Slashdot

Japan Airlines said it was hit by a cyberattack Thursday, causing delays to more than 20 domestic flights but the carrier said there was no impact on flight safety. From a report: JAL said the problem started Thursday morning when the company's network connecting internal and external systems began malfunctioning. The airline said the cyberattack had delayed 24 domestic flights for more than 30 minutes, and the impact could expand later in the day.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Three more EU member states -- including the most populous, Germany -- have joined the list of countries with "ultra-low" fertility rates [non-paywalled source], highlighting the extent of the region's demographic challenges. Financial Times: Official statistics show Germany's birth rate fell to 1.35 children per woman in 2023, below the UN's "ultra-low" threshold of 1.4 -- characterising a scenario where falling birth rates become tough to reverse. Estonia and Austria also passed under the 1.4 threshold, joining the nine EU countries -- including Spain, Greece and Italy -- that in 2022 had fertility rates below 1.4 children per woman. The fall in birth rates partially reflects the "postponement of parenthood until the 30s," which involves a "higher likelihood that you will not have as many children as you would like because of the biological clock," said Willem Adema, senior economist at the OECD.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has no plans to develop its own search engine despite potential restrictions on its lucrative revenue-sharing deal with Google, citing billions in required investment and rapidly evolving AI technology as key deterrents, according to a court filing [PDF]. In a declaration filed with the U.S. District Court in Washington, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue said creating a search engine would require diverting significant capital and employees, while recent AI developments make such an investment "economically risky." Apple received approximately $20 billion from Google in 2022 under a deal that makes Google the default search engine on Safari browsers. This arrangement is now under scrutiny in the U.S. government's antitrust case against Google. Cue said Apple lacks the specialized professionals and infrastructure needed for search advertising, which would be essential for a viable search engine. While Apple operates niche advertising like the App Store, search advertising is "outside of Apple's core expertise," he said. Building a search advertising business would also need to be balanced against Apple's privacy commitments, according to his declaration.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Engadget adds: Russia has cited the industry's high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use. This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country's Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lost deliveries, shipping delays and theft on the front porch have become such growing problems that companies are making consumers pay for package protection. From a report: Tens of thousands of online retailers now offer the service for a few dollars per order. The fees go to young companies -- Route and Corso, to name two -- that promise to make customers whole without charging the merchant if a delivery doesn't arrive. Consumers are finding that retailers either ask them to pay for package protection or draw a harder line when it comes to replacing a missing item. Some retailers are making the fees mandatory, spreading the burden of package theft among all customers. To know whether you are paying the fee, review your order before you press purchase. Sometimes it is named after the company offering protection, and sometimes it is called shipping insurance or package protection. Skincare brand Topicals began using Corso two years ago after seeing 30% of its packages were regularly marked delivered but not received, according to customer insights manager Deja Jefferson. By requiring protection, which Topicals discloses on its shipping page, the company doesn't have to worry about convincing customers to opt in. "We actually don't get any complaints on it whatsoever," she said. Further reading: Porch Pirates Steal So Many Packages That Now You Can Get Insurance.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has published a year in review for its Edge browser and talked up AI-powered chats while lightly skipping over the software's stagnating market share. The company had some big numbers to share. There had been over 10 billion AI-powered chats with Copilot from inside the Edge browser window (although it did not disclose how many chats were customers asking how to install Chrome). Some 38 trillion characters had been auto-translated. Seven trillion megabytes of PC memory had been saved through the use of sleeping tabs. However, are those numbers actually as big as they seem? What Microsoft did not say is how little Edge has moved the needle on market share in 2024. Strangely, the company did not share raw usage information. Yet, a look at Statcounter's figures for browser desktop market share showed Edge with 11.9 percent of the market in December 2023 and reaching 12.87 percent by November 2024 -- an increase of less than 1 percent. The market leader, Google's Chrome browser, went from 65.23 percent to 66.33 percent in the same period. That's only slightly more than 1 percent, but it still maintains its dominance.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple may be worth one and a half Googles now, but the world's most valuable company needs its relationship with the world's largest search engine to keep clicking. From a report: Such was evident Monday when Apple filed papers seeking to participate in the penalty phase of the Justice Department's antitrust case against Google. The search giant lost that case in August and is now battling the government over what remedies are appropriate. The DOJ has a long wish list that includes breaking the company up, forcing Google to make key search and user data available to potential rivals, and stopping the payments Google makes to partners such as Apple. The payments to Apple alone now reportedly equate to about $20 billion annually, and make Google the default search engine on devices like the iPhone. Apple didn't confirm any specific amounts in its filing, but did say the company feels compelled to "protect its commercial interests." Analysts widely estimate that the payments from Google are nearly pure profit for Apple, given relatively little incremental cost to generate that revenue. For Apple, $20 billion is about 16% of the operating income reported for the company's fiscal year that ended in September.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Modern LED headlights are significantly brighter and more glaring than traditional halogen bulbs, creating dangerous driving conditions, lighting experts report. The newer lights produce an intense, concentrated beam that is bluer and more disorienting, particularly affecting older drivers. "Headlights are getting brighter, smaller and bluer. All three of those things increase a particular kind of glare. It's called discomfort glare," said Daniel Stern, chief editor of Driving Vision News.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Software development is entering an "autopilot era" with AI coding assistants, but the industry needs to prepare for full autonomy, argues former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor. Drawing parallels with self-driving cars, he suggests the role of software engineers will evolve from code authors to operators of code-generating machines. Taylor, a board member of OpenAI and who once rewrote Google Maps over a weekend, calls for new programming systems, languages, and verification methods to ensure AI-generated code remains robust and secure. From his post: In the Autonomous Era of software engineering, the role of a software engineer will likely transform from being the author of computer code to being the operator of a code generating machine. What is a computer programming system built natively for that workflow? If generating code is no longer a limiting factor, what types of programming languages should we build? If a computer is generating most code, how do we make it easy for a software engineer to verify it does what they intend? What is the role of programming language design (e.g., what Rust did for memory safety)? What is the role of formal verification? What is the role of tests, CI/CD, and development workflows? Today, a software engineer's primary desktop is their editor. What is the Mission Control for a software engineer in the era of autonomous development?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The annual defense policy bill signed by President Joe Biden Monday evening allocates $3 billion to help telecom firms remove and replace insecure equipment in response to recent incursions by Chinese-linked hackers. From a report: The fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act outlines Pentagon policy and military budget priorities for the year and also includes non-defense measures added as Congress wrapped up its work in December. The $895 billion spending blueprint passed the Senate and House with broad bipartisan support. The $3 billion would go to a Federal Communications Commission program, commonly called "rip and replace," to get rid of Chinese networking equipment due to national security concerns. The effort was created in 2020 to junk equipment made by telecom giant Huawei. It had an initial investment of $1.9 billion, roughly $3 billion shy of what experts said was needed to cauterize the potential vulnerability. Calls to replenish the fund have increased recently in the wake of two hacking campaigns by China, dubbed Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, that saw hackers insert malicious code in U.S. infrastructure and break into at least eight telecom firms. The bill also includes a watered down requirement for the Defense Department to tap an independent third-party to study the feasibility of creating a U.S. Cyber Force, along with an "evaluation of alternative organizational models for the cyber forces" of the military branches.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

They gave it the old college try, but America's elite universities are facing money problems partly of their own creation. From a report: It might not seem that way compared with the broader world of U.S. higher education. Ivy League institutions and a handful in a similar orbit like Stanford, Duke and the University of Chicago aren't just blessed to have international cachet and their pick of excellent students and professors -- they also have the most money and the richest alumni. By contrast, public and especially smaller private colleges and universities are cutting staff and programs. Many are closing outright. A school like Harvard, now well into its fourth century, will almost certainly survive for a fifth one. But there are financial problems below the surface that could emerge if the bull market stumbles and especially if some proposed Trump administration policies are enacted. Harvard's $53.2 billion endowment is so huge that the difference between a good and a so-so investment performance translates to sums that would dwarf most colleges' entire nest eggs. Former Harvard President and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers estimated this year that if Harvard had been able to just keep up with other Ivies and "large endowment schools" in the past several years, it would have $20 billion more. For perspective, he says that just $1 billion could fund 100 professorships or permanently cover tuition for 100 students. But even Harvard's peer group isn't doing as well as it could. Veteran investment consultant Richard Ennis wrote this month that high costs and "outdated perceptions of superiority" have stymied Ivy League endowment returns, which could have been worth 20% more since the 2008 financial crisis if invested in a classic stock and bond mix.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Boston Globe: Every weekday morning at 8:30, Preston Thorpe makes himself a cup of instant coffee and opens his laptop to find the coding tasks awaiting his seven-person team at Unlocked Labs. Like many remote workers, Thorpe, the nonprofit's principal engineer, works out in the middle of the day and often stays at his computer late into the night. But outside Thorpe's window, there's a soaring chain-link fence topped with coiled barbed wire. And at noon and 4 p.m. every day, a prison guard peers into his room to make sure he's where he's supposed to be at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine, where he's serving his 12th year for two drug-related convictions in New Hampshire, including intent to distribute synthetic opioids. Remote work has spread far and wide since the pandemic spurred a work-from-home revolution of sorts, but perhaps no place more unexpectedly than behind prison walls. Thorpe is one of more than 40 people incarcerated in Maine's state prison system who have landed internships and jobs with outside companies over the past two years -- some of whom work full time from their cells and earn more than the correctional officers who guard them. A handful of other states have also started allowing remote work in recent years, but none have gone as far as Maine, according to the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, the nonprofit leading the effort. Unlike incarcerated residents with jobs in the kitchen or woodshop who earn just a few hundred dollars a month, remote workers make fair-market wages, allowing them to pay victim restitution fees and legal costs, provide child support, and contribute to Social Security and other retirement funds. Like inmates in work-release programs who have jobs out in the community, 10 percent of remote workers' wages go to the state to offset the cost of room and board. All Maine DOC residents get re-entry support for housing and job searches before they're released, and remote workers leave with even more: up-to-date resumes, a nest egg -- and the hope that they're less likely to need food or housing assistance, or resort to crime to get by.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new study reveals that the widely accepted "sophomore slump" phenomenon -- where a band's second album is perceived as significantly worse than the first -- exists primarily in professional critics' reviews, not fan ratings. Researchers suggest this bias stems from social conformity among critics, while fans provide more consistent and reliable evaluations across albums. "If every music critic has heard of a sophomore slump and everyone knows it happens, they might be convinced to over-apply it in their reviews," said Gregory Webster, Ph.D., the R. David Thomas Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida and co-author of the new study. "We suspect it's a kind of social conformity, which we see in a lot of social groups." Phys.Org reports: Webster and his co-author, University of Hannover Professor of Educational Science Lysann Zander, Ph.D., analyzed thousands of albums rated by professional critics and amateur fans. Both critics and fans said that bands' albums generally got worse over time. But critics were exceptionally harsh with the second album, which was an outlier in this downward trajectory. "It's only critics that show substantial evidence of a sophomore slump bias, whereby they are giving artists' second albums unusually low reviews compared to their first and third albums," Webster said. "Fans show no evidence of a sophomore slump bias." Webster and Zander expected that fan ratings would reflect a broader consensus about a band's true performance. Fans aren't pressured by the same social norms as professional critics. And with ratings from thousands of fans, the researchers could average across a large group to find more reliable ratings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe made a historic approach on Christmas Eve, flying within 3.8 million miles of the Sun at a record-breaking speed of 430,000 mph. It marks humanity's closest encounter with a star. Live Science reports: Mission control cannot communicate with the probe during this rendezvous due to its vicinity to the sun, and will only know how the spacecraft fared in the early hours of Dec. 27 after a beacon signal confirms both the flyby's success and the overall state of the spacecraft. Images gathered during the flyby will beam home in early January, followed by scientific data later in the month when the probe swoops further away from the sun, Nour Rawafi, who is the project scientist for the mission, told reporters at the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) earlier this month. Parker launched in 2018 to help decode some of the biggest mysteries about our sun, such as why its outermost layer, the corona, heats up as it moves further from the sun's surface, and what processes accelerate charged particles to near-light speeds. In addition to revolutionizing our understanding about the sun, the probe also caught rare closeups of passing comets and studied the surface of Venus. On Christmas Eve, scientists expect the probe to have flown through plumes of plasma still attached to the sun, and hope it observed solar flares occurring simultaneously due to ramped-up turbulence on the sun's surface, which spark breathtaking auroras on Earth but also disrupt communication systems and other technology. "Right now, Parker Solar Probe has achieved what we designed the mission for," Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a NASA video released on Dec. 24. "It's just a total 'Yay! We did it' moment."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An AI system has outperformed human experts in distinguishing between American whiskey and Scotch, achieving 100% accuracy by identifying subtle differences in the chemical composition of the spirits. New Scientist reports: Andreas Grasskamp at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany and his colleagues trained an AI molecular odor prediction algorithm called OWSum on descriptions of different whiskies. Then, in a study involving 16 samples -- nine types of Scotch whisky and seven types of American bourbon or whiskey -- they tasked OWSum with telling drinks from the two nations apart based on keyword descriptions of their flavors, such as flowery, fruity, woody or smoky. Using these alone, the AI could tell which country a drink came from with almost 94 per cent accuracy. Because the complex aroma of these spirits is determined by the absence or presence of many chemical compounds, the researchers also fed the AI a reference dataset of 390 molecules commonly found in whiskies. When they gave the AI data from gas chromatography -- mass spectrometry showing which molecules were present in the sample spirits, it boosted OWSum's ability to differentiate American from Scotch drams to 100 percent. Compounds such as menthol and citronellol were a dead giveaway for American whiskey, while the presence of methyl decanoate and heptanoic acid pointed to Scotch. The researchers also tested both OWSum and a neural network on their ability to predict the top five odor keywords based on the chemical contents of a whisky. On a score from 1 for perfect accuracy to 0 for consistent inaccuracy, OWSum achieved 0.72. The neural network achieved 0.78 and human whisky expert test participants achieved only 0.57. The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications Chemistry.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have experimentally observed "negative time" in photon interactions with atoms, suggesting a measurable effect rather than an illusion. The researchers stress that these findings, posted on the preprint server arXiv, don't imply time travel. Phys.Org reports: The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results. [...] The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules. Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations -- some of which defy everyday intuition. Critically, the researchers say, this doesn't violate Einstein's theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits. "We've made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results," said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specializing in experimental quantum physics, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena. "I'll be honest, I don't currently have a path from what we've been looking at toward applications," he admitted. "We're going to keep thinking about it, but I don't want to get people's hopes up."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Although Samsung Foundry is a major chip contract manufacturer, the South Korean government mulls creating a government-funded contract chipmaker tentatively called Korea Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, KSMC, reports The Korea Biz Wire. Industry experts and academics have proposed the initiative. The Semiconductor Industry Association's Ahn Ki-hyun called for a long-term government investment. Experts project that an investment of KRW 20 trillion ($13.9 billion) in KSMC could result in economic gains of KRW 300 trillion ($208.7 billion) by 2045. However, the big question is whether $13.9 billion is enough to establish a chipmaker. Another concern about publicly funded corporations like KSMC is whether they could develop advanced manufacturing technologies and land enough orders from clients to be profitable. It turns out that in addition to semiconductor makers, Korea needs more fabless software developers. The proposal was introduced during a seminar hosted by the National Academy of Engineering of Korea (NAEK). The plan aims to address structural weaknesses in the industry, such as an over-reliance on Samsung's advanced nodes under 10nm amid the lack of mature process technologies. Smaller system semiconductor firms struggle to thrive as Korea lacks manufacturing diversity, as seen in Taiwan, where companies like UMC and PSMC that focus on mature and specialty nodes complement TSMC's advanced process technologies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 2024, North Korean state-sponsored hackers stole $1.34 billion in cryptocurrency across 47 attacks, marking a 102.88% increase from 2023 and accounting for 61% of global crypto theft. BleepingComputer reports: Although the total number of incidents in 2024 reached a record-breaking 303, the total losses figure isn't unprecedented, as 2022 remains the most damaging year with $3.7 billion. Chainalysis says most of the incidents this year occurred between January and July, during which 72% of the total amount for 2024 was stolen. The report highlights the DMM Bitcoin hack from May, where over $305 million was lost, and the WazirX cyberheist from July, which resulted in the loss of $235 million. As for what types of platforms suffered the most damage, DeFi platforms were followed by centralized services. Regarding the means, the analysts report that private key compromises accounted for 44% of the losses, while exploitation of security flaws corresponded to just 6.3% of stolen cryptocurrency. This is a sign that security audits have a significant effect on reducing exploitable flaws on the platforms. However, stricter security practices in the handling of private keys need to be implemented.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 140 Facebook content moderators have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content including murders, suicides, child sexual abuse and terrorism. The moderators worked eight- to 10-hour days at a facility in Kenya for a company contracted by the social media firm and were found to have PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), by Dr Ian Kanyanya, the head of mental health services at Kenyatta National hospital in Nairobi. The mass diagnoses have been made as part of lawsuit being brought against Facebook's parent company, Meta, and Samasource Kenya, an outsourcing company that carried out content moderation for Meta using workers from across Africa. The images and videos including necrophilia, bestiality and self-harm caused some moderators to faint, vomit, scream and run away from their desks, the filings allege. The case is shedding light on the human cost of the boom in social media use in recent years that has required more and more moderation, often in some of the poorest parts of the world, to protect users from the worst material that some people post. The lawsuit claims that at least 40 moderators experienced substance misuse, marital breakdowns, and disconnection from their families, while some feared being hunted by terrorist groups they monitored. Despite being paid eight times less than their U.S. counterparts, moderators worked under intense surveillance in harsh, warehouse-like conditions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) warns that while most adults recognize the importance of wiping personal data from old devices, nearly 30% don't know how, and a significant number of young people either don't care or find it too cumbersome. The Register reports: Clearing personal data off an old device is an important step before ditching it or handing it on to another user. However, almost three in ten (29 percent) of adults don't know how to remove the information, according to a survey of 2,170 members of the UK public. Seventy-one percent agreed that wiping a device was important, but almost a quarter (24 percent) reckoned it was too arduous. This means that the drawer of dusty devices is set to swell -- three-quarters of respondents reported hanging on to at least one old device, and a fifth did so because they were worried about their personal information. [...] More than one in five (21 percent) of young people in the survey didn't think it was important to wipe personal data, while 23 percent said they didn't care about what might happen to that data. Fourteen percent of people aged 18-34 said they wouldn't bother wiping their devices at all, compared to just 4 percent of people over 55. On the plus side, the majority (84 percent) of respondents said they would ensure data was erased before disposing of a device. Alternatively, some might not worry about it and stick it in that special drawer alongside all the cables that might be needed one day. The survey also found that more than a quarter (27 percent) of UK adults were planning to treat themselves to a new device over the festive season [...].Read more of this story at Slashdot.

El Salvador secured a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF after agreeing to scale back its bitcoin policies, making cryptocurrency acceptance voluntary for businesses and limiting public sector involvement. The deal aims to stabilize the country's economy, with bitcoin's recent rally boosting the value of El Salvador's holdings. The BBC reports: In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high of more than $108,000. "The potential risks of the Bitcoin project will be diminished significantly in line with Fund policies," the IMF announcement said. "Legal reforms will make acceptance of Bitcoin by the private sector voluntary. For the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin-related economic activities and transactions in and purchases of Bitcoin will be confined." Last Friday, El Salvdaor purchased more than 11 BTC worth $1.07 million and executed another 11 BTC purchase on Sunday, according to crypto data platform Arkham. El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, is ramping up buys "with an interim goal of acquiring 20,000 more Bitcoin," reports the Daily Hodl.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In a landmark ruling, the Court of Milan has ordered (PDF) Cloudflare to block pirate streaming services that offer Serie A football matches. The court found that Cloudflare's services are instrumental in facilitating access to live pirate streams, undermining Italy's 'Piracy Shield' legislation. The order, which applies in Italy, affects Cloudflare's CDN, DNS resolver, WARP and proxy services. It also includes a broad data disclosure section. [...] The Court of Milan's decision prohibits Cloudflare from resolving domain names and routing internet traffic to IP addresses of all services present on the "Piracy Shield" system. This also applies to future domains and aliases used by these pirate services. The order applies to Cloudflare's content delivery network (CDN), DNS services, and reverse proxy services. The order also mentions Cloudflare's free VPN among the targets, likely referring to the WARP service. If any of the targeted pirate streaming providers use Cloudflare's services to infringe on Serie A's copyrights, the company Cloudflare must stop providing CDN, authoritative DNS, and reverse proxy services to these customers. (Note: This is an Italian court order and Cloudflare previously used geotargeting to block sites only in Italy. It may respond similarly here, but terminating customer accounts only in Italy might be more complicated. ) Finally, the order further includes a data disclosure component, under which Cloudflare must identify customers who use Cloudflare's services to offer pirated streams. This should help Serie A to track down those responsible. The data disclosure section also covers information related to the 'VPN' and alternative public DNS services, where these relate to the IPTV platforms identified in the case. That covers traffic volume and connection logs, including IP-addresses and timestamps. In theory, that could also cover data on people who accessed these services using Cloudflare's VPN and DNS resolver. [...] The court ordered Cloudflare to cover the costs of the proceeding and if it doesn't implement the blocking requirements in time, an additional fine of 10,000 euros per day will apply.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The UK Post Office has appointed Paul Anastassi as interim CTO amid efforts to replace its controversial Horizon IT system, which led to hundreds of wrongful convictions of subpostmasters due to software errors since 1999. The appointment, the news of which an anonymous reader shared, comes as the Post Office grapples with its $1.25 billion over-budget New Branch IT project, which was recently paused after being deemed "unachievable" in a government report. The organization is reportedly considering purchasing the Horizon system from Fujitsu while combining it with in-house and commercial software solutions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mass game shutdowns and service terminations marked 2024 as a pivotal year for digital ownership concerns in the gaming industry. PC Gamer adds: The arguments have been around forever, but they've been made concrete by the simple fact that, over the last decade in particular, we've seen more and more games simply disappear. And we're not talking about obscure hobbyist projects, but seriously big budget titles that companies have spent millions developing, and hundreds of devs have spent years of their careers on. Sony's Concord shooter lasted only 11 days before closure, while Ubisoft's decade-old The Crew became unplayable in April, sparking the Stop Killing Games campaign. The movement, which has gathered over 400,000 signatures, aims to pressure EU regulators to ban publishers from rendering multiplayer games inoperable.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the past year, OpenAI has dropped not-so-subtle hints about its revived interest in robotics: investing in startups developing hardware and software for robots such as Figure and Physical Intelligence and rebooting its internal robotics software team, which it had disbanded four years ago. Now, OpenAI could be taking that interest to the next level. The company has recently considered developing a humanoid robot, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. As a refresher, humanoid robots typically have two arms and two legs, distinguishing them from typical robots in a warehouse or factory that might have a single arm repeatedly performing the same task on an assembly line. Developers of humanoid robots think it will be easier for them to handle tasks in the physical world -- which is tailored to humans -- than it would be to change our physical environments to suit new robots.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The video game industry faced unprecedented turmoil in 2024, with layoffs reaching record levels and exceeding 2023's total of 10,000 jobs lost by 40%. Major studios including Microsoft's Arkane Austin and Sony's Firewalk were shuttered, while indie developers struggled to secure funding amid the downturn. Industry analyst Matthew Ball attributed the crisis -- in a conversation with Wired -- to multiple factors, including rising development costs, shifting consumer spending, and game pricing challenges. Commercial failures of high-profile releases like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League compounded the industry's struggles. The upheaval coincided with intensified online harassment campaigns targeting developers over diversity initiatives, echoing 2014's Gamergate movement. Despite critically acclaimed releases like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Balatro, the industry enters 2025 facing continued uncertainty around employment stability and the growing influence of AI.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has long avoided directly purchasing Nvidia's chips and is now developing its own AI server chip with Broadcom, aiming for production by 2026, The Information reported Tuesday, shedding broader light on why the two companies don't get along so well. The relationship deteriorated after a 2001 meeting where Steve Jobs accused Nvidia of copying technology from Pixar, which he then controlled. Relations worsened in 2008 when Nvidia's faulty graphics chips forced Apple to extend MacBook warranties without full compensation. Rather than buying Nvidia's dominant AI processors directly like its tech peers, the Information reports, Apple rents them through cloud providers while also using Google's custom chips for training large AI models. The company's new chip project, code-named Baltra, marks its most ambitious effort yet to reduce reliance on external AI processors, despite being one of the largest indirect users of Nvidia chips through cloud services.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ASUS computer owners have been reporting widespread alarm after a Christmas-themed banner suddenly appeared on their Windows 11 screens, accompanied by a suspicious "Christmas.exe" process in Task Manager. The promotional campaign, first reported by WindowsLatest, was delivered through ASUS' pre-installed Armoury Crate software. It displays a large wreath banner that covers one-third of users' screens. The unbranded holiday display, which can interrupt gaming sessions and occasionally crashes applications, has triggered security concerns among users who initially mistook it for malware.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Contractors working to improve Google's Gemini AI are comparing its answers against outputs produced by Anthropic's competitor model Claude, TechCrunch reported Tuesday, citing internal correspondence. From the report: Google would not say, when reached by TechCrunch for comment, if it had obtained permission for its use of Claude in testing against Gemini. As tech companies race to build better AI models, the performance of these models are often evaluated against competitors, typically by running their own models through industry benchmarks rather than having contractors painstakingly evaluate their competitors' AI responses. The contractors working on Gemini tasked with rating the accuracy of the model's outputs must score each response that they see according to multiple criteria, like truthfulness and verbosity. The contractors are given up to 30 minutes per prompt to determine whose answer is better, Gemini's or Claude's, according to the correspondence seen by TechCrunch.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Arizona's Maricopa County is set to become the nation's second-largest data center hub by 2028, as the state grapples with surging electricity demands and infrastructure challenges. The county has approved at least 20 new data center projects, trailing only Virginia's Loudoun County in scale. Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility provider, projects data centers will account for 55% of its future electricity needs. The utility board recently approved an 8% rate hike to bolster power infrastructure but rejected a plan to electrify parts of the Navajo Nation, citing concerns over cost allocation to customers. The expansion comes as Arizona markets itself as an ideal location for data centers, offering tax incentives and relatively cheap power since 2013.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A consortium of investors has resurrected Lilium just days after the electric air taxi startup ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 employees. From a report: Mobile Uplift Corporation, a company set up by investors from Europe and North America, has agreed to acquire the operating assets of the startup's two subsidiaries, Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH, per an announcement Tuesday. The parent company, Lilium N.V, will not receive any funds in accordance with German insolvency law. Terms of the deal, which are expected to close in January, were not disclosed. Consultancy giant KPMG handled the sale process for Lilium. Mobile Uplift Corporation said in the announcement it intends to rehire workers who were laid off immediately after opening of the proceedings and closing of the transaction. It isn't clear if all 1,000 workers will be rehired.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Research finds people who have more than four coffees a day have 17% lower chance of head and neck cancers. From a report: If the only thing getting you through a mountain of present-wrapping is a mug of tea or coffee, be of good cheer. Researchers have found people who consume those drinks have a slightly lower risk of head and neck cancers. There are about 12,800 new head and neck cancer cases and about 4,100 related deaths in the UK every year, according to Cancer Research UK. The new study does not prove that tea and coffee are themselves protective against such cancers, but experts say the findings help to shed light on what has been a much debated area with inconsistent results. "While there has been prior research on coffee and tea consumption and reduced risk of cancer, this study highlighted their varying effects with different sub-sites of head and neck cancer including the observation that even decaffeinated coffee had some positive impact," said Dr Yuan-Chin Amy Lee of Huntsman Cancer Institute and the University of Utah School of Medicine, the senior author of the study. Writing in the journal Cancer, the team report how they analysed data from 14 studies that covered Europe, North America and Latin America. [...] After taking into account factors such as age, sex, daily number of cigarettes smoked, alcohol consumption and fruit and vegetable consumption, the researchers found that people who drink more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day have a 17% lower chance of developing head and neck cancers overall compared with those who do not drink the beverage. Specifically they found such consumption was associated with reduced odds of cancers of the oral cavity and the oropharynx -- part of the throat just behind the mouth.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of banks and business groups are suing the Federal Reserve over the annual bank stress tests. From a report: The Bank Policy Institute, which represents big banks like JPMorgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, is joining the American Bankers Association, the Ohio Bankers League, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to file the suit, which they said aims to "resolve longstanding legal violations by subjecting the stress test process to public input as required by federal law." The groups said they don't oppose stress testing, but that the current process falls short and "produces vacillating and unexplained requirements and restrictions on bank capital." The Fed's stress test is an annual ritual that forces banks to maintain adequate cushions for bad loans and dictates the size of share repurchases and dividends. After the market close on Monday, the Federal Reserve announced in a statement that it is looking to make changes to the bank stress tests and will be seeking public comment on what it calls "significant changes to improve the transparency of its bank stress tests and to reduce the volatility of resulting capital buffer requirements."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix has sued Broadcom in California federal court, accusing the chipmaker's cloud computing subsidiary VMware of violating its patent rights in virtual machines. From a report: The lawsuit said VMware's cloud software infringes five Netflix patents covering aspects of operating virtual machines. Broadcom and Netflix have been embroiled in a separate patent dispute since 2018 over Netflix's alleged infringement of Broadcom patents related to video streaming technology, with cases in California, Germany and the Netherlands.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Walmart and payroll service provider Branch Messenger for alleged illegal payment practices for gig workers. The bureau says Walmart was opening direct deposit accounts using Spark delivery drivers' social security numbers without their consent. The accounts also can come with intense fees that, according to the complaint, would add either 2 percent or $2.99 per transaction, whichever is higher. It also says Walmart repeatedly promised to provide drivers with same-day payments through the platform starting in July 2021 but never delivered on that. The Bureau alleges that for approximately two years starting around June 2021, defendants engaged in unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, including by requiring Spark Drivers to receive their compensation in Branch Accounts, opening Branch Accounts for Spark Drivers without their informed consent or, in many instances, on an unauthorized basis, and making deceptive statements about Branch to Spark Drivers. Spark delivery workers have been complaining about Walmart's Branch Messenger account requirements for years, which forced workers to use these accounts with no option to direct deposit to a preferred credit union or local bank. Walmart allegedly told workers they'd be terminated if they didn't accept the Branch accounts.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new study finds that polymer-based commercial tea bags release billions of nanoplastics and microplastics when infused. It also shows for the first time that these particles are capable of being absorbed by human intestinal cells, entering the bloodstream, and potentially affecting human health. The study by the Mutagenesis Group of the UAB Department of Genetics and Microbiology has been published in the journal Chemosphere. Medical Xpress reports: The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers. To characterize the different types of particles present in the infusion, a set of advanced analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) were used. The particles were stained and exposed for the first time to different types of human intestinal cells to assess their interaction and possible cellular internalization. The biological interaction experiments showed that mucus-producing intestinal cells had the highest uptake of micro and nanoplastics, with the particles even entering the cell nucleus that houses the genetic material. The result suggests a key role for intestinal mucus in the uptake of these pollutant particles and underscores the need for further research into the effects that chronic exposure can have on human health.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

fjo3 shares a report from the Washington Post: The International Space Station had to fire thrusters from a docked spacecraft last month to avoid a piece of debris that has been circling the globe for the nearly 18 years since the Chinese government blasted apart one of its own satellites in a weapons test. The evasive maneuver was the second in just six days for the space station, which has four NASA astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts aboard. That is the shortest interval ever between such actions, illustrating the slowly worsening problem of space junk in orbit. Debris is an increasingly vexing issue not only for NASA, but also for companies such as SpaceX and OneWeb seeking to protect the thousands of small satellites they send into space to provide high-speed internet. The debris cloud from China's 2007 destruction of the Fengyun 1C satellite remains one of the most persistent threats in orbit, with about 3,500 fragments still posing collision risks to spacecraft. Since 2020, the ISS has performed 15 debris-avoidance maneuvers. The evasive maneuver was performed after a Space Force warning. According to the report, Space Force now tracks over 47,200 objects in orbit, issuing approximately 23 daily collision warnings -- up from just six per day five years ago.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system that lets robots practice tasks in simulated reality 430,000 times faster than in the real world. Researchers also plan to introduce an AI agent to generate 3D physics simulations from text prompts. The accelerated simulation means a neural network for piloting robots can spend the virtual equivalent of decades learning to pick up objects, walk, or manipulate tools during just hours of real computer time. "One hour of compute time gives a robot 10 years of training experience. That's how Neo was able to learn martial arts in a blink of an eye in the Matrix Dojo," wrote Genesis paper co-author Jim Fan on X, who says he played a "minor part" in the research. Fan has previously worked on several robotics simulation projects for Nvidia. [...] The team also announced they are working on the ability to generate what it calls "4D dynamic worlds" -- perhaps using "4D" because they can simulate a 3D world in motion over time. The system will reportedly use vision-language models (VLMs) to generate complete virtual environments from text descriptions (similar to "prompts" in other AI models), utilizing Genesis's own simulation infrastructure APIs to create the worlds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PCWorld's Jon Phillips pays tribute to Gordon Mah Ung, "our hardware guru, host of The Full Nerd, exemplary tech journalist, and very good friend." He passed away over the weekend after a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 58. From the report: With more than 25 years' experience covering computer tech broadly and computer chips specifically, Gordon's dogged reporting, one-of-a-kind personality, and commitment to journalistic standards touched many, many lives. He will be profoundly missed by co-workers, industry sources, and the PC enthusiasts who read his words and followed him as a video creator. Gordon studied journalism at San Francisco State University and then worked as a police reporter for the Contra Costa Times in the late 1990s. In 1997, he joined Computerworld (a PCWorld sister publication) before I recruited him to join boot magazine (later re-launched as Maximum PC), where he would ultimately lead hardware coverage for 16 years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers at Northwestern University have successfully achieved quantum teleportation over a standard fiber optic cable carrying regular internet traffic, demonstrating that quantum and classical communication can coexist on existing infrastructure. The research has been published in the journal Optica. TechSpot reports: Nobody thought it would be possible to achieve this, according to Professor Prem Kumar, who led the study. "Our work shows a path towards next-generation quantum and classical networks sharing a unified fiber optic infrastructure. Basically, it opens the door to pushing quantum communications to the next level." "By performing a destructive measurement on two photons -- one carrying a quantum state and one entangled with another photon -- the quantum state is transferred onto the remaining photon, which can be very far away," said Jordan Thomas, a Ph.D. candidate in Kumar's laboratory and the paper's first author. "The photon itself does not have to be sent over long distances, but its state still ends up encoded onto the distant photon." Prior to this study, many researchers were skeptical about the feasibility of quantum teleportation in cables carrying classic communications. The concern was that the entangled photons would be overwhelmed by the millions of other light particles present in the fiber optic cables. However, Kumar and his team were able to devise a solution. Through extensive studies of light scattering within fiber optic cables, the researchers identified a less crowded wavelength of light to place their photons. They also implemented special filters to reduce noise from regular Internet traffic. Kumar explained that he and his team conducted a meticulous analysis of light scattering patterns and strategically positioned their photons at a critical point where the scattering effect was minimized. To validate their method, the team set up a 30-kilometer-long (18.6 miles) fiber optic cable with a photon at each end. They simultaneously transmitted quantum information and high-speed Internet traffic through the cable. The quality of the quantum information was measured at the receiving end while executing the teleportation protocol by making quantum measurements at the mid-point. The results showed that the quantum information was successfully transmitted, even in the presence of busy internet traffic.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vietnam's Decree 147 mandates social media users on platforms like Facebook and TikTok to verify their identities and requires tech companies to store and share user data with authorities upon request, sparking concerns over increased censorship, self-censorship, and threats to free expression. Furthermore, the decree imposes restrictions on gaming time for minors and limits livestreaming to verified accounts. It becomes effective on Christmas Day. The Guardian reports: Decree 147, as it is known, builds on a 2018 cybersecurity law that was sharply criticized by the US, EU and internet freedom advocates who said it mimics China's repressive internet censorship. [...] Critics say that decree 147 will also expose dissidents who post anonymously to the risk of arrest. "Many people work quietly but effectively in advancing the universal values of human rights," Ho Chi Minh City-based blogger and rights activist Nguyen Hoang Vi told AFP. She warned that the new decree "may encourage self-censorship, where people avoid expressing dissenting views to protect their safety -- ultimately harming the overall development of democratic values" in the country. Le Quang Tu Do, of the ministry of information and communications (MIC), told state media that decree 147 would "regulate behavior in order to maintain social order, national security, and national sovereignty in cyberspace." [...] Human Rights Watch is calling on the government to repeal the "draconian" new decree. "Vietnam's new Decree 147 and its other cybersecurity laws neither protect the public from any genuine security concerns nor respect fundamental human rights," said Patricia Gossman, HRW's associate Asia director. "Because the Vietnamese police treat any criticism of the Communist party of Vietnam as a national security matter, this decree will provide them with yet another tool to suppress dissent."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Health care company Ascension lost sensitive data for nearly 5.6 million individuals in a cyberattack that was attributed to a notorious ransomware gang, according to documents filed with the attorney general of Maine. Ascension owns 140 hospitals and scores of assisted living facilities. In May, the organization was hit with an attack that caused mass disruptions as staff was forced to move to manual processes that caused errors, delayed or lost lab results, and diversions of ambulances to other hospitals. Ascension managed to restore most services by mid-June. At the time, the company said the attackers had stolen protected health information and personally identifiable information for an undisclosed number of people. A filing Ascension made earlier in December revealed that nearly 5.6 million people were affected by the breach. Data stolen depended on the particular person but included individuals' names and medical information (e.g., medical record numbers, dates of service, types of lab tests, or procedure codes), payment information (e.g., credit card information or bank account numbers), insurance information (e.g., Medicaid/Medicare ID, policy number, or insurance claim), governmentidentification (e.g., Social Security numbers, tax identification numbers, driver's license numbers, or passport numbers), and other personal information (such as date of birth or address). Ascension is now in the process of notifying affected individuals. The organization is also offering two years of credit and fraud monitoring, a $1 million insurance reimbursement policy, and managed ID theft recovery services. The services became effective last Thursday. Further reading: Black Basta Ransomware Attack Brought Down Ascension IT Systems, Report FindsRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Since 2021, Apple has been sending threat notifications to certain users, informing them that they may have been individually targeted by mercenary spyware attacks. When victims of spyware reach out to Apple for help, TechCrunch reports, "Apple doesn't tell the targets to get in touch with its own security engineers." Instead, Apple directs them to the nonprofit security lab Access Now, "which runs a digital helpline for people in civil society who suspect they have been targets of government spyware." While some view this as Apple sidestepping responsibility, cybersecurity experts agree that Apple's approach -- alerting victims, directing them to specialized support, and recommending tools like Lockdown Mode -- has been a game changer in combating mercenary spyware threats. From the report: For people who investigate spyware, Apple sharing spyware notifications with victims represented a turning point. Before the notifications, "We were just like in the dark, not knowing who to check," according to Access Now's legal counsel Natalia Krapiva. "I think it's one of the greatest things that's happened in the sphere of this kind of forensic investigations and hunting of sophisticated spyware," Krapiva told TechCrunch. Now, when someone or a group of people get a notification from Apple, they are warned that something potentially anomalous is happening with their device, that someone is targeting them, and that they need to get help. And Apple tells them exactly where to get it, according to Scott-Railton, who said Access Now's helpline is the right place to go because "the helpline is able to do good, systematic triage work and support." Krapiva said that the helpline is staffed by more than 30 people, supported by others who work in other departments of the nonprofit. So far in 2024, Krapiva said Access Now received 4,337 tickets through the helpline. For anyone alerted by a notification, Apple tells those targets and victims of spyware to update their iOS software and all their apps. Apple also suggests the user switches on Lockdown Mode, an opt-in iOS security feature that has stopped spyware attacks in the past by limiting device features that are often exploited to plant spyware. Apple said last year that it is not aware of any successful spyware infection against someone who used Lockdown Mode.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration has launched a Section 301 investigation into China's semiconductor industry, citing concerns over non-market practices, supply chain dependencies, and national security risks. The Hill reports: In a fact sheet, the White House said China "routinely engages in non-market policies and practices, as well as industrial targeting, of the semiconductor industry" that harms competition and creates "dangerous supply chain dependencies." The Biden administration said the Office of the United States Trade Representative would launch a Section 301 investigation to examine China's targeting of semiconductor chips for dominance, an effort to see whether the practices are unfairly hurting U.S. trade and take potential action. The investigation will broadly probe Chinese nonmarket practices and policies related to semiconductors and look at how the products are incorporated into industries for defense, auto, aerospace, medical, telecommunications and power. It will also examine production of silicon carbide substrates or other wafers used as inputs for semiconductors. The probe launches four weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. "The effort could offer Trump a ready avenue to begin imposing some of the hefty 60% tariffs he has threatened on Chinese imports," notes Reuters. "Departing President Joe Biden has already imposed a 50% U.S. tariff on Chinese semiconductors that starts on Jan. 1. His administration also has tightened export curbs on advanced artificial intelligence and memory chips and chipmaking equipment."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Once an icon of the 20th century seen as obsolete in the 21st, Encyclopedia Britannica -- now known as just Britannica -- is all in on artificial intelligence, and may soon go public at a valuation of nearly $1 billion, according to the New York Times. Until 2012 when printing ended, the company's books served as the oldest continuously published, English-language encyclopedias in the world, essentially collecting all the world's knowledge in one place before Google or Wikipedia were a thing. That has helped Britannica pivot into the AI age, where models benefit from access to high-quality, vetted information. More general-purpose models like ChatGPT suffer from hallucinations because they have hoovered up the entire internet, including all the junk and misinformation. While it still offers an online edition of its encyclopedia, as well as the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Britannica's biggest business today is selling online education software to schools and libraries, the software it hopes to supercharge with AI. That could mean using AI to customize learning plans for individual students. The idea is that students will enjoy learning more when software can help them understand the gaps in their understanding of a topic and stay on it longer. Another education tech company, Brainly, recently announced that answers from its chatbot will link to the exact learning materials (i.e. textbooks) they reference. Britannica's CEO Jorge Cauz also told the Times about the company's Britannica AI chatbot, which allows users to ask questions about its vast database of encyclopedic knowledge that it collected over two centuries from vetted academics and editors. The company similarly offers chatbot software for customer service use cases. Britannica told the Times it is expecting revenue to double from two years ago, to $100 million.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sweden has accused China of denying a request for Swedish prosecutors to board a Chinese ship that has been linked to the cutting of two undersea cables in the Baltic despite Beijing pledging "cooperation" with regional authorities. From a report: The Yi Peng 3 left the waters it had been anchored in since last month on Saturday -- despite an ongoing investigation. The ship was tracked sailing over the two fibre-optic cables, one between Sweden and Lithuania, and the other linking Helsinki and Germany, at around the time that they were cut on 17 and 18 November in Swedish territorial waters close to the Swedish islands of Gotland and Oland. For more than a month afterwards it was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark where it was being observed by multiple countries and was boarded by Swedish police and other authorities last week. The ship tracking site VesselFinder showed the Yi Peng 3 heading north out of the strait on Saturday and on Monday China confirmed the ship had left in order to "ensure the physical and mental wellbeing of the crew." The Swedish foreign minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, said on Monday that China had not cooperated with Sweden's request to allow Swedish prosecutors onboard.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A rare Sony KX-45ED1 television, considered the world's largest CRT TV, has been preserved from destruction in Japan, marking a significant moment for gaming history preservation. The 440-pound display was salvaged from an Osaka restaurant days before its scheduled demolition, following a two-week international rescue operation. Gaming enthusiast Shank Mods, aided by local contacts and industrial shipping experts, secured the functioning 45-inch unit, which originally sold for $40,000 in the late 1980s. The TV, valued by retro gaming enthusiasts for its authentic, lag-free display capabilities, could potentially become a public exhibit pending future funding.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Department of Justice's list of solutions for fixing Google's illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own. Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ's filing considers, Google's proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services, its licensing deals with companies that make Android phones, and contracts with wireless carriers. They don't address a DOJ suggestion about possibly forcing Google to share its valuable search data with other companies to help their products catch up.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lilium, once a darling in the nascent industry of electric aircraft that raised more than $1 billion before going public, has ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 workers after efforts to gain financing and exit insolvency failed. From a report: Lilium co-founder and CEO Patrick Nathen confirmed on LinkedIn that the 10-year-old company had stopped operating. "After 10 years and 10 months, it is a sad fact that Lilium has ceased operations. The company that Daniel, Sebastian, Matthias and I founded can no longer pursue our shared belief in more environmentally friendly aviation. This is heartbreaking and the timing feels painfully ironic," wrote Nathen. The layoffs cover the bulk of the company's workforce and come a few days after about 200 workers were let go, according to a regulatory filing on December 16.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A lawyer defending an alleged distributor of Anom, the encrypted phone company for criminals that the FBI secretly ran and backdoored to intercept tens of millions of messages, is pushing to learn the identity of the confidential human source (CHS) who first created Anom and provided it to the FBI starting the largest sting operation in history, according to recently filed court records. The government says it will provide that identity under discovery, but the CHS may also be revealed in open court if they testify. The move is significant in that the CHS, who used the pseudonym Afgoo while running Anom, is a likely target for retaliation from violent criminals caught in Anom's net. The Anom case, called Operation Trojan Shield, implicated hundreds of criminal syndicates in more than 100 countries. That includes South American cocaine traffickers, Australian biker gangs, and kingpins hiding in Dubai. Anom also snagged specific significant drug traffickers like Hakan Ayik, who authorities say heads the Aussie Cartel which brought in more than a billion Australian dollars in profit annually. Court records say, however, that if this defendant's case goes to trial, the lawyer believes Afgoo will be the "government's key witness."Read more of this story at Slashdot.