty of a round of layoffs at Amazon that will affect a total of about 27,000 employees this year; DPReview was meant to stop publishing new pieces on April 10 and to be available in read-only mode for an undetermined period of time after that. But then, something odd happened: The site simply kept publishing at a fairly regular clip throughout the entire month of April and continuing until now. A no-update update from EIC Scott Everett published in mid-May merely acknowledged that pieces were still going up and that there was "nothing to share," which wasn't much to go on but also didn't make it sound as though the site were in imminent danger of disappearing. Yesterday, Everett finally had something to share: DPReview.com and its "current core editorial, tech, and business team[s]" were being acquired by Gear Patrol, an independently owned consumer technology site founded by Eric Yang in 2007. The deal had already closed as of yesterday, June 20.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued Amazon for illegally inducing consumers to sign up for its Prime service and then hindering them from canceling the subscription, the most aggressive action against the company to date by the agency's chair, Lina Khan. From a report: The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, argues that Amazon had used design tactics on its website known as "dark patterns" to nudge people into subscribing to Prime, the F.T.C. said in a release. And when consumers wanted to cancel, they had to go through a byzantine process to do so. "Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money," Ms. Khan said in a statement. The lawsuit was the first time that the F.T.C. has taken Amazon to court under Ms. Khan, who rose to fame with a viral critique of the company and who is ramping up scrutiny of the e-commerce giant. Ms. Khan has said the power that big tech companies have over online commerce requires regulators to be far more aggressive and has begun taking actions against them./i.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The world of Secret Invasion is decidedly sketchy. With thousands of shapeshifting Skrulls on Earth, you can't trust what you think you're seeing. One second, you're looking at Nick Fury or an esteemed world leader; the next, you see their face morph into something (or someone) else entirely. This is a description of the plot of the new Marvel Cinematic Universe show on Disney Plus (as well as its comic book counterpart), which follows Nick Fury as he uncovers -- what else? -- a secret invasion by the Skrull population on Earth. But the concept of shape-shifting is also seen in the series' very different approach to its opening credits, which look like a sort of watercolor rendering of the key players and themes of Secret Invasion. As we see a sort of jittery and ominous sequence of the Skrull green taking over more and more of the world, it looks a lot like if an AI was prompted with the concept of "Skrull cubism" -- which, actually, isn't that far off of what it is. As director and executive producer Ali Selim tells Polygon, the intro sequence was designed by Method Studios using artificial intelligence, something he thinks plays with the very themes of the show. "When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it -- it just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know? Who did this? Who is this?" Selim says. Like many people, Selim says he doesn't "really understand" how the artificial intelligence works, but was fascinated with the ways in which the AI could translate the sense of foreboding he wanted for the series. "We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something. And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jack Ma-backed Ant Group is developing large-language model technology that will power ChatGPT-style services, joining a list of Chinese companies seeking to win an edge in next-generation artificial intelligence. From a report: The project known as "Zhen Yi" is being created by a dedicated unit and will deploy in-house research. An Ant spokesperson confirmed the news which was first reported by Chinastarmarket.cn Ant is racing against companies including its affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Baidu and SenseTime. Their efforts mirror developments in US where Alphabet's Google and Microsoft are exploring generative AI, which can create original content from poetry to art just with simple user prompts.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk says the firm is looking to invest in India and bring the electric carmaker to the country "as soon as humanly possible." From a report: Musk said he had a "very good" conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and is hopeful that they will be able to "announce something in the not too distant future." The dialog comes at a time when Tesla and New Delhi have revived talks about incentives to bring the carmaker to the South Asian market. SpaceX representatives have also revived conversations with the telecom ministry in India in recent weeks for setting up satellite internet service Starlink in the country, according to a person familiar with the matter.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Electronic Arts is undergoing a major internal shakeup, announcing today in a message from CEO Andrew Wilson that it is realigning its major studios and its leadership structure in an effort to "empower our creative teams." From a report: The reorganization includes splitting EA Games and EA Sports, with the former being renamed "EA Entertainment" in a signal that EA intends to expand beyond games where possible. "We're building the future of interactive entertainment on a foundation of legendary franchises and innovative new experiences, which represents massive opportunities for growth," Wilson wrote in a message announcing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Internet service providers in both the US and Europe are clamoring for new payments from Big Tech firms. European broadband providers are much closer to realizing the long-held goal of payments from tech companies, as the European Union government is holding an official consultation on the proposal. As the EU process unfolds, the telco lobby group USTelecom is hoping to push the US down a similar but not quite identical path. In a blog post on Friday, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter argued that the biggest technology companies should contribute toward a fund that subsidizes the building of broadband networks. Spalter wrote that Amazon and similar Internet companies should fill what he called a "conspicuously empty seat at the collective table of global high-speed connectivity." Given that "six companies account for half of all Internet traffic worldwide... Does it still make sense that the government and broadband providers alone fund this critical infrastructure? Is there no shared obligation from the primary financial beneficiaries of these networks -- the world's most powerful Internet companies?" Spalter wrote. "We need a modern reset that more equitably shares these financial obligations among those who benefit the most from these connections," he argued. USTelecom members include AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Windstream, and other telcos. It's one of the biggest trade groups that lobbies for US-based Internet service providers. [...] USTelecom pointed to the Biden administration's comments in its pitch to make Big Tech firms pay into a central fund like the existing Universal Service Fund (USF) managed by the Federal Communications Commission. "We concur with the US government's position that rather than the payments to broadband providers proposed in the EU, such 'publicly accountable funding mechanisms can better ensure that resources are devoted to key policy objectives, such as improving access and strengthening network security, while avoiding discriminatory measures that distort competition,'" Spalter wrote. The Biden administration's comments didn't call for tech companies to pay into a government-run fund, though. The document noted that the US "approach to financing improvements to broadband infrastructure involves private investments, a national Universal Service Fund, and significant public funding made from general appropriations," but didn't argue for any changes to who pays into the fund.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube is launching its first official shopping channel for live commerce in South Korea on June 30. Reuters reports: The new channel will operate in Korean language and will start as a 90-day project. In the beginning it will provide a live-commerce platform to companies and plans to livestream shopping content from about 30 brands, Yonhap and other Korean media said, citing people familiar with the matter. It is YouTube's first official shopping channel in any country, Yonhap said. "We may experiment with a variety of YouTube Shopping features from time to time," a YouTube spokesperson said, without elaborating. With YouTube's ad revenue affected by advertisers curtailing spending and competition from platforms like TikTok, Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said in February there was "lots of potential in making it easier for people to shop from the creators, brands and content they love."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a report from The Financial Times, the European Union Commission is planning an in-depth investigation into Adobe's $20 billion purchase of Figma, the popular online graphics editing and interface design application. Gizmodo reports: Back in February, the EU Commission noted that it had received numerous requests to review the business deal. The international watchdog announced that it would need to clear the proposed merger, under the justification that it "threatens to significantly affect competition in the market for interactive product design and whiteboarding software." Now, the Brussels-based Commission will open a phase II investigation, per the FT. Generally, anti-competition probes are handled at the phase I level, which accounts for 90% of all cases, according to EU internal data. In comparison, a phase II analysis takes more time and goes deeper. By the Commission's description, a phase II investigation "typically involves more extensive information gathering, including companies' internal documents, extensive economic data, more detailed questionnaires to market participants, and/or site visits." From the start of such a probe, the regulatory body has 90 days to make a decision. The EU Commission would not directly confirm its plans to investigate the Adobe/Figma merger. In an email, spokesperson Marta Perez-Cejuela told Gizmodo, "this transaction has not been formally notified to the Commission." Such notification is a requirement before any investigation can move forward. Commission officials requested that Adobe submit an official notification in February. Despite the Commission's lack of formal announcement, an EU probe into the acquisition is expected. Already the U.S. Department of Justice and the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority are looking into the digital design tool deal. The DOJ is reportedly preparing to file an antitrust suit blocking the merger, while the UK CMA is actively investigating the acquisition, with a first decision due by the end of June.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Adults ages 19 to 64 in the United States should be screened for anxiety disorders, according to a new recommendation from the US Preventive Services Task Force released Tuesday. The final recommendation, published in the medical journal JAMA, marks the first time the USPSTF has made a final recommendation on screening for anxiety disorders in adults, including those who are pregnant and postpartum. The task force found "insufficient evidence" to screen for anxiety in older adults. The USPSTF, a group of independent medical experts whose recommendations help guide doctors' decisions and influence insurance plans, also continues to recommend that all adults be screened for major depressive disorder, including those who are pregnant or postpartum and older adults. The recommendation is consistent with the task force's 2016 recommendation on depression screenings. While rates of clinical depression had been rising steadily in the United States, they jumped significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic. In general, about 1 in 6 adults will have depression at some time in their life, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And although depression and anxiety are different conditions, they commonly can happen together -- and such screening recommendations can help clinicians identify which patients may need treatment for both conditions or one versus the other. "Anxiety disorders are common, and they can really impact people's quality of life, and what the task force found is that screening for anxiety disorders in the general adult population can lead to identifying these conditions early and then, if those people who are identified get linked up with appropriate care, they will benefit," said Dr. Michael Silverstein, vice chair of the USPSTF and director of the Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute at Brown University. "So it really is extremely good news for the delivery of preventive services for the American public," he said. "We also found that in the older adult population, which is defined as age 65 and older, that the task force really needs more evidence to weigh the risks and benefits of screening for anxiety disorders. And for that older adult population, we're calling for urgent new research." USPSTF researchers noted in their anxiety screening recommendation statement that most people with anxiety disorders don't receive treatment within the first year of symptoms, if ever -- showing a need for more robust screening. "Only 11% of US adults with an anxiety disorder started treatment within the first year of onset; the median time to treatment initiation was 23 years," the researchers wrote. "A US study of 965 primary care patients found that only 41% of patients with an anxiety disorder were receiving treatment for their disorder." Once the new screening recommendations are practiced in the real world, the results may reveal that anxiety disorders are much more prevalent than previously thought, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, who was not involved in the recommendation statements. "Anxiety has been way under the radar for a long time, and so I think it's good that they are recommending for the broad population to be screened. When we start screening for anxiety, we're going to find a lot more of it than we thought we had," he said. "I think it's an opportunity for us to get our hands around this crisis before we have a mental health emergency," Benjamin added. "So we definitely have to do more. We know as a nation, we have under-invested in mental health. We have not put as much money into mental health. We have not been treating mental health at the same level as physical health. And we know that people who need mental health services are really struggling to find providers to care for them."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Recording Academy on Friday updated its rulebook for the Grammy Awards, banning work produced entirely by artificial intelligence. Some music created with AI help may still qualify, however. Reuters reports: Music creators must now contribute to at least 20% of an album to earn a nomination. "A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any categories." In the past, any producer, songwriter, engineer or featured artist on an album could earn a nomination for album of the year, even if the person had a small input.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, suggests chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Bard should be put through a "modern Turing test" where their ability to turn $100,000 into $1 million is evaluated to measure human-like intelligence. He discusses the idea in his new book called "The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma." Insider reports: In the book, Suleyman dismissed the traditional Turing test because it's "unclear whether this is a meaningful milestone or not," Bloomberg reported Tuesday. "It doesn't tell us anything about what the system can do or understand, anything about whether it has established complex inner monologues or can engage in planning over abstract time horizons, which is key to human intelligence," he added. The Turing test was introduced by Alan Turing in the 1950s to examine whether a machine has human-level intelligence. During the test, human evaluators determine whether they're speaking to a human or a machine. If the machine can pass for a human, then it passes the test. Instead of comparing AI's intelligence to humans, Suleyman proposes tasking a bot with short-term goals and tasks that it can complete with little human input in a process known as "artificial capable intelligence," or ACI. To achieve ACI, Suleyman says AI bots should pass a new Turing test in which it receives a $100,000 seed investment and has to turn it into $1 million. As part of the test, the bot must research an e-commerce business idea, develop a plan for the product, find a manufacturer, and then sell the item. He expects AI to achieve this milestone in the next two years. "We don't just care about what a machine can say; we also care about what it can do," he wrote, per Bloomberg.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a Reddit user, Apple's Visual Look Up feature has been expanded in iOS 17 to include all of the various symbols on a vehicle's dashboard -- "everything from the labels used for HVAC controls, to the warning lights that only turn on when there's a problem," reports Gizmodo. From the report: Apple introduced a feature with iOS 15 called Visual Look Up that uses AI to analyze photos taken with the iPhone's camera and attempt to decipher them, providing more information about what's in the shot. It gave the iPhone the power to determine the breed of the dog you snapped at the park, or what type of flower was growing in your neighbor's garden. Reddit user yahlover shared several screenshots of the iOS 17 beta successfully recognizing and showing explanations for symbols like the double triangle labelling the button that turns on a car's hazard lights, and even the setting that defrosts the windshield. Although these symbols are now nearly universal across all vehicles, they can still be cryptic, especially to newer drivers. And while eventually vehicle dashboards will all just be giant screens with the ability to provide more descriptive information about controls and warnings, it's going to be decades before the standard dashboard iconography used today disappears forever.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: European regulators are at a crossroads over how AI will be regulated -- and ultimately used commercially and non-commercially -- in the region, and today the EU's largest consumer group, the BEUC, weighed in with its own position: stop dragging your feet, and "launch urgent investigations into the risks of generative AI" now, it said. "Generative AI such as ChatGPT has opened up all kinds of possibilities for consumers, but there are serious concerns about how these systems might deceive, manipulate and harm people. They can also be used to spread disinformation, perpetuate existing biases which amplify discrimination, or be used for fraud," said Ursula Pachl, Deputy Director General of BEUC, in a statement. "We call on safety, data and consumer protection authorities to start investigations now and not wait idly for all kinds of consumer harm to have happened before they take action. These laws apply to all products and services, be they AI-powered or not and authorities must enforce them." The BEUC, which represents consumer organizations in 13 countries in the EU, issued the call to coincide with a report out today (PDF) from one of its members, Forbrukerradet in Norway. That Norwegian report is unequivocal in its position: AI poses consumer harms (the title of the report says it all: "Ghost in the Machine: addressing the consumer harms of generative AI") and poses numerous problematic issues. It highlights, for example, how "certain AI developers including Big Tech companies" have closed off systems from external scrutiny making it difficult to see how data is collected or algorithms work; the fact that some systems produce incorrect information as blithely as they do correct results, with users often none the wiser about which it might be; AI that's built to mislead or manipulate users; the bias issue based on the information that is fed into a particular AI model; and security, specifically how AI could be weaponized to scam people or breach systems. [...] The AI Law, when implemented, will be the world's first attempt to try to codify some kind of understanding and legal enforcement around how AI is used commercially and non-commercially. The next step in the process is for the EU to engage with individual countries in the EU to hammer out what final form the law will take -- specifically to identify what (and who) would fit into its categories, and what will not. The question will be in how readily different countries agree together. The EU wants to finalize this process by the end of this year, it said. "It is crucial that the EU makes this law as watertight as possible to protect consumers," said Pachl in her statement. "All AI systems, including generative AI, need public scrutiny, and public authorities must reassert control over them. Lawmakers must require that the output from any generative AI system is safe, fair and transparent for consumers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, Rivian announced that it is switching from the Combined Charging System (CCS) standard to the North American Charging Standard (NACS), tesla's competing standard, in 2024. The automaker joins Ford and General Motors in adopting Tesla's charging plugs for its future electric vehicles. Ars Technica reports: "We're excited to work with Tesla and to see collaborations like this help advance the world toward carbon neutrality. The adoption of the North American Charging Standard will enable our existing and future customers to leverage Tesla's expansive Supercharger network while we continue to build out our Rivian Adventure Network. We look forward to continuing to find new ways to accelerate EV adoption," said Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe in a statement. In an email to customers, Rivian said that it would make adapters available, so people should not wait for the factory to switch over to the NACS port from CCS1. It also says that it will add Tesla charging sites to its mobile and vehicle navigation apps. From 2025, it will start building NACS ports into its vehicles. Like GM, Rivian is in the midst of deploying thousands of DC fast chargers with CCS1 plugs, and like GM, Rivian says that the switch to NACS does not affect those plans. As with Ford and GM, there are no details as to the terms of the deal between Rivian and Tesla.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Texas power grid operator, ERCOT, has urged residents and businesses to conserve electricity as the first heat wave of the summer increases air conditioner usage, causing power reserves to potentially fall short. Power prices in the state's day-ahead market reached over $2,500 per MWh, and ERCOT issued a warning about a projected reserve capacity shortage, although controlled outages are not currently necessary. Reuters reports: ERCOT operates the grid for more than 26 million customers representing about 90% of the state's power load. The grid operator issued a "Watch" for what it called a "projected reserve capacity shortage with no market solution available for Tuesday" from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time, which could push ERCOT to take more actions to maintain reliability. Although controlled outages are one of the most extreme actions a grid operator could take to maintain reliability, ERCOT said "controlled outages are not needed at this time." ERCOT forecast power use would reach 81,348 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday before slipping to 80,991 MW on Wednesday. Tuesday's high, which is a little below a forecast earlier in the day, would still top the grid's current record peak of 80,148 MW on July 20, 2022. Day-ahead power prices for Tuesday settled around $2,500 per MWh at 5 p.m. local time in several zones, including Houston and Dallas, according to the ERCOT website. That compares with next-day prices at the ERCOT North Hub , which includes Dallas, that traded for $37 per MWh for the peak hours during the day on Monday, the U.S. Juneteenth holiday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: Christopher Nolan got honest about artificial intelligence in a new interview with Wired magazine. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker says the writing has been on the wall about AI dangers for quite some time, but now the media is more focused on the technology because it poses a threat to their jobs. "The growth of AI in terms of weapons systems and the problems that it is going to create have been very apparent for a lot of years," Nolan said. "Few journalists bothered to write about it. Now that there's a chatbot that can write an article for a local newspaper, suddenly it's a crisis." Nolan said the main issue with AI is "a very simple one" and relates to the technology being used by companies to "evade responsibility for their actions." "If we endorse the view that AI is all-powerful, we are endorsing the view that it can alleviate people of responsibility for their actions -- militarily, socioeconomically, whatever," Nolan continued. "The biggest danger of AI is that we attribute these godlike characteristics to it and therefore let ourselves off the hook. I don't know what the mythological underpinnings of this are, but throughout history there's this tendency of human beings to create false idols, to mold something in our own image and then say we've got godlike powers because we did that." Nolan added that he feels there is "a real danger" with AI, saying, "I identify the danger as the abdication of responsibility." "I feel that AI can still be a very powerful tool for us. I'm optimistic about that. I really am," he said. "But we have to view it as a tool. The person who wields it still has to maintain responsibility for wielding that tool. If we accord AI the status of a human being, the way at some point legally we did with corporations, then yes, we're going to have huge problems." "The whole machine learning as applied to deepfake technology, that's an extraordinary step forward in visual effects and in what you could do with audio," Nolan told Wired. "There will be wonderful things that will come out, longer term, in terms of environments, in terms of building a doorway or a window, in terms of pooling the massive data of what things look like, and how light reacts to materials. Those things are going to be enormously powerful tools." Will Nolan be using AI technology on his films? "I'm, you know, very much the old analog fusty filmmaker," he said. "I shoot on film. And I try to give the actors a complete reality around it. My position on technology as far as it relates to my work is that I want to use technology for what it's best for. Like if we do a stunt, a hazardous stunt. You could do it with much more visible wires, and then you just paint out the wires. Things like that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotify is planning a more expensive subscription option that's expected to include high-fidelity audio in an effort to drive more revenue and placate investors who've been saying the company should raise its prices. From a report: Dubbed "Supremium" internally, according to people familiar with the strategy, the new tier will be Spotify's most expensive plan and likely offer a HiFi feature the company first announced it was working on in 2021. Spotify delayed that product's rollout after two of its competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music, began offering the feature for free as part of their standard plans. The new tier will launch this year in non-US markets first. To augment its current "Premium" tier, Spotify will give subscribers expanded access to audiobooks, either through a specific number of hours free per month or a specific number of titles. There will be an option to purchase more. Currently, the company only sells audiobooks a la carte through its app. Spotify plans to introduce that feature in the US in October, after first launching in markets abroad.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SUSE's latest release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Service Pack 5 (SLE 15 SP5) has a focus on security, claiming it as the first distro to offer full support for confidential computing to protect data. From a report: According to SUSE, the latest version of its enterprise platform is designed to deliver high-performance computing capabilities, with an inevitable mention of AI/ML workloads, plus it claims to have extended its live-patching capabilities. The release also comes just weeks after the community release openSUSE Leap 15.5 was made available, with the two sharing a common core. The Reg's resident open source guru noted that Leap 15.6 has now been confirmed as under development, which implies that a future SLE 15 SP6 should also be in the pipeline. SUSE announced the latest version at its SUSECON event in Munich, along with a new report on cloud security issues claiming that more than 88 percent of IT teams have reported at least one cloud security incident over the the past year. This appears to be the justification for the claim that SLE 15 SP5 is the first Linux distro to support "the entire spectrum" of confidential computing, allowing customers to run fully encrypted virtual machines on their infrastructure to protect applications and their associated data. Confidential computing relies on hardware-based security mechanisms in the processor to provide this protection, so enterprises hoping to take advantage of this will need to ensure their servers have the necessary support, such as AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) and Intel's Trust Domain Extensions (TDX).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Taking a short nap during the day may help to protect the brain's health as it ages, researchers have suggested after finding that the practice appears to be associated with larger brain volume. From a report: While previous research has suggested long naps could be an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease, other work has revealed that a brief doze can improve people's ability to learn. Now researchers say they have found evidence to suggest napping may help to protect against brain shrinkage. That is of interest, the team say, as brain shrinkage, a process that occurs with age, is accelerated in people with cognitive problems and neurodegenerative diseases, with some research suggesting this may be related to sleep problems. "In line with these studies, we found an association between habitual daytime napping and larger total brain volume, which could suggest that napping regularly provides some protection against neurodegeneration through compensating for poor sleep," the researchers note. Writing in the journal Sleep Health, researchers at UCL and the University of the Republic in Uruguay report how they drew on data from the UK Biobank study that has collated genetic, lifestyle and health information from 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 at recruitment. The team used data from 35,080 Biobank participants to look at whether a combination of genetic variants that have previously been associated with self-reported habitual daytime napping are also linked to brain volume, cognition and other aspects of brain health.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A handful of subreddits have classified themselves as not safe for work (NSFW) to protest Reddit's recent treatment of the platform's volunteer moderators, and as a result, some non-porn communities are starting to get a lot of porn. More than 8,000 subreddits went dark last week in protest of the company's API pricing changes that are set to shut down popular third-party apps. But as the protests went on, Reddit started to push back. In an interview with The Verge, CEO Steve Huffman said that, while the platform allows the protests, "the users are not in support of it now. It's like a protest in a city that goes on too long, and the rest of the citizens of the city would like to go about their lives." In an interview with NBC News, Huffman characterized moderators as "landed gentry." And some mods have felt threatened by messages sent to them by the company. Thousands of subreddits have reopened; one tracker indicates only about 3,300 remain private or restricted. But switching to NSFW creates a new level of friction in reopened communities.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Although Twitch's new Partner Plus program, which gives streamers an increased share of their subscription revenues, was seen as an olive branch by many in the streaming community, creators should probably take a second look at the company's sparkling initiative before starting to cheer, industry experts say. Last Thursday, Twitch announced that streamers who qualified for its new Partner Plus initiative would get a 70 / 30 split of revenue from subscriptions, which are donated by their viewers. Most streamers earn a 50/50 split. As explained by Twitch, those inducted into the program would receive 70% of their subscriptions for one year until they reach their first $100,000. Once streamers hit that amount, their subscription share reduces to 50%, which is the standard split for most streamers. While it was clear from the get-go that not all streamers would qualify for the program -- requirements include being a Twitch partner and having at least 350 monthly recurring subscriptions -- many were outraged to hear that it could be as little as 2.5%, or about 1,066. That's the number that Twitch analytics service Streams Charts came up with after analyzing how many Twitch partners were active, or who have streamed at least once, in the past three months and how many of those had more than 350 monthly subscriptions. Out of the more than 71,000 Twitch partners, Streams Charts told Gizmodo, only about 42,000 were active in the past three months. Of those, only 1,066 had at least 350 monthly subscriptions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this week, news broke about an OceanGate Expeditions tourist submarine headed for the wreck of the Titanic that went missing with five people aboard. Soon after, details emerged about the sub's non-standard design that did not meet regulations, including steering apparently handled by a $30 Logitech F710 wireless PC game controller from 2010. From a report: Reuters reports that the five-person crew of the missing vessel, known as Titan, includes Hamish Harding, a British billionaire and adventure enthusiast, and OceanGate's founder and CEO, Stockton Rush. It disappeared on Sunday while on an expedition to explore the Titanic shipwreck site after losing contact with the Polar Prince research ship, roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes after their dive began. The submarine was last reported in the North Atlantic, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, in a water body known to have a depth of about 13,000 feet. Search and rescue operations began shortly thereafter and are still underway. According to the BBC, the entire sub is bolted shut from the outside, so even if the vessel surfaces, the occupants cannot escape without outside assistance and could suffocate within the capsule.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Suzuki said Tuesday it has agreed to jointly start producing "flying cars" with Japanese start-up SkyDrive around the spring of 2024 as it aims to take the lead in the growing industry. From a report: Flying cars are a type of aircraft with the ability to vertically take off and land using multiple rotors. The vehicles are typically meant for carrying a small number of people, with some models also equipped for use on land. SkyDrive will set up a fully-owned production subsidiary that will assemble vehicles utilizing the Suzuki group's plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. The announcement comes a day after SkyDrive, a leading flying car start-up in Japan, unveiled at the Paris Airshow a plan to change the design of its vehicle under development so it can carry three people instead of two. The new design, which has an overall length of about 13 meters and a height of 3 meters, will extend the maximum flight range to about 15 kilometers from the current 10 km. SkyDrive and Suzuki announced a tie-up in the area of flying vehicles in March 2022, but the details of the collaboration have been under discussion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Grimace, an ancient McDonalds character who -- recent marketing blitz aside -- may be so unknown among younger readers they will actually need to consult a website to find out who the hell he is, has for a very long time had an extensive page up over at the unofficial McDonalds Wiki. Until this week, at least, when McDonalds paid the site's owners to temporarily replace Grimace's biography with a paid advertisement. Let's be clear up front: the original biography, written by critic, writer and digital marketer Nathan Steinmetz, aka Humanstein, isn't the most important piece of historical information on the internet. Doing exactly what it needed to do, it served as an introduction to the character himself, before also (this was the real highlight) delving into real-life matters like Malaysian Happy Meals, records of his public appearances and a list of the people who had voiced the character and worn the purple suit. Or it did, until it started looking like this instead. At time of writing the page had been completely hijacked, Nathan's research wiped and replaced with reminders that people can go buy a Grimace meal at McDonalds and play a video game based on the character. The wiki's changelog says the swap is temporary, running "for the length of this [advertising] campaign." [...]Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You can now forgo entering your password on icloud.com and apple.com domains thanks to newly added passkey support. From a report: When running iOS 17 on an iPhone, any Apple site on the web can rely instead on Face ID or Touch ID to authenticate your login. As part of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, your Apple ID is automatically assigned a passkey that can be used for iCloud and Apple sites. If you're running iOS 17 on your iPhone, you can try it out now. Just go to any sign-in page with an apple.com or icloud.com domain, like appleid.apple.com or www.apple.com/shop/bag, and look for the Sign in with iPhone button after your enter your Apple ID email address. We've tried this from Safari on the Mac, although you can use passkeys on non-Apple devices as well. Once you select Sign in with iPhone, a QR code is presented that you scan with your iPhone. If you scan the QR code from the Camera app, you can tap the yellow link box to invoke Face ID or Touch ID to authenticate your identity on the web without ever entering your password.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI -- an early mover in releasing chatbots powered by large-language models -- is contemplating another initiative to extend its influence in the world of artificial intelligence. From a report: The company is considering launching a marketplace in which customers could sell AI models they customize for their own needs to other businesses, according to two people with knowledge of discussions at the company. The marketplace could be OpenAI's version of an app store, offering businesses a way to access bleeding-edge large-language models that can, for instance, sniff out financial fraud in online retail transactions or answer questions about specific markets with up-to-date information, these people said. Creating such an app store also could be a hedge against a future where no AI model dominates. It's not clear whether OpenAI would charge commissions on those sales or otherwise look to generate revenue from the marketplace.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple today announced that its self-service repair program will be expanding to the iPhone 14 lineup, 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip, and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips starting June 21. From a report: First launched in April 2022, Apple's program provides customers with access to parts, manuals, and tools to repair select devices. Apple says the program is designed for anyone with "experience repairing electronic devices," but says the "vast majority" of customers are better off visiting an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Apple also announced that customers can now complete the post-repair System Configuration process by placing the device into Diagnostics Mode and following the on-screen prompts. Users no longer need to contact the program's support team to complete this step, which verifies that the parts are genuine and working properly.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Billy Perrigo, reporting for Time: The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has spent the last month touring world capitals where, at talks to sold-out crowds and in meetings with heads of governments, he has repeatedly spoken of the need for global AI regulation. But behind the scenes, OpenAI has lobbied for significant elements of the most comprehensive AI legislation in the world -- the E.U.'s AI Act -- to be watered down in ways that would reduce the regulatory burden on the company, according to documents about OpenAI's engagement with E.U. officials obtained by TIME from the European Commission via freedom of information requests. In several cases, OpenAI proposed amendments that were later made to the final text of the E.U. law -- which was approved by the European Parliament on June 14, and will now proceed to a final round of negotiations before being finalized as soon as January. In 2022, OpenAI repeatedly argued to European officials that the forthcoming AI Act should not consider its general purpose AI systems -- including GPT-3, the precursor to ChatGPT, and the image generator Dall-E 2 -- to be "high risk," a designation that would subject them to stringent legal requirements including transparency, traceability, and human oversight.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a recently discovered patent application, Mastercard plans to develop software optimized for bitcoin and blockchain transactions. The second-largest payment-processing corporation also aims to facilitate crypto-based transactions by reducing connections between virtual asset service providers. Crypto News reports: The trademark application is a fascinating window into Mastercard's plans for the future of digital currency. Details have been revealed about creating a downloadable application programming interface (API) designed to verify transactions inside blockchain networks and ease the handling or trading of cryptocurrency. By standardizing this API software, communication between VASPs may be streamlined and crypto transactions easier. Mastercard wants to set up a platform for financial institutions to exchange customer information to verify compliance. This new step is significant for Mastercard's fast-growing presence in the cryptocurrency sector. The corporation announced its intention to offer a limited number of cryptocurrencies on its network in February 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new study argues that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is capable of detecting the chemical signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres -- the best hope for finding life on another world. Phys.Org reports: The team simulated atmospheric conditions for five broad types of Earth-like worlds: an ocean world, a volcanically active world, a rocky world during the high bombardment period, a super-Earth, and a world like Earth when life arose. They assumed all these worlds had a surface pressure of less than five Earth atmospheres, and calculated the absorption spectra for several organically produced molecules such as methane, ammonia, and carbon monoxide. These molecules can also be formed by non-biological methods, but they form a good baseline as a proof of concept. They found that with a reasonably thick atmosphere, the JWST, specifically its NIRSpec G395M/H instrument, could confirm the presence of these molecules within 10 transits of the planet. It would be easiest to do with super-Earths and other worlds with a thick atmosphere, but it is still possible for potentially habitable worlds. Given the number of transits needed, our best shot at detecting biosignatures with JWST would be the close-orbiting worlds of red dwarf stars, such as the Trappist-1 system, which has several potentially habitable Earth-sized planets. Given the overlap between biological and non-biological origins, JWST observations might not be enough to confirm the existence of life, but this study shows that we are very close to that ability.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: If we're going to prevent the gravest dangers of global warming, experts agree, removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is essential. That's why, over the past few years, projects focused on growing seaweed to suck CO2 from the air and lock it in the sea have attracted attention -- and significant amounts of funding -- from the US government and private companies including Amazon. The problem: farming enough seaweed to meet climate-change goals may not be feasible after all. A new study, published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, estimates that around a million square kilometers of ocean would need to be farmed in order to remove a billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the course of a year. It's not easy to come by that amount of space in places where seaweed grows easily, given all the competing uses along the coastlines, like shipping and fishing. To put that into context, between 2.5 and 13 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide would need to be captured each year, in addition to dramatic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, to meet climate goals, according to the study's authors. A variety of scientific models suggest we should be removing anything from 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year to 29 billion tons by 2050 in order to prevent global warming levels from rising past 1. 5C. An 2017 report from the UN estimated that we'd need to remove 10 billion tons annually to stop the planet from warming past 2C by the same date. "The industry is getting ahead of the science," says Isabella Arzeno-Soltero, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, who worked on the project. "Our immediate goal was to see if, given optimal conditions, we can actually achieve the scales of carbon harvests that people are talking about. And the answer is no, not really." [...] Their findings suggest that cultivating enough seaweed to reach these targets is beyond the industry's current capacity, although meeting climate goals will require much more than reliance solely on seaweed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An unprecedented marine heatwave off the coasts of the UK and Ireland is posing a significant threat to marine species, with sea temperatures several degrees above normal, breaking records for late spring and early summer. The Guardian reports: The Met Office said global sea surface temperatures in April and May reached an all-time high for those months, according to records dating to 1850, with June also on course to hit record heat levels. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has categorized parts of the North Sea as being in a category four marine heatwave, which is considered "extreme," with areas off the coast of England up to 5C above what is usual. The Met Office says temperatures are likely to remain high because of the emerging El Nino weather phenomenon. Daniela Schmidt, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Bristol, said: "The extreme and unprecedented temperatures show the power of the combination of human-induced warming and natural climate variability like El Nino. While marine heatwaves are found in warmer seas like the Mediterranean, such anomalous temperatures in this part of the north Atlantic are unheard of. They have been linked to less dust from the Sahara but also the North Atlantic climate variability, which will need further understanding to unravel. Heat, like on land, stresses marine organisms. In other parts of the world, we have seen several mass mortalities of marine plants and animals caused by ocean heatwave which have caused hundreds of millions of pounds of losses, in fisheries income, carbon storage, cultural values and habitat loss. As long as we are not dramatically cutting emissions, these heatwaves will continue to destroy our ecosystems. But as this is happening below the surface of the ocean, it will go unnoticed." Dr Dan Smale from the Marine Biological Association has been working on marine heatwaves for more than a decade and was surprised by the temperatures. He said: "I always thought they would never be ecologically impactful in the cool waters around UK and Ireland but this is unprecedented and possibly devastating. Current temperatures are way too high but not yet lethal for majority of species, although stressful for many ... If it carries on through summer we could see mass mortality of kelp, seagrass, fish and oysters." Piers Forster, a professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds, said: "Both Met Office and NOAA analyses of sea-surface temperature show temperatures are at their highest ever level -- and the average sea-surface temperature breached 21C for the first time in April. These high temperatures are mainly driven by unprecedented high rates of human-induced warming. Cleaning up sulphur from marine shipping fuels is probably adding to the greenhouse gas driven warming. The shift towards El Nino conditions is also adding to the heat. There is also evidence that there is less Saharan dust over the ocean this year. This normally reflects heat away from the ocean. So in all, oceans are being hit by a quadruple whammy -- it's a sign of things to come."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ASUS has released new firmware for several router models to address security vulnerabilities, including critical ones like CVE-2022-26376 and CVE-2018-1160, which can lead to denial-of-service attacks and code execution. The company advises customers to update their devices immediately or restrict WAN access until the devices are secured, urging them to create strong passwords and follow security measures. BleepingComputer reports: The first is a critical memory corruption weakness in the Asuswrt firmware for Asus routers that could let attackers trigger denial-of-services states or gain code execution. The other critical patch is for an almost five-year-old CVE-2018-1160 bug caused by an out-of-bounds write Netatalk weakness that can also be exploited to gain arbitrary code execution on unpatched devices. "Please note, if you choose not to install this new firmware version, we strongly recommend disabling services accessible from the WAN side to avoid potential unwanted intrusions. These services include remote access from WAN, port forwarding, DDNS, VPN server, DMZ, port trigger," ASUS warned in a security advisory published today. "We strongly encourage you to periodically audit both your equipment and your security procedures, as this will ensure that you will be better protected." The list of impacted devices includes the following models: GT6, GT-AXE16000, GT-AX11000 PRO, GT-AX6000, GT-AX11000, GS-AX5400, GS-AX3000, XT9, XT8, XT8 V2, RT-AX86U PRO, RT-AX86U, RT-AX86S, RT-AX82U, RT-AX58U, RT-AX3000, TUF-AX6000, and TUF-AX5400.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recent graduates from Generation Z, who have primarily experienced virtual classes and remote internships during college, may need to improve their soft skills such as email writing, casual conversation, and appropriate work attire. According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, companies like KPMG, Deloitte, and PwC are offering training programs to help these employees adapt to the office, focusing on in-person communication, eye contact, conversation pauses, and professional dress. Insider reports: KPMG is offering new hires introductory training that includes how to talk to people in person, with tips on the appropriate level of eye contact and pauses in a conversation, the company's vice chair of talent and culture, Sandy Torchia, told the Journal. Deloitte and PwC also began offering similar trainings earlier this year, the Financial Times reported in May. Similarly, the consulting company Proviti said it expanded its training for new hires during the pandemic to include a series of virtual meetings that focus on issues like how to make authentic conversation, according to the Journal. Scott Redfearn, Protiviti's executive vice president of global human resources, told the Journal the company has had to remind new hires to avoid casual attire like blue jeans with holes in them. Some universities have also stepped in to bridge the gap. Michigan State University's director of career management, Marla McGraw, told the Journal that companies need to be more direct when it comes to telling new hires what to wear and how to act in the office. The school now requires many of its business majors to take classes that foster soft skills like how to network in person. The Journal reported that one course breaks down a networking conversation by reminding students to pause after they introduce themselves in order to let the other person say their name, as well as respond to signs the other person might be looking to end the conversation. While it's common for companies to host onboarding sessions that cover office dynamics like attire and rules for interpersonal relationships, some experts say younger employees need these reminders now more than ever.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. chipmaker Intel will spend $25 billion on a new factory in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, calling it the largest-ever international investment in the country. The factory in Kiryat Gat is due to open in 2027, to operate through 2035 at least and to employ thousands of people, Israel's Finance Ministry said. Under the deal Intel will pay a 7.5% tax rate, up from the current 5%, the ministry added. During its almost five decades of operations in Israel, Intel has grown to become the country's largest privately held employer and exporter and a leader of the local electronics and information industry, according to the company's website. In 2017, Intel bought Israel-based Mobileye, which develops and deploys advanced driver-assistance systems, for $15 billion. Intel took Mobileye public last year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Prominent KDE developer Nate Graham believes that Plasma 6 is now "fairly livable" and recommends KDE developers and power users / enthusiasts start giving it a try. Phoronix reports: He characterized Plasma 6 as: "Basically everything in Plasma compiles with Qt 6, and at this point Plasma 6 is fairly livable. To give you a sense of how livable, it's good enough that over the past 2 months, I've gone on three KDE-related trips from the USA to Europe, with my only computer running Plasma 6 in "current git master" state, with work-in-progress merge requests applied! Its stability has been good enough that this has caused me no apprehension, and indeed, it's been totally fine on each trip. So seriously, if you're a KDE developer or an adventurous user, start living on Plasma 6! Jump right in, the water's fine. :)" He went on to write more about the current development activities around Plasma 6. He also shared his personal beliefs around Plasma 6.0 release timing although no official release schedule is yet to be determined. Nate's belief is that Plasma 6.0 will likely be ready for release sometime between December and March.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to an industry insider, LCD TVs won't see any further development because all new R&D money is being spent on self-emissive displays like MicroLED and OLED, as well as on backlight technology like Mini-LED. Tom's Guide reports: According to Bob Raikes from Display Daily, it's all about OLED development. "I asked EMD (which is the US name of Merck KGaA and is by far the dominant supplier of LC materials), what they were doing to push LC materials for displays onto the next stage ... They are developing LCs for privacy windows and antennas, but they told us that 'there is no pull from clients' for significant development in LC materials," Raikes wrote in a recent article. "That shouldn't have been a surprise to me -- I have been talking about the switch to OLED and other emissive displays for the premium end (and later the mainstream) of the display market for a lot of years. Still, after decades of reporting on LC developments, it took a moment to sink in!" As for what, specifically, manufacturers are working on, it's the production of QD-OLED panels for use in the high-end Samsung and Sony TVs like the Samsung S95C OLED and Sony A95K OLED as well as the development of PHOLED panels that use a blue phosphorescent material that has a longer shelf life and can go brighter than the traditional organic material in OLED panels. [...] Sadly, LCD TVs' days are coming to a close, but OLED TVs are still going strong.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Meta says its new speech-generating AI model is too dangerous for public release. Meta announced a new AI model called Voicebox yesterday, one it says is the most versatile yet for speech generation, but it's not releasing it yet: "There are many exciting use cases for generative speech models, but because of the potential risks of misuse, we are not making the Voicebox model or code publicly available at this time." The model is still only a research project, but Meta says can generate speech in six languages from samples as short as two seconds and could be used for "natural, authentic" translation in the future, among other things.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Crypto.com, the exchange endorsed by Hollywood actor Matt Damon, deploys internal teams to trade tokens for profit, the latest sign of potential conflicts of interest in the digital assets industry. Financial Times: The Singapore-based group, one of the top-10 crypto marketplaces in the world, operates proprietary trading and market making teams, according to five people with direct knowledge of the matter. In most markets, exchanges match buyers with sellers at the most competitive transparent price. Market making and prop trading are usually conducted by separate private companies. US regulators have begun clamping down on similar activities at other digital asset exchanges. This month the US Securities and Exchange Commission hit Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, with 13 charges including using a trading firm owned by chief executive Changpeng Zhao to engage in "manipulative trading that artificially inflated the platform's trading volume." "These trading platforms, they call themselves exchanges, are commingling a number of functions," SEC chair Gary Gensler told CNBC on June 6, adding: "In traditional finance, we don't see the New York Stock Exchange also operating a hedge fund, making markets." The existence of internal traders at Crypto.com has not been widely known since the company launched in 2016. One of the people with direct knowledge about the teams said that Crypto.com executives gave other, external trading houses "absolutely dramatic sworn statements that Crypto.com was in no way involved in trading," while another said that employees were asked to "say there is no internal market maker type operation."Read more of this story at Slashdot.