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Shares of Baidu fell as much as 10 percent on Thursday after the web search company showed only a pre-recorded video of its AI chatbot Ernie in the first public release of China's answer to ChatGPT. From a report: The Beijing-based tech company has claimed Ernie will remake its business and for weeks talked up plans to incorporate generative artificial intelligence into its search engine and other products. But on Thursday, millions of people tuning in to the event were left with little idea of whether Baidu's chatbot could compete with ChatGPT. During the highly publicized and eagerly anticipated news conference for Ernie, Baidu founder Robin Li stood beside an open chat screen, narrating questions that had earlier been typed into the chatbot. He admitted the company was only showing a demo of the technology that it had prepared earlier. Li said some users would soon be able to test out Ernie on their own but did not provide a timeline for a full public rollout. The company is starting with a limited public release to business partners. Ernie's planned launch comes as US groups such as OpenAI and Google continue making strides in pushing forward their development of generative AI. OpenAI this week released GPT-4, its latest AI model that it claims can beat some humans on tough professional tests such as the US bar exam.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon's efforts to minimize its taxes in the European Union were given a code-name evocative of a spy thriller with British agent 007, according to an EU lawyer, who claimed the arrangements broke the bloc's state-aid rules. From a report: "Project Goldcrest -- it sounds like the title of a James Bond movie, but it is not," it's the name "Amazon gave to a complex tax construction by which it fundamentally reorganized its global business," European Commission attorney Paul-John Loewenthal told a hearing at the EU's top court on Thursday. "In 2006, that project had one purpose to ensure that Amazon would avoid paying tax on its European profits." Under that plan, "Luxembourg provided a measure to Amazon by which Amazon could exempt the vast majority of its European profit from taxation in return for investments in Luxembourg, thus affecting intra EU trade and distorting competition," he said. "That is the very definition of fiscal state aid." The EU's executive arm is appealing a painful defeat inflicted by a lower court, which overturned a decision to force the ecommerce firm to pay back $265 million of tax breaks regulators deemed to be an unfair subsidy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remember Second Life? The virtual world launched on the desktop web back in 2003 with 3D avatars and spaces for various social activities. Believe it or not, it has been running continually this entire time -- and now it's coming to mobile for the first time. From a report: In fact, this will be the first time that Second Life has expanded beyond the PC (across Windows, macOS, and Linux) in any form. In a post to the virtual world's community web forum, a community manager for Second Life developer Linden Lab shared a video with some details about the mobile version's development, and announced that a beta version of the mobile app will launch sometime this year. The video reveals that the app was built using Unity -- in part to make for an easy path to releasing and maintaining the app on multiple platforms, including the iPhone, iPad, Android phones, and Android tablets. It also includes a few minutes of footage of Second Life's detailed character models and environments, with accompanying commentary by Linden Lab developers about bringing as much of the experience to mobile as possible.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: South Korea's government has been forced to rethink a planned rise in working hours after a backlash from younger people who said the move would destroy their work-life balance and put their health at risk. The government had intended to raise the maximum weekly working time to 69 hours after business groups complained that the current cap of 52 hours was making it difficult to meet deadlines. But protests from the country's millennials and generation z prompted the president, Yoon Suk-yeol, to order government agencies to reconsider the measure and "communicate better with the public, especially with generation z and millennials", his press secretary, Kim Eun-hye, said. "The core of [Yoon's] labour market policy is to protect the rights and interests of underprivileged workers, such as the MZ generation, workers not in a union and those working in small and medium-sized businesses," Kim said, according to the Korea Herald. Yoon, a conservative who is seen as pro-business, had supported the raise to give employers greater flexibility. Union leaders, however, had said it would force people to work longer hours, in a country already known for its punishing workplace culture. The plan has also been criticised as out of step with other major economies, including Britain, where dozens of companies last year trialled a four-day week that campaigners said resulted in similar or better productivity and increased staff wellbeing. "South Koreans worked an average of 1,915 hours in 2021 -- that's 199 hours more than the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average, according to the most recent OECD employment outlook, and 566 hours more than workers in Germany," notes the report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has announced today that it will no longer be selling its Glass Enterprise Edition 2 headsets, with support set to be discontinued later this year. 9to5Google reports: After the commercial failure of its original Google Glass headsets, the company segued the AR product into a solution for businesses and industrial customers, intended to allow workers to stay connected in a hands-free way. This lineup, dubbed Glass Enterprise Edition, received a second-generation update in 2019, which was built on the Snapdragon XR1 hardware platform. Google has updated many of the pages related to the Google Glass Enterprise Edition to announce that sales of the headset have been discontinued as of March 15. For existing Glass Enterprise Edition customers, Google will continue to support the headset until September 15, 2023, though the company has said that "no software updates from Google are planned." Instead, "support" here means that customers will be able to receive replacement devices under the existing programs until that deadline. After the deprecation date, all existing headsets will continue to work as normal, and third-party developers will still be able to update their applications, which are usually responsible for any business-specific tasks. One caveat, though, is that Google says the "Meet on Glass" app that launched less than a year ago is only guaranteed to work until the September 15 deadline, after which the app has the potential to break.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Virgin Orbit is furloughing nearly all its employees and pausing operations for a week as it looks for a funding lifeline, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. From the report: Company executives briefed staff on the situation in an all-hands meeting at 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to people who were in the meeting. The furlough is unpaid, though employees can cash in PTO, with only a small team continuing to work. Virgin Orbit is also moving up payroll by a week to Friday. In the all-hands, company leaders told employees that they aimed to provide an update on the furlough and funding situation by next Wednesday or Thursday, according to the people, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal matters. The rocket-building company developed a system that uses a modified 747 jet to send satellites into space by dropping a rocket from under the aircraft's wing mid-flight. But the company's last mission suffered a mid-flight failure, with an issue during the launch causing the rocket to not reach orbit and crash into the ocean. "Our investigation is nearly complete and our next production rocket with the needed modification incorporated is in final stages of integration and test," Virgin Orbit's spokesperson said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 1,000 scientists and postgraduate students were barred from working in the UK last year on national security grounds, amid a major government crackdown on research collaborations with China. Figures obtained by the Guardian reveal that a record 1,104 scientists and postgraduate students were rejected by Foreign Office vetting in 2022, up from 128 in 2020 and just 13 in 2016. The sharp increase follows a hardening of the government's stance on scientific ties with China, with warnings from MI5 of a growing espionage threat, major research centers being quietly shut down and accusations by a government minister that China's leading genomics company had regularly sought to hack into the NHS's genetic database. Geopolitical tensions stepped up further this week, as the US, Australia and the UK announced a multi-decade, multibillion-dollar deal aimed at countering China's military expansion in the Indo-Pacific. China said the Aukus plan to build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines was "a path of error and danger." The Foreign Office declined to give a breakdown by nationality, but data supplied by leading universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College suggests that, at these institutions at least, Chinese academics account for a majority of those denied clearance. Some have welcomed the policy shift, with one security expert saying the number of academics being barred is "commensurate with the threat." But leading scientists say the scheme is leaving universities struggling to recruit the best talent from abroad. "A majority of applicants are thought to be scientists seeking to move to the UK to take up offers of research degrees or fellowships," adds the Guardian. "But the Guardian is also aware of researchers, including five Chinese scientists at Imperial college, who did not pass clearance despite having already held positions at UK universities for several years -- and who may have had to leave the UK as a result."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI's ChatGPT has taken the world by storm with its ability to give solutions to complex problems almost instantly and with nothing more than a text prompt. Up until yesterday, ChatGPT was based on GPT-3.5, a deep learning language model that was trained on an impressive 175 billion parameters. Now, it's based on GPT-4 (available for ChatGPT+ subscribers), capable of solving even more complex problems with greater accuracy (40% percent more likely to give factual responses). It's also capable of receiving images as a basis for interaction, instead of just text. While the company has chosen not to reveal how large GPT-4 is, they claim it scored in the 88th percentile on a number of tests, including the Uniform Bar Exam, LSAT, SAT Math and SAT Evidence-Based Reading & Writing exams. ChatGPT is extremely capable but its responses largely depend on the questions or prompts you enter. In other words, the better you describe and phrase the problem/question, the better the results. We're already starting to see companies require that new hires know not only how to use ChatGPT but how to extract the most out of it. That being said, we'd like to know how Slashdotters are using the chatbot. What are some of your favorite prompts? Have you used it to become more efficient at work? What about for coding? Please share specific prompts too to help us get similar results.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Nasdaq stock exchange has informed Russian Internet giant Yandex and e-commerce firm Ozon that their stocks will be delisted, the companies said on Wednesday, more than a year after trading in their securities was suspended. Reuters reports: Nasdaq suspended trading in the securities of a number of companies operating in Russia days after Moscow despatched tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Yandex and Ozon said they would appeal the decision. Neither company has fallen under Western sanctions, although some of Yandex's top management have. Recruiter Headhunter and payment service provider Qiwi were also notified of their anticipated delisting from Nasdaq, the two companies said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, DreamWorks published the open-source code for MoonRay, their production renderer used for films like The Bad Guys, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and other animation films. "OpenMoonRay is available via DreamWorks Animation's GitHub," reports Phoronix. "This professional-grade renderer is available under an Apache 2.0 license." From the README: "MoonRay was developed at DreamWorks and is in continuous active development and includes an extensive library of production-tested, physically based materials, a USD Hydra render delegate, multi-machine and cloud rendering via the Arras distributed computation framework." More details can be found via OpenMoonRay.org.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The creators of the all-open source MNT Reform laptop are getting nearer to launching its handheld counterpart: The crowdfunding campaign for the 7-inch MNT Pocket Reform has officially launched and is also serving as a de-facto preorder system for the device. The cheapest version of the Pocket Reform starts at $899, and it's also being offered in purple for $969 or in a bundle with a 1TB SSD, carrying case, handbook, and poster for $1,299. All versions are currently slated to ship in mid-October. Like the full-size Reform, the pocket version uses open source hardware and a mechanical keyboard (buyers can choose either white or red Kalih switches). But the pocket version uses a 7-inch 1920x1200 LCD screen instead of a 12.5-inch version and comes with fewer and smaller ports (two USB-C, one micro HDMI, a microSD port, and one ix industrial mini Ethernet port). Its keyboard also comes with an individually programmable RGB backlight, and its trackball-style pointing device has been downsized to fit into the smaller design. The Pocket Reform also includes built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, 128GB of built-in eMMC storage, and an expansion slot for 4G cellular connectivity. The device will also boot from microSD cards or an NVMe SSD installed in the device's M.2 slot. Its 8000 mAh batteries will allow it to run for about four hours. MNT warns in its blog post that "risks and challenges" could delay the October shipping timeline: "Pocket Reform has hundreds of electronic components. We tried to pick them so that there will be enough stock when we get around to manufacturing the boards, but it's always possible that there could be a sudden component shortage or increase in price. If that should happen, we would have to re-engineer the affected PCB and exchange the part, causing a delay in continued production. We had to adapt our products several times during the global chip crisis, so we are confident that we'll be able to work around any difficulties. Should any situation arise that would delay the estimated shipping timeline, backers will be informed promptly via project updates."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Logistics startup Zipline unveiled its next-generation delivery drone, dubbed the Platform 2 or P2 Zip. According to CNBC, the new drone is "capable of carrying up to eight pounds worth of cargo within a ten-mile radius, and can land a package on a space as small as a table or doorstep." That number is important because the vast majority of packages shipped in the U.S. "weigh five pounds or less," says Zipline CEO and co-founder Keller Rinaudo Cliffton. From the report: The P2 Zip can travel ten miles in ten minutes, and the company can make a delivery approximately seven times faster than any typical service you may order from today, the CEO said. Rapid deliveries by drone may put an end to "porch pirates," Rinaudo Cliffton said, referring to the theft of packages left on a doorstep while the customer is away from home. While Zipline's original drone, the P1 Zip, features a fixed wing or glider-like design, the P2 employs both lift and cruise propellers and a fixed wing. These help it maneuver precisely and quietly, even in rainy or windy weather. To deliver cargo to a customer's door, the P2 Zip hovers around 300 feet above ground level and dispatches a kind of mini-aircraft and container called the "droid." The droid descends on a long thin tether, and maneuvers quietly into place with fan-like thrusters before setting down for package retrieval. Zipline's original P1 drones will remain in production and in wide use, says Rinaudo Cliffton. The P1 Zip can fly a longer distance, delivering up to five pounds of cargo within a 60-mile radius, but it requires a larger space for take off, landings and "the drop." The P1 Zip lets cargo down with a parachute attached, so its payload lands within a space about the size of two car parking spots. After a P1 Zip returns to base, an employee needs to disassemble it, then set up a new one, dropping in a freshly charged battery for the next flight. Zipline's new P2 Zip can dock and power up autonomously at a charging station that looks something like a street lamp with an arm and a large disc attached to that arm. Zipline docks can be installed in a single parking spot or alongside a building depending on zoning and permits.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

T-Mobile is buying Mint Mobile, the budget-friendly mobile carrier that's partially owned by Ryan Reynolds. The Verge reports: In a post published on Wednesday, T-Mobile announced that the deal's valued at up to $1.35 billion and comes as T-Mobile looks to build out its prepaid phone offering. The acquisition should close later this year and involves a 39 percent cash and 61 percent stock purchase of Mint's parent company, Ka'ena Corporation. The price could change, however, as it depends on Mint's performance. Once the deal closes, Mint founders David Glickman and Rizwan Kassim will join T-Mobile to continue managing the brand, which T-Mobile says "will generally operate as a separate business unit." Meanwhile, Reynolds will also remain a part of Mint's branding, as T-Mobile says he will "continue on in his creative role on behalf of Mint." "I never dreamt I'd own a wireless company and I certainly never dreamt I'd sell it to T-Mobile," Reynolds said in a tweet. "Life is strange and I'm incredibly proud and grateful." As noted by T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday, T-Mobile will retain the price of Mint's cheapest phone plan at $15 per month. The deal also includes Ka'ena's other companies, including Ultra Mobile, a prepaid carrier that offers international calling, and Plum, a wholesale wireless solutions provider. [...] By purchasing Mint, T-Mobile may be looking to claw back the customers it lost when it sold Boost Mobile to Dish as part of its merger with Sprint.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Convincing older British workers to stay in their jobs will cost the UK Treasury 75,000 pounds ($90,000) per person in tax breaks for some of the country's wealthiest savers, analysis of Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt's budget shows. In his budget speech on Wednesday Hunt scrapped the lifetime allowance on pensions -- the total that workers can pile into their retirement pot without incurring tax -- and increased the tax-free annual limit on contributions by 50%, to 60,000 pounds. The shift is designed to reverse a trend in the number of older workers dropping out of jobs since the pandemic, which has contributed to a shortage of staff and is fanning inflation. But the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent fiscal watchdog, calculated (PDF) that Hunt's pension reforms are likely to add just 15,000 more workers to the labor force by 2027/28. They will cost 1.1 billion pounds, meaning the reforms effectively offer a 75,000 pounds per person boost to those able to save enough in their pensions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Convincing older British workers to stay in their jobs will cost the UK Treasury 75,000 pounds ($90,000) per person in tax breaks for some of the country's wealthiest savers, analysis of Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt's budget shows. In his budget speech on Wednesday Hunt scrapped the lifetime allowance on pensions -- the total that workers can pile into their retirement pot without incurring tax -- and increased the tax-free annual limit on contributions by 50%, to 60,000 pounds. The shift is designed to reverse a trend in the number of older workers dropping out of jobs since the pandemic, which has contributed to a shortage of staff and is fanning inflation. But the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent fiscal watchdog, calculated (PDF) that Hunt's pension reforms are likely to add just 15,000 more workers to the labor force by 2027/28. They will cost 1.1 billion pounds, meaning the reforms effectively offer a 75,000 pounds per person boost to those able to save enough in their pensions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Having high levels of caffeine in your blood may lower the amount of body fat you carry and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, research suggests. From a report: The findings could lead to calorie-free caffeinated drinks being used to reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes, though further research is required, the researchers wrote in the BMJ Medicine journal. Dr Katarina Kos, a senior lecturer in diabetes and obesity at the University of Exeter, said the research showed potential health benefits for people with high levels of caffeine their blood, but added: "It does not study or recommend drinking more coffee, which was not the purpose of this research." She said any caffeinated drinks containing sugar and fat would offset the positive effects. The researchers said their work built on previously published research, which suggested that drinking three to five daily cups of coffee, containing an average 70-150mg of caffeine, was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. As those were observational studies, they made it difficult to pinpoint whether the effects were because of caffeine or other compounds, the researchers said. This latest study used a technique known as Mendelian randomisation, which establishes cause and effect through genetic evidence. The team found two common gene variants associated with the speed of caffeine metabolism, and used these to work out genetically predicted blood caffeine levels and whether this was associated with lower BMI and body fat.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it expects to invest 300 trillion won ($230 billion) over the next 20 years as part of an ambitious South Korean national project to build the world's largest semiconductor manufacturing base near the capital, Seoul. From a report: The chip-making "mega cluster," which will be established in Gyeonggi Province by 2042, will be anchored by five new semiconductor plants built by Samsung. It will aim to attract 150 other companies producing materials and components or designing high-tech chips, according to South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Samsung's new plants will be located near its existing domestic factories and will produce both computer memory chips used for storing data and higher-margin logic chips designed to perform a broader range of functions, the company said. A giant in the global memory business, Samsung is trying to expand its presence in advanced chips, anticipating that demand will soar in coming years with the adoption of new technologies such as 5G wireless networks, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The top U.S. markets regulator on Wednesday proposed a suite of new policies designed to harden the financial system against hacking, data theft and systems failure. From a report: With some dissents from Republican members, the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) five members voted at a public meeting to propose rules on protecting consumer financial data, preventing hacking at stock exchanges and broker-dealers and buttressing the resiliency of market infrastructure, part of a continuing concern with modernizing regulations to match advancing technological threats. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler also opened the meeting with a nod to unfolding market turmoil, making veiled reference to the failure of U.S. lender Silicon Valley Bank and fears for the viability of Credit Suisse by restating his agency's pledge to support market resiliency. The three rule proposals together govern how broker-dealers address hacking incidents and protect consumer data, and how stock exchanges, transaction clearing houses and others deemed critical to national economic security gird themselves against system failure and cyber-intrusion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft warned an infamous hacking group that is tied to Russia's military intelligence agency GRU could be gearing up for more ransomware attacks both inside and outside of Ukraine. From a report: Microsoft calls the group Iridium, but it is perhaps best known as Sandworm. It has been accused of attacks on Ukraine's electric power grid and government agencies, the 2018 Winter Olympics and businesses across the globe. Now, it appears to be preparing for a renewed destructive campaign, the software company said in a threat intelligence report on Wednesday. Russian hackers have been accused of bombarding Ukrainian institutions with "wiper malware" and DDoS attacks, a campaign that began even before President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade more than a year ago. However, Ukraine's defenses have largely fended off a major cyberwar with the help of foreign tech companies including Microsoft. The ransomware attack on Polish and Ukrainian transport services in October, attributed to Sandworm, may have been "a trial balloon" for further attacks, the report said. Microsoft warned it was a potential precursor to further Russian hacks beyond Ukrainian soil.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Large swaths of California's tech hub Silicon Valley remained without electricity after the latest atmospheric river brought heavy rain and high winds that toppled power lines. From a report: Almost one-third of the homes and businesses in Santa Clara County -- home to tech giants including Apple Inc. and Alphabet's Google -- were without power as of Wednesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. More than 180,000 customers in the San Francisco Bay Area were blacked out as of 10 a.m. local time. PG&E, the utility that serves most customers in the region, said the storm was stronger than forecast and resulted in hundreds of trees or limbs striking power equipment and disrupting electricity service. The utility has sent additional crews into the hardest-hit areas.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LinkedIn is expanding its suite of artificial intelligence features, this time adding tools that will generate content for user profiles and job descriptions. From a report: One tool announced today will scan user profiles for skills and experiences and spit out suggested copy or summaries to add to other profile sections. The company says it still recommends users review and edit what the tool has generated "to ensure it is accurate and aligns with your tone and experience." LinkedIn will begin testing the tool starting today and expand access to all LinkedIn Premium subscribers over the course of the next few months. Another employment tool promises to make writing job descriptions "faster and easier" and "streamline" the hiring process. Employers will provide information about the role, including title and company name, and LinkedIn's tool will generate a description that the hiring manager can then edit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Dutch court hearing a class action lawsuit on Wednesday found that a European subsidiary of Meta, Facebook Ireland, improperly used personal data of Dutch citizens between 2010 and 2020, saying the company had "violated the law." From a report: "Personal information was processed for the purposes of advertising when in this case that is not allowed," a summary of the Amsterdam court ruling said. "Personal information was given to third parties without Facebook users being informed and without there being a legal basis to do so." The decision was directed at Facebook Ireland because it is the part of the company that oversees the processing of Dutch user data. The case has not yet progressed to the phase where any damages could be claimed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple are likely to get a reprieve in Congress this year from efforts to rein in some of the companies' most controversial and allegedly anti-competitive business practices -- even though the legislation has typically enjoyed broad bipartisan support. From a report: The new Republican leadership in the U.S. House doesn't appear to have the appetite to impose tougher antitrust rules on the tech giants to ensure they don't abuse their dominant position in the market to block smaller rivals, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., the former the top Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust issues, said in an interview. The GOP also doesn't want to give the Biden administration more power and resources, House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told CNBC in a separate interview. "I don't think Speaker McCarthy, Chairman Jordan or Chairman Massie are advocates for the antitrust, pro-competition solution to the Big Tech problem," Buck said, referring to Jordan, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Thomas Massie, who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. Although Buck was next in line to chair the panel as ranking Republican in the previous Congress, Jordan, R-Ohio, selected Massie, R-Ky., to lead the subcommittee this Congress instead. Buck, who has been a vocal critic of the tech giants for years, says tighter antitrust regulations would help create a fairer marketplace for smaller tech firms competing against Amazon, Google, Facebook and other Big Tech companies, which have been accused of using their platforms to promote their own proprietary products or services above competitors. When asked whether his campaign to rein in the tech giants through antitrust and his co-sponsoring of bills with Democrats may be what cost him the chairmanship of the antitrust panel, Buck said, "Nobody ever said that to me but I think it's a fair conclusion to draw."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UPDATE: Switzerland's central bank says it will backstop Credit Suisse if necessary, according to an update from CNN. Battered shares of Credit Suisse lost more than one-quarter of their value Wednesday, hitting a record low after its biggest shareholder -- the Saudi National Bank -- told news outlets that it would not inject more money into the Swiss bank beset by problems long before the failure of two U.S. lenders. From a report: The turmoil prompted an automatic pause in trading of Credit Suisse's shares on the Swiss market and sent shares of other European banks plunging by as much as double digits. That fanned new fears about the health of financial institutions following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the United States in recent days. Credit Suisse stock dropped more than 27%, to about 1.6 Swiss francs ($1.73), in mid-afternoon trading on the SIX stock exchange Wednesday. That's down more than 85% from February 2021. The shares have suffered a long, sustained decline: In 2007, they were trading at more than 80 francs each. With concerns about the possibility of more hidden trouble in the banking system, investors were quick to sell bank stocks on bad news. Other European banks took a battering as concerns spread about the sector: France's Societe Generale SA dropped 12%, France's BNP Paribas fell more than 10%, Germany's Deutsche Bank was down 8% and Britain's Barclays Bank was down nearly 8%. Shares in the two French banks also were briefly suspended.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mozilla called on entrepreneurs to create trustworthy AI applications as it announced a "Responsible AI" challenge Tuesday at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. From a report: At a festival where companies could not be more eager to share their plans, half-baked and otherwise, for the explosive field of generative AI, Mozilla offered an opportunity to do so with a little more foresight. "If anything, the last few months have shown that AI is no longer our future. It's our present," Imo Udom, senior vice president of Innovations Ecosystems at Mozilla, who announced the initiative on stage during a panel discussion with Axios, said. "We believe in AI's power, commercial opportunity, and potential to solve challenging problems," Udom said. "While decades of effort have gone into reaching this point with AI, the time has come to establish the future we want with AI." Applications for the challenge will open on March 30 and winners are eligible for $50,000 prizes and a $25,000 top prize, along with mentorship and resources for "responsible AI" projects.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans lost more than $10 billion to online scammers last year, new government data show, the highest level since the Federal Bureau of Investigation began tracking losses in 2000. From a report: The FBI said its Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, recorded more than 800,000 complaints in 2022, or more than 2,000 complaints a day. So-called phishing expeditions represented the largest number of scams with more than 300,000 complaints, the FBI said in a report. Phishing usually involves the use of unsolicited email, text messages and phone calls, purportedly from a legitimate company, requesting personal or financial information. "Today's cyber landscape has provided ample opportunities for criminals and adversaries to target U.S. networks, attack our critical infrastructure, hold our money and data for ransom, facilitate large-scale fraud schemes, and threaten our national security," FBI Executive Assistant Director Timothy Langan said. The total losses to online scammers rose to $10.3 billion last year from $6.9 billion in 2021. However, the overall number of complaints recorded by IC3 fell slightly from 2021.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As businesses grapple with how artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT will affect working practices, one Japanese fintech firm is making it compulsory for new recruits to use the technology and even testing them on it. From a report: With concerns growing about its ability to make jobs obsolete and data protection, Tokyo-based LayerX, is bucking the trend, with a recent job ad for new graduates making it mandatory for recruits to be tested on their use of the chatbot made by OpenAI, and another called Notion AI. The startup, which focuses on promoting digitizing business transactions, is confident it's on the right side of a growing divide over the use of the technology. Many Wall Street banks have restricted its use, while schools in places like New York City have banned it. Major Japanese firms have done likewise, with Softbank Group Corp, and banks including Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group clamping down in recent months. "We recognize that ChatGPT is not perfect," said Takaya Ishiguro, chief human resources officer at LayerX, in an interview. "However, it is also dangerous to be too afraid to utilize new technology." Recruits are asked during their entry assessments to give prompts to ChatGPT. Assessors review whether they initiate the process well, rather than the actual answers. Candidates are also asked to conduct research to identify the limitations of the technology.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Two U.S. men have been charged with hacking into a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) online portal that taps into 16 different federal law enforcement databases. Both are alleged to be part of a larger criminal organization that specializes in using fake emergency data requests from compromised police and government email accounts to publicly threaten and extort their victims. Prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York today unsealed criminal complaints against Sagar Steven Singh -- also known as "Weep" -- a 19-year-old from Pawtucket, Rhode Island; and Nicholas Ceraolo, 25, of Queens, NY, who allegedly also went by the handles "Convict" and "Ominus." The Justice Department says Singh and Ceraolo belong to a group of cybercriminals known to its members as "ViLE," who specialize in obtaining personal information about third-party victims, which they then use to harass, threaten or extort the victims, a practice known as "doxing." [...] The government alleges that on May 7, 2022, Singh used stolen credentials to log into a U.S. federal government portal without authorization. The complaint doesn't specify which agency portal was hacked, but it does state that the portal included access to law enforcement databases that track narcotics seizures in the United States. [On May 12, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news.] Prosecutors say they tied Singh to the government portal hack because he connected to it from an Internet address that he'd previously used to access a social media account registered in his name. When they raided Singh's residence on Sept. 8, 2022 and seized his devices, investigators with Homeland Security found a cellular phone and laptop that allegedly "contained extensive evidence of access to the Portal." If convicted, Ceraolo faces up to 20 years' imprisonment for conspiracy to commit wire fraud; both Ceraolo and Singh face five years' imprisonment for conspiracy to commit computer intrusions. A copy of the complaint against Ceraolo and Singh is here (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Platformer, Microsoft's recent layoffs included its entire ethics and society team within the artificial intelligence organization. "The move leaves Microsoft without a dedicated team to ensure its AI principles are closely tied to product design at a time when the company is leading the charge to make AI tools available to the mainstream, current and former employees said." From the report: Microsoft still maintains an active Office of Responsible AI, which is tasked with creating rules and principles to govern the company's AI initiatives. The company says its overall investment in responsibility work is increasing despite the recent layoffs. But employees said the ethics and society team played a critical role in ensuring that the company's responsible AI principles are actually reflected in the design of the products that ship. "People would look at the principles coming out of the office of responsible AI and say, 'I don't know how this applies,'" one former employee says. "Our job was to show them and to create rules in areas where there were none." In recent years, the team designed a role-playing game called Judgment Call that helped designers envision potential harms that could result from AI and discuss them during product development. It was part of a larger "responsible innovation toolkit" that the team posted publicly. More recently, the team has been working to identify risks posed by Microsoft's adoption of OpenAI's technology throughout its suite of products. The ethics and society team was at its largest in 2020, when it had roughly 30 employees including engineers, designers, and philosophers. In October, the team was cut to roughly seven people as part of a reorganization. "Microsoft is committed to developing AI products and experiences safely and responsibly, and does so by investing in people, processes, and partnerships that prioritize this," the company said in a statement. "Over the past six years we have increased the number of people across our product teams and within the Office of Responsible AI who, along with all of us at Microsoft, are accountable for ensuring we put our AI principles into practice. [...] We appreciate the trailblazing work the ethics and society team did to help us on our ongoing responsible AI journey."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon.com plans to launch its first internet satellites to space in the first half of 2024 and offer initial commercial tests shortly after, the company said Tuesday, as it prepares to vie with Elon Musk's SpaceX and others to provide broadband internet globally. Reuters reports: Amazon's satellite internet unit, Project Kuiper, will begin mass-producing the satellites later this year, the company said. Those will be the first of over 3,000 satellites the technology giant plans to launch in low-Earth orbit in the next few years. "We'll definitely be beta testing with commercial customers in 2024," Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon devices, said at a conference in Washington. The 2024 deployment target would keep Amazon on track to fulfill a regulatory mandate to launch half its entire Kuiper network of 3,236 satellites by 2026. Limp, who oversees Amazon's consumer devices powerhouse, said the company plans to make "three to five" satellites a day to reach that goal. With plans to pump more than $10 billion into the Kuiper network, Amazon sees its experience producing millions of devices from its consumer electronics powerhouse as an edge over rival SpaceX, the Musk-owned space company whose Starlink network already has roughly 4,000 satellites in space. Amazon plans to launch a pair of prototype satellites early this year aboard a new rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance. The 2024 launch, carrying the initial production satellites, is expected to be the first of many more in a swift deployment campaign using rockets Amazon procured in 2021 and 2022. The company on Tuesday also revealed a slate of three different terminals, or antennas, that will connect customers with its Kuiper satellites in orbit. In a blog post on Tuesday, Amazon detailed its new terminals with photos and pricing. Standard Customer Terminal: "Project Kuiper's standard customer terminal measures less than 11 inches square and 1 inch thick. It weighs less than five pounds without its mounting bracket. Despite this modest footprint, the device will be one of the most powerful commercially available customer terminals of its size, delivering speeds up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps). Amazon expects to produce these terminals for less than $400 each." "Most Affordable" Terminal: "A 7-inch square design will be Project Kuiper's smallest and most affordable customer terminal. Weighing just 1 pound and offering speeds up to 100 Mbps, its portability and affordability will create opportunities to serve even more customers around the world. This design will connect residential customers who need an even lower-cost model, as well as government and enterprise customers pursuing applications like ground mobility and internet of things (IoT)." "Most Capable" Antenna Model: "Project Kuiper's largest, most capable model is designed for enterprise, government, and telecommunications applications that require even more bandwidth. The device measures 19 inches by 30 inches, and will deliver speeds up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps)."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today, the federal government's Joint Office of Energy and Transportation opened up applications for a $2.5 billion program to expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure in underserved communities. The Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program was authorized along with the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. For starters, the Joint Office is making $700 million available for EV chargers -- but also other alternative fuels including hydrogen and natural gas. The CFI program actually encompasses two discrete $1.25 billion grant programs. The first is for community charging and fueling grants in both urban and rural areas, particularly in underserved and disadvantaged communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods as well as neighborhoods with a low ratio of private parking. The other half of the money is for the alternative fuel corridor grants, which will fund the deployment of EV chargers and other alternative fuel infrastructure along designated alternative fuel corridors. "It's critical that we build a national charging network that provides EV drivers with the right type of charging in the right location -- whether that's high-powered charging on highway corridors and in urban hubs or Level 2 charging where EV drivers or riders live, work, and play," said Joint Office Executive Director Gabe Klein. "By working with cities and communities through the CFI Program to get this mix right, we can ensure that everyone has convenient and affordable access to riding and driving electric."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After debating the term in a recent Slashdot subthread, longtime reader Tablizer wants to pose the question to a larger audience: what exactly are 'microservices'? Over the past few years I've asked many colleagues what "microservices" are, and get a gazillion different answers. "Independent deploy-ability" has been an issue as old as the IBM hills. Don't make anything "too big" nor "too small"; be it functions, files, apps, name-spaces, tables, databases, etc. Overly large X's didn't need special terms, such as "monofunction". We'd just call it "poorly partitioned/sized/factored". (Picking the right size requires skill and experience, both in technology and the domain.) Dynamic languages are usually "independently deployable" at the file level, so what is a PHP "monolith", for example? Puzzles like this are abound when trying to use the Socratic method to tease out specific-ness. Socrates would quit and become a goat herder, as such discussions often turn sour and personal. Here's a recent Slashdot subthread debating the term.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Monday, Binance said it would suspend withdrawals and deposits for anybody using UK currency. The news came after the world's largest crypto exchange's banking partner in the UK, Paysafe, said it was abandoning crypto, at least as far as Binance was concerned. Gizmodo reports: In a statement to Gizmodo, a Paysafe spokesperson said that it was "too challenging" to offer its embedded wallet cryptocurrency services to UK customers because of the regulatory atmosphere in the UK. Paysafe is based in London, and said this decision was "taken in an abundance of caution." Paysafe did not clarify whether it was abandoning crypto altogether, or just in its partnership with Binance. Paysafe called its UK portion of its crypto business "small" but clarified it was still working with Binance elsewhere in Europe and in Latin America. Binance suspended withdrawals and deposits for any new customers using British pounds late on Monday, and according to Bloomberg the crypto exchange plans to suspend all GBP transactions for all customers starting May 22. The company is reportedly working to find "an alternative solution" to again allow customers to trade GBP for crypto.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's TikTok is considering separating from parent ByteDance to help address U.S. concerns about national security risks, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters reports: A divestiture, which could result in a sale or initial public offering, is considered a last resort and will be pursued only if the company's existing proposal with U.S. national security officials does not get approved, Bloomberg reported. The short-form video app is undergoing a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and it agreed last year to implement a number of measures under the plan, nicknamed "Project Texas", in an attempt to placate hostile lawmakers. CFIUS has stalled in its process, leaving TikTok unsure of whether its plans will be sufficient to continue operating in the country, according to the report. Members of CFIUS from the Justice Department have been unwilling to accept TikTok's proposal, it added. CFIUS, a powerful national security body, had in 2020 unanimously recommended that ByteDance divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China's government.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The High Court of Justice has issued a permanent injunction to stop a man filing copyright complaints against a rival's YouTube channels. As part of a fraudulent campaign against "the music mafia," the singer used copyright strikes and YouTube's repeat infringer policy to have a music publisher's channels suspended. The background to the dispute is nothing short of extraordinary. [...] The background to the dispute is an extraordinary maze of claims, counterclaims, and bitterness spread out over several years, during which documents were forensically examined and fingerprints subjected to professional scrutiny.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GitLab shares plunged as much as 38% in extended trading after the provider of source code management software gave full-year revenue guidance that fell short of expectations. CNBC reports: Here's how the company did: Earnings: Loss of 3 cents per share, adjusted, vs. loss of 14 cents per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.Revenue: $122.9 million, vs. $119.6 million as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.Revenue increased 58% year over year in the quarter that ended Jan. 31, according to a statement. GitLab called for a fiscal first-quarter adjusted loss of 14 cents to 15 cents per share on $117 million to $118 million in revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had expected an adjusted loss of 16 cents per share and revenue of $126.2 million. For the 2024 fiscal year, the company sees an adjusted loss of 24 cents to 29 cents per share and $529 million to $533 million in revenue. That works out to 25% growth at the middle of the range. The consensus among analysts polled by Refinitiv was an adjusted loss of 54 cents per share and $586.4 million in revenue. During the quarter Gitlab said that in April its premium service tier will go up to $29 per month from $19.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft announced Tuesday that it has signed a 10-year deal to bring its Xbox PC games to little-known Ukraine-based streaming platform Boosteroid. The move is being positioned in part to "mak[e] even more clear to regulators that our acquisition of Activision Blizzard will make Call of Duty available on far more devices than before," as Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement. "If the only argument is that Microsoft is going to withhold Call of Duty from other platforms, and we've now entered into contracts that are going to bring this to many more devices and many more platforms, that is a pretty hard case to make to a court," Smith told The Wall Street Journal. Started in 2017, Boosteroid boasts 4 million streaming customers using servers based in nine European countries and six US states. Those customers pay 7.50 euro per month to stream games from those servers to any smartphone, Windows/Mac/Linux-based PC, or Android TV device. Boosteroid currently links to users' accounts on other PC-based platforms -- including Steam, the Epic Games Store, Blizzard's Battle.net, EA's Origin, the Rockstar Game Launcher, and Wargaming -- and lets them play games from those services without having to install them on a local gaming PC. With this new deal, that access will expand to include games available through Microsoft's Xbox app on the PC.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic, a startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI employees, today launched something of a rival to the viral sensation ChatGPT. From a report: Called Claude, Anthropic's AI -- a chatbot -- can be instructed to perform a range of tasks, including searching across documents, summarizing, writing and coding, and answering questions about particular topics. In these ways, it's similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. But Anthropic makes the case that Claude is "much less likely to produce harmful outputs," "easier to converse with" and "more steerable." Organizations can request access. Pricing has yet to be detailed. "We think that Claude is the right tool for a wide variety of customers and use cases," an Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch via email. "We've been investing in our infrastructure for serving models for several months and are confident we can meet customer demand." Following a closed beta late last year, Anthropic has been quietly testing Claude with launch partners, including Robin AI, AssemblyAI, Notion, Quora and DuckDuckGo. Two versions are available as of this morning via an API, Claude and a faster, less costly derivative called Claude Instant. In combination with ChatGPT, Claude powers DuckDuckGo's recently launched DuckAssist tool, which directly answers straightforward search queries for users. Quora offers access to Claude through its experimental AI chat app, Poe. And on Notion, Claude is a part of the technical backend for Notion AI, an AI writing assistant integrated with the Notion workspace.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reddit is currently experiencing a big outage affecting its websites and apps, according to the company's status page. The Verge reports: "We've identified an internal systems issue and are working to determine a fix," the company wrote at 12:56PM ET on its status page. The preceding message, from nearly 40 minutes before, notes that Reddit is "is currently offline." The problem appears to be widespread, with about 50,000 people reporting issues on Downdetector.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cybercriminal gangs now releasing stolen photos of cancer patients, student records. From a report: In February, attackers from the Russia-based BlackCat ransomware group hit a physician practice in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, that's part of the Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN). At the time, LVHN said that the attack "involved" a patient photo system related to radiation oncology treatment. The health care group said that BlackCat had issued a ransom demand, "but LVHN refused to pay this criminal enterprise." After a couple of weeks, BlackCat threatened to publish data stolen from the system. "Our blog is followed by a lot of world media, the case will be widely publicized and will cause significant damage to your business," BlackCat wrote on their dark-web extortion site. "Your time is running out. We are ready to unleash our full power on you!" The attackers then released three screenshots of cancer patients receiving radiation treatment and seven documents that included patient information. The medical photos are graphic and intimate, depicting patients' naked breasts in various angles and positions. And while hospitals and health care facilities have long been a favorite target of ransomware gangs, researchers say the situation at LVHN may indicate a shift in attackers' desperation and willingness to go to ruthless extremes as ransomware targets increasingly refuse to pay. "As fewer victims pay the ransom, ransomware actors are getting more aggressive in their extortion techniques," says Allan Liska, an analyst for the security firm Recorded Future who specializes in ransomware. "I think we'll see more of that. It follows closely patterns in kidnapping cases, where when victims' families refused to pay, the kidnappers might send an ear or other body part of the victim." Researchers say that another example of these brutal escalations came on Tuesday when the emerging ransomware gang Medusa published sample data stolen from Minneapolis Public Schools in a February attack that came with a $1 million ransom demand. The leaked screenshots include scans of handwritten notes that describe allegations of a sexual assault and the names of a male student and two female students involved in the incident.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed the first federal limits on harmful "forever chemicals" in drinking water, a long-awaited protection the agency said will save thousands of lives and prevent serious illnesses, including cancer. From a report: The plan would limit toxic PFAS chemicals to the lowest level that tests can detect. PFAS, or per- and polyfluorinated substances, are a group of compounds that are widespread, dangerous and expensive to remove from water. They don't degrade in the environment and are linked to a broad range of health issues, including low birthweight and kidney cancer. "The science is clear that long-term exposure to PFAS is linked to significant health risks," Radhika Fox, assistant EPA administrator for water, said in an interview. Fox called the federal proposal a "transformational change" for improving the safety of drinking water in the United States. The agency estimates the rule could reduce PFAS exposure for nearly 100 million Americans, decreasing rates of cancer, heart attacks and birth complications. The chemicals had been used since the 1940s in consumer products and industry, including in nonstick pans, food packaging and firefighting foam. Their use is now mostly phased out in the U.S., but some still remain.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook parent company Meta, which emerged as an outspoken advocate of remote work during the pandemic, is encouraging employees to come back to the office. Some early analysis "suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely," Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement Tuesday. Zuckerberg cautioned that the data requires further study, but encouraged employees to "find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person" in the meantime. In 2021, Facebook established a policy that allowed all employees to work remotely even after the pandemic if their jobs could be done outside of an office. Several big tech companies including Amazon, Apple and Twitter have been trying to get workers to return to the office.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Google Pixel Fold could be available as soon as the second week in June, according to WinFuture's Roland Quandt. The reliable leaker tweeted on Tuesday that the phone will come with 256GB base storage and that you'll be able to get it in either a black / dark gray color or white. The foldable has been rumored for a long time, and there have been whispers that it would be announced sometime in the next few months. However, a January report from The Elec threw some cold water on that idea, saying that the screen wasn't even set to go into production until July or August.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Credit Suisse acknowledged "material weakness" in its financial reporting Tuesday as it scrapped bonuses for top executives in the wake of the bank's worst annual performance since the global financial crisis. From a report: The embattled Swiss lender also said chairman Axel Lehmann had proposed to "voluntarily waive" a share award worth 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.6 million) for the 2022-2023 financial year, given the firm's "poor financial performance." Credit Suisse (CSGKF) said in its annual report that it had found "the group's internal control over financial reporting was not effective" because it failed to adequately identify potential risks to financial statements. The revelations come just days after the bank delayed the publication of the annual report after an eleventh-hour query from the US Securities and Exchange Commission over cash flow statements for 2019 and 2020. The board concluded that the "material weakness could result in misstatements of account balances or disclosures that would result in a material misstatement to the annual financial statements of Credit Suisse," the annual report said. Credit Suisse is urgently developing a "remediation plan" to strengthen controls.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After months of rumors and speculation, OpenAI has announced GPT-4: the latest in its line of AI language models that power applications like ChatGPT and the new Bing. From a report: The company claims the model is "more creative and collaborative than ever before," and "can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, thanks to its broader general knowledge and problem solving abilities." OpenAI says it's already partnered with a number of companies to integrate GPT-4 into their products, including Duolingo, Stripe, and Khan Academy. The new model will also be available on ChatGPT Plus and as an API. In a research blog post, OpenAI said the distinction between GPT-4 and its predecessor GPT-3.5 is "subtle" in casual conversation (GPT-3.5 is the model that powers ChatGPT), but that the differences between the systems are clear when faced with more complex tasks. The company says these improvements can be seen on GPT-4's performance on a number of tests and benchmarks, including the Uniform Bar Exam, LSAT, SAT Math and SAT Evidence-Based Reading & Writing exams. In the exams mentioned GPT-4 scored in the 88th percentile and above, with a full list of exams and scores seen here. Speculation about GPT-4 and its capabilities have been rife over the past year, with many suggesting it would be a huge leap over previous systems. "People are begging to be disappointed and they will be," said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in an interview in January. "The hype is just like... We don't have an actual AGI and that's sort of what's expected of us."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India plans to force smartphone makers to allow removal of pre-installed apps and mandate screening of major operating system updates under proposed new security rules, according to two people and a government document seen by Reuters. From a report: The new rules, details of which have not been previously reported, could extend launch timelines in the world's No.2 smartphone market and lead to losses in business from pre-installed apps for players including Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, and Apple. India's IT ministry is considering these new rules amid concerns about spying and abuse of user data, said a senior government official, one of the two people, declining to be named as the information is not yet public. "Pre-installed apps can be a weak security point and we want to ensure no foreign nations, including China, are exploiting it. It's a matter of national security," the official added. India has ramped up scrutiny of Chinese businesses since a 2020 border clash between the neighbours, banning more than 300 Chinese apps, including TikTok. It has also intensified scrutiny of investments by Chinese firms.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google announced a raft of new artificial intelligence-powered features for customers of its cloud-computing business, as the technology giant jostles for dominance in the burgeoning field with rivals such as Microsoft and startup OpenAI. From a report: As Silicon Valley buzzes about so-called generative AI -- software that can create images, text and video based on user prompts -- Google Cloud offered a glimpse of what it's doing to keep up in the race. In a demonstration, the company showed how cloud customers will be able to use its AI tools to create presentations and sales-training documents, take notes during meetings and draft emails to colleagues. The company also made some of its underlying AI models available to developers so they can build their own applications using Google's technology. Alphabet-owned Google also said Tuesday it had signed up a flurry of AI startups as customers for its cloud service, including Midjourney, which offers an image-generation system, and AI21, which specializes in technology known as large language models. Google is offering young AI-focused businesses $250,000 in free use of its cloud -- which provides computing horsepower and storage -- for the first year, which the company said is 2 1/2 times what it typically offers. "We believe in having a broad, vibrant partner ecosystem for AI," Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of Google Cloud, said in an interview.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Underlying US consumer prices rose in February by the most in five months, an acceleration that leaves the Federal Reserve in a tough position as it tries to thwart still-rapid inflation without adding to the turmoil in the banking sector. From a report: The consumer price index, excluding food and energy, increased 0.5% last month and 5.5% from a year earlier, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data out Tuesday. Economists see the gauge -- known as the core CPI -- as a better indicator of underlying inflation than the headline measure. The overall CPI climbed 0.4% in February and 6% from a year earlier. The median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 0.4% monthly advance in the overall and core CPI measures. The figures reaffirm that the Fed's quest to tame inflation will be a bumpy one as the economy has largely proven resilient to a year's worth of interest-rate hikes so far. The challenge for the Fed now is how to prioritize inflation that is still far too high with growing financial stability risks in the unraveling of Silicon Valley Bank.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Silicon Valley Bank failed just 14 days after KPMG gave the lender a clean bill of health. Signature Bank went down 11 days after the accounting firm signed off on its audit. From a report: What KPMG knew about the two banks' financial situation and what it missed will likely be the subject of regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits. KPMG signed the audit report for Silicon Valley Bank's parent, SVB Financial Group on Feb. 24. Regulators seized the bank on March 10 after a surge of withdrawals threatened to leave it short of cash. "Common sense tells you that an auditor issuing a clean report, a clean bill of health, on the 16th-largest bank in the United States that within two weeks fails without any warning, is trouble for the auditor," said Lynn Turner, who was chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1998 to 2001. Two crucial facts for determining whether KPMG missed the banks' problems are when the bank runs began in earnest and when the bank's management and KPMG's auditors became aware of the crisis.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta plans to cut its workforce by another 10,000 people, withdraw around 5,000 open roles that it has not filled and cancel some projects, company co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday, confirming recent rumors that another round of layoffs was imminent. From a report: The announcement comes just four months after Meta revealed that it was eliminating about 11,000 roles as the social networking giant pushes to become more efficient this year. Combined, this means that Meta has effectively laid off -- or plans to lay-off -- roughly one-quarter of its workforce since the tail-end of last year. Facebook's parent firm said it expects the latest "restructuring" efforts to start in April, and the process to impact business groups in May. Zuckerberg said that the company will also cancel "lower priority projects," adding that it "underestimated the indirect costs" associated with these initiatives.Read more of this story at Slashdot.