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Google is developing a wearable device for preteens under its Fitbit group as it attempts to capture a growing demographic of younger users who own wearable tech, Insider reported this week, citing three employees familiar with the project. From the report: Internally code-named "Project Eleven," the wearable is designed to help older kids form healthy relationships with their phones and social media, two of the employees said. One of them said the device could include safety features that would let parents contact their children and know their whereabouts. Google's Australia Fitbit team, headed by Anil Sabharwal, a vice president of special projects, is leading work on Project Eleven, according to internal data seen by Insider. One employee said the device was set for launch sometime in 2024, but employees emphasized that the project had a long way to go and plans could change.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the real world, the construction of the World Cup infrastructure in Qatar has been marred by extreme temperatures and migrant worker deaths. In the metaverse, however, a digital replica of Lusail Stadium in Doha has none of that baggage -- and the virtual property can be raffled off as a prize for a lucky soccer fan. From a report: FIFA's virtual universe is part of the soccer organization's penchant for embracing the latest tech buzzword. In 2010, some matches were broadcast in 3-D. In 2018, it offered a virtual-reality experience. Now it's the metaverse. While some superfans may fly to Qatar and shell out for a ticket to cheer alongside 80,000 other people during a game, metaverse-inclined fans can head to a virtual airport, wait several hours while they "fly" to Doha, visit a digital version of the stadium and enter nearby shops in the FIFA World Cup-branded village to buy digital merchandise such as scarves and flags, which they can later use to adorn their virtual houses to express their team spirit. That digital journey is thanks to Upland, a metaverse platform based in Mountain View, California, which is partnering with FIFA to provide a blockchain-based metaverse experience during the tournament. Upland isn't FIFA's only partner to provide immersive soccer-themed digital environments tied to the World Cup, which begins Nov. 20 and is the most-watched athletic event across the globe. Roblox has also built out a technicolor world where fans can play a game that's a mix of soccer and bowling.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Zuckerberg, in a blog post: Today I'm sharing some of the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history. I've decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1. I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted. At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I'd expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. In this new environment, we need to become more capital efficient. We've shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas -- like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We've cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We're restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won't bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I've also made the hard decision to let people go.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mexico will raise its target to unconditionally cut greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below usual levels by 2030 at this year's COP27 U.N. climate summit, its environment ministry said in a statement Tuesday, lifting its previous target of 22%. Latin America's second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter will also raise its target for conditional emission cuts -- a goal dependent on external support -- to 40% from 36%. Reuters reports: Last year, Mexico pledged to expand its climate goals after research coalition Climate Action Tracker warned that emissions could actually rise under targets unchanged since 2016. Climate Action Tracker had rated Mexico's previous goals "highly insufficient", noting the Paris Climate deal requires countries to progressively raise their percentage reduction targets to offset rising levels of overall emissions. The ministry said Mexico would maintain its target to unconditionally cut "black carbon" emissions by 51%, or 70% depending on external conditions. Black carbon is the sooty material emitted from coal plants and diesel engines, but Climate Action Tracker said its effect as an additional metric was "negligible" since it comes largely from the same sources as CO2. Mexico's environment ministry said it had identified measures to cut an estimated 88.9 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually by 2030, including more industrial regulation, zero-emission vehicles, rail transport, remote working, and creating more natural reserves.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As subtropical storm Nicole moved across the Atlantic Ocean toward Florida on Monday afternoon, NASA confirmed that its Artemis I mission would remain at the launch pad along the state's east coast. Ars Technica reports: The risks to these large and costly vehicles are non-zero, however, and appear to be rising as Nicole starts to strengthen. The space agency's primary concern from tropical systems is winds. Much of the rocket's structure is pretty robust, such as its tank-like solid rocket boosters. But there are sensitive elements prone to damage from debris and wearing effects due to high winds inside a tropical system. According to the SLS rocket's chief engineer, John Blevins, the rocket can withstand wind gusts up to 74.1 knots. Knots are a term used in meteorology and maritime navigation and are equal to 1 nautical mile per hour. In this case, the SLS rocket can withstand gusts up to 85 mph, or 137 km/h. Wind "gusts" are different from sustained winds. These are short-term bursts of wind, as opposed to sustained winds over one minute or longer. On Monday, at the time NASA announced its decision to remain at the launch pad as Nicole approached Florida, there was just a 4 percent chance of such winds at Kennedy Space Center. NASA, therefore, was willing to take a calculated risk by staying at the pad. One reason for remaining outside was, somewhat ironically, wear and tear. The process of rolling the Artemis I mission four miles back and forth, between the Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pad, puts a lot of stress on the vehicle. When it computes risk factors for the Artemis I launch vehicle, NASA has a certain budget for rollouts. The rocket has now been out to the pad on four separate occasions since this spring. While NASA has not confirmed this, according to a source, NASA has just one remaining roll in its budget. This does not mean the rocket will fall apart with additional roundtrips, it's just that additional movements would incrementally increase the risk of damage. NASA may also simply not have had time to move inside the protective confines of the Vehicle Assembly Building. It takes a couple of days to prep the rocket to roll back. By Monday, it may have already been too late because to roll back before Nicole's arrival would probably have meant doing so no later than Tuesday night. Asked whether NASA really had no choice but to remain at the pad, a spokesperson for the agency, Rachel Kraft, was non-committal. "The team reviewed the forecast and determined the rocket will remain at the pad," she said on Monday. The problem for NASA is that Nicole is now expected to transition into a tropical storm and come ashore just south of Kennedy Space Center as a Category 1 hurricane. "The corresponding odds for hurricane-force winds -- at or above the safety limit established by NASA for its rocket -- are now up to 10 percent," reports Ars. "This is higher than the forecast that prompted a rollback during Ian."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Draconian licensing rules and a lack of public funding are holding back the emerging field of psychedelic medicine in the UK, leading scientists have warned after the release of groundbreaking results on the use of psilocybin to treat depression. The latest clinical trial found that a single dose of the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, combined with psychotherapy, helped alleviate depression in nearly a third of patients with severe depression. The finding follows other promising results suggesting that psychedelic drugs could be used in treating conditions including anxiety, PTSD, addiction and anorexia. However, Prof David Nutt, the former government drug adviser and director of the neuropsychopharmacology research unit at Imperial College London, said that unless regulations and attitudes changed, potential treatments would remain "in limbo" at an experimental stage and available only to those who could pay for them in private clinics. "Patients are being denied access because of the regulations," he said. "The research is really hampered by the legal status." Despite what some are hailing as a "psychedelic renaissance," Nutt said there had been minimal public funding for research in this area, besides a grant he received from the Medical Research Council to study psilocybin and funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research for a trial published last week. "I don't think there's any other funding. It's all philanthropists and private sector funding," he said. "It reflects the fact that we still see illegal drugs as drugs to be banned." He said basic scientific research was vital for the development of new potential treatments. "This isn't just some public groundswell of hippy resurrection," he said. "The science has driven the clinical work."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Bloomberg Terminal has updated its estimate of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's net worth on Nov. 8 to $991 million, down from $16 billion the day before. CryptoSlate reports: The reduced estimate that takes away SBF's billionaire status comes as the native token of the FTX exchange, FTT, fell over 83% to a low of just $2.67 from a daily high of $20.47. A large percentage of SBF's wealth is tied to his business activities with both FTX and Alameda Research, meaning a reduction in the price of FTT tokens would directly affect his personal wealth. The crypto community on Twitter, never to shy away from adding comedy to tragedy, shared memes and anecdotes comparing SBF to Mark Zuckerberg and the fictional Russ Hannemann from the TV show Silicon Valley. Hannemann had a similar experience losing his "3 commas" status, becoming "just" a multimillionaire. In addition, many users commented that SBF's fall from grace outweighs most retail investors' 2022 losses.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lauren Forristal writes via TechCrunch: Disney reported (PDF) results for the final quarter of its 2022 fiscal year today, revealing a total of 164.2 million Disney+ global subscribers, an increase of 12 million subs from 152.1 million in Q3. The flagship streaming service was only expected to gain 9.35 million subs. Across Disney's streaming services, Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ had a combined total of 235.7 million subscribers, up from 221 million in the third quarter. The company beat expectations of 233.8 million. [...] However, the company fell short of expectations for total revenue, which was reported to be $20.15 billion. Wall Street estimated that Disney would report a 15% year-on-year jump in revenue to $21.3 billion. The direct-to-consumer division lost $1.5 billion. Disney+ is also set to launch a cheaper ad-supported version on December 8th as it looks to find more ways to earn revenue. The company also increased subscription prices for Disney+, Hulu, Hulu Live TV bundles and ESPN+ plans.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wordle will now have its own dedicated editor to help make the hit guessing game word puzzles, The New York Times announced on Monday. The Verge reports: Tracy Bennett will be the editor, and the game will have a word list curated by the NYT and "be programmed and tested" like its crosswords and the Spelling Bee game. The changes appear to mean that the NYT will be lining up some of its own solutions instead of relying on the long list of answers you could find if you knew where to look. However, it sounds like the game itself won't be changing. "Wordle's gameplay will stay the same, and answers will be drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words, with some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that's fun, accessible, lively and varied," Everdeen Mason, the NYT's editorial director of games, wrote in an article about Bennett's appointment. You might already be seeing a different answer than someone else as a result of the change. If that's the case, Mason suggests refreshing your browser or playing the game on the Crossword app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from an Ars Technica article: In the United States, the lack of regulatory clarity threatens to slow down not just mainstream adoption of new technologies but also innovation in digital payment options, potentially cutting off consumers and businesses nationwide from sought-after conveniences, simply because regulators can't keep up with how digital assets are being used today. "There has to be some clarity that comes out, some standards, some ideas of the dos and the don'ts and some structure around it," said May Zabaneh, PayPal's vice president of product in blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies during a Money 20/20 session focused on how people use crypto to make digital payments. "Otherwise, that mainstream adoption will really be inhibited." According to Zabaneh, digital payment processors need government agencies to ensure much more stability before the companies can confidently "explore the potential" of using digital assets like stablecoins or central bank digital currencies to provide alternative payment options in e-commerce. She said that even though PayPal has a responsibility to continue innovating in digital payments, efforts can become stalled because "there needs to be more clarity around regulation," particularly regulations around consumer protection and the tax implications of using digital assets. These are areas US agencies have only just begun considering, and that's holding innovation back. "In order for things to become mainstream, they have to be easily accessible, easily adoptable," she said. Zabaneh was not alone in calling for regulatory clarity to drive innovation. Executives from other payment processors like Checkout.com, cryptocurrency exchange platforms like Coinbase, and banks like JPMorgan Chase all repeated the same call in their sessions, warning that US fears over digital assets involved in financial crimes created hard-to-navigate compliance risks for those most invested in driving innovation. The executives said the US is moving so slowly in passing laws and establishing rules that industry leaders will start to conduct business elsewhere. Experts at Money 20/20 said this is already happening. The US wants to be on the leading edge of digital currencies, but tension remains between what President Joe Biden wrote in an executive order this year concerning the country's economic "interest in responsible financial innovation" and the wide-ranging security risks, including those to consumers and businesses, as well as to national security. To keep fintech leaders doing business in the US and participating in what's become a trillion-dollar market, Tufts University cybercrime expert Josephine Wolff told Ars she thinks the country must first prove it can prevent illegal activity and other security risks associated with digital assets. [...] The US government has struggled to keep up with the way digital assets are used but seems determined to crack down on illegal uses while simultaneously pushing aggressively forward with government-backed digital assets, like a central bank digital currency. Wolff said that because many in the government don't know how digital currencies are used, both legally and illegally, legislators are unsure how to regulate new digital assets. Meanwhile, digital payment technologies continue to evolve. New uses emerge, and policymakers are continuing to look at the US's existing financial regulatory framework while asking basic questions. Is this digital asset considered a form of currency like a security (such as bitcoins), or is it being traded like a commodity (such as non-fungible tokens)? Or is some new legislation, such as the Stablecoin Transparency Act, needed to regulate emerging digital assets? Until mainstream adoption of technologies makes evident the most common uses of digital assets, regulators will continue struggling to make clear laws defining how digital assets can be used. Wolff told Ars it's a difficult policy agenda to navigate because "each of these new digital assets we see creates new opportunities for crime." "The United States is trying to balance two somewhat at-odds priorities: We want this technology to be sufficiently regulated and traceable so that we can conduct law enforcement investigations and hold criminals accountable," Wolff told Ars. "But we also want it to be flexible enough that people can invent new things and experiment with new models and innovate. So I understand why companies are saying, 'Well, look, we could innovate more if you told us exactly what's allowed.'" "Regulation of the financial services industry has a bad name, and rightfully so," said Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's director, Rohit Chopra, but CFPB was motivated to activate a dormant authority in the Consumer Financial Protection Act to ensure the US benefits from "a more decentralized and neutral consumer financial market structure" that "has the potential to reshape how companies compete in the sphere." "That could mean the most innovative companies capture the largest parts of the US payments market," reports Ars, citing Wolff. "And as the market favors technologies and consumers adopt trusted digital assets, that could help regulators who still aren't sure how to craft policy for digital assets."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"An ugly hack within the Linux kernel that has been in mainline for over three years has been called out," writes Phoronix's Michael Larabel. "Due to a buggy X.Org Server / xf86-video-modesetting DDX, the Linux kernel has been imposing different behavior on whether a process starts with 'X' and in turn disable the atomic mode-setting support." Linux security researcher and WireGuard creator, Jason Donenfeld, discovered the 'ugly code' within the kernel and commented on it via the kernel mailing list. "The commit to this kernel with the 'X' first character check was made back in September 2019," notes Larabel. "The 'good' news is that since then on user-space side back in 2019 the xf86-video-modesetting code went ahead and disabled atomic support by default. So technically if running an updated X.Org stack within the past three years, this kernel hack isn't necessary anymore since user-space is just then avoiding the atomic API."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At its Zoomtopia conference, the company announced a bunch of features that are coming to its platform, including two key ones for productivity: email and calendars. Engadget reports: You can connect third-party email and calendar services to Zoom and access them through the desktop app. The company says that can help save you time instead of having to switch between apps and perhaps needing to hunt for the right tab in your browser. Those on the Zoom One Pro or Zoom Standard Pro plans will be able to set up email accounts through the platform, and folks with certain plans have the option to use custom domains. You'll get up to 100GB of storage included. The key selling point is that messages sent directly between Zoom Mail Service users (i.e. those who use Zoom's email hosting services) will have end-to-end encryption. You'll also be able to send external emails that can expire and contain access-restricted links. As for Zoom Calendar, there will be options to see which of your contacts has joined a meeting, and you can schedule Zoom voice and video calls in the app. Zoom's own calendar service will include the ability to book appointments. On the way in 2023 is a feature called Zoom Spots. The company describes this as a virtual coworking space where colleagues can stay more connected during the workday via video-first conversations. While the company didn't reveal too much detail about Zoom Spots in its blog post, there may be a downside as the feature could enable bosses to keep a closer eye on what their employees are doing. Businesses will soon be able to employ Zoom Virtual Agent, a conversational AI and chatbot designed to help customers resolve issues. That tool will be available in early 2023. Other things in the pipeline include a way for developers to make money from the Zoom Apps Marketplace and a virtual coach to help sellers perfect their pitches. As for the core functions people know Zoom for, there's a feature on the way that connects team chats with in-meeting chats. You'll be able to carry the conversation from one to the other and back again to keep things flowing. The company is also looking to roll out translation options for team chats in 2023. In the near future, you'll be able to schedule a chat message to send at a later time. Zoom Phone is coming to the web, which should be handy for many folks. A progressive web app will be available for ChromeOS too. Meanwhile, users will be able to use a one-click chat message as a response when they can't answer a call. As for Zoom Rooms, there will be a way for folks in one of those to join a Google Meet room and vice versa. Last, but by no means least, Zoom revealed a string of updates for meetings. The Smart Recordings feature uses AI to generate summaries, next steps and chapters to make archived meetings more digestible and help you get to the part you're looking for. There will be meeting templates that can automatically configure the right settings and a way to record videos with narration and screensharing that you can send to colleagues. On top of that, you'll have more avatar options, including the ability to use a Meta avatar.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Should California's richest residents pay higher taxes to help put more electric vehicles on the road? That's a question the state's voters are weighing in the election that concludes Tuesday. Proposition 30 would place a new 1.75% tax on incomes above $2 million, which is estimated to be fewer than 43,000 taxpayers. It would raise billions annually, with most going to help subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles and construction of charging stations. Twenty percent of the money would go toward boosting resources to fight wildfires. The ballot fight comes as California races to reduce emissions from transportation -- by far the largest source -- and meet its ambitious climate goals. Wildfires, meanwhile, are spewing more carbon into the air as they become larger and more destructive, threatening to set back the state's progress. Though Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed for a policy that bans the sale of most new gas-powered cars in the state in 2035, he does not support Proposition 30. That's pit him against the state Democratic Party and a number of environmental and public health organizations. Newsom has called it a taxpayer-funded giveaway to rideshare companies, which under California regulations must ensure nearly all trips booked through their services are zero-emission by 2030. Lyft supplied most of the "yes" campaign's funding; competitor Uber has not taken a position. Backers of the measure, including most major environmental groups, say the state needs a dedicated, robust source of funding to set up infrastructure that can handle more plug-in cars and to help Californians of all income levels to buy them. The money won't go exclusively to passenger cars; the state could also tap it to put cleaner delivery trucks, buses and even e-bikes on the roads. A portion of the money must go to help people in low-income or disadvantaged communities buy or access electric cars. [...] Rideshare companies like Lyft do not own the vehicles their drivers use, but they are still on the hook to ensure that trips booked through their app will be zero-emission. Proposition 30 does not include any provisions that exclusively benefit Lyft. But Newsom and other opponents say the measure would allow Lyft to rely on taxpayer dollars, not company money, to help its drivers transition to electric cars. Supporters of the measure, though, say an effort to raise taxes on the rich to boost electric vehicle adoption was in the works before Lyft got involved.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As insurance companies struggle to stay afloat amid rising cyber claims, Swiss Re has recommended a public-private partnership insurance scheme with one option being a government-backed fund to help fill the coverage gap. From a report: Global cyber insurance premiums hit $10 billion in 2021, according to Swiss Re's estimates. In a study published this week, the insurance giant forecasted 20 percent annual growth to 2025, with premiums rising to $23 billion over the next few years. Meanwhile, annual cyberattack-related losses total about $945 billion globally, and about 90 of that risk remains uninsured, according to insurance researchers at the Geneva Association. While Forrester estimates a typical data breach costs an average $2.4 million for investigation and recovery, only 55 percent of companies currently have cyber insurance policies. Additionally, less than 20 percent have coverage limits in excess of $600,000, which the analyst firm cites as the median ransomware demand in 2021. "The market needs to mature further to ensure enough insurance protection is available," John Coletti, head cyber reinsurance at Swiss Re, told The Register. "Our industry has a key role to play by addressing three issues: improving data and modeling, increasing contract consistency and clarity and identifying new sources of capital."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Salesforce on Tuesday confirmed that it cut some employees this week after the enterprise software maker saw demand lighten in some countries and industries. From a report: Protocol reported earlier on the cuts, saying that they could affect up to 2,500 employees. One person familiar with the matter said Salesforce let go of fewer than 1,000 people on Monday. At the end of January it employed 73,541 people. In August Salesforce said in a filing that headcount rose 36% in the past year "to meet the higher demand for services from our customers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony will start phasing out plastic packaging for small electronic gadgets such as smartphones, cameras and audio accessories from next year, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. From a report: From April, plastic packaging will not be used for some new products weighing one kilogram (2.2 pounds) or less. The Japanese conglomerate wants to eliminate the material from all containers for newly designed smaller goods by 2025, the spokeswoman told AFP. "Instead of plastics, we will mainly use paper, and a so-called 'original blend material' made from bamboo, used paper and squeezed sugarcane fibre," she said. Sony eventually wants to eliminate plastic packaging for larger products like televisions, but no specific time frame has been decided yet, she said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A federal judge denied Elizabeth Holmes's bid for a new trial, the latest setback for the Theranos founder who was convicted of fraud in January. From a report: U.S. District Judge Edward Davila, who oversaw Ms. Holmes's trial which began last year, said in a ruling late Monday that the arguments in her three motions for a new trial didn't introduce material new evidence or establish government misconduct, adding that a new trial was unlikely to result in an acquittal. Ms. Holmes is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 18. Earlier Monday, a court probation officer submitted a presentence report, an investigation into Ms. Holmes's legal and personal background. The judge previously denied her request for an acquittal. He also denied requests for an acquittal and new trial from Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, Ms. Holmes's former boyfriend and deputy at Theranos, who was found guilty on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy in a separate trial that concluded in July.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's proposed $69 billion takeover of games developer Activision Blizzard faces an in-depth European Union probe after regulators said they're concerned the software giant could thwart access to blockbuster franchises such as Call of Duty. From a report: The European Commission said in a statement on Tuesday that Microsoft may "foreclose access to Activision Blizzard's console and PC video games, especially to high-profile and highly successful games." The EU's merger watchdog set a March 23 deadline for its so-called phase 2 investigation. The combination with Activision -- which owns some of the most popular games also including World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero -- would make Microsoft the world's third-largest gaming company and boost the Xbox maker's roster of titles for its Game Pass subscribers. But the deal is already facing protracted scrutiny from antitrust agencies across the globe. Microsoft last month accused the UK's Competition and Markets Authority of relying on "self-serving" input from rival Sony Group in its deliberations. The US Federal Trade Commission is also reviewing the transaction, including looking into how it might impact workers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spyware such as Pegasus is being deployed by state-run organizations across the European Union to snoop on politicians and journalists with virtually no EU-level oversight, according to a draft report for the bloc's parliament. From a report: The document on the use of surveillance spyware released on Tuesday said citizens can "safely assume that all EU member states have purchased one or more commercial spyware products" such as Pegasus, developed by Israel-based NSO Group. But, "no meaningful European oversight is in place; not to curb the illegal use of powerful spyware against individuals, nor to monitor the trade in these digital goods," lawmaker Sophie in 't Veld, the report's author, said in a statement. The 159-page document focuses on the use of spyware based on investigations of journalists and civil society groups and the parliament's own research missions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Turnover at Apple has hindered efforts to replace the head of product design, leaving a gaping hole at the helm of a prominent team that's been key to the iPhone maker's prolonged success. From a report: Legendary design leader Jony Ive departed Apple in 2019, and his replacement for hardware design lasted just about three years. Now the department -- still in Ive's shadow -- needs a new leader at a time when there are few obvious choices. And the fate of Apple's hardware devices, which accounted for more than three-quarters of its nearly $400 billion in revenue last year, hangs in the balance. Evans Hankey, who has held the job since Ive left, informed Apple last month that she will be departing. Though Hankey had been at the company for about 20 years, her relatively brief tenure at the top of the industrial design team made it hard to establish a distinct vision for new products. Apple also lacks a clear succession plan for the job, a significant problem for a company that sells premium-priced products largely based on their look.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Binance has signed a non-binding, letter of intent to acquire FTX, the two firms said, delivering a surprising twist amid the public feud between the world's two largest crypto exchanges that contributed to several tokens taking a tumble Tuesday. The firms didn't disclose the value of the deal, pending the due diligence process. From a report: In a series of tweets, Binance founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao said Binance made the decision after FTX reached out to the firm for help. "To protect users, we signed a non-binding LOI, intending to fully acquire FTX and help cover the liquidity crunch. We will be conducting a full DD in the coming days," he said. Binance, the world's largest exchange, is the first investor that backed FTX, but as the younger firm grew in popularity, the relationship between the two firms started to wither.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced that Greece would ban the sale of spyware, after his government was accused in a news report of targeting dozens of prominent politicians, journalists and businessmen for surveillance, and the judicial authorities began an investigation. From a report: The announcement is the latest chapter in a scandal that erupted over the summer, when Mr. Mitsotakis conceded that Greece's state intelligence service had been monitoring an opposition party leader with a traditional wiretap last year. That revelation came after the politician discovered that he had also been targeted with a spyware program known as Predator. The Greek government said the wiretap was legal but never specified the reasons for it, and Mr. Mitsotakis said it was done without his knowledge. The government has also asserted that it does not own or use the Predator spyware, and has insisted that the simultaneous targeting with a wiretap and Predator was a coincidence.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LinkedIn emerged victorious in a nearly six-year-old lawsuit against hiQ Labs for data scraping. From a report: The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the professional network, with Judge Edward Chen writing, "hiQ relied on LinkedIn for its data primarily by scraping wholly public LinkedIn profiles using automated software. hiQ had continuously attempted to circumvent LinkedIn's general technical defenses since May 2014. "It experimented and attempted to reverse engineer LinkedIn's systems and to avoid detection by simulating human site-access behaviors. hiQ also hired independent contractors known as 'turkers' to conduct quality assurance while 'logged-in' to LinkedIn by viewing and confirming hiQ customers' employees' identities manually." hiQ Labs wound down its operations in 2018, although its servers continued running into 2019 to deliver on client contracts. Chen wrote, "In sum, hiQ breached LinkedIn's user agreement both through its own scraping of LinkedIn's site and using scraped data, and through turkers' creation of false identities on LinkedIn's platform."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is now promoting some of its products in the sign-out flyout menu that shows up when clicking the user icon in the Windows 11 start menu. BleepingComputer: This new Windows 11 "feature" was discovered by Windows enthusiast Albacore, who shared several screenshots of advertisement notifications in the Accounts flyout. The screenshots show that Microsoft promotes the OneDrive file hosting service and prods users to create or complete their Microsoft accounts. Those reacting to this on social media had an adverse reaction to Redmond's decision to display promotional messages in the start menu. Some said that Windows 11 is "getting worse in each and every update it gets," while others added that this is a weird choice given that "half of the Start Menu is for recommendations" anyway. BleepingComputer has also tried replicating this on multiple Windows 11 systems, but we didn't get any ads. This hints at an A/B testing experiment trying to gauge the success of such a "feature" on devices running Windows Insider builds or the company pushing such ads to a limited set of customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, writing on his personal blog: Today is November 6th, 2022, the day of the SAO Incident. Thousands of VRMMORPG gamers were trapped by a mad scientist inside a death game that could only be escaped through completion. If their hit points dropped to zero, their brain would be bombarded by extraordinarily powerful microwaves, supposedly killing the user. The same would happen if anyone in the real world tampered with their NerveGear, the virtual reality head-mounted-display that transported their minds and souls to Aincrad, the primary setting of Sword Art Online. [...] In SAO, the NerveGear contained a microwave emitter that could be overdriven to lethal levels, something the creator of SAO and the NerveGear itself (Akihiko Kayaba) was able to hide from his employees, regulators, and contract manufacturing partners. I am a pretty smart guy, but I couldn't come up with any way to make anything like this work, not without attaching the headset to gigantic pieces of equipment. In lieu of this, I used three of the explosive charge modules I usually use for a different project, tying them to a narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency, making game-over integration on the part of the developer very easy. When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user. This isn't a perfect system, of course. I have plans for an anti-tamper mechanism that, like the NerveGear, will make it impossible to remove or destroy the headset. Even so, there are a huge variety of failures that could occur and kill the user at the wrong time. This is why I have not worked up the balls to actually use it myself, and also why I am convinced that, like in SAO, the final triggering should really be tied to a high-intelligence agent that can readily determine if conditions for termination are actually correct. At this point, it is just a piece of office art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design. It is also, as far as I know, the first non-fiction example of a VR device that can actually kill the user. It won't be the last.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deadline: AMC Entertainment plans to launch "Zoom Rooms" at movie theaters in up to 17 U.S. cities serving businesses with in-person events and meetings. The partnership with Zoom will roll out "sometime in 2023," the giant exhibitor said. It will give the chain access to the "multi-billion market for corporate and other meetings," according to CEO Adam Aron, and during weekdays when most theaters are quiet. Users will book three-hour blocks online, selecting preferred theaters and meeting time. AMC and Zoom will provide the necessary equipment. Auditorium sizes are expected to range between 75 to 150 seats. Additional services like food and beverage offerings, movie viewings, and concierge-style personalized handling of meeting needs will be available for an added cost. "As hybrid work has become more commonplace throughout the United States, Zoom Rooms at AMC will enable companies and other entities with decentralized workforces and customer bases to bring people from different markets together at the same time for cohesive virtual and in-person events and meeting experiences," the nation's biggest chain said. "One of the lessons learned during the pandemic when so many of us were forced to work remotely was the importance of a reliable, dynamic communications platform. We also learned that even though we may be spread far apart, the ability to come together in person is as important as ever," said Aron. "This creates an all-new product in major cities across the U.S. for companies and meeting planners."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the most alarming findings mentioned in the World Meteorological Organization's 2022 report, released Sunday, is that the "rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993." They added: "The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago." From a report: One of the main causes of the accelerating pace of sea level rise is melting glaciers. According to the WMO, "2022 took an exceptionally heavy toll on glaciers in the European Alps, with initial indications of record-shattering melt. The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year and it rained (rather than snowed) there for the first time in September." Last week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a report on endangered glaciers finding that one-third of the glaciers in UNESCO World Heritage sites are expected to disappear by 2050. The remaining two-thirds can be saved if greenhouse gas emissions are cut quickly and deeply enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the report concluded. In 2022, the average global temperature is estimated to be about 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average. This actually could have been worse. For the first time in a century, La Nina, a weather pattern that causes cool water to rise to the surface in the Pacific Ocean -- leading to cooler-than-usual weather -- occurred for the third year in a row. The WMO estimates that this means 2022 will be the fifth- or sixth-hottest year on record, rather than the hottest ever. But the trend toward ever-higher temperatures remains clear. "The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos," said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in response to the report's release. "As the World Meteorological Organization shows so clearly, change is happening with catastrophic speed, devastating lives and livelihoods on every continent. Glacier melt records are themselves melting away, jeopardizing water security for whole continents. We must answer the planet's distress signal with action -- ambitious, credible climate action. COP27 must be the place, and now must be the time."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Internet provider Starlink is reviving the old concept of soft data caps with the introduction of a 'Fair Use policy,'" writes Slashdot reader thegarbz. "Users who consume more than 1TB of data per month will find their connections deteriorated." The Verge reports: Residential customers will now start each monthly billing cycle with an allocation of "Priority Access" data that tracks what you're using from 7AM in the morning until 11PM at night. If you surpass that 1TB cap, which Starlink says less than 10 percent of users currently do, you'll be moved to "Basic Access" data, or deprioritized data during heavy network congestion, for the rest of your billing cycle. If you want to buy more Priority Access data, you can, at the cost of 25 cents per GB, and any data used between 11PM and 7AM doesn't count towards your Priority Access tally. "This announcement comes off the back of a recent article by ArsTechnica, showing that Starlink's median download speed has dropped to 62Mbps in Q2 of 2022 as the network struggles under the load of increased subscriber numbers," adds thegarbz.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the world of deep-learning AI, the ancient board game Go looms large. Until 2016, the best human Go player could still defeat the strongest Go-playing AI. That changed with DeepMind's AlphaGo, which used deep-learning neural networks to teach itself the game at a level humans cannot match. More recently, KataGo has become popular as an open source Go-playing AI that can beat top-ranking human Go players. Last week, a group of AI researchers published a paper outlining a method to defeat KataGo by using adversarial techniques that take advantage of KataGo's blind spots. By playing unexpected moves outside of KataGo's training set, a much weaker adversarial Go-playing program (that amateur humans can defeat) can trick KataGo into losing. KataGo's world-class AI learned Go by playing millions of games against itself. But that still isn't enough experience to cover every possible scenario, which leaves room for vulnerabilities from unexpected behavior. "KataGo generalizes well to many novel strategies, but it does get weaker the further away it gets from the games it saw during training," says [one of the paper's co-authors, Adam Gleave, a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley]. "Our adversary has discovered one such 'off-distribution' strategy that KataGo is particularly vulnerable to, but there are likely many others." Gleave explains that, during a Go match, the adversarial policy works by first staking claim to a small corner of the board. He provided a link to an example in which the adversary, controlling the black stones, plays largely in the top-right of the board. The adversary allows KataGo (playing white) to lay claim to the rest of the board, while the adversary plays a few easy-to-capture stones in that territory. "This tricks KataGo into thinking it's already won," Gleave says, "since its territory (bottom-left) is much larger than the adversary's. But the bottom-left territory doesn't actually contribute to its score (only the white stones it has played) because of the presence of black stones there, meaning it's not fully secured." As a result of its overconfidence in a win -- assuming it will win if the game ends and the points are tallied -- KataGo plays a pass move, allowing the adversary to intentionally pass as well, ending the game. (Two consecutive passes end the game in Go.) After that, a point tally begins. As the paper explains, "The adversary gets points for its corner territory (devoid of victim stones) whereas the victim [KataGo] does not receive points for its unsecured territory because of the presence of the adversary's stones." Despite this clever trickery, the adversarial policy alone is not that great at Go. In fact, human amateurs can defeat it relatively easily. Instead, the adversary's sole purpose is to attack an unanticipated vulnerability of KataGo. A similar scenario could be the case in almost any deep-learning AI system, which gives this work much broader implications. "The research shows that AI systems that seem to perform at a human level are often doing so in a very alien way, and so can fail in ways that are surprising to humans," explains Gleave. "This result is entertaining in Go, but similar failures in safety-critical systems could be dangerous."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Japan Today reports: As reported by Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, in a meeting on Nov 2, the Energy Conservation Subcommittee of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry resolved to begin working group discussions with the aim of gaining the ability to remotely turn down privately owned air conditioner/heater units. The goal would be to decrease energy usage during expected power shortages, which the committee feels are a growing concern as Japan attempts to shift towards renewable energy sources such as solar power, where the amount generated can be affected by day-to-day climate, making it difficult to stabilize the amount of total power available. The ministry says that AC unit usage accounts for roughly 30 percent of household electricity consumption in Japan. From a technical standpoint, the plan wouldn't be particularly difficult to implement. Japanese air conditioner units have long had remote controls, so external inputs aren't a problem, and many models now allow the owner to turn the system on and off or adjust temperature settings through the internet. By asking manufacturers to extend such access to government regulatory organizations, and granting those organizations override functions over other inputs, the plan could easily be put into practice for internet-connected AC units, and water heaters are another home appliance the committee is looking to gain the ability to throttle back. [...] According to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the committee is currently working under the concept that the government would only be able to turn down AC units if their individual owners have agreed, in advance, to grant that authority.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While Apple is still expected to release its first VR/AR headset next year, the bigger step to mainstream adoption -- the Google Glass-style AR glasses -- may have slipped two years according to one analyst. Tom's Guide reports: In an email to MarketWatch, Haitong International Tech Research's Jeff Pu wrote that Apple Glasses could now be up to four years from making their first appearance. "We now expect the AR Glass to be postponed to 2025-2026, due to design issues," Pu wrote. This is significant as just five months ago Pu stated that the AR glasses could be announced as soon as 2024. The term "design difficulties" is, of course, a bit of a catch-all. It could cover anything from making the glasses aesthetically pleasing and light enough for extended wear, to ensuring they have enough battery life to be useful and don't overheat. But it's striking that nearly a decade after Google Glass became available to 'Explorers' in the US, companies are still struggling to make the form factor work, despite the considerable technological improvements we've seen in the intervening years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new survey on the Xbox Insider Hub suggests Microsoft is looking to expand on its energy saving features for Xbox consoles and potentially PC games too. Jez Corden writes via Windows Central: A recent questionnaire I came across in the Xbox Insider app on Windows PC detailed a potential list of new features Microsoft is exploring for games across consoles and PC. These new features pertain specifically to opting-in to reduce frame rates, resolution, and so on, with the goal of limiting energy consumption. Of course, surveys don't necessarily mean that these sorts of features will make it into a final product, but Microsoft's commitments to net zero carbon use have seen the firm increase its investments in this space. The survey asks users about their current feelings with regard to energy consumption, potentially polling users on how the energy crisis is affecting their willingness to spend. The survey asks users if they would be interested in features that reduce power consumption in games, both while the games are running and while they're inactive, specifically to save energy and thus money. Microsoft also asks users how they would prefer these features to be branded, with terms like "eco-saving" and "energy-saving," and even asks if these sorts of features would affect users' purchase decisions per game.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Alibaba and start-up Biren Technology are tweaking their most advanced chip designs to reduce processing speeds and avoid US-imposed sanctions aimed at suppressing Chinese computing power. Alibaba, Biren, and other Chinese design houses have spent years and millions of dollars creating the blueprints for advanced processors to power the country's next generation of supercomputers, artificial intelligence algorithms and data centers. These are produced offshore by the world's biggest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. But sanctions announced by Washington last month that cap the processing power of any semiconductor shipped into China without a license have thrown a wrench into their ambitions. Both Alibaba and Biren had already conducted expensive test runs of their latest chips at TSMC when Washington unveiled the controls. The rules have forced the companies to halt further production and make changes to their designs, according to six people briefed on the situation. They mark another blow for Alibaba, the tech group founded by billionaire Jack Ma. Its shares have lost 80 percent of their value since Beijing canceled sister group Ant's initial public offering two years ago. The group's new chip was to be its first graphics processing unit and was close to being unveiled, according to three people close to the matter. The US export controls extend to third-country chip manufacturers because almost all semiconductor fabrication plants use American components or software, meaning the rules may amount to an embargo on all high-end processors entering China. Washington earlier restricted such imports from California chip companies Nvidia and AMD. Meanwhile, China's own domestic chip plants are possibly decades away from producing cutting-edge chips such as those designed by Alibaba and Biren. "Archived versions of Biren's website from before the US imposed sanctions show specifications for its first processor, the BR100, that would give it a transfer rate of 640 GB/s, exceeding the US limits," notes the report. "Now Biren's site shows slower specs for the BR100 of 576GB/s, according to calculations from research group Bernstein." Dylan Patel, chief analyst at semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, who first noticed Biren's change of specs, said the company was attempting to slow down its processors by disabling part of the chip. "They are not changing the chip design, so it's like saying 'pinky promise we won't re-enable it later on' and it's unclear if the [US] government will accept that," said Patel. Meanwhile, Alibaba's T-Head semiconductor unit is studying how to modify its new 5-nanometer processor designed for AI work. "Changes being contemplated could require another production test run at TSMC, which would mean a months-long delay and could cost $10mn or more," reports the Financial Times.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Guests will soon be able to filter their search results by the total cost of the stay before taxes, which will include additional compulsory charges such as cleaning fees. The Verge reports: The appearance of these fees separate from nightly rates has long been criticized for deceptively making accommodations appear more affordable. Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky shared the announcement on Twitter along with a video demonstrating how the planned "display total price" switch can be enabled to display the total cost of nightly rates and fees, with that price displaying on search results, map, price filter, and individual listing pages. A full price breakdown of Airbnb's service fees, discounts, and taxes will also be made available, and the total price of accommodation will be prioritized over nightly rates in the Airbnb search algorithm. "The highest quality homes with the best total prices will rank higher in search results," says Chesky. "We started as an affordable alternative to hotels, and affordability is especially important today. During this difficult economic time, we need to help our Hosts provide great value to you." [...] The transparent pricing toggle is set to roll out sometime in December, alongside new pricing and discount tools for hosts to allow for more competitive rates. In other Airbnb-related news, the European Commission said Airbnb, along with other short-term home rental companies, will have to share data on the number of people using their platforms under proposed EU rules. "The new proposed rules will help to improve transparency on the identification and activity of short-term accommodation hosts, and on the rules they have to comply with, and will facilitate the registration of hosts," the Commission said in a statement. "They will also tackle the current fragmentation in how online platforms share data and, ultimately, help prevent illegal listings. Overall, this will contribute to a more sustainable tourism ecosystem and support its digital transition," it said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hot on the heels of Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao declaring that Binance is liquidating its stash of FTX's native exchange token FTT, mass withdrawals from FTX have accelerated, with weekly stablecoin outflows from FTX reaching a whopping $451 million, according to Nansen data. Conversely, Binance has seen net inflows of more than $411 million over the same period. Decrypt reports: This mass exiting of tokens from the FTX exchange comes amid reports that Alameda Research, the trading firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, held as much as $5.8 billion in the exchange's native FTT token -- $3.66 billion in "unlocked FTT" and $2.16 billion in "FTT collateral." Given such large exposure to FTT, some have speculated that this could mean a liquidity crisis for Alameda should the markets move against FTT, dropping the token's value. Shortly after these reports hit the market, CZ took to Twitter to announce that he would be offloading the firm's FTT holdings. Binance received funds in FTT as part of its exit last year from an early equity position in FTX it had since 2019. "Due to recent revelations that have come to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books," CZ tweeted on Sunday. CZ said that he "won't support people who lobby against other industry players behind their backs." The FTX boss also cited Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who said, "that specific balance sheet is for a subset of our corporate entities." Ellison also claimed that the firm has over $10 billion of assets "that aren't reflected there." SBF went on to thank "those who stay level-headed during crazy times," adding that withdrawals and deposits at FTX were working fine and the exchange had already processed "billions of dollars" worth of transactions. As for Binance's decision to dump its FTT holdings, Ellison offered to buy the exchange's remaining FTT holdings over-the-counter (OTC) for $22 if CZ was looking to "minimize the market impact" of the sudden move. UPDATE 11/7/22, UTC 04:33: "Fears over another 'Three Arrows' event, but this time tied to FTX and its hybrid investment fund/market maker Alameda Research, gripped the markets Tuesday morning Asia time, sending FTX's exchange token FTT down nearly 20%," reports CoinDesk in an updated article. "Data from CoinGlass shows that there continues to be building short interest in FTT as open interest has surged 8% during the last hour to a total of $215 million."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The user on Gab who identifies as Nora Berka resurfaced in August after a yearlong silence on the social media platform, reposting a handful of messages with sharply conservative political themes before writing a stream of original vitriol. The posts mostly denigrated President Biden and other prominent Democrats, sometimes obscenely. They also lamented the use of taxpayer dollars to supportUkraine in its war against invading Russian forces, depicting Ukraine's president as a caricature straight out of Russian propaganda. The fusion of political concerns was no coincidence. The account was previously linked to the same secretive Russian agency that interfered in the 2016 presidential election and again in 2020, the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, according to the cybersecurity group Recorded Future. It is part of what the group and other researchers have identified as a new, though more narrowly targeted, Russian effort ahead ofTuesday's midterm elections. The goal, as before, is to stoke anger among conservative voters and to undermine trust in the American electoral system. This time, it also appears intended to undermine the Biden administration's extensive military assistance to Ukraine. "It's clear they are trying to get them to cut off aid and money to Ukraine," said Alex Plitsas, a former Army soldier and Pentagon information operations official now with Providence Consulting Group, a business technology company. The campaign -- using accounts that pose as enraged Americans like Nora Berka -- have added fuel to the most divisive political and cultural issues in the country today. It has specifically targeted Democratic candidates in the most contested races, including the Senate seats up for grabs in Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania, calculating that a Republican majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives could help the Russian war effort. The campaigns show not only how vulnerable the American political system remains to foreign manipulation but also how purveyors of disinformation have evolved and adapted to efforts by the major social media platforms to remove or play down false or deceptive content. The agencies urged people not to like, discuss or share posts online from unknown or distrustful sources. They did not identify specific efforts, but social media platforms and researchers who track disinformation have recently uncovered a variety of campaigns by Russia, China and Iran. These are much smaller campaigns than those in the 2016 election, where inauthentic accounts reached millions of voters across the political spectrum on Facebook and other major platforms. The efforts are no less pernicious, though, in reaching impressionable users who can help accomplish Russian objectives, researchers said. "The audiences are much, much smaller than on your other traditional social media networks," said Brian Liston, a senior intelligence analyst with Recorded Future who identified the Nora Berka account. "But you can engage the audiences in much more targeted influence ops because those who are on these platforms are generally U.S. conservatives who are maybe more accepting of conspiratorial claims." Some characteristics of an inauthentic user to look out for include: no profile picture, no identifying biographical details, and posts exclusively on political issues that often include false or misleading posts and little engagement. They may also link to obscure websites like electiontruth.net, which Recorded Future said was almost certainly linked to the Russian campaign.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When it comes to getting into the groove on the dancefloor, it really is all about the bass, researchers have found. From a report: Scientists say when very low frequency (VLF) sound was introduced during a live electronic music event, gig-goers moved more even though they could not hear the frequencies. "This is real world -- real electronic music dance concert -- validation that the bass really does make people dance more, and this isn't just something that comes from our conscious awareness," said Dr Daniel Cameron, a neuroscientist and first author of the work from McMaster University in Canada. Cameron and colleagues note that previous studies suggested music that induces dance has more low frequency sound, and that low pitches help people to move in time to music. However, it was not clear this impact of low frequencies would be seen in the real world, or when such sounds are not consciously detectable. Writing in the journal Current Biology, the team report how they set up an electronic music concert by the Canadian duo Orphx at McMaster and asked attenders to wear motion-capture headbands before turning on and off specialised VLF speakers every 2.5 minutes during the 55-minute performance. Results from 43 attenders who agreed to wear a headband revealed they moved 11.8% more, on average, when the VLF speakers were turned on. Cameron noted this meant people danced more vigorously, or with more exaggerated movements. At the end of the concert, 51 attenders completed a questionnaire that asked whether they could feel the music in their body, and whether the bodily sensations affected their compulsion to move.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A total lunar eclipse is happening Tuesday, and it might be a good time to catch a peek, because the next one isn't for three years. From a report: The initial phase of the eclipse begins at 3:02 a.m. ET, according to NASA. The partial eclipse then begins at 4:09 a.m. ET, when to the naked eye, it looks like a bite is being taken out of the moon. The lunar disk enters totality at 5:17 a.m. ET and will last for about an hour and a half. People in North America, Central America, Colombia, and western Venezuela and Peru will be able to see the eclipse in totality. Those in Alaska and Hawaii will be able to see all stages of the eclipse. For the best view, it is best to be in a dark area with little light pollution.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City and now a special envoy on climate change for the United Nations, announced a new international plan on Monday to help 25 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America phase out coal by 2040. From a report: The announcement from Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire philanthropist who has given more than $500 million to help end coal use in the United States, did not include a new financial pledge. Instead, he said, the initiative will focus on helping develop business plans, national policies and technical resources that countries need to mobilize big-dollar investments in clean energy. The alliance of governments -- under a partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and Sustainable Finance For All, a United Nations body -- will concentrate on countries where energy demand is projected to grow, and where renewable energy potential is plentiful. Coal is the single largest source of planet-warming emissions and still a major source of energy generation in many nations. At the same time, attracting private-sector dollars for wind, solar and other renewable power has been a challenge, particularly in developing countries. The group's goal is to see coal plants retired in many developing countries by 2040, with some wealthier countries ending coal use by 2030.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been 25 years since a small studio in Dallas recast the ancient world through the prism of a real-time strategy game. From a report: Age of Empires has echoed Monk wololos about our homes ever since: Parents believed that their kids were learning history; kids believed that they were gaming surreptitiously. And veteran players know that both were right. Yet Age of Empires did not always receive the love it does today. The rise of the Xbox saw PC gaming take a back seat for Microsoft: Communities like AoE's were left to fend for themselves. In a very real way, it was the passion of these obsessives that led to Microsoft's renewed attention and the release of the franchise's latest entry, 2021's Age of Empires IV. All the games continue to receive updates or DLCs. Age of Empires games are headed for Xbox and mobile devices, complete with cross-play so console gamers can get their hands on the RTS classic and play with their PC-loving friends. Also, Age of Mythology is finally getting a definitive edition. Age IV is building momentum, too, with an anniversary edition crowning a year of updates designed to woo players who found it a tad stripped back at launch. AoE is now a point of real-time-strategy pride and a shining jewel in Microsoft's roster.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cutting-edge semiconductor companies tweak specs to comply with export controls. From a report: Alibaba and start-up Biren Technology are tweaking their most advanced chip designs to reduce processing speeds and avoid US-imposed sanctions aimed at suppressing Chinese computing power. Alibaba, Biren, and other Chinese design houses have spent years and millions of dollars creating the blueprints for advanced processors to power the country's next generation of supercomputers, artificial intelligence algorithms and data centers. These are produced offshore by the world's biggest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. But sanctions announced by Washington last month that cap the processing power of any semiconductor shipped into China without a license have thrown a wrench into their ambitions. Both Alibaba and Biren had already conducted expensive test runs of their latest chips at TSMC when Washington unveiled the controls. The rules have forced the companies to halt further production and make changes to their designs, according to six people briefed on the situation. They mark another blow for Alibaba, the tech group founded by billionaire Jack Ma. Its shares have lost 80 percent of their value since Beijing canceled sister group Ant's initial public offering two years ago. The group's new chip was to be its first graphics processing unit and was close to being unveiled, according to three people close to the matter. The US export controls extend to third-country chip manufacturers because almost all semiconductor fabrication plants use American components or software, meaning the rules may amount to an embargo on all high-end processors entering China. Washington earlier restricted such imports from California chip companies Nvidia and AMD.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A juvenile bar-tailed godwit -- known only by its satellite tag number 234684 -- has flown 13,560 kilometres from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania without stopping, appearing to set a new world record for marathon bird flights. From a report: The five-month-old bird set off from Alaska on 13 October and satellite data appeared to show it did not stop during its marathon flight which took 11 days and one hour. Tagged in Alaska, the bar-tailed godwit, Limosa lapponica, flew at least 13,560km (8,435 miles) before touching down at Ansons Bay in north-east Tasmania. The previous record was held by an adult male of the same species -- 4BBRW -- that flew 13,000km (8,100 miles) last year, beating his own previous record of 12,000km the year before. According to a Facebook post from the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in New Zealand, 4BBRW's record had been "blown out of the water by this young upstart." Scientists track the bird using a 5G satellite tag attached to its lower back. According to data from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology's bird tracking project, the migratory bird took a route to the west of Hawaii, continuing over open ocean and flying over the Pacific island nation of Kiribati on 19 October.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Less than 1% of used clothing gets recycled into new garments, overwhelming countries like Ghana with discards. From a report: It's a disaster decades in the making, as clothing has become cheaper, plentiful and ever more disposable. Each year the fashion industry produces more than 100 billion apparel items, roughly 14 for every person on Earth and more than double the amount in 2000. Every day, tens of millions of garments are tossed out to make way for new, many into so-called recycling bins. Few are aware that old clothes are rarely recycled into new ones because the technology and infrastructure don't exist to do that at scale. Instead, discarded garments enter a global secondhand supply chain that works to prolong their life, if only a little, by repurposing them as cleaning rags, stuffing for mattresses or insulation. But the rise of fast fashion -- and shoppers' preference for quantity over quality -- has led to a glut of low-value clothing that threatens to tank the economics of that trade and inordinately burdens developing countries. Meanwhile, the myth of circularity spreads, shielding companies and consumers from the inconvenient reality that the only way out of the global textile waste crisis is to buy less, buy better and wear longer. In other words, to end fast fashion. [...] Globally, less than 1% of used clothing is actually remade into new garments, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK nonprofit. (In contrast, 9% of plastic and about half of paper gets recycled.) The retailers have vowed that what they collect will never go to landfill or waste. But the reality is far messier. Garments dropped at in-store take-back programs enter the multibillion-dollar global secondhand supply chain, joining a torrent of discards from charity bins, thrift stores and online resale platforms like ThredUp and Sellpy. The complex task of sorting through that waste stream falls to a largely invisible global industry of brokers and processors. Their business depends on exporting much of the clothing to developing countries for rewear. It's the most profitable option and, in theory, the most environmentally responsible, because reusing items consumes less resources than recycling them.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Almost but not quite in time for Halloween, astronomers announced on Friday that they had discovered the closest known black hole. It is a biggie, a shell of yawning emptiness 10 times as massive as the sun, orbiting as far from its own star as the Earth is from ours. From a report: Not to worry, however: This black hole is 1,600 light-years away, in the constellation Ophiuchus; the next nearest known black hole is about 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. What sets this new black hole apart from the 20 or so others already identified in our Milky Way galaxy, besides its proximity, is that it isn't doing anything -- not drawing the nearby star to its doom, not gravitationally consuming everything nearby. Rather, the black hole is dormant, a silent killer waiting for the currents of space to feed it. Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been searching for such hidden demons for four years. He found this black hole by scrutinizing data from the European Space Agency's GAIA spacecraft, which has been tracking with exquisite precision the positions, motions and other properties of millions of stars in the Milky Way. Dr. El-Badry and his team detected a star, virtually identical to our sun, that was jittering strangely, as if under the gravitational influence of an invisible companion. To investigate further, the researchers commandeered the Gemini North telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which could measure the speed and period of this wobble and thus determine the relative masses of the objects involved. The technique is identical to the process by which astronomers analyze the wobbles of stars to detect the presence of orbiting exoplanets -- except this time the quarry was far bigger. Their results and subsequent calculations were consistent with a black hole of 10 solar masses being circled by a star similar to our own. They named it Gaia BH1.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told countries gathered at the start of the COP27 summit in Egypt on Monday they face a stark choice: work together now to cut emissions or condemn future generations to climate catastrophe. From a report: The speech set an urgent tone as governments sit down for two weeks of talks on how to avert the worst of climate change, even as they are distracted by Russia's war in Ukraine, rampant consumer inflation and energy shortages. "Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish," Guterres told delegates gathered in the seaside resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. He called for a pact between the world's richest and poorest countries to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels and funding to ensure poorer countries can reduce emissions and cope with the climate impacts that have already occurred. "The two largest economies -- the United States and China -- have a particular responsibility to join efforts to make this pact a reality," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Department of Justice, announcing through a press release: Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Tyler Hatcher, the Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Los Angeles Field Office ("IRS-CI"), announced today that JAMES ZHONG pled guilty to committing wire fraud in September 2012 when he unlawfully obtained over 50,000 Bitcoin from the Silk Road dark web internet marketplace. ZHONG pled guilty on Friday, November 4, 2022, before United States District Judge Paul G. Gardephe. On November 9, 2021, pursuant to a judicially authorized premises search warrant of ZHONG's Gainesville, Georgia, house, law enforcement seized approximately 50,676.17851897 Bitcoin, then valued at over $3.36 billion. This seizure was then the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice and today remains the Department's second largest financial seizure ever. The Government is seeking to forfeit, collectively: approximately 51,680.32473733 Bitcoin; ZHONG's 80% interest in RE&D Investments, LLC, a Memphis-based company with substantial real estate holdings; $661,900 in cash seized from ZHONG's home; and various metals also seized from ZHONG's home. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: "James Zhong committed wire fraud over a decade ago when he stole approximately 50,000 Bitcoin from Silk Road. For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery. Thanks to state-of-the-art cryptocurrency tracing and good old-fashioned police work, law enforcement located and recovered this impressive cache of crime proceeds. This case shows that we won't stop following the money, no matter how expertly hidden, even to a circuit board in the bottom of a popcorn tin."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, WSJ reported over the weekend, citing people familiar with the matter, in what could be the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry's rapid growth during the pandemic. From the report: The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September. Company officials already told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week, the people said. The planned layoffs would be the first broad head-count reductions to occur in the company's 18-year history. While smaller on a percentage basis than the cuts at Twitter Inc. this past week, which hit about half of that company's staff, the number of Meta employees expected to lose their jobs could be the largest to date at a major technology corporation in a year that has seen a tech-industry retrenchment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Blood that has been grown in a laboratory has been put into people in a world-first clinical trial, UK researchers say. From a report: Tiny amounts -- equivalent to a couple of spoonfuls -- are being tested to see how it performs inside the body. The bulk of blood transfusions will always rely on people regularly rolling up their sleeve to donate. But the ultimate goal is to manufacture vital, but ultra-rare, blood groups that are hard to get hold of. These are necessary for people who depend on regular blood transfusions for conditions such as sickle cell anaemia. If the blood is not a precise match then the body starts to reject it and the treatment fails. This level of tissue-matching goes beyond the well-known A, B, AB and O blood groups. Prof Ashley Toye, from the University of Bristol, said some groups were "really, really rare" and there "might only be 10 people in the country" able to donate. At the moment, there are only three units of the "Bombay" blood group -- first identified in India -- in stock across the whole of the UK.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Apple is working on a big change to how its Siri voice assistant works," reports the blog 9 to 5 Mac:While you currently have to say "Hey Siri" to activate the assistant hands-free, that may not be the case for much longer. Bloomberg reports today that Apple engineers are working to drop the "Hey" part of the phrase, so you'd only have to say "Siri" followed by a command to activate the assistant... In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that this is "a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work." Apple has reportedly been working on this change for the last several months and hopes to roll it out either next year or in 2024 depending on the progress of development and testing.... Doing so would match what's offered by Amazon, where you simply have to say "Alexa" to trigger the assistant, not "Hey Alexa." Although long-time Slashdot reader cstacy complains that already, "I can no longer discuss Amazon Alexa, because she hears just 'Alexa' and wakes up... That's not a feature, that's a bug! Not sure why Apple and Google would want to replicate that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China launched the final module for its space station last Monday. But this also meant that a massive booster rocket re-entered the earth's atmosphere, notes the Washington Post — "for the fourth time in less than three years." This one came down in the Pacific Ocean shortly after 6 a.m. Friday, and "there were no initial reports of damage or injuries. "But its return to Earth highlighted a tension among space faring nations over China's practice of letting its spent rockets tumble back to Earth after days in orbit."While the chances are low of any one person getting hit by the returning space debris, several of the tracks the rocket possibly could have taken passed over a large swath of the Earth's populated areas. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has repeatedly condemned China for the practice. In a statement Friday morning, he said: "It is critical that all spacefaring nations are responsible and transparent in their space activities and follow established best practices, especially, for the uncontrolled reentry of a large rocket body debris — debris that could very well result in major damage or loss of life." China is alone among space-faring nations in allowing the unplanned return of its boosters, instead of ditching them at sea, as most others do, or returning them to a soft landing, like Space X. "The technology exists to prevent this," said Ted Muelhaupt, a consultant in the chief engineer's office at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit that drew possible tracks for the rocket's return. The rest of the world doesn't "deliberately launch things this big and intend them to fall wherever. We haven't done that for 50 years." As of Wednesday, the [research nonprofit] Aerospace Corporation's calculations had the stage possibly landing over areas of land where 88 percent of the world's population lives. And so the possibility of casualties, Muelhaupt said, was between one in 230 to one in 1,000. That risk far exceeds the internationally recognized standard that says a reentering space object should not have greater than a one in 10,000 chance of causing injury. The Chinese rocket stage is massive — weighing 22 metric tons and measuring as long as a pair of 53-foot semitrailers parked end to end, Muelhaupt said. He estimated that between 10 and 40 percent of the booster would survive reentry.Read more of this story at Slashdot.