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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In pursuit of "safer" text-generating models, Nvidia today released NeMo Guardrails, an open source toolkit aimed at making AI-powered apps more "accurate, appropriate, on topic and secure." Jonathan Cohen, the VP of applied research at Nvidia, says the company has been working on Guardrails' underlying system for "many years" but just about a year ago realized it was a good fit for models along the lines of GPT-4 and ChatGPT. "We've been developing toward this release of NeMo Guardrails ever since," Cohen told TechCrunch via email. "AI model safety tools are critical to deploying models for enterprise use cases." Guardrails includes code, examples and documentation to "add safety" to AI apps that generate text as well as speech. Nvidia claims that the toolkit is designed to work with most generative language models, allowing developers to create rules using a few lines of code. Specifically, Guardrails can be used to prevent -- or at least attempt to prevent -- models from veering off topic, responding with inaccurate information or toxic language and making connections to "unsafe" external sources. Think keeping a customer service assistant from answering questions about the weather, for instance, or a search engine chatbot from linking to disreputable academic journals. "Ultimately, developers control what is out of bounds for their application with Guardrails," Cohen said. "They may develop guardrails that are too broad or, conversely, too narrow for their use case." While companies like Zapier are using Guardrails to add a layer of safety to their generative models, Nvidia acknowledges that the toolkit isn't imperfect; it won't catch everything, in other words. Cohen also notes that Guardrails works best with models that are "sufficiently good at instruction-following," a la ChatGPT, and that use the popular LangChain framework for building AI-powered apps. That disqualifies some of the open source options out there. And -- effectiveness of the tech aside -- it must be emphasized that Nvidia isn't necessarily releasing Guardrails out of the goodness of its heart. It's a part of the company's NeMo framework, which is available through Nvidia's enterprise AI software suite and its NeMo fully managed cloud service. Any company can implement the open source release of Guardrails, but Nvidia would surely prefer that they pay for the hosted version instead.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to The Verge, Amazon is shuttering its health-focused Halo division. All three Halo products will be discontinued and portions of the Halo team will be laid off. From the report: "We have made the difficult decision to wind down the Halo program, which will result in role reductions," Melissa Cha, Amazon's VP of smart home and health, told staffers in an email obtained by The Verge. "More recently, Halo has faced significant headwinds, including an increasingly crowded segment and an uncertain economic environment. Although our customers love many aspects of Halo, we must prioritize resources and maximize benefits to customers and the long-term health of the business." "We continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments," Amazon spokesperson Kristy Schmidt told The Verge in an email. "We recently made the difficult decision to stop supporting Amazon Halo effective July 31, 2023. We are incredibly proud of the invention and hard work that went into building Halo on behalf of our customers, and our priorities are taking care of our customers and supporting our employees." The company says it will refund customers who bought a Halo devices or accessory band in the last 12 months. "All unused prepaid Halo subscription fees will be refunded, and users will no longer be charged," adds The Verge. Early adopters, like myself, are out of luck. In related news, Amazon kicked off another round of layoffs today, impacting its cloud computing and human resources divisions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In its first-quarter earnings report today, Meta said its virtual reality and augmented reality unit, Reality Labs, recorded a $3.99 billion operating loss. The unit generated just $339 million in revenue. CNBC reports: The numbers show a slowdown from last quarter, when Reality Labs lost $4.28 billion on $727 million of revenue. For all of last year, Reality Labs recorded an operating loss of $13.72 billion on $2.16 billion in sales, underscoring how VR and AR technologies have yet to reach the mainstream. Despite Reality Labs' operating loss, Meta posted first-quarter net earnings of $5.71 billion, or $2.20 a share, with revenue up less than 3% to $28.65 billion from $27.91 billion a year ago. This sent its stock soaring more than 10% in extended trading Wednesday. "Facebook had 2.04 billion daily active users, up 5% from a year ago, and the 'family' of Meta apps -- which includes Instagram -- reported daily active users of 3.02 billion, up 4%," adds MarketWatch.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The yuan became the most widely-used currency for cross-border transactions in China in March, overtaking the dollar for the first time, official data showed, reflecting efforts by Beijing to internationalize use of the yuan. Cross-border payments and receipts in yuan rose to a record $549.9 billion in March from $434.5 billion a month earlier, according to Reuters calculation based on data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The yuan was used in 48.4% of all cross-border transactions, Reuters calculated, while the dollar's share declined to 46.7% from 48.6% a month earlier. The volume of cross-border transactions covers both the current and capital accounts. According to data from SWIFT, the yuan's share of global currency transactions for trade finance rose to 4.5% in March, while the dollar accounted for 83.71%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Corrections systems are using simulators to provide incarcerated individuals with more lifelike instruction. But is it working? From a report: Atorrus Rainer, 41, is standing in the center of a stuffy room wearing a virtual-reality headset. Every so often, he extends his arm, using the VR controller to pick up garbage bags, a toothbrush, and toilet paper during a simulated trip to the supermarket. The self-checkout station overwhelms him: those didn't exist in 2001, when Rainer, then a teenager, was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. His first experience with one is this virtual interaction taking place inside Fremont Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison about two hours south of Denver. Rainer is practicing in the hopes of stepping into a real store in the near future through an initiative launched in Colorado in 2017 in response to US Supreme Court rulings that deemed juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional. People who meet certain requirements -- for example, if they were under 21 when they committed felony crimes and have been incarcerated for a minimum of 20 to 30 years -- can apply to work through the three-year Juveniles and Young Adults Convicted as Adults Program (JYACAP) in an effort to earn early parole. The premise of JYACAP is that learning the basic skills they missed the chance to acquire while incarcerated will provide these juvenile lifers with their best chances for success upon release. That's a formidable challenge. Because of safety concerns, they have had limited access to the internet. Though they're now adults, many have never used, or even seen, a smartphone or a laptop. Or had a credit card. "We had to figure out a way of giving them these opportunities in a restricted environment," says Melissa Smith, interim director of prisons for the Colorado Department of Corrections. Though its use is not yet widespread, a handful of state corrections departments, from Ohio to New Mexico, have turned to virtual reality as an answer. The goals vary from helping reduce aggressive behavior to facilitating empathy with victims to, as in Colorado's case, reducing recidivism. Though the state's prison budget sits close to $1 billion, Colorado has one of the worst return-to-prison rates in the country, at around 50%. Nationally, as many as two-thirds of the 600,000 people released from state and federal prisons each year will be rearrested within three years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said there's a "high risk of biological hazard" in Khartoum, the capitol of Sudan, after a biolab containing deadly pathogens was seized by fighters. From a report: There's a war in Sudan right now as two rival generals struggle for power. After a week of fighting, one of the factions has seized the National Public Health Laboratory which contains samples of measles, cholera, polio, and other diseases. Now, lab workers are unable to return to the facility and secure the hazardous materials. "This is the main concern: no accessibility to the lab technicians to go to the lab and safely contain the biological material and substances available," Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO's representative in Sudan, told reporters on Tuesday. According to the lab's website, it contains "reference laboratories related to the control of some diseases such as polio, measles, tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS." The lab is engaged in various aspects of studying and controlling diseases, including identifying pathogens, testing for them, and sending samples to international labs. The work is aimed at preventing and identifying possible epidemics, and the lab works with the WHO. The fighting in Sudan has already killed 459 people and injured 4,072, and the release of a deadly pathogen would lead to more suffering. The fighting is between generals Abdel Fattah Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. Burhan is the head of the country's military and Dagalo is the leader of a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces. The RSF got its start as a Janjaweed militia, an Arab fighting group that operated in Darfur.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brazilian court has ordered the nationwide suspension of the Telegram messaging app due to its parent company's failure to provide data on neo-Nazis operating on the platform, imposing a daily fine of approximately $198,000 until compliance is met. The action was taken as part of an investigation into neo-Nazi activity on social networks. Agence France-Presse first reported the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A young Harrison Ford will grace cinema screens for 25 minutes this summer -- aided by some new Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) software. The news that LucasFilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would feature a de-aged Ford came at the end of last year, but an interview with director James Mangold in Total Film just revealed it will be for almost a fifth of the film's running time. The fifth Indiana Jones iteration starts with an opening scene from 1944 -- about eight years after Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark took place. "My hope is that, although it will be talked about in terms of technology, you just watch it and go, 'Oh my God, they just found footage. This was a thing they shot 40 years ago," Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm and a producer, told Empire. The rest of the movie shoots forward to 1969, with Indy on a mission to prevent a comeback of Nazism.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX and Rogers Communications struck a deal for satellite phone service in Canada -- a bid to bring emergency service to remote areas of the vast country that can't be reached through conventional wireless networks. From a report: The companies will use SpaceX's Starlink low-earth orbit satellites and begin with text service before adding voice and data coverage later, Rogers said in a statement. It didn't give a launch date for the new service. "In the future, these investments will deliver wireless connectivity, including access to 911, to even the most remote areas," Rogers Chief Executive Officer Tony Staffieri said in a statement. Staffieri was due to speak about the arrangement during his speech at the company's annual meeting on Wednesday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon on Wednesday began laying off some employees in its cloud computing and human resources divisions. From a report: Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky and human resources head Beth Galetti sent notes to staffers in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica informing them of the job cuts. "It is a tough day across our organization," Selipsky wrote in the memo. The layoffs are part of the previously announced job cuts that are expected to affect 9,000 employees. Last week, Amazon laid off some employees in its advertising unit, and it has let go of staffers in its video games and Twitch livestreaming units in recent weeks. Amazon wrapped up a separate round of cuts earlier this year that affected approximately 18,000 employees. Combined with the cuts this month, it marks the largest layoffs in Amazon's 29-year history. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been aggressively slashing costs across the company as the e-retailer reckons with an economic downturn and slowing growth in its core retail business. Amazon froze hiring in its corporate workforce, axed some experimental projects and slowed warehouse expansion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A company that tears down closed nuclear power plants wants to do in Michigan what has never been done in the U.S.: restore a dead one to life. From a report: Holtec Decommissioning International bought the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station last June for the stated purpose of dismantling it, weeks after previous owner Entergy shut it down. Fuel was removed from the reactor core. Federal regulators were notified of "permanent cessation of power operations." But with support from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and leaders in the Lake Michigan community where Palisades was an economic driver for 50 years, Holtec soon kicked off a campaign to bring the plant back. The 800 megawatt facility had generated roughly 5% of the state's electricity. "Keeping Palisades open is critical for Michigan's competitiveness and future economic development opportunities," Whitmer said in a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, herself a former Michigan governor, requesting federal funding for the restart. Activists who long criticized Palisades as poorly maintained and dangerous don't want it resurrected. They note its years of mechanical problems, including what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission described as among the nation's worst cases of nuclear fuel container weakening. A degrading seal on a device controlling the atomic reaction led Entergy to close the plant nearly two weeks earlier than planned in May 2022.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix lost more than one million users in Spain in the first three months of 2023 according to market research group Kantar, a sign that the streaming giant's crackdown on password-sharing could backfire. From a report: In early February, Spain became one of Netflix's first markets to introduce a monthly fee for users who shared their log-in details with another household and technical measures to detect such sharing. The move was linked to a fall in users of more than a million, two thirds of whom were using someone else's password, according to Kantar's research, which is based on surveys of household streaming habits. "It's clear this steep drop is due to the crackdown," said Dominic Sunnebo, global insight director at Kantar's Worldpanel Division, adding that the loss of a million users, even if most weren't paid subscribers, would be a blow to Netflix in terms of word of mouth recommendation for its shows and service. Subscription cancellations in the first quarter tripled compared to the previous period, according to Kantar's research. Of all remaining Netflix subscribers in Spain, one-tenth said they planned to unsubscribe in the second quarter. Spanish subscribers are charged $6.57 a month to add members outside their household. A similar fee was introduced in Portugal, Canada and New Zealand after a roll-out in several Latin American countries.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

5G technology has brought faster connections, better gadgets -- and a measure of disappointment from people with expectations of something closer to world-changing technology. But just wait, mobile companies are saying: The next upgrade will gin up enthusiasm for advances still to come. From a report: This next iteration of 5G, which the mobile companies are calling "5G Advanced" or "5.5G," is expected to be rolled out by around 2025. For consumers, the upgrades may bring faster connection speeds -- something that many parts of the world need. But everyday users may not see many more applications than that, say experts and industry officials. The real advance is that the technology will finally help facilitate more of the far-fetched business applications that 5G initially promised, like self-driving cars, autonomous drones and self-operating factories. The forthcoming upgrades underscore a reality for many 5G users so far: Beyond faster connection speeds, it hasn't made a huge difference in their day-to-day lives. 5.5G may not either. With 5.5G, "for you or me using their phone, you won't necessarily notice a huge difference," says Patrick Filkins, a research manager at International Data Corp. who tracks the internet-of-things and telecommunications-infrastructure markets.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration outlined plans on Tuesday to propel research on the type of cutting-edge microchips needed to power computers, cars and other devices, saying it would establish a new national organization with locations in various parts of the United States. From a report: The Commerce Department, which is in charge of the administration's efforts to revitalize the American chip industry, said its new National Semiconductor Technology Center would bring together companies, universities and others to collaborate on next-generation chip technology. The organization would include a string of research centers, the locations of which have yet to be chosen, and aim to be operational by the end of this year. The organization would help "regain America's leadership in research and development and technologies of the future and, importantly, make sure we stay there for decades to come," Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, said in a briefing Monday. "It's a place where industry and academia and start-ups and investors can come together to solve the biggest, grandest challenges and set priorities," she added. The plans are part of the Biden administration's effort to reinvigorate semiconductor manufacturing and ensure that the United States has a steady supply of chips necessary to feed its factories and support its national defense. The Commerce Department has been charged with doling out $50 billion to revitalize the industry, including $11 billion devoted to research and development.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Robert Bosch is acquiring US chipmaker TSI Semiconductors and plans to invest more than $1.5 billion in its California foundry, expanding the German company's global bet on chips. From a report: The world's biggest auto-parts supplier plans to retool and modernize TSI's Roseville site with a target to start producing silicon carbide chips there from 2026, Bosch said Wednesday. The company expects 30% annual demand growth for this type of chip, commonly used in power management that's beneficial to electric cars. "We step into a market which is developing very fast," Chief Executive Officer Stefan Hartung said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "The new platforms of electric vehicles -- it doesn't matter where they are produced in the world -- are mostly betting on silicon carbide technology." Financial terms for the deal weren't disclosed beyond the planned investment at the foundry, which is also subject to regulatory approval. Bosch said the full scope of future spending will "heavily depend" on federal funding opportunities.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta's head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, called into question the values of TikTok by invoking the anti-China rhetoric that's become a trademark of lawmakers that want to expel his company's rival from the US. From a report: "TikTok, a hugely successful, highly dynamic and innovative Chinese company, is able to operate in the United States, but companies like Meta are not able to operate our social media services in China," Clegg said in an interview Tuesday with Bloomberg TV. "So there is this issue of a kind of lack of a level playing field. And in the end, there's always an underlying issue of values: What values are the underpinning of new technologies?" TikTok, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, has said it's not a Chinese company and is walling off sensitive US operations to house all data and employees in America. The app also isn't available in China. Still, it hasn't been able to shake concerns about its ownership and whether that opens up the app for influence or data collection by the Chinese government. Clegg's comments echo the hawkish sentiments that have swirled around China and TikTok's connection to the country. In the US, where the social media platform has amassed 150 million users every month, the company is facing a national security review and legislation that could limit its availability in the country. There are "pretty profound differences in values" in how China views technology and individual privacy, Clegg said, including the country's willingness to seal off most of its internet from access by foreign companies. This has also expanded to discussions about new artificial intelligence technologies where, he said, "Chinese authorities are already rushing to insert their values and the way in which those AI systems are developed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard, suffered a hammer blow after Britain's antitrust watchdog vetoed the gaming industry's biggest ever deal, saying it would harm competition on the cloud. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority said its concerns couldn't be solved by remedies such as the sale of blockbuster title Call of Duty or so-called behavioral remedies involving promises to permit rivals to offer the game on their platforms, according to a statement Wednesday. Pressure had been mounting on Microsoft as it lobbies at home and in Europe to convince watchdogs to clear the deal -- one of the 30 biggest acquisitions of all time. Crucially, the CMA's conclusions comes before decisions from the European Union and the US Federal Trade Commission, which is awaiting a hearing in the summer after formally suing to veto the transaction.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet, written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols: The latest Linux kernel is out with a slew of new features -- and, for once, this release has been nice and easy. [...] Speaking of Rust, everyone's favorite memory-safe language, the new kernel comes with user-mode Linux support for Rust code. Miguel Ojeda, the Linux kernel developer, who's led the efforts to bring Rust to Linux, said the additions mean we're, "getting closer to a point where the first Rust modules can be upstreamed." Other features in the Linux 6.3 kernel include support and enablement for upcoming and yet-to-be-released Intel and AMD CPUs and graphics hardware. While these updates will primarily benefit future hardware, several changes in this release directly impact today's users' day-to-day experience. The kernel now supports AMD's automatic Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation (IBRS) feature for Spectre mitigation, providing a less performance-intensive alternative to the retpoline speculative execution. Linux 6.3 also includes new power management drivers for ARM and RISC-V architectures. RISC-V has gained support for accelerated string functions via the Zbb bit manipulation extension, while ARM received support for scalable matrix extension 2 instructions. For filesystems, Linux 6.3 brings AES-SHA2-based encryption support for NFS, optimizations for EXT4 direct I/O performance, low-latency decompression for EROFS, and a faster Brtfs file-system driver. Bottom line: many file operations will be a bit more secure and faster. For gamers, the new kernel provides a native Steam Deck controller interface in HID. It also includes compatibility for the Logitech G923 Xbox edition racing wheel and improvements to the 8BitDo Pro 2 wired game controllers. Who says you can't game on Linux? Single-board computers, such as BannaPi R3, BPI-M2 Pro, and Orange Pi R1 Plus, also benefit from updated drivers in this release. There's also support for more Wi-Fi adapters and chipsets. These include: Realtek RTL8188EU Wi-Fi adapter support; Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 wireless chipset support; and Ethernet support for NVIDIA BlueField 3 DPU. For users dealing with complex networks that have both old-school and modern networks, the new kernel can also handle multi-path TCP handling mixed flows with IPv4 and IPv6. Linux 6.3 is available from kernel.org. You can learn how to compile the Linux kernel yourself here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In early April with the start of previews for "Windows Frontline" -- a service that provides a single license for frontline employees to use up to three Cloud PCs, Microsoft floated the idea that businesses should buy fewer PCs. The Register reports: The "Frontline" name hints at its purpose: Microsoft thinks this license will benefit organizations that employ shift workers in roles like customer support or healthcare. Microsoft imagines shift workers will log on for eight hours, then the next worker on duty will do likewise, and advances this as a fairer way to charge than assuming cloud PCs are used 24x7. To burnish that argument, Microsoft's launch material for Windows Frontline included research (PDF) by tech sustainability consultancy Px3 that tries to answer the question "Can modern work applications and endpoints abate end user computing greenhouse gas emissions and drive climate action?" The answer is "Yes," when one considers cloudy PCs to be "modern endpoints." The research reaches that conclusion with analysis of the energy consumption of desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and thin clients, compared to the impact of running a Cloud PC. The research also considers bring your own PC plans that see business fund the acquisition of PCs that their staff use for personal and employment purposes, meaning fewer devices need to be summoned into existence and fewer resources are consumed because users operate one machine instead of two. Px3 instead imagines that end users and their sole device to access a Windows365 Cloud PC when they're on the clock. Doing so would mean corporate PC replacement cycles could stretch to eight years! Readers will not be surprised that the research found the combination of Windows365 and a bring your own PC plan has significantly lower environmental impact and is therefore a jolly good idea. The research's concluding paragraph states "it is reasonable to state that modern work applications and endpoint computers not only abate GHG emissions, they are perhaps critical to securing a sustainable future." That's perhaps a little overblown but the point is made: slowing consumption is a good idea and it's now possible to turn down the speed of the PC upgrade treadmill.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Satellite manufacturer AST SpaceMobile partnered with AT&T to make the first two-way audio call using satellites with a standard smartphone. "The initial call was placed using AT&T's networks in Midland, Texas, to mobile carrier Ratuken in Japan on an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone using AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 satellite," reports Engadget. AST SpaceMobile claims to be building "the first and only space-based cellular broadband network." From the report: AT&T aims to use satellites to provide global cellular broadband from 2G to 5G. "Achieving what many once considered impossible, we have reached the most significant milestone to date in our quest to deliver global cellular broadband from space," Abel Avellan, CEO and chairman of AST SpaceMobile, said in a release. "While we take a moment to celebrate this tremendous accomplishment, we remain focused on the path ahead and pivotal next steps that get us closer to our goal of transforming the way the world connects." It's unclear whether satellite access would come at an extra cost. In AT&T's original AST SpaceMobile partnership announcement, the company couldn't say whether existing plans would include satellite coverage. [...] While satellite offerings aren't available for consumers yet, this successful test brings widespread access one step closer to becoming a reality.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Joshua Bergen is a very productive person. His secret is the workspace app Notion. Bergen, a product manager living in Vancouver, uses it to plan trips abroad in meticulous detail, with notes and timelines. He uses it to curate lists of the movies and TV shows he's watched, and records what he thought of them. It's also a handy way to keep tabs on his 3D-printing projects, map snowboarding runs, and quickly update his cute list of the funny things his kid has said. It might sound strange, but Bergen is one of a growing number of people using Notion, software intended for work, to organize their personal lives. They're using it in a myriad of different ways, from tracking their meditation habits and weekly schedules to logging their water intake and sharing grocery lists. So why has a platform built to accommodate "better, faster work" struck such a chord when there are countless other planning apps out there? Part of the reason Notion has such a devoted fan base is its flexibility. At its heart, Notion is designed to combine the various programs a business might use for functions like HR, sales, and product planning in a single hub. It uses simple templates that let users add or remove features, and remote workers can easily collaborate on notes, databases, calendars, and project boards. This high level of customizability sets Notion apart from other work apps. It's also what's made it so popular among people looking to map out their free time. It started to gain traction around 2018 in YouTube's thriving productivity subculture, where videos of fans swapping time management tips and guides to organizing their lives regularly rack up millions of views. Since then, its following has snowballed. More than 275,000 people have joined a dedicated subreddit, tens of thousands of users share free page templates in private Facebook groups, and TikTok videos advising viewers on how to make their Notion pages look pretty have been watched hundreds of millions of times. "You don't have to change your habits to how rigid software is. The software will change how your mind works," says Akshay Kothari, Notion's cofounder and chief operating officer. "I think that's actually been a big reason why you see so much love in the community: because people feel like the things they build are theirs." While platforms like Notion are great for people who enjoy feeling organized, spending too much time optimizing and organizing our lives can be counterproductive when we prioritize creating to-do lists over completing the actual tasks on them, says Gabriele Oettingen, a psychology professor at New York University. It's a phenomenon known as the planning fallacy. Using Notion to track whether you're drinking enough water or going jogging, or using it to plan assignments, doesn't necessarily mean you're actually getting those things done. "In a way, Notion might help me to get structure, but it might not work to get me going," she says.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

General Motors will stop producing its two top-selling EVs, the Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV, by the end of 2023. TechCrunch reports: [General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra] told investors during the company's earnings call that its Orion Michigan factory, which currently assembles the Bolt, will be retooled for electric truck production. The decision comes as GM launches a new slate of EVs such as the GMC Hummer and Cadillac Lyriq that are outfitted with the company's Ultium architecture that includes a new battery cell design. However, it also puts an end to GM's highest volume EVs and takes one of the few affordable electric vehicle models off the market. It also means the end of the Chevy Bolt AV, the autonomous vehicle version that GM's self-driving unit Cruise uses for its robotaxis. GM unveiled the Chevy Bolt in early 2015 and brought it to market in 2016, "at the time presenting one of the few EV options to buyers and directly competing with Tesla," adds TechCrunch. "Bolt never had the same cachet as Tesla. And while consumers did buy the vehicle, its sales lagged behind the Tesla Model 3."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A draft law that aims to criminalize and prosecute those who "create conditions for online piracy" has been approved by Bulgaria's Council of Ministers. The proposed amendments are Bulgaria's response to heavy criticism from the United States, most publicly via the USTR's Special 301 Reports. It's hoped that prison sentences of up to six years will send a deterrent message. TorrentFreak reports: Last week the Council of Ministers approved draft amendments to the Criminal Code that aim to protect authors, rightsholders, and state revenue. "Crimes against intellectual property should be perceived as acts with a high degree of public danger, not only considering the rights and interests of the individual author, which they affect, but also considering the financial losses for the holders of these rights, which also affects the revenues in the state budget," the explanatory notes read. The stated aim of the bill is to solve identified weaknesses by upgrading substantive law to counter computer-related crimes against intellectual property. The text references those who "build or maintain" an information system or provide a service to the information society for the purpose of committing crimes. The notes offer further clarification. "The bill aims to prosecute those who create conditions for online piracy -- for example, by building and maintaining torrent tracker sites, web platforms, chat groups in online communication applications for the online exchange of pirated content, and any other activities that may fall within the definition of 'information society service' within the meaning of the Electronic Commerce Act (pdf) and which are carried out with the specified criminal purpose." The Bulgarian government notes that the amendments are part of its response to criticism in the USTR's Special 301 Report. [When countries are placed on the USTR's 'Watch List' for failing to combat piracy, most can expect years of pressure punctuated by annual Special 301 Reports declaring more needs to be done. Bulgaria was on the Watch List in 2015 when the USTR reported "incremental progress" in the country's ability to tackle intellectual property infringement, albeit nowhere near enough to counter unsatisfactory prosecution rates. In 2018 the United States softened its position toward Bulgaria, removing it from the Watch List on the basis that the government would probably deliver.] The fact that Bulgaria has been absent from the 'Watch List' for the last five years is down to "specific commitments" made by the authorities, with progress being monitored closely by the United States in respect of Bulgaria's future status. The draft approved by the Council of Ministers last week envisions sentences of up to six years imprisonment and a fine of up to $5,600. According to the draft, there is no intent to prosecute individual users who simply consume pirated content.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jules Wang from Android Police reports on the cases of two icon pack artists who had their products taken down from the Play Store for supposedly violating the platform's Repetitive Content policy. Despite both creators' products being reinstated, they revealed that Google's opaque application of its rules has caused frustration and hopelessness among developers. From the report: All this heartache stems from Google Play's Repetitive Content policy. While on its face a well-meaning effort to reduce spammy apps and keep quality up, there's a core problem with compliance when creators find themselves forced to use apps to distribute content: "If these apps are each small in content volume, developers should consider creating a single app that aggregates all the content." If you've browsed on the Play Store, you'll immediately know this guidance isn't universally followed: many artists like JustNewDesigns will have multiple designs in their portfolio and each of those designs will come in multiple colorways or shapeways -- whether they're changing out an accent in a line design or are implementing some sort of adaptive element. Not only are there so many apps, but they also look so much alike -- artists, many of whom might not consider coding their strong suit, tend to use open-source templates to create the actual app. You'll likely see them credited to Sarsa Murmu, who runs a GitHub project called CandyBar, or Jahir Fiquitiva, the maintainer of the Blueprint repository. These resources take care of the "packaging" for the assets. They include integration compatibility with various popular launchers, a license scheme to prevent those who sideloaded the app for free from having the icons applied, and all sorts of other functionality. In addition to the icon assets, the apps may also house wallpapers and links to other apps. [...] What is Google's role and what should it be? Wang writes: Artists would have much to gain from a new or revised API. Adding and adapting new icon designs to existing products would be much easier. New designs may be able to take advantage of changes to the Adaptive Icons API as Google lays them out. There would be unease as to how the business model could shift -- should publishers charge by the app, through in-app purchases, or both? But as it stands, the biggest benefit with such a change is that it would presumably get Play's "RoboCops" off their back. Of course, we can't be sure of that with how Google's enforcement apparatus operates, but the notion of unfairness lends credibility to those supporting the status quo unless the company is willing to come to the bargaining table. At the end of the day, Google is certainly within its right to build regulations around apps to respond to emergent scammers and distressing content. Automation is meant to render manageable the sheer volume of content the Play platform sees published on a daily basis. But so long as icon artists sit under threat from a rulebook that can be arbitrarily thrown at them at any time, if nothing changes, we may be on a road leading to the degradation of a core Android tenet that even the most casual tech consumer associates with the platform -- user customizability.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The creator of a tool that scrapes the internet for images in order to power artificial intelligence image generators like Stable Diffusion is telling website owners who want him to stop that they have to actively opt out, and that it's "sad" that they are fighting the inevitable rise of AI. "It is sad that several of you are not understanding the potential of AI and open AI and as a consequence have decided to fight it," Romain Beaumont, the creator of the image scraping tool img2dataset, said on its GitHub page. "You will have many opportunities in the years to come to benefit from AI. I hope you see that sooner rather than later. As creators you have even more opportunities to benefit from it." Img2dataset is a free tool Beaumont shared on GitHub which allows users to automatically download, and resize a list of URLs. The result is an image dataset, the kind that trains image-generating AI models like Open AI's DALL-E, the open source Stable Diffusion model, and Google's Imagen. Beaumont is also an open source contributor to LAION-5B, one of the largest image datasets in the world that contains more than 5 billion images and is used by Imagen and Stable Diffusion. Img2dataset will attempt to scrape images from any site unless site owners add https headers like "X-Robots-Tag: noai," and "X-Robots-Tag: noindex." That means that the onus is on site owners, many of whom probably don't even know img2dataset exists, to opt out of img2dataset rather than opt in.Beaumont defended img2dataset by comparing it to the way Google indexes all websites online in order to power its search engine, which benefits anyone who wants to search the internet. "I directly benefit from search engines as they drive useful traffic to me," Eden told Motherboard. "But, more importantly, Google's bot is respectful and doesn't hammer my site. And most bots respect the robots.txt directive. Romain's tool doesn't. It seems to be deliberately set up to ignore the directives website owners have in place. And, frankly, it doesn't bring any direct benefit to me." Motherboard notes: "A 'robots.txt' file tells search engine crawlers like Google which part of a site the crawler can access in order to prevent it from overloading the site with requests."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a blog post today, the Free Software Foundation is calling on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide free/libre tax-filing software for Americans to file their taxes, citing upcoming legislation that allocates funds for the agency to explore a government-operated gratis tax return system. "Many feel they have no other option than to use nonfree software or a Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS), giving up their freedom as well as their most private financial information to a third-party company, in order to file taxes," writes the FSF. $15 million of the $80 billion that was approved for the IRS by the Inflation Reduction Act includes the promise to further explore an "electronic service to prepare and file tax returns directly with the IRS." To do so, the IRS intends to "study taxpayer preferences for products. The results of the study will inform if and how the IRS should design such a service." The FSF writes: Let's call on the IRS to make a website for filing your tax return which respects your freedom. This is your chance. Write to the new IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel with your message. [...] Look up the address of your state's tax filing institution and send your letter to this address. Post your letter on social media to inspire others to do the same.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of venture capital firms including Tiger Global and Union Square Ventures on Tuesday set up an alliance aimed at making private tech investing more climate-friendly. From a report: Called the Venture Climate Alliance (VCA), the coalition of more than 20 climate tech and generalist funds seeks to get the VC industry to increase its commitments to climate tech, a branch of technology devoted to finding solutions to the climate crisis. The alliance lays out guidance that its VC members and their portfolio companies must follow to ensure they meet the requirements to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. According to a statement, the VCA's stated aim is to "ensure that methodology and metrics are at the heart of how we determine what is a good climate investment, and what investment will have the greatest positive effect on the mission to build tech for a regenerative world." Portfolio companies are given guidance on how they should decarbonize their operations, such as using emission-free data centers, deploying less energy-intensive software in their tech stack, or rebuilding supply chains around low-carbon alternatives, the statement said. Other funds signed up to the VCA include climate VCs World Fund, 2150, and Prelude Venture. Collectively, the investment firms involved manage a combined $62.3 billion in assets, according to Crunchbase figures. [...] The U.N. approved the VCA as part of its Race to Zero campaign aimed at mobilizing climate action. The alliance will fall under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a group formed during the COP26 climate conference.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's cloud business has turned profitable for the first time in the three years it's been reporting operating metrics. CNBC reports: The segment generated $191 million in operating income on $7.45 billion in revenue in the first quarter, according to Alphabet's earnings statement. In the year-ago quarter, the unit reported a $706 million loss on $5.82 billion in revenue. The cloud business includes the Google Cloud Platform, which rents out cloud infrastructure and services that companies can use to build and run their own applications, as well as Google Workspace productivity software subscriptions. Cloud customers include Deutsche Bank, Major League Baseball, PayPal and UPS.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The European Commission will require 19 large online platforms and search engines to comply with new online content regulations starting on August 25, European officials said. The EC specified which companies must comply with the rules for the first time, announcing today that it "adopted the first designation decisions under the Digital Services Act." Five of the 19 platforms are run by Google, specifically YouTube, Google Search, the Google Play app and digital media store, Google Maps, and Google Shopping. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram are on the list, as are Amazon's online store, Apple's App Store, Microsoft's Bing search engine, TikTok, Twitter, and Wikipedia. These platforms were designated because they each reported having over 45 million active users in the EU as of February 17. The other listed platforms are Alibaba AliExpress, Booking.com, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and German online retailer Zalando. Companies have four months to comply with the full set of new obligations and could face fines of up to 6 percent of a provider's annual revenue. One new rule is a ban on advertisements that target users based on sensitive data such as ethnic origin, political opinions, or sexual orientation. There are new content moderation requirements, transparency rules, and protections for minors. For example, "targeted advertising based on profiling towards children is no longer permitted," the EC said. Companies will have to provide their first annual risk assessment on August 25, and their risk mitigation plans will be subject to independent audits and oversight by the European Commission. "Platforms will have to identify, analyze and mitigate a wide array of systemic risks ranging from how illegal content and disinformation can be amplified on their services, to the impact on the freedom of expression and media freedom," the EC said. "Similarly, specific risks around gender-based violence online and the protection of minors online and their mental health must be assessed and mitigated." The new requirements for the 19 platforms include: - Users will get clear information on why they are recommended certain information and will have the right to opt-out from recommendation systems based on profiling; - Users will be able to report illegal content easily and platforms have to process such reports diligently;- Platforms need to label all ads and inform users on who is promoting them; - Platforms need to provide an easily understandable, plain-language summary of their terms and conditions, in the languages of the Member States where they operate. Platforms will be required to "analyze their specific risks, and put in place mitigation measures -- for instance, to address the spread of disinformation and inauthentic use of their service," the EC said. They will also "have to redesign their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety to minors."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's Edge browser appears to be sending URLs you visit to its Bing API website. Reddit users first spotted the privacy issues with Edge last week, noticing that the latest version of Microsoft Edge sends a request to bingapis.com with the full URL of nearly every page you navigate to. Microsoft tells The Verge it's investigating the reports. From a report: "Searching for references to this URL give very few results, no documentation on this feature at all," said hackermchackface, the Reddit user who first discovered the issue. While Reddit users weren't able to uncover why Microsoft Edge is sending the URLs you visit to its Bing API site, we asked Rafael Rivera, a software engineer and one of the developers behind EarTrumpet, to investigate, and he discovered it's part of a poorly implemented new feature in Edge. "Microsoft Edge now has a creator follow feature that is enabled by default," says Rivera in a conversation with The Verge. "It appears the intent was to notify Bing when you're on certain pages, such as YouTube, The Verge, and Reddit. But it doesn't appear to be working correctly, instead sending nearly every domain you visit to Bing."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than half the public would like to see a ban on gambling advertising, according to a new poll taken as ministers prepare to unveil an overhaul of the industry. In the survey, carried out for the charity Gambling with Lives, 52% of respondents said they supported a ban on all gambling advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and nearly two-thirds wanted new limits on online stakes. From a report: Ministers are expected to reject a blanket ban on gambling advertising in a white paper that could be published this week. The Premier League recently announced that its clubs would end shirt sponsorship by gambling firms by the end of the 2025/26 season. Will Prochaska of Gambling with Lives, which supports families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, said: "This poll displays the strength of public sentiment on gambling advertising. The Premier League's decision to remove ads from shirts but leave them all over stadiums and across broadcasts, is a cynical attempt to avoid regulation. This data shows the public won't be tricked into thinking it's enough. If gambling reforms fail to significantly restrict gambling advertising, they'll be woefully out of step with a public that expects action." The Survation poll of 1,009 adults found that 68% of respondents thought under-18s should not be exposed to gambling advertising, 64% supported affordability checks for those wanting to bet more than $124 a month, and 60% saw gambling as a danger to family life.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. officials on Tuesday warned financial firms and others that use of artificial intelligence (AI) can heighten the risk of bias and civil rights violations, and signaled they are policing marketplaces for such discrimination. From a report: Increased reliance on automated systems in sectors including lending, employment and housing threatens to exacerbate discrimination based on race, disabilities and other factors, the heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Justice Department's civil rights unit, Federal Trade Commission and others said. The growing popularity of AI tools, including Microsoft-backed Open AI's ChatGPT, has spurred U.S. and European regulators to heighten scrutiny of their use and prompted calls for new laws to rein in the technology. "Claims of innovation must not be cover for lawbreaking," Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, told reporters. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is trying to reach tech sector whistleblowers to determine where new technologies run afoul of civil rights laws, said Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Japanese startup ispace assumed failure in its attempt to make the first private moon landing on Tuesday as engineers struggled to regain contact with the company's Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander long after it was due for a lunar touchdown. From a report: "We lost the communication, so we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface," ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said on a company live stream, as mission control engineers in Tokyo continued to try regaining contact with the lander. The M1 lander appeared set to touch down around 12:40 p.m. Eastern time (1640 GMT Tuesday) after coming as close as 295 feet from the lunar surface, a live animation of the lander's telemtry showed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Daniel Shin, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, was indicted in South Korea in connection with the collapsed Terra and Luna cryptocurrencies. From a report: According to reports from Bloomberg and the local Yonhap News Agency, Shin was charged on Tuesday with offenses including fraud, breach of duty, and embezzlement. Prosecutors at Seoul Southern District Court also indicted nine other people with ties to Terra, some of whom had roles in marketing, systems development, and management, as reported by Bloomberg. The outlet also reports that prosecutors have frozen a total of 246.8 billion won (about $184.7 million) in assets from the individuals they charged.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI is letting people opt to withhold their ChatGPT conversations from use in training the artificial intelligence company's models. The move could be a privacy safeguard for people who sometimes share sensitive information with the popular AI chatbot. From a report: The startup said Tuesday that ChatGPT users can now turn off their chat histories by clicking a toggle switch in their account settings. When people do this, their conversations will no longer be saved in ChatGPT's history sidebar (located on the left side of the webpage), and OpenAI's models won't use that data to improve over time. OpenAI is aiming to make people feel more comfortable using the chatbot for all kinds of applications. For example, during a demo of the feature on Monday, the company used the example of planning a surprise birthday party. "We want to move more in this direction where people who are using our products can decide how their data is being used -- if it's being used for training or not," OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman is at it again, sharing insider details about Apple's upcoming mixed-reality headset. This time, Gurman shared new details in his weekly newsletter about the headset's controversial tethered battery pack design. Previous reports from Gurman, supply chain analyst Ming Chi-Kuo, and The Information revealed that after much internal debate, Apple decided to move forward with a headset design that works with an external battery pack connected by a wire. This is because including the battery inside the headset would make it too bulky and heavy for some users. Apple employees against this approach argued that it made the headset clunky to use, especially in public. Now, for the first time, we have some details on exactly what this will look like. Gurman writes that the headset will have two ports: USB-C and a new proprietary power port. The USB-C port will be used just for data, whereas the proprietary port will be used for "a charging cable that goes into the headset and has a round tip that inserts magnetically."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WhatsApp users are no longer restricted to using their account on just a single phone. Today, the Meta-owned messaging service is announcing that its multi-device feature -- which previously allowed you to access and send messages from additional Android tablets, browsers, or computers alongside your primary phone -- is expanding to support additional smartphones. From a report: "One WhatsApp account, now across multiple phones" is how the service describes the feature, which it says is rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks. Setting up a secondary phone to use with your WhatsApp account happens after doing a fresh install of the app. Except, rather than entering your phone number during setup and logging in as usual, you instead tap a new "link to existing account" option. This will generate a QR code to be scanned by your primary WhatsApp phone via the "link a device" option in settings. The new feature works across both iOS and Android devices. WhatsApp is pitching the feature as a useful tool for small businesses that might want multiple employees to be able to send and receive messages from the same business number via different phones.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Major tech firms face the threat of multibillion-pound fines for breaching consumer protection rules under new legislation that will tackle issues including fake online reviews and subscriptions that are difficult to cancel. From a report: The digital markets, competition and consumers bill will empower the UK's competition watchdog to tackle the "excessive dominance" that a small number of tech firms hold over consumers and businesses. Firms that are deemed to have "strategic market status" -- such as tech firms Google and Apple, and online retailer Amazon -- will be given strict rules on how to operate under the bill and face a fine representing up to 10% of global turnover if they breach the new regime. Without naming these companies, the government said firms could be required to open up their data to rival search engines or increase the transparency of how their app stores and review systems work. Oversight of major tech firms will be carried out by an arm of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the Digital Markets Unit, which will also decide which firms receive strategic market status. The bill, which will be tabled in parliament on Tuesday, is expected to become law next year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a strange twist to the long history of the Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox has announced the donation of the lab's Silicon Valley headquarters and related assets to SRI International, another well-established tech research center. From a report: Opened in 1970, PARC was a pioneering developer of technologies like the graphic user interface, laser printing and Ethernet networking. PARC has recently been doing work in areas like artificial intelligence, the internet of things, clean tech and 3-D printing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Joe Russo, the co-director of Avengers: Endgame, in an interview on the impact he thinks AI is going to play out in the world of video games, movies and television. He said: This is like a mind-bending question, right? I mean, we've had conversations about how it can be used, and look, Gen Z is very unique because it's a generation that has -- If there were incremental movements in technology over the last, say, 100 years, 150 years, they were the first generation with an exponential movement, right? So there's a real possibility now for technology to become a really important factor in our lives because it's been embraced by Gen Z, and they grew up with it, they understand it, they know how to use it. That's important, right? We're not in a world where, you know, your uncle doesn't know how to send emails anymore. We're in a world where the entire generation has a facile expertise in it, and is also not afraid of it. So potentially, what you could do with it is obviously use it to engineer storytelling and change storytelling. So you have a constantly evolving story, either in a game or in a movie, or a TV show. You could walk into your house and save the AI on your streaming platform. âoeHey, I want a movie starring my photoreal avatar and Marilyn Monroe's photoreal avatar. I want it to be a rom-com because I've had a rough day," and it renders a very competent story with dialogue that mimics your voice. It mimics your voice, and suddenly now you have a rom-com starring you that's 90 minutes long. So you can curate your story specifically to you. That's one thing that it can do, but it can also, on a communal level, populate the world of the game, have intelligence behind character choice, you know, the computer-run characters in the game that can make decisions learn your play style, make it a little harder for you, make it a little easier for you, curate the story. Say you want Fortnite to be more of a horror game, right? Then you could ask the AI to ramp up the horror elements of it. So again, you could curate your experience.I think that's where it's going. How quickly we get there, I don't know, but that's where it's going.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA has developed a new superalloy called GRX-810 that could lead to stronger, more durable parts for airplanes and spacecraft. SciTechDaily reports: GRX-810 is an oxide dispersion strengthened alloy. In other words, tiny particles containing oxygen atoms spread throughout the alloy enhance its strength. Such alloys are excellent candidates to build aerospace parts for high-temperature applications, like those inside aircraft and rocket engines, because they can withstand harsher conditions before reaching their breaking points. Current state-of-the-art 3D printed superalloys can withstand temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared to those, GRX-810 is twice as strong, over 1,000 times more durable, and twice as resistant to oxidation. "This new alloy is a major achievement," said Dale Hopkins, deputy project manager of NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies project. "In the very near future, it may well be one of the most successful technology patents NASA Glenn has ever produced." GRX-810 was developed under NASA's Transformational Tools and Technologies project, with support from the agency's Game Changing Development Program. The peer-reviewed paper has been published in the journal Nature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of ten bipartisan lawmakers from Nevada and California have asked the Biden administration to quickly provide federal funding for a private company to construct a high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area. The Associated Press reports: All six of Nevada's elected federal lawmakers and four House members from California sent the letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. They said they're on board with a proposal from Brightline West to spend more than $10 billion to lay tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor. The Mojave Desert is largely open space, and the electric-powered trains could potentially cut the four-hour trip in half, carrying passengers at speeds of nearly 200 mph (322 kph). "This project is a major priority because it will make southern Nevada more accessible to millions of visitors each year," said U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, the Nevada Democrat leading the group. She said it "will boost our economy and create more good-paying jobs." Union labor will be used during construction, the company and the Southern Nevada Building Trades Union have announced in recent weeks. Brightline West is seeking $3.75 billion in federal funding from the Biden administration-backed federal infrastructure law. The project could be "the blueprint for how we can connect major city pairs that are too short to fly and too far to drive," said Mike Reininger, CEO of Florida-based Brightline Holdings LLC, the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the United States. The lawmakers' letter pointed to company projections of 35,000 construction jobs, 1,000 permanent jobs and reduced planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee in Sacramento is expected to consider a new bill called "The Delete Act," or SB 362, which aims to give Californians the power to block data tracking. "The onus is on individuals to try to protect their data from an estimated 2,000-4,000 data brokers worldwide -- many of which have no other relationship with consumers beyond the trade in their data," reports KQED. "This lucrative trade is also known as surveillance advertising, or the 'ad tech' industry." From the report: EFF supports The Delete Act, or SB 362, by state Sen. Josh Becker, who represents the Peninsula. "I want to be able to hit that delete button and delete my personal information, delete the ability of these data brokers to collect and track me," said Becker, of his second attempt to pass such a bill. "These data brokers are out there analyzing, selling personal information. You know, this is a way to put a stop to it." Tracy Rosenberg, a data privacy advocate with Media Alliance and Oakland Privacy, said she anticipates a lot of pushback from tech companies, because "making [the Delete Act] workable probably destroys their businesses as most of us, by now, don't really see the value in the aggregating and sale of our data on the open market by third parties... "It is a pretty basic-level philosophical battle about whether your personal information is, in fact, yours to share as you see appropriate and when it is personally beneficial to you, or whether it is property to be bought and sold," Rosenberg said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to new research published last month in PLOS ONE, moths are more efficient pollinators at night than day-flying pollinators such as bees. Phys.Org reports: Studying 10 sites in the South East of England throughout July 2021, [researchers from the University of Sussex] found that 83% of insect visits to bramble flowers were made during the day. While the moths made fewer visits during the shorter summer nights, notching up only 15% of the visits, they were able to pollinate the flowers more quickly. As a result, the researchers concluded that moths are more efficient pollinators than day-flying insects such as bees, which are traditionally thought of as "hard-working." While day-flying insects have more time available to transfer pollen, moths were making an important contribution during the short hours of darkness. Professor Fiona Mathews, Professor of Environmental Biology at the University of Sussex and co-author this latest research, says, "Bees are undoubtedly important, but our work has shown that moths pollinate flowers at a faster rate than day-flying insects. Sadly, many moths are in serious decline in Britain, affecting not just pollination but also food supplies for many other species ranging from bats to birds. Our work shows that simple steps, such as allowing patches of bramble to flower, can provide important food sources for moths, and we will be rewarded with a crop of blackberries. Everyone's a winner!"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to Phoronix citing multiple local North Carolina news outlets, Red Hat is cutting "hundreds of jobs" in an initial round of layoffs announced today. From the report: According to WRAL, Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks is said to have told employees in an email "we will not reduce roles directly selling to customers or building our products," which is hopefully good news for their many upstream Linux developers they employ that ultimately build Red Hat Enterprise Linux and associated software products. Red Hat will begin notifying affected employees today in some countries while the process will continue through the end of the quarter. IBM, which acquired Red Hat in 2019, has already slashed some five thousand positions so far in 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is suing the Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to force the commission to respond to a petition (PDF) requesting them to draft and approve a rule specific to digital assets. "The lawsuit aims to force the agency to provide a yes or no to Coinbase's ask," adds The Block. From the report: Since that request by Coinbase, the SEC has reopened custody and exchange rules to explicitly say that they apply to digital assets, but has not engaged in drafting a rule specific to digital assets. The agency has also engaged in several enforcement actions against crypto companies, including an investigation into Coinbase. "From the SEC's public statements and enforcement activity in the crypto industry, it seems like the SEC has already made up its mind to deny our petition. But they haven't told the public yet. So the action Coinbase filed today simply asks the court to ask the SEC to share its decision," the company's chief legal officer Paul Grewal wrote in a blog post about the filing. The suit filed by Coinbase is a writ of mandamus, a type of lawsuit for "exceptional circumstances" in which a court can force federal officials to act. If the SEC declines to make a new rule, Coinbase can file another lawsuit in an attempt to make a federal court force them to do so.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coinbase has been granted a license by the Bermuda Monetary Authority, allowing the US crypto exchange to operate as a digital asset business there. The exchange is also in the process of obtaining a license in Abu Dhabi. Reuters reports: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on Tuesday that crypto firms will develop in "offshore" havens unless the U.S. and UK create "clarity about regulation" for crypto. Coinbase is planning to launch a crypto derivatives exchange in Bermuda as soon as next week, Fortune reported on Wednesday, citing a person close to the company. U.S. SEC Chair Gary Gensler told lawmakers on Tuesday that he had "never seen a field that's so non-complying with laws." Crypto firms say they need clarity about regulations, but Gensler has said that crypto markets "suffer from a lack of regulatory compliance, not a lack of regulatory clarity."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California is far and away the country's largest adopter of plug-in electric vehicles. Because of the state's ability to regulate its own air quality and spurred on by a large economy and plenty of affluent residents, the EV has gained plenty of traction in the Golden State. So much so that last month, California met its goal of having more than 1.5 million clean vehicles on the road two years ahead of schedule. California's Air Resources Board (CARB) began its Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program in 1990 with the intent of ameliorating the state's severe smog problem. By the early years of this century, air quality had improved to the point where CARB could begin using the ZEV regulations to help drive down climate emissions. It has accomplished that with goals that are more ambitious than the ones adopted by the US Environmental Protection Agency at the federal level and despite political interference from the previous administration, which wanted pollution to continue almost unabated. A number of other states -- Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington -- have adopted CARB's ZEV program within their own borders. But none are as far down the road to EV adoption; in the first three months of this year, 21.1 percent of all new light-duty vehicles bought in California were zero-emissions vehicles. That's a 153-percent increase year on year, according to the nonprofit Veloz. Battery EVs made up the vast majority, with 95,946 sold. Unsurprisingly, Tesla was most well-represented on the sales list, with the Model Y accounting for 33,205 units by itself. (The Model 3 was next, at 19,989 sold in Q1 2023.) BMW was the best of the rest of the OEMs in total sales numbers thanks to healthy plug-in hybrid EV sales. Los Angeles County was responsible for the highest number of new EVs added to the roads, with 36,670 registered in Q1. Orange County was next, at 15,289 new ZEVs registered, followed by Santa Clara County (11,428 new ZEVs registered). Cumulatively, that brings California to 1,523,966 ZEVs deployed by the end of Q1 2023; for context, there were just 773 ZEVs in total sold before 2011. The state had hoped to reach that milestone by the end of 2025. More than two-thirds of those 1.5 million ZEVs are BEVS -- 1,051,456, according to the California Energy Commission, with most of the remaining cars being plug-in hybrid EVs. The data shows that the hydrogen fuel cell revolution is not really accelerating, though -- only 15,432 have been registered in the state.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung is expected to report its worst profit in 14 years due to falling prices for memory chips -- the company's biggest business -- and weak demand. CNBC reports: The South Korean technology giant guided earlier this month that it would post operating profit of 600 billion Korean won ($449 million) for the first quarter. If Samsung reports this number, it would be the company's lowest profit since the first quarter of 2009. Samsung releases preliminary earnings guidance, but does not give detailed figures. It reports its full first quarter earnings on Thursday. Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips, which go into everything from PCs to servers in data centers. During the height of the pandemic, demand for consumer electronics was high, as people stayed home. Electronics companies piled up chips to go into these products. But buyers are now cutting back on purchases of these goods due to inflation and macroeconomic concerns, leading to somewhat of a memory chip glut.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Canadian singer-songwriter Grimes has invited her fans to create music using her voice, stating that she would split 50% of royalties for any successful AI-generated song using her voice. On Sunday night she tweeted: "I'll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings." She also said she welcomes the open sourcing of art and an end to copyright. "Im just curious what even happens and interested in being a Guinea pig." From a report: Grimes has long embraced AI as a techno artist. In 2020, her first album to top the Billboard dance charts was Miss Anthropocene, named for the effects of technology on Earth's ecology and climate in the post-Industrial Revolution era. It was also in 2020 that she teamed up with the algorithmic mood music startup Endel to create an AI-generated lullaby for her first child with SpaceX founder Elon Musk who they named X AE A-12 with the Elven spelling of AI, according to Grimes. "Everyday I thank the overlords of Ableton for cleaning up my tracks, but I do worry though that AI will outpace us and make musicians obsolete. It's inevitable," she warned at Web Summit 2020. With millions of followers across YouTube, Instagram and Twitter and hits like Oblivion, Kill V. Maim and Go, her call for AI collaboration could be a game changer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.