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The European Union's Digital Services Act has gone into effect today, requiring tech giants to comply with sweeping legislation that holds online platforms accountable for the content posted to them. The Verge reports: The overarching goal of the DSA is to foster safer online environments. Under the new rules, online platforms must implement ways to prevent and remove posts containing illegal goods, services, or content while simultaneously giving users the means to report this type of content. Additionally, the DSA bans targeted advertising based on a person's sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs and puts restrictions on targeting ads to children. It also requires online platforms to provide more transparency on how their algorithms work. The DSA carves out additional rules for what it considers "very large online platforms," forcing them to give users the right to opt out of recommendation systems and profiling, share key data with researchers and authorities, cooperate with crisis response requirements, and perform external and independent auditing. The EU considers very large online platforms (or very large online search engines) as those with over 45 million monthly users in the EU. So far, the EU has designed 19 platforms and search engines that fall into that category [...]. The EU will require each of these platforms to update their user numbers at least every six months. If a platform has less than 45 million monthly users for an entire year, they'll be removed from the list. Online platforms that don't comply with the DSA's rules could see fines of up to 6 percent of their global turnover. According to the EU Commission, the Digital Services Coordinator and the Commission will have the power to "require immediate actions where necessary to address very serious harms." A platform continually refusing to comply could result in a temporary suspension in the EU.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge yesterday granted Google's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which claims that Google intentionally used Gmail's spam filter to suppress Republicans' fundraising emails. An order (PDF) dismissing the lawsuit was issued yesterday by US District Judge Daniel Calabretta. The RNC is seeking "recovery for donations it allegedly lost as a result of its emails not being delivered to its supporters' inboxes," Calabretta noted. But Google correctly argued that the lawsuit claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the judge wrote. The RNC lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in US District Court for the Eastern District of California. "While it is a close case, the Court concludes that... the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC's messages into Gmail users' spam folders, and that doing so was protected by Section 230. On the merits, the Court concludes that each of the RNC's claims fail as a matter of law for the reasons described below," he wrote. Calabretta, a Biden appointee, called it "concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party, and that Google is aware of and has not yet been able to correct this bias." But he noted that "other large email providers have exhibited some sort of political bias" and that if Google did not filter spam, it would harm its users by subjecting them "to harmful malware or harassing messages. On the whole, Google's spam filter, though in this instance imperfect, is not morally blameworthy." The RNC was given leave to amend another claim that alleged intentional interference with prospective economic relations under California law. The judge dismissed the claim as follows: "The RNC argues that Google's conduct was independently wrongful because '(1) it is political discrimination against the RNC, (2) it is dishonest to Google's users and the public, and (3) Google repeatedly lied about it.' As established above, political discrimination is not prohibited by California anti-discrimination laws and so Google's alleged discrimination would not be unlawful. The latter two reasons do not provide a 'determinable legal standard' under which the Court could find the conduct wrongful; they rest on a 'nebulous' theory of wrongfulness which other courts have rejected." The RNC "has failed to establish that Defendant's alleged interference constituted a separate, independently 'wrongful act' that would be an appropriate predicate offense" but "will be granted leave to amend this claim to establish that Defendant's conduct was unlawful by some legal measure," Calabretta wrote. Google said in a statement: "We welcome the Court's finding that there are no plausible allegations that Gmail's spam filters discriminate for political purposes. We will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Private equity firm Veritas Capital has made an offer to buy Canadian software company BlackBerry, Reuters reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter. From the report: BlackBerry had said in May it would conduct a review of strategic alternatives, which could includes the possible separation of one or more of its businesses. Founded in 1984, the company currently makes software for cars and cybersecurity. It became popular for its ubiquitous business smartphones, toted by executives, politicians and legions of fans in the early 2000s. It pulled the plug on its smartphones business last year and has since been trying to sell its legacy patents related to its mobile devices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ten years ago there was a growing interest in Mandarin, as China's influence and economic heft increased. Now Mandarin-learning is declining in many Western countries. In America, enrolment in university Mandarin courses fell by 21% between 2016 and 2020. An anonymous reader writes, citing an Economist story: That may be because job markets have changed. Translation tools like ChatGPT mean low-level Mandarin skills are not needed anymore. Bilingual Chinese graduates fill most roles that require a higher proficiency. But Western students may also be put off by China's government, which has become more oppressive in the past decade, making living in or working with China seem less appealing. This shows that China's soft power is weak. But it is also a problem for Western governments, many of which say they need more Mandarin speakers. The CIA, for example, wants to double the number of Mandarin-speakers it employs. As China and its rivals struggle to get along, there is an ever greater need for mutual understanding. Being able to talk to each other might help.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the world's biggest scientific publishers has retracted a journal article that claimed to have found no evidence of a climate crisis. From a report: Springer Nature said it had retracted the article, by four Italian physicists, after an internal investigation found the conclusions were "not supported by available evidence or data provided by the authors." Climate sceptic groups widely publicised the article, which appeared in the European Physical Journal Plus in January 2022 -- a journal not known for publishing climate change science. Nine months later the article was reported uncritically in a page one story in the Australian newspaper and promoted in two segments on Sky News Australia -- a channel that has been described as a global hub for climate science misinformation. The segments were viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube. The article claimed to have analysed data to find no trend in rainfall extremes, floods, droughts and food productivity. "In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet," the article said. Several climate scientists told the Guardian and later the news agency AFP that the article had misrepresented some scientific articles, was "selective and biased" and had "cherrypicked" information. After those concerns were raised, Springer Nature announced in October it was investigating the article. In a statement Springer Nature said its editors had launched a "thorough investigation," which included a post-publication review by subject matter experts. The authors of the article also submitted an addendum to their original work during the course of the investigation, the statement said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AMD on Friday announced its long-awaited middle members of the Radeon RX 7000 series, the Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT. From a report: Today, the company is finally filling in that gap with the new Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT, both advertised as 1440p graphics cards and available starting at $449 and $499, respectively. Both cards will be available on September 6. And most Radeon RX 6000 and RX 7000 GPUs sold between now and September 30 will come with a free copy of Bethesda's upcoming "Skyrim in space" title, Starfield. The RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT are based on the same RDNA 3 graphics architecture as the other 7000-series GPUs, which means a more efficient manufacturing process than the RX 6000 series, DisplayPort 2.1 support, and hardware acceleration for encoding with the AV1 video codec, which promises game streamers either higher-quality video at the same bitrate as older codecs or the same quality with a lower bitrate. AMD compared the 7800 XT and 7700 XT favorably to Nvidia's $600 upper-midrange RTX 4070 and the $500 16GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti. The new Radeon cards also support FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) version 3, a new version of AMD's GPU-agnostic AI upscaling technology that also promises extra AI-generated frames a la Nvidia's proprietary DLSS 3 and DLSS Frame Generation feature. But unlike Nvidia, AMD isn't restricting FSR 3 to its latest cards, and users of RX 6000-series cards plus recent Nvidia GeForce and Intel Arc cards will be able to benefit, too, at least when games start supporting it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Afghanistan's Taliban-led government is working with Huawei to install a wide-ranging surveillance system across the country in an effort to identify and target insurgents or terrorism activities, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the discussions. From the report: Representatives of the Shenzhen-headquartered tech company met with Interior Ministry officials on Aug. 14, the person said, and a verbal agreement was reached regarding the contract. The Interior Ministry initially posted images and details of the meeting on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. In one post, spokesman Mufti Abdul Mateen Qani said the advanced camera system was being considered "in every province of Afghanistan." The posts, which were later deleted, included comments from Abdullah Mukhtar, the deputy minister of the ministry. "We are willing to accept projects that are better in terms of quality and price," he said. "Reports on this meeting are factually incorrect. No plans or agreements were discussed," Huawei said in an emailed statement.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jay Powell has warned that inflation "remains too high," raising the prospect of further interest rate increases in the world's largest economy should price pressures persist. Financial Times: In a highly anticipated speech on Friday, the chair of the US Federal Reserve at times struck a hawkish tone, pointing to the central bank's readiness to maintain a "restrictive" policy to bring inflation down to its 2 per cent target. "Although inflation has moved down from its peak -- a welcome development -- it remains too high," Powell said at the Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. "We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective," he added. But he tempered that message with a pledge to proceed "carefully" as the Fed navigates the final stages of its campaign to stamp out the worst inflation shock in decades. Headline US inflation, according to the consumer price index, was 3.2 per cent for July, well down from its peak of 9.1 per cent, but above June's rate of 3 per cent. Powell said the Fed was now focused not only on the risk of tightening monetary policy too little and allowing inflation to become entrenched but also of raising rates too high. "Doing too much could also do unnecessary harm to the economy," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The federal government is escalating efforts to make cryptocurrency investors comply with tax law, nearly 15 years after people started trading bitcoin. From a report: The Treasury Department proposed new rules Friday with twin goals: making it harder for crypto investors to dodge income taxes when they sell digital assets, and simplifying complicated tax messes for people who are trying to follow the law. When they are fully implemented, the rules will require crypto exchanges such as Coinbase to deal with the Internal Revenue Service in a manner similar to brokers who handle investors' stock and mutual-fund portfolios. The crypto exchanges will send annual reports on Form 1099s to the IRS and to taxpayers that show the gross proceeds from transactions. That starts in 2026 for tax year 2025. Later, they will start reporting how much customers paid for the assets, known as their cost basis. Capital gains are the difference between sale price and cost basis, and investors face federal taxes of up to 23.8%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firefighters are training a robot to scan the horizon for fires. It turns out a lot of things look like smoke. From a report: For years, firefighters in California have relied on a vast network of more than 1,000 mountaintop cameras to detect wildfires. Operators have stared into computer screens around the clock looking for wisps of smoke. This summer, with wildfire season well underway, California's main firefighting agency is trying a new approach: training an artificial intelligence program to do the work. The idea is to harness one of the state's great strengths -- expertise in A.I. -- and deploy it to prevent small fires from becoming the kinds of conflagrations that have killed scores of residents and destroyed thousands of homes in California over the past decade. Officials involved in the pilot program say they are happy with early results. Around 40 percent of the time, the artificial intelligence software was able to alert firefighters of the presence of smoke before dispatch centers received 911 calls. "It has absolutely improved response times," said Phillip SeLegue, the staff chief of intelligence for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state's main firefighting agency better known as Cal Fire. In about two dozen cases, Mr. SeLegue said, the A.I. identified fires that the agency never received 911 calls for. The fires were extinguished when they were still small and manageable. After an exceptionally wet winter, California's fire season has not been as destructive -- so far -- as in previous years. Cal Fire counts 4,792 wildfires so far this year, lower than the five-year average of 5,422 for this time of year. Perhaps more important, the number of acres burned this year has been only one-fifth of the five-year average of 812,068 acres. The A.I. pilot program, which began in late June and covered six of Cal Fire's command centers, will be rolled out to all 21 command centers starting in September. But the program's apparent success comes with caveats. The system can detect fires only visible to the cameras. And at this stage, humans are still needed to make sure the A.I. program is properly identifying smoke. Engineers for the company that created the software, DigitalPath, based in Chico, Calif., are monitoring the system day and night, and manually vetting every incident that the A.I. identifies as fire.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Citizen is temporarily suspending sales of its second-gen CZ Smart watch due to a "technical issue." From a report: The Wear OS watch, which launched in May, had a feature based on tech from IBM's Watson and NASA to track a person's alertness. It appears the decision stems from negative experiences from reviewers. Michael Fisher -- better known as MrMobile on YouTube -- noted that Citizen said it would suspend sales after he had reached out to the company about the watch's many issues. That was corroborated by a Wired story, in which reviewer Julian Chokkattu also detailed several bugs, like laggy screens, bad battery life, inaccurate tracking, and watchfaces that can't even tell the correct time.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The National Security Agency, the shadowy hub for the United States' electronic and cyber spying, has instructed its employees that foreign targets of its intelligence gathering "should be treated with dignity and respect," according to a new policy directive. The Intercept: The directive, released this summer as internal guidance, is for the NSA's vaunted signals intelligence, or SIGINT, division, which is responsible for covert surveillance and data collection worldwide. "In recognition that SIGINT activities must take into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside," says the previously unreported directive, which was issued by NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone. Civil liberties experts say the PR-friendly directive is an attempt to mollify European partners and American critics amid a simmering congressional debate over whether to reauthorize the NSA's broad surveillance authorities. Experts also pointed to the absurdity that the NSA, an intelligence agency that specializes in electronic eavesdropping including the interception of text messages and emails, could do so respectfully. "This is like the CIA putting out a statement saying that going forward they'll only waterboard people with dignity and respect," Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, told The Intercept. "Mass surveillance is fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights and democracy."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

College Board sends student SAT scores and GPA to Facebook and TikTok, according to tests by tech news outlet Gizmodo. Even when searching for colleges, personal academic details are shared with social media companies. From the report: Gizmodo observed the College Board's website sharing data with Facebook and TikTok when a user fills in information about their GPA and SAT scores. When this reporter used the College Board's search filtering tools to find colleges that might accept a student with a C+ grade-point average and a SAT score of 420 out of 1600, the site let the social media companies know. Whether a student is acing their tests or struggling, Facebook and TikTok get the details. The College Board shares this data via "pixels," invisible tracking technology used to facilitate targeted advertising on platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. The data is shared along with unique user IDs to identify the students, along with other information about how you use the College Board's site. Organizations use pixels and other tools to share data so they can send targeted ads to people who use their apps and websites on other platforms, such as Google, Facebook, and TikTok.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amid growing discontent among Reddit's moderators, the company has launched a "Mod Helper Program" to reward moderators who offer helpful advice to other moderators. TechCrunch reports: The Mod Helper Program is a tiered system that awards helpful moderators with trophies and flairs. Reddit users accrue karma by receiving upvotes and awards, and lose karma if they receive downvotes. The program rewards moderators who receive upvotes on comments in r/ModSupport. Comment karma earned in r/ModSupport will be rewarded with trophies that will "signal to other mods that you are a source of valuable information," the moderator support team announced on Thursday. Each rank awards unique trophies and flairs, ranging from "Helper" to "Expert Helper." Reddit launched a similar program in r/help earlier this year, which rewards users who accrue karma by responding to other users' requests. Reddit also launched the Modmail Answer Bot, which automatically responds with relevant links to the site's Help Center. If the recommended articles don't answer a specific request, it will create a ticket that will be handled by a human admin. The bot is designed to streamline moderator requests so the admin team can focus on more complex issues. Additionally, Reddit is merging the moderator-specific Help Center with its sitewide one to ensure that support resources are "easy to find and accessible from the same location."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Google has worked with Cameyo to give enterprise Chromebooks another way to run Windows applications using ChromeOS Virtual App Delivery. Cameyo is an enterprise company that offers a "Virtual App Delivery" (VAD) platform that can stream Windows, Linux, internal web, and SaaS applications to other devices. This offering is now getting tight integration with ChromeOS. These Windows apps appear like other icons in a Chromebook's launcher and taskbar. Behind the scenes, they are PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) that aim to blur their streamed nature with native file system integration. This includes letting users access local files and folders from within the virtual instances. Similarly, integration with the ChromeOS Clipboard Connector allows for local copy and paste. When a user opens a specific file type, Cameyo makes it so that the appropriate virtual app launches. These virtual apps can be streamed from the cloud or on-premises data centers. Compared to full virtual desktop apps, this approach is said to "eliminate the infrastructure and licensing complexity." On the security front: "apps and devices are isolated from network resources and segmented by default so that users only access the apps and data they need to get their jobs done, all while eliminating the need to expose firewall and server ports to the open internet." ChromeOS Virtual App Delivery with Cameyo is available today as an enterprise offering. There is no consumer equivalent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a team of researchers from RMIT University in Australia, coffee grounds can be used as a silica substitute in the concrete production process to yield a significantly stronger chemical bond than sand alone. Engadget reports: "The disposal of organic waste poses an environmental challenge as it emits large amounts of greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change," lead author of the study, Dr Rajeev Roychand of RMIT's School of Engineering, said in a recent release. He notes that Australia alone produces 75 million kilograms of used coffee grounds each year, most of which ends up in landfills. Coffee grounds can't simply be mixed in raw with standard concrete as they won't bind with the other materials due to their organic content, Dr. Roychand explained. In order to make the grounds more compatible, the team experimented with pyrolyzing the materials at 350 and 500 degrees C, then substituting them in for sand in 5, 10, 15 and 20 percentages (by volume) for standard concrete mixtures. The team found that at 350 degrees is perfect temperature, producing a "29.3 percent enhancement in the compressive strength of the composite concrete blended with coffee biochar," per the team's study, published in the September issue of Journal of Cleaner Production. "In addition to reducing emissions and making a stronger concrete, we're reducing the impact of continuous mining of natural resources like sand," Dr. Roychand said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Using data collected from the International Space Station (ISS), scientists found that a small yet growing percentage of tree leaves in tropical forests are approaching the maximum temperature threshold for leaves to photosynthesize," reports Live Science. If this trend continues, it could spell disaster for Earth's climate systems and biodiversity. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. From the report: The average critical temperature beyond which photosynthetic machinery in tropical trees begins to fail is 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.7 degrees Celsius). Currently, only 0.01 % of all leaves surpass this critical temperature every year. But scientists warn that air temperature rises of 7.2 F (4 C) could push trees in tropical forests beyond a tipping point and into mass death. "It's concerning from our perspective that you see nonlinear trends. So you heat the air by, let's say, 2, 3 degrees Celsius [3.6 to 5.4 F], and the actual upper temperature of these leaves goes up by 8 degrees [Celsius; 14.4 F]," Christopher Doughty, an associate professor of ecoinformatics at Northern Arizona University, said during a press conference on Monday (Aug. 21). "Even though a small percentage of leaves are currently doing this, our best guess is that a 4 degrees Celsius increase in temperature could cause some serious issues for certain tropical forests." [...] Plugging these peak temperatures into a mathematical model, the scientists found that an average 7 F (3.9 C) increase in the air temperature surrounding the leaves caused those most exposed to the heat to have their water-carrying stomata closed off by the tree, leading to their deaths. This triggered a cascade effect, increasing the temperature around the remaining leaves and potentially killing them, their branches and the trees in turn. "If you have 10% of the leaves dying, the whole branch is going to be warmer because a critical part of that branch can no longer cool the broader branch. Likewise you can make that assumption across the whole forest when a tree dies," Doughty said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter Slash_Account_Dot shares a report from 404 Media, a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox: Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security, has bought millions of dollars worth of software from a company that uses artificial intelligence to detect "sentiment and emotion" in online posts, according to a cache of documents obtained by 404 Media. CBP told 404 Media it is using technology to analyze open source information related to inbound and outbound travelers who the agency believes may threaten public safety, national security, or lawful trade and travel. In this case, the specific company called Fivecast also offers "AI-enabled" object recognition in images and video, and detection of "risk terms and phrases" across multiple languages, according to one of the documents. Marketing materials promote the software's ability to provide targeted data collection from big social platforms like Facebook and Reddit, but also specifically names smaller communities like 4chan, 8kun, and Gab. To demonstrate its functionality, Fivecast promotional materials explain how the software was able to track social media posts and related Persons-of-Interest starting with just "basic bio details" from a New York Times Magazine article about members of the far-right paramilitary Boogaloo movement. 404 Media also obtained leaked audio of a Fivecast employee explaining how the tool could be used against trafficking networks or propaganda operations. The news signals CBP's continued use of artificial intelligence in its monitoring of travelers and targets, which can include U.S. citizens. This latest news shows that CBP has deployed multiple AI-powered systems, and provides insight into what exactly these tools claim to be capable of while raising questions about their accuracy and utility. "CBP should not be secretly buying and deploying tools that rely on junk science to scrutinize people's social media posts, claim to analyze their emotions, and identify purported 'risks,'" said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The public knows far too little about CBP's Counter Network Division, but what we do know paints a disturbing picture of an agency with few rules and access to an ocean of sensitive personal data about Americans. The potential for abuse is immense."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mozilla has implemented the WebExtensions system in its browser, allowing Firefox users to import select extensions from other browsers like Chrome. gHacks reports: The feature, which is in testing at the moment, can be enabled by all users of the latest stable version of Firefox. 1. Load about:config in the browser's address bar.2. Confirm that you will be careful to continue.3. Search for browser.migrate.chrome.extensions.enabled.4. Set the feature to True, which enables it.5. Restart Firefox. Mozilla has integrated it into the browser's import functionality, which users may use on first run or at any time from the Settings page. To do so, select Menu > Settings > Import Data (button), or load about:preferences#general in the browser's address bar and activate the import data button on the page. Select Chrome from the list, expand the available import options and make sure extensions are checked. Imports are usually limited to some data, such as bookmarks or the browsing history. Firefox is the first major browser, maybe the first browser at all, that adds extensions to the list of supported imports. The feature is limited at the time to Google Chrome and select extensions. Even though Firefox and Chrome extensions use the same framework, WebExtensions, they are not compatible immediately. Firefox users who attempt to install extensions from Chrome's Web Store may notice that this is not working. Mozilla decided to create a list of extension pairs for extensions that are available on the Chrome Web Store and the Mozilla Add-ons Store. Instead of importing the Chrome extension directly, Firefox is installing the Firefox version of the extension from Mozilla's own extension store.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a recent Apple press release, some developers are reacting with an "audible gasp" when first using the company's upcoming Vision Pro headset. ZDNet reports: Michael Simmons, who's led the team behind popular productivity apps Fantastical and Cardhop described his experience as "like seeing Fantastical for the first time. It felt like I was part of the app." By the time his test session was over, the big takeaway was that "Experiencing spatial computing not only validated the designs we'd been thinking about -- it helped us start thinking not just about left to right or up and down but beyond borders at all." "The first time you see your own app running for real, that's when you get the audible gasp," adds David Smith, podcaster and developer of Widgetsmith. "It instantly got me thinking about how 3D offerings and visuals could come forward in our experiences," says Chris Delbuck, principal design technologist at Slack, in the Apple press release. Delbuck had first planned to test the iPadOS version of Slack on the Vision Pro, only to realize how much more potential there was in upgrading the UX to suit VisionOS' added layer of depth.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Teslarati: Tesla has won permit approval for its Diner and Drive-In Movie Supercharger in Los Angeles, according to documents seen by Teslarati from the LA Department of Building and Safety. Tesla has been teasing the possibility for several years of a drive-in movie theater and diner Supercharger site that would host 32 stalls, two screens to show famous movie clips, and a restaurant with rooftop seating. Initially, it was planned to be built on a series of lots in Santa Monica. However, the location was moved East to Hollywood and will now be placed on located at 7001 W. Santa Monica Boulevard. As the project has been moving through the normal regulatory processes, Tesla has been receiving some approvals and requests for corrections on many of its filed applications to begin construction at the Diner/Supercharger.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Germany plans to almost double its public funding for artificial intelligence research to nearly a billion euros over the next two years, as it attempts to close a skills gap with sector leaders China and the United States. Reuters reports: The target, announced by research minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger on Wednesday, is modest compared with the $3.3 billion that the U.S. government spent on AI research in 2022 according to a Stanford University report. The AI push comes as Germany attempts to turn around its economy from a recession while the country's key autos and chemicals industries face stiff competition from upstart electric-vehicle makers and high energy costs. Germany envisages creating 150 new university labs for AI research, expanding data centres and making accessible the kind of complex public data sets from which AI techniques can tease out new insights: a major undertaking in a country where cash transactions are common and the fax is not yet extinct. It is dwarfed by private AI spending in the U.S., which reached $47.4 billion in 2022, almost double Europe's total spend, and well ahead of China's $13.4 billion, the Stanford report found. But Stark-Watzinger said that Europe's emerging regulatory framework, which places greater weight on privacy and personal safety than those in other regions, could attract players to Germany, as could cooperation within the European Union. "We have AI that is explainable, trustworthy and transparent," she said. "That's a competitive advantage." Simpler regulations would promote private research spending, she added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Five-time world champion, Magnus Carlsen, has defeated Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in a tiebreak to become Chess World Cup champion. Chess.com reports: The five-time world champion won his first World Cup crown by defeating GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu 1.5-0.5 in the rapid tiebreaks of the 2023 FIDE World Cup for a match victory of 2.5-1.5. In the third-place playoffs, GM Fabiano Caruana convincingly defeated GM Nijat Abasov in both rapid tiebreaks for a 3-1 victory and third place. It was a heartbreaking defeat for the Indian youngster, who had the initiative in the first game until Carlsen fought back and won in a tense endgame. In the second game, the world number-one allowed no chances, and Praggnanandhaa's impressive World Cup run came to an end as hundreds of thousands of fans watched the tense battle. You can watch the 2023 FIDE World Cup broadcast on Twitch and YouTube.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Better.com, the digital mortgage lender in the news earlier this year when its CEO fired roughly 900 workers via Zoom, picked a bad time to go public. "Shares of the Softbank-backed company plunged 93% as it began trading as BETR on the Nasdaq Thursday, falling more than $16 per share to $1.19 by mid-day," reports Fast Company. It went public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Aurora Acquisition Corp. Before its merger with BETR, Aurora had a 52-week high of $62.91. From the report: The disastrous public launch comes two years after the company initially filed to go public, but it (and the real estate market) has faced a number of challenges in the time since. The outlook for homebuying is bleak, to put it mildly, for the near- to mid-term future. Mortgage rates are at their highest point since 2000 -- hitting 7.31% last week -- and showing no signs of a turnaround. Because the majority of American homeowners have mortgages at or well below 5%, they're reticent to put their homes on the market, which creates a supply shortage, even for those who are willing to accept the high rates. But Better's own history could be working against it, as well. The company came under fire in December 2021 for laying off 900 employees via Zoom. (Some didn't know they'd been affected until they learned they were locked out of company accounts.) A few months later, it cut another 3,000 workers. One month after, that it slashed another 1,000 jobs. Eventually, the company cut 91% of its workforce over an 18-month period. That wasn't the end of the problems, though. In a leaked video of a town hall meeting following the first round of layoffs, CEO Vishal Garg was shown vacillating on the reasons, blaming everything from marketplace forces to the recently-canned employees' performance.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Epic Games will let developers keep 100 percent of their net revenues from the Epic Games Store for six months if they choose to make their games or apps exclusives for that time through its new First Run program, the company announced on Wednesday. Typically, Epic lets developers keep 88 percent of their revenues, with the company taking a 12 percent cut. For developers who launch a product through First Run, the split will return to 88 / 12 once the six months are up. Developers who choose to participate in the Epic First Run program will see a few other benefits as well. Epic says First Run games and apps will be presented to Store users with "new exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections" and will be featured in "relevant store campaigns including sales, events, and editorial as applicable." The program is open now, and the first products that will be eligible to be part of the program must launch on or after October 16th. [...] However, developers can be a part of First Run and still release their products on their own stores. Here's what Epic says about which products are eligible: "A new release game or app which has not been previously released on another third-party PC store or included in a subscription service available on another third-party PC store. Games or apps with a pre-existing exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store are not eligible for the program."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (basically the PlayStation wing) today announced plans to acquire Audeze. From a report: The Orange Country, CA-based firm is best known for its high-end headphones, targeted at gamers and audio producers. The hardware is often priced into four-figures, but the company earns consistently high marks from reviewers and users alike. In a release announcing the news, the companies are quick to note that operating under the Sony banner won't mean platform exclusivity (at least not at first). Audeze will continue to produce gaming headphones for competitors, including -- presumably -- the Xbox. Playstation branded products, however, are almost certain to follow.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gmail only asks for your user credentials during the initial login, and that login session can last for weeks at a time. That's not as secure as it could be, so soon Gmail will start posting 2FA challenges if you try to access any "sensitive" settings, even when you're already logged in. From a report: The newly protected settings are for filters, account forwarding, and IMAP. Soon, poking around in any of these options will boot you into a "Verify it's you" 2FA prompt, and you'll have to pass the challenge on your phone (these settings are only available on the web). If this 2FA challenge is failed or not answered, you'll get a bright red "Critical security alert" pop-up alerting you to the attempt on all your trusted devices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zadie Smith, Stephen King, Rachel Cusk and Elena Ferrante are among thousands of authors whose pirated works have been used to train artificial intelligence tools, a story in The Atlantic has revealed. The Guardian: More than 170,000 titles were fed into models run by companies including Meta and Bloomberg, according to an analysis of "Books3" -- the dataset harnessed by the firms to build their AI tools. Books3 was used to train Meta's LLaMA, one of a number of large language models -- the best-known of which is OpenAI's ChatGPT -- that can generate content based on patterns identified in sample texts. The dataset was also used to train Bloomberg's BloombergGPT, EleutherAI's GPT-J and it is "likely" it has been used in other AI models. The titles contained in Books3 are roughly one-third fiction and two-thirds nonfiction, and the majority were published within the last two decades. Along with Smith, King, Cusk and Ferrante's writing, copyrighted works in the dataset include 33 books by Margaret Atwood, at least nine by Haruki Murakami, nine by bell hooks, seven by Jonathan Franzen, five by Jennifer Egan and five by David Grann. Books by George Saunders, Junot DAaz, Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit and Jon Krakauer also feature, as well as 102 pulp novels by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard and 90 books by pastor John MacArthur. The titles span large and small publishers including more than 30,000 published by Penguin Random House, 14,000 by HarperCollins, 7,000 by Macmillan, 1,800 by Oxford University Press and 600 by Verso.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mastercard and crypto exchange Binance will end their four crypto card programmes in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Bahrain as of Sept. 22. From a report: The Binance cards allow users to make payments in traditional currencies, funded by their cryptocurrency holdings on the exchange. Mastercard's website also lists partnerships with crypto exchanges including Gemini. The decision will not impact any of Mastercard's other crypto card programmes, the spokesperson said. Binance is facing legal and regulatory challenges.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shares of Nvidia rose 6.7% to hit a new all-time high on Thursday, after the company unveiled a $25 billion buyback plan, coupled with record quarterly revenue powered by strong demand for its artificial intelligence (AI)-focused chips. From a report: Nvidia generated revenue of $13.51 billion in the second quarter and predicted that revenue would reach $16 billion in the third quarter, the company reported late on Wednesday. Both results exceeded analyst expectations, as per Refinitiv. Santa-Clara, California-based Nvidia also said it would buyback $25 billion worth of its shares. Nvidia's stock rose as high as $502.66, surpassing a record high hit earlier this week, and further entrenching itself as the first trillion-dollar chip maker. It pared some of those gains and was last up 1.8% at $479.82. The stock is now up 227% year-to-date.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: German goals to cut greenhouse emissions by 65% by 2030 are likely to be missed, meaning a longer-term net zero by a 2045 target is also in doubt, reports by government climate advisers and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) show. The European Union has sought to be a climate leader and Germany has set itself more ambitious targets than the bloc as a whole, but in many countries politics and the economic crisis have pushed the climate crisis down the agenda. Germany, Europe's largest economy, aims to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 65% by 2030 compared with 1990. Last year its CO2 levels were already 40% below the 1990 level, but the new reports said that was not enough. "The expected overall reduction is probably overestimated," Hans-Martin Henning, the chairman of a council of climate experts that advises the government, said in a statement on Tuesday. The German government has ordered 130 measures in various sectors. The buildings and transport sectors in particular are failing to implement them, the council of government climate advisers' report said. The buildings sector is expected to be 35 million tonnes of CO2 short of target by 2030, while the transport sector is expected to have excess emissions of between 117 million and 191 million tonnes compared with the government target. Tuesday's advisers' report coincided with another from the UBA that found that Germany cannot become climate neutral by 2045 on the basis of planned and existing government climate policy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dropbox, a provider of online data storage, is ending its unlimited option, saying a small handful of customers were using massive amounts of resources that had the potential to degrade the cloud service for the rest of its clients. From a report: The company's highest-tier "all the space you need" storage plan will be capped at about 5 terabytes per user for new customers, the company said in a blog post. While the plan was designed for businesses, some clients were instead using it for cryptocurrency mining, pooling storage with strangers, or re-selling the cloud service, Dropbox said. These uses "frequently consume thousands of times more storage than our genuine business customers, which risks creating an unreliable experience for all of our customers," the company said. [...] The change follows Alphabet's Google removing "as much storage as you need" product branding for its highest-tier Workspace plan in May, according to copies of its website hosted on the Wayback Machine.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: For a decade until 2018, China sought to recruit elite foreign-trained scientists under a lavishly funded program that Washington viewed as a threat to U.S. interests and technological supremacy. Two years after it stopped promoting the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP) amid U.S. investigations of scientists, China quietly revived the initiative under a new name and format as part of a broader mission to accelerate its tech proficiency, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter and a Reuters review of over 500 government documents spanning 2019 to 2023. The revamped recruitment drive, reported in detail by Reuters for the first time, offers perks including home-purchase subsidies and typical signing bonuses of 3 to 5 million yuan, or $420,000 to $700,000, the three people told Reuters. China operates talent programs at various levels of government, targeting a mix of overseas Chinese and foreign experts. The primary replacement for TTP is a program called Qiming overseen by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to national and local policy documents, online recruitment advertisements and a person with direct knowledge of the matter who, as with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity. The race to attract tech talent comes as President Xi Jinping emphasises China's need to achieve self-reliance in semiconductors in the face of U.S. export curbs. Regulations adopted by the U.S. Commerce Department in October restrict U.S. citizens and permanent residents from supporting the development and production of advanced chips in China, among other measures.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fiber-optic cables that were damaged by a rockfall in an undersea canyon, resulting in slow internet connections in some parts of Africa, should be repaired next month by a specialized vessel, according to telecommunication companies. From a report: The West Africa Cable System that runs about 16,000 kilometers (9,950 miles) along the sea floor from Europe to southern Africa was damaged with other lines earlier this month. The 40-year-old cable-layer vessel Leon Thevenin, named after a French telegraph engineer, was moored in Cape Town this week, according to tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. It's capable of working in extreme conditions and in shallow or deep water, according to owner Orange Marine, a submarine telecommunications company. All South African networks are currently experiencing disruptions due to the damaged lines, said Anne-Caroline Tanguy, a spokeswoman at Cloudflare, a company that provides load balancing and analysis. The repairs are expected to be finished in September.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta, intent on making a splash in a generative AI space rife with competition, is on something of an open source tear. From a report: Following the release of AI models for generating text, translating languages and creating audio, the company today open sourced Code Llama, a machine learning system that can generate and explain code in natural language -- specifically English. Akin to GitHub Copilot and Amazon CodeWhisperer, as well as open source AI-powered code generators like StarCoder, StableCode and PolyCoder, Code Llama can complete code and debug existing code across a range of programming languages, including Python, C++, Java, PHP, Typescript, C# and Bash. "At Meta, we believe that AI models, but large language models for coding in particular, benefit most from an open approach, both in terms of innovation and safety," Meta wrote in a blog post shared with TechCrunch. "Publicly available, code-specific models can facilitate the development of new technologies that improve peoples' lives. By releasing code models like Code Llama, the entire community can evaluate their capabilities, identify issues and fix vulnerabilities." Code Llama, which is available in several flavors, including a version optimized for Python and a version fine-tuned to understand instructions (e.g. "Write me a function that outputs the fibonacci sequence"), is based on the Llama 2 text-generating model that Meta open sourced earlier this month. While Llama 2 could generate code, it wasn't necessarily good code -- certainly not up to the quality a purpose-built model like Copilot could produce.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

T-Mobile USA is cutting 7% of its staff, part of an effort to rein in costs as the company spends heavily to attract new subscribers in an increasingly competitive market. From a report: The move will affect about 5,000 positions, mostly corporate and back-office staff along with some technology roles, T-Mobile said in a regulatory filing. Retail and consumer-care experts won't be impacted. Chief Executive Officer Mike Sievert said in a letter to employees that the cost of attracting and retaining customers is "materially more expensive than it was just a few quarters ago." Building out the company's high-speed internet business and efforts in other areas "is not enough to deliver on these changing customer expectations going forward," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: MSI made a mistake of sharing an unlisted video which has now leaked out. This leak involves a product training video showing MSI's latest Intel 700 motherboard series and upcoming PC cases. While the majority of the video focuses on improvements for these motherboards, there is a slide explaining Intel's next-gen Core series in a very short form. A slide (check the linked news post) has confirmed that Intel's 14th Gen Core series will see no major core count upgrades. Only one of the upcoming K-series CPUs will see a core change for its hybrid configuration of Performance and Efficient. The Core i7-14700K is getting 12 Efficient cores, which is an upgrade over 8 E-cores the Core i7-13700K. The Core i9-14900K, now confirmed by MSI as well, will use the same 8P+16E configuration. This also applies to Core i5-14600K with 6P+8E config. [...] The CPU series will use the same Intel 7 process technology and will only provide higher DDR5 frequency support. The company confirms that Intel 14th Gen Core is 3% faster on average compared to current-gen series. The most important upgrade involves the Core i7-14700K which has up to 17% faster multi-threaded (MT) performance due to extra cores.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

samleecole shares a report from 404 Media, a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox: On the Discord server for Mage Space, a popular platform for creating AI-generated images, is a list of channels where members share adult content. There are channels for furries, hardcore and softcore porn, and anime. At the bottom of the list is a channel named "other-nsfw" which includes a few distinct erotic genres that don't fit neatly into any of the others. Mostly, it's gore, violence, and bizarre, in hyperrealistic erotic imagery entirely generated by AI. The images people create, and the long, meandering prompts they write, are a rich text that could offer a glimpse into where sexuality in the internet age is taking us next, and how we're steering it. There's no shortage of fetish content on the internet, which might make the above statement sound ridiculous and unbelievable. Online, fetishists find their people and set to work making more of what they like, whether it's elaborate role-playing cosplays of themselves as sexy airplanes, blueberries, or slime monsters. Sometimes it pushes the bounds of the sane and legal: crush, fart, and scat porn all thrive online, and snuff films have been popular since before the internet existed. But with the rise in popularity of generative AI, and wildly popular sites like Mage.Space that let users generate anything they set their minds to, the limits are literally our own imaginations. With that power, people are wrangling images out of the AI that are on the edge of what's popular, let alone possible in the porn world. "This conversation we're having is literally on the edge of knowledge, nobody's writing about this in academia right now," Thomas Brooks, assistant professor of psychology at New Mexico Highlands University, told me. "Everybody's still kind of caught up in deepfakes. And they haven't quite grappled with generative AI yet." "You, as the individual porn consumer, can now create your own special little fantasy and your own technological, disembodied sexuality," said Brooks, in what he refers to as gamified pornography. "There's an internal motivation to solve the puzzle and get the prize. But then there's an external motivation of, 'can I come up with this crazy thing to show my anonymous internet friends.'" "We're letting technology become mediators of our different psychosocial expressions," Brooks added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to The Information (paywalled), SpaceX is working with Cloudlfare to boost the performance of its satellite internet service Starlink. Reuters reports: The two companies are working on a way to increase Starlink's network of mini data centers around the globe that could help it deliver faster network speeds to its customers, the report said. According to SpaceX's website, Starlink users typically have download speeds between 25 and 220 Mbps, with the "majority" over 100 Mbps. Upload speeds range between 5 and 20 Mbps.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A severely paralyzed woman has been able to speak through an avatar using technology that translated her brain signals into speech and facial expressions. The latest technology uses tiny electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain to detect electrical activity in the part of the brain that controls speech and face movements. These signals are translated directly into a digital avatar's speech and facial expressions including smiling, frowning or surprise. The patient, a 47-year-old woman, Ann, has been severely paralyzed since suffering a brainstem stroke more than 18 years ago. She cannot speak or type and normally communicates using movement-tracking technology that allows her to slowly select letters at up to 14 words a minute. She hopes the avatar technology could enable her to work as a counsellor in future. The team implanted a paper-thin rectangle of 253 electrodes on to the surface of Ann's brain over a region critical for speech. The electrodes intercepted the brain signals that, if not for the stroke, would have controlled muscles in her tongue, jaw, larynx and face. After implantation, Ann worked with the team to train the system's AI algorithm to detect her unique brain signals for various speech sounds by repeating different phrases repeatedly. The computer learned 39 distinctive sounds and a Chat GPT-style language model was used to translate the signals into intelligible sentences. This was then used to control an avatar with a voice personalized to sound like Ann's voice before the injury, based on a recording of her speaking at her wedding. The technology was not perfect, decoding words incorrectly 28% of the time in a test run involving more than 500 phrases, and it generated brain-to-text at a rate of 78 words a minute, compared with the 110-150 words typically spoken in natural conversation. However, scientists said the latest advances in accuracy, speed and sophistication suggest the technology is now at a point of being practically useful for patients. A crucial next step is to create a wireless version of the BCI that could be implanted beneath the skull. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon has filed a lawsuit against a group of online stores that sell pirated DVDs of key titles such as "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" and "The Peripheral." TorrentFreak reports: In a complaint filed at a California federal court, Amazon accuses seven websites of selling pirated discs. These sites, including dvdshelf.com.au, dvds.trade, and dvdwholesale.co.uk, are presumably operated by the same group, using a variety of companies. For the public at large, it may not be immediately obvious that these discs are pirated. However, since Amazon doesn't produce or sell DVDs for these Prime Video series, there is no doubt that they are created from illicit sources. The piracy operation consists of at least seven websites and these all remain online today. According to Amazon, the sites ship to customers in the U.S. and abroad, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, resulting in mass copyright infringement. Before going to court, investigators conducted more than twenty test purchases of pirated DVDs. After these orders arrived, Amazon sent the discs to the Motion Picture Association which independently confirmed that they were all pirated. The complaint lists Yangchun Zhang as a key suspect. This person presumably resides in China and obtained the 'DVD Shelf' trademark in Australia. In addition, Zhang is also listed as the registrant of several of the domain names involved. The complaint accuses Zhang and the others of both copyright and trademark infringement. Through the lawsuit (PDF), Amazon hopes to recoup damages, which can run in the millions of dollars. Another key priority is to shut the sites down and Amazon asks the court for an injunction to stop all infringing activity.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

samleecole shares a report from 404 Media, a new independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox: Apple told a California legislator that it is formally supporting a right to repair bill in California, a landmark move that suggests big tech manufacturers understand they have lost the battle to monopolize repair, and need to allow consumers and independent repair shops to fix their own electronics. "Apple writes in support of SB 244, and urges members of the California legislature to pass the bill as currently drafted," Apple wrote to Susan Eggman, the sponsor of the bill, in a letter obtained by 404 Media. "We support SB 244 because it includes requirements that protect individual users' safety and security, as well as product manufacturers' intellectual property. We will continue to support the bill, so long as it continues to provide protections for customers and innovators." This is a landmark shift in policy from Apple, the most powerful electronics manufacturer in the world and, historically, one of the biggest opponents of right to repair legislation nationwide. It means, effectively, that consumers have won. "If California votes yes and continues to raise the bar on electronics repair from other states, it's becoming obvious the fight is over, and that we've won," said Nathan Proctor, Senior Director of consumer rights group U.S. PIRG Campaign for the Right to Repair. "It's going to be show over for consumer electronics. There are other industries where this fight is going to continue, but if a strong bill passes in California, we're winning." "I would think that passage in California means there'd be a lot of pressure on manufacturers to kind of set the line there and say 'no farther,' because we've now proven to them we can pass laws and change the ways they have to operate," Proctor added. "This shows state advocacy is a good way to deal with large problems that are hard to get through Congress. It shows you can really spread big tech thin if you have a real grassroots network behind you." iFixit and TechCrunch first reported the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new report from Business Insider (paywalled) describes how Google's employees were "frustrated" at Google's lack of progress when the Vision Pro was unveiled and provides a glimpse of what Google's current plans for an AR product are. Ars Technica reports: The BI report details how Google's latest dead project, Iris, "was beset by a constantly shifting strategy and lack of focus from senior leadership." After "conversations with seven current and former employees close to Google's AR efforts," Business Insider quotes a few of those anonymous employees, with one saying, "Every six months there was a major pivot in the program." At one point Google was working on a pair of custom silicon chips for the glasses' display and compute power and then gave up on the idea of custom chips. That work was apparently near completion, with one person saying, "I think it's weird when you convince yourselves you need to build custom silicon, and then you go and do that -- and then flush it down the toilet." Display problems led the team to switch from regular eyeglasses to sunglasses and then back again, and the team couldn't settle on a color or monochrome display. Google showed off a pair of Iris glasses at Google I/O that could translate spoken language, then quickly canned the idea. You might think Bavor leaving in February would be good, considering how little traction the AR division managed in the marketplace, but apparently the executive's departure created a "state of chaos" in the division. Google's next AR pivot is a partnership with Samsung, another company that has dabbled in AR/VR for years yet has no current product line. Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm have already vaguely announced an Apple-fighting mixed-reality partnership in February. Plans to actually launch a headset were reportedly delayed in the wake of the Vision Pro unveiling due to the headset not being competitive. The new launch target is sometime around summer 2024, but the report says that "some employees are skeptical [that] will be enough time to launch a product that will wow the public." According to the report, Samsung wants to follow its usual strategy and "build a headset device similar to Apple's Vision Pro." The project is apparently code-named "Moohan," and if you couldn't already guess from this lineup of companies, it will run Android. Despite acquiring hardware companies like the Micro-LED manufacturer Raxiom and smart glasses-maker North, Google now wants to "pivot to software" and follow the Android model. The partnership with Samsung makes Moohan the most likely project to actually hit the market, but Google still has two other competing XR projects. Raxiom also is apparently still around and works under Paul Greco, Magic Leap's former chief technology officer. Iris' software work has moved to "a new team" and is being turned into a software project codenamed "Betty" that Google wants to pitch to other manufacturers. Samsung doesn't want any of these other parts of Google or other hardware competitors to be privy to its Vision Pro clone, so the three teams are all firewalled off from each other and have to compete for resources. One current employee described the whole situation as "a weird bureaucratic mess."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tuesday automakers can comply with a Massachusetts Right to Repair law, reversing a previous directive to ignore the state legislation. Massachusetts's Right to Repair law was a ballot initiative that passed overwhelmingly in 2020. The law requires auto manufacturers that sell cars in the state to equip vehicles with a standardized open data platform so that owners and independent mechanics can access telematics data for repairs, maintenance and diagnostics. In June 2023, NHTSA told automakers they needn't comply with the law, citing hacking concerns. The agency claimed sharing vehicle data would enable criminals to steal data or take control of cars remotely. NHTSA now says the law can roll out, with some caveats. Automakers can safely share diagnostic data with independent mechanics using short-range wireless technology. Long-range wireless signals, though, could potentially allow hackers to send dangerous commands to moving vehicles. The auto safety agency also said automakers should be allowed "a reasonable period of time" to put the technology in place. "[The U.S. Department of Transportation] strongly supports the right to repair and is eager to promote consumers' ability to choose independent or DIY repairs without compromising safety to themselves or others on our nation's roads," said Ben Halle, director of public affairs at USDOT. "The clarifications contained in the exchange of letters between state and federal partners ensure a path forward to promote competition and give consumers more options, while mitigating a dangerous risk to safety."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hollywood studios have presented a new proposal to writers that includes the highest wage increase in 35 years, protections against the impact of artificial intelligence, and other provisions. CBS News reports: Writers have been picketing outside major studios for over 100 days, surpassing the 2007-2008 strike. One of the major sticking points between the two sides was their stark differences in wage increases and residuals. The proposal sent to the Writers Guild of America on Aug. 11 includes a 5% increase in the first year of the contract, then 4% the next year, and 3.5% in the third, totaling a compounded 13% increase. Before the WGA went on strike on May 2, the AMPTP offered writers 4%-3%- 2% in the respective years, or 9% over the duration of the contract. The recent offer does not match the WGA's demand of 6%-5%-5% in the respective years but does bring them from $9,888 a week to $11,371 a week for guarantees of up to 9 weeks. They also moved to guarantee writers a minimum of 10 weeks of employment, a proposal they initially refused before the strike. AMPTP also increased the total domestic and foreign residuals for writers from $72,067 to $87,546 per episode over three years. Additionally, the union seemed to cave on the WGA's proposal to implement a viewership-based streaming residuals model. "For the first time, viewership data in the form of quarterly confidential reports is to be provided to the WGA that will include total SVOD view hours per title. This increased transparency will enable the WGA to develop proposals to restructure the current SVOD residual regime in the future," AMPTP wrote in the offer. Previously, the studios flat-out rejected the proposal and refused to make a counter, according to the WGA. Studios also included a tenet regarding artificial intelligence protections in the proposed deal. "The Companies confirm that because [Generative Artificial Intelligence] is not a person, it is not a 'writer' or 'professional writer' as defined in this MBA and, therefore, written material produced by GAI will not be considered literary material under this or any prior MBA," the AMPTP wrote in the offer. The union continued: "The proposal provides important safeguards to prevent writers from being disadvantaged if any part of the script is based on GAI-produced material, so that the writer's compensation, credit and separated rights will not be affected by the use of GAIproduced material." Before the writers went on strike, the studios rejected the proposal and countered by "offering annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology," according to the WGA.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Huawei is accused by a semiconductor manufacturers association of setting up secret chip-making facilities in China to evade U.S. sanctions. The Guardian reports: The Chinese tech firm moved into chip production last year and was receiving an estimated $30 billion in state funding from the government, the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association was quoted as saying by Bloomberg, adding that Huawei had acquired at least two existing plants and was building three others. If Huawei is constructing facilities under names of other companies, as the Semiconductor Industry Association alleges, then it may be able to circumvent U.S. government restrictions to indirectly purchase American chip-making equipment, according to Bloomberg.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A newly discovered zeroday in the widely used WinRAR file-compression program has been under exploit for four months by unknown attackers who are using it to install malware when targets open booby-trapped JPGs and other innocuous inside file archives. The vulnerability, residing in the way WinRAR processes the ZIP file format, has been under active exploit since April in securities trading forums, researchers from security firm Group IB reported Wednesday. The attackers have been using the vulnerability to remotely execute code that installs malware from families including DarkMe, GuLoader, and Remcos RAT. From there, the criminals withdraw money from broker accounts. The total amount of financial losses and total number of victims infected is unknown, although Group-IB said it has tracked at least 130 individuals known to have been compromised. WinRAR developers fixed the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-38831, earlier this month. "By exploiting a vulnerability within this program, threat actors were able to craft ZIP archives that serve as carriers for various malware families," Group-IB Malware Analyst Andrey Polovinkin wrote. "Weaponized ZIP archives were distributed on trading forums. Once extracted and executed, the malware allows threat actors to withdraw money from broker accounts. This vulnerability has been exploited since April 2023." It's recommended that you update to version 6.23 before using WinRAR again.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The G20 poured record levels of public money into fossil fuels last year despite having promised to reduce some of it, a report has found. The Guardian: The amount of public money flowing into coal, oil and gas in 20 of the world's biggest economies reached a record $1.4tn in 2022, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) thinktank, even though world leaders agreed to phase out aoeinefficienta fossil fuel subsidies at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow two years ago. The report comes ahead of a meeting of G20 countries in Delhi next month that could set the tone for the next big climate conference, which takes place in the United Arab Emirates in November. It is crucial that leaders put fossil fuel subsidies on the agenda, said Tara Laan, a senior associate with the IISD and lead author of the study. "These figures are a stark reminder of the massive amounts of public money G20 governments continue to pour into fossil fuels -- despite the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change." Fossil fuels release pollutants when burned that heat the planet and make extreme weather more violent. They also dirty the air with toxins that damage people's lungs and other organs. Scientists estimate the air pollution from fossil fuels kills between 1 and 10 million people each year. But beyond the overlooked costs to society, governments have lowered prices further by supporting fossil fuel producers and their customers with public money. The report found G20 governments last year provided fossil fuels $1tn in subsidies, $322bn in investments by state-owned enterprises and $50bn in loans from public finance institutions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The hazards are many. And they seem to come in all forms. From a report: The southwestern U.S. is reeling from record rainfall and extensive flooding from a rare tropical storm. Much of the central and southern parts of the country are in the grips of yet another oppressive heat wave. Nearly two weeks after catastrophic wildfires devastated the Hawaiian island of Maui, more fires are raging in the Pacific Northwest. And after a quiet start to this year's Atlantic hurricane season, activity in the basin is ramping up. All told, the various extremes are making for a turbulent week in nearly every corner of the country. Climate scientists also say it's an all-too-real look at how global warming increases the risks -- and consequences -- of the deadly events. "We're looking at a multi-hazard situation, where we're being hit by a string of different events over a short period of time," said Gonzalo Pita, an associate scientist and expert in disaster risk modeling at Johns Hopkins University. "It's like a double or triple whammy, and when they happen frequently or at the same time, the negative effects are compounded." While it's sometimes difficult to measure the exact role of climate change in any particular weather event, scientists know that global warming is having an overall effect on the frequency and severity of such events. Studies have shown, for instance, that heat waves and drought are more likely in a warming world. Dry conditions subsequently increase the risk of wildfires. Similarly, warmer-than-usual oceans are a key ingredient for tropical storms and hurricanes to form. A warmer atmosphere can also hold more moisture, making the storms rainier and likelier to cause flooding. Those types of compounding risks will be on full display this week. Tropical Storm Hilary on Sunday became the first to hit Southern California in 84 years, dumping record rain over the region and causing widespread flash flooding. Though Hilary has weakened into a post-tropical cyclone, 26 million people were still under flood alerts Monday across parts of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: When Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, addresses the annual Chemical Security Summit in Arlington later this month, she'll be without a Big Stick she once wielded over the industry. Safeguarding the cybersecurity and physical security of 3,242 high-risk chemicals facilities across the country is one of CISA's critical responsibilities. Congress has renewed this authority, dubbed the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS), several times since enacting it in 2007. But on July 28, lawmakers for the first time allowed it to expire -- due in large part to the objections of a single senator. And there's no indication of when they might renew it after the Senate returns from recess in September. As a result, the risk that terrorists could weaponize dangerous chemicals produced in some of these facilities has increased, according to a senior chemical security official with CISA, who requested anonymity in order to share sensitive details about the effects of the lapse. Some of the 322 most sensitive chemicals can be used to make bombs or be released as toxic clouds, according to the official, who added that a direct attack on a facility could cause an explosion comparable to a nuclear blast. That's not all. Without the CFATS rule, CISA also effectively has no idea who is visiting facilities or if they are stockpiling dangerous chemicals, according to the official. Until Congress renews the rule, the agency can't send inspectors to the 160 facilities they typically visit every month. The agency can also no longer enforce penalties on facilities that violate its safety standards. At least one high-risk facility that was paying the agency's $40,000-a-day fine for failing to redress concerns (after receiving a warning) has stopped paying, according to the official.Read more of this story at Slashdot.