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Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: CBS News has a TL;DR video report, but Jeremy Stern's earlier epic Class Dismissed [at Collosus.com] offers a deep dive into Alpha School, "the teacherless, homeworkless, K-12 private school in Austin, Texas, where students have been testing in the top 0.1% nationally by self-directing coursework with AI tutoring apps for two hours a day. Alpha students are incentivized to complete coursework to "mastery-level" (i.e., scoring over 90%) in only two hours via a mix of various material and immaterial rewards, including the right to spend the other four hours of the school day in 'workshops,' learning things like how to run an Airbnb or food truck, manage a brokerage account or Broadway production, or build a business or drone." Founder MacKenzie Larson's dream that "kids must love school so much they don't want to go on vacation" drew the attention of - and investments of money and time from - mysterious tech billionaire Joe Liemandt, who sent his own kids to Larson's school and now aims to bring the experience to rest of the world. "When GenAI hit in 2022," Liemandt said, "I took a billion dollars out of my software company. I said, 'Okay, we're going to be able to take MacKenzie's 2x in 2 hours groundwork and get it out to a billion kids.' It's going to cost more than that, but I could start to figure it out. It's going to happen. There's going to be a tablet that costs less than $1,000 that is going to teach every kid on this planet everything they need to know in two hours a day and they're going to love it. "I really do think we can transform education for everybody in the world. So that's my next 20 years. I literally wake up now and I'm like, I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I will work 7 by 24 for the next 20 years to fricking do this. The greatest 20 years of my life are right ahead of me. I don't think I'm going to lose. We're going to win." Of course, Stern writes at Collosus.com, there will be questions about this model of schooling, but asks: "Suppose that from kindergarten through 12th grade, your child's teachers were, in essence, stacks of machines. Suppose those machines unlocked more of your child's academic potential than you knew was possible, and made them love school. Suppose the schooling they loved involved vision monitoring and personal data capture. Suppose that surveillance architecture enabled them to outperform your wildest expectations on standardized tests, and in turn gave them self-confidence and self-esteem, and made their own innate potential seem limitless.... Suppose poor kids had a reason to believe and a way to show they're just as academically capable as rich kids, and that every student on Earth could test in what we now consider the top 10%. Suppose it allowed them to spend two-thirds of their school day on their own interests and passions. Suppose your child's deep love of school minted a new class of education billionaires. "If you shrink from such a future, by which principle would you justify stifling it?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The food delivery robots that arrived in Atlanta in June "are not our friends," argues a headline at CNN. The four-wheeled Serve Robotics machines "get confused at crosswalks. They move with the speed and caution of a first-time driver, stilted and shy, until they suddenly speed up without warning. Their four wheels look like they were made for off-roading, but they still get stuck in the cracks of craggy sidewalks. Most times I see the bots, they aren't moving at all... "Cyclists swerve to avoid them like any other obstacle in the road. Patrons of Shake Shack (a national partner of Serve) weave around the mess of robots parked in front of the restaurant to make their way inside and place orders on iPads... The dawn of everyday, "friendly" robots may be here, but they haven't proven themselves useful - or trustworthy - yet. "People think they are your friends, but they're actually cameras and microphones of corporations," said Joanna Bryson, a longtime AI scholar and professor of ethics and technology at the Hertie School in Berlin. "You're right to be nervous..." When robots show up in a city, it's often not because the residents of said city actively wanted them there or had a say in their arrival said Edward Ongweso Jr. [a researcher at the Security in Context initiative, a tech journalist and self-proclaimed "decelerationist" urging a slower rollout for Silicon Valley tech pioneers and civic leaders embracing untested and unregulated technology]... "They're being rolled out without any sort of input from people, and as a result, in ways that are annoying and inconvenient," Ongweso Jr. said. "I suspect that people would feel a lot differently if they had a choice ... 'what kind of robots are we interested in rolling out in our homes, in our workplaces, on our college campuses or in our communities?'" Delivery robots aren't unique to Atlanta. AI-driven companies including Avride and Coco Robotics have sent fleets of delivery robots to big cities like Chicago, Dallas and Jersey City, as well as sleepy college towns... "They're popping up everywhere," Ongweso Jr. continued, "because there's sort of a realization that you have to convince people to view them as inevitable. The way to do that is to just push it into as many places as possible, and have these spectacle demonstrations, get some friendly coverage, try to figure out the ways in which you're selling this as the only alternative.... If you humanize it, you're more willing to entertain it and rationalize it being in your area - 'That's just Jeffrey,' or whatever they name it - instead of seeing it for what it is, which is a bunch of investors privately encroaching on a community or workplace," Ongweso Jr. said. "It's not the future. It's a business model." Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani told CNN their goal in Atlanta was reducing traffic - and that the robots' average delivery distance there was under a mile, taking about 18 minutes per delivery. Serve Robotics has also launched their robots in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, according to the site Robotics 247, as part of an ongoing collaboration with Uber Eats. (Although after the robots launched in Los Angeles, a man in a mobility scooter complained the slow-moving robot swerved in front of him.) And "residents of other cities have had to rescue them when they've been felled by weather," reports CNN. CNN also spoke to Dylan Losey, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech who studies human-robot interaction, who notes that the robots' AI algorithms are "completely unregulated... We don't know if a third party has checked the hardware and software and deemed the system 'safe' - in part because what it means for these systems to be 'safe' is not fully understood or standardized." (CNN's reporter adds that "the last time I got close to a bot, to peer down at a flier someone left on top of it, it revved at me loudly. Perhaps they can sense a hater.") But Serve's CEO says there's one crucial way robot delivery will be cheaper than humans. "You don't have to tip the robots."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"A small number of researchers are making real progress trying to create computers out of living cells," reports the BBC:Among those leading the way are a group of scientists in Switzerland, who I went to meet. One day, they hope we could see data centres full of "living" servers which replicate aspects of how artificial intelligence (AI) learns - and could use a fraction of the energy of current methods. That is the vision of Dr Fred Jordan, co-founder of the FinalSpark lab I visited. We are all used to the ideas of hardware and software in the computers we currently use. The somewhat eyebrow-raising term Dr Jordan and others in the field use to refer to what they are creating is "wetware". In simple terms, it involves creating neurons which are developed into clusters called organoids, which in turn can be attached to electrodes - at which point the process of trying to use them like mini-computers can begin... For FinalSpark, the process begins with stem cells derived from human skin cells, which they buy from a clinic in Japan. The actual donors are anonymous... In the lab, FinalSpark's cellular biologist Dr Flora Brozzi handed me a dish containing several small white orbs. Each little sphere is essentially a tiny, lab-grown mini-brain, made out of living stem cells which have been cultured to become clusters of neurons and supporting cells - these are the "organoids"... After undergoing a process which can last several months, the organoids are ready to be attached to an electrode and then prompted to respond to simple keyboard commands... Electrical stimulations are important first steps towards the team's bigger goal of triggering learning in the biocomputer's neurons so they can eventually adapt to perform tasks... FinalSpark are not the only scientists working in the biocomputing space. Australian firm Cortical Labs announced in 2022 that it had managed to get artificial neurons to play the early computer game Pong. In the US, researchers at Johns Hopkins University are also building "mini-brains" to study how they process information - but in the context of drug development for neurological conditions like Alzheimer's and autism. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon will be adding facial recognition to its camera-equipped Ring doorbells for the first time in December, according to the Washington Post. "While the feature will be optional for Ring device owners, privacy advocates say it's unfair that wherever the technology is in use, anyone within sight will have their faces scanned to determine who's a friend or stranger." The Ring feature is "invasive for anyone who walks within range of your Ring doorbell," said Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center. "They are not consenting to this." Ring spokeswoman Emma Daniels said that Ring's features empower device owners to be responsible users of facial recognition and to comply with relevant laws that "may require obtaining consent prior to identifying people..." Other companies, including Google, already offer facial recognition for connected doorbells and cameras. You might use similar technology to unlock your iPhone or tag relatives in digital photo albums. But privacy watchdogs said that Ring's use of facial recognition poses added risks, because the company's products are embedded in our neighborhoods and have a history of raising social, privacy and legal questions... It's typically legal to film in public places, including your doorway. And in most of the United States, your permission is not legally required to collect or use your faceprint. Privacy experts said that Ring's use of the technology risks crossing ethical boundaries because of its potential for widespread use in residential areas without people's knowledge or consent. You choose to unlock your iPhone by scanning your face. A food delivery courier, a child selling candy or someone walking by on the sidewalk is not consenting to have their face captured, stored and compared against Ring's database, said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director for the consumer advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's troubling that companies are making a product that by design is taking biometric information from people who are doing the innocent act of walking onto a porch," he said. Ring's spokesperson said facial recognition won't be available some locations, according to the article, including Texas and Illinois, which passed laws fining companies for collecting face information without permission. But the Washington Post heard another possible worst-case scenario from Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center: databases of identified faces being stolen by cyberthieves, misused by Ring employees, or shared with outsiders such as law enforcement. Amazon says they're "reuniting lost dogs through the power of AI," in their announcement this week, thanks to "an AI-powered community feature that enables your outdoor Ring cameras to help reunite lost dogs with their families... When a neighbor reports a lost dog in the Ring app, nearby outdoor Ring cameras automatically begin scanning for potential matches." Amazon calls it an example of their vision for "tools that make it easier for neighbors to look out for each other, and create safer, more connected communities." They're also 10x zoom, enhanced low-light performance, 2K and 4K resolutions, and "advanced AI tuning" for video...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Signal has introduced the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR), a new upgrade to its encryption protocol that mixes quantum safe cryptography into its existing Double Ratchet. The result, which Signal calls the Triple Ratchet, makes it much harder for even future quantum computers to break private chats. The change happens silently in the background, meaning users do not need to do anything, but once fully rolled out it will make harvested messages useless even to adversaries with quantum power. The company worked with researchers and used formal verification tools to prove the new protocol's security. Signal says the upgrade preserves its guarantees of forward secrecy and post compromise security while adding protection against harvest now, decrypt later attacks. The move raises a bigger question: will this be enough when large scale quantum computers arrive, or will secure messaging need to evolve yet again?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Indonesia has suspended TikTok's registration to provide electronic systems after it failed to hand over all data relating to the use of its live stream feature, a government official said on Friday. The suspension could in theory prevent access to TikTok, which has more than 100 million accounts based in Indonesia. Alexander Sabar, an official at Indonesia's communications and digital ministry, said in a statement some accounts with ties to online gambling activities used TikTok's live stream feature during national protests. [...] Sabar said the government had asked the company for its traffic, streaming and monetization data. The company, owned by China's ByteDance, did not provide complete data, citing its internal procedures, Sabar said without giving further detail.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google will discontinue Gmailify and POP email support in January 2026, forcing users who rely on these features to switch to IMAP. PCWorld reports: These changes only affect future emails. Emails that have already been synchronized in the Gmail account will remain the same. External accounts can still be used in the Gmail app, but only via IMAP. Google also recommends that users with work or education accounts contact their administrators if a Google Workspace migration is needed. For many Gmail users, these changes will likely mean getting used to the new system. Anyone who previously upgraded their external email accounts with Gmailify or integrated them via POP will have to switch to IMAP by January 2026 at the latest and do without some convenient functions, like spam filters and automatic sorting.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The University of San Francisco issued a campuswide alert after reports of a man using Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses to film students while making "unwanted comments and inappropriate dating questions." Although no violence has been reported, officials said he may be uploading footage to TikTok and Instagram. SFGate reports: University officials said "no threats or acts of violence" have been reported, but they have been unable to identify all students who appear in the videos. They urged any school members affected to alert the app platform and the USF Department of Public Safety. "As a community, we share the responsibility of caring for ourselves, each other, and this place," school officials said in the alert. "By looking out for one another and promptly reporting concerns, we help ensure a safe and supportive environment for all." The glasses feature a small camera that can be used for recording by pressing a button or using voice controls. Meta advises users to act "responsibly" when using the glasses. "Not everyone loves being photographed. Stop recording if anyone expresses that they would rather opt out, and be particularly mindful of others before going live," the company said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The SEC has approved the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), the first new fully integrated U.S. stock exchange in decades and the only one based in Texas. TXSE is set to launch trading services, as well as exchange-traded products, known as ETPs, and corporate listings, in 2026. CBS News reports: Exchange-traded products are financial instruments that follow the performance of underlying assets such as stocks, indexes or other financial benchmarks. Like stocks, ETPs are traded on public exchanges, allowing investors to buy and sell them throughout the trading day at market prices that fluctuate in real time. TXSE was backed by wealth management giant BlackRock and market maker Citadel Securities, among other firms. The Texas company said in June 2024 that it raised a total of $120 million from more than two dozen investors. TXSE's headquarters in Dallas opened this spring, the group said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is bringing its AI coding agent Jules deeper into developer workflows with a new command-line interface and public API, allowing it to plug into terminals, CI/CD systems, and tools like Slack -- as competition intensifies among tech companies to own the future of software development and make coding more of an AI-assisted task. Until now, Jules -- Google's asynchronous coding agent -- was only accessible via its website and GitHub. On Thursday, the company introduced Jules Tools, a command-line interface that brings Jules directly into the developer's terminal. The CLI lets developers interact with the agent using commands, streamlining workflows by eliminating the need to switch between the web interface and GitHub. It allows them to stay within their environment while delegating coding tasks and validating results. "We want to reduce context switching for developers as much as possible," Kathy Korevec, director of product at Google Labs, told TechCrunch. Jules differs from Gemini CLI in that it focuses on "scoped," independent tasks rather than requiring iterative collaboration. Once a user approves a plan, Jules executes it autonomously, while the CLI needs more step-by-step guidance. Jules also has a public API for workflow and IDE integration, plus features like memory, a stacked diff viewer, PR comment handling, and image uploads -- capabilities not present in the CLI. Gemini CLI is limited to terminals and CI/CD pipelines and is better suited for exploratory, highly interactive use.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last month, federal investigators said they dismantled a China-linked plot that aimed to cripple New York City's telecommunications system by overloading cell towers, jamming 911 calls, and disrupting communications. According to law enforcement sources, the plot was even bigger than first thought. "Agents from Homeland Security Investigations found an additional 200,000 SIM cards at a location in New Jersey," according to ABC News. "That's double the 100,000 SIM cards, along with hundreds of servers, that were recently seized at five other vacant offices and apartments in and around the city." From the report: Investigators secured each of those locations, seized the electronics, and are now trying to track down who rented the spaces and filled them with shelves full of gear capable of sending 30 million anonymous text messages every minute, overloading communications and blacking out cellular service in a city that relies on it for emergency response and counterterrorism. According to sources, the investigation began after several high-level people, including at least one with direct access to President Donald Trump, were targeted not only by swatters but also with actual threats received on their private phones. "The potential threat these data centers pose to the public could include shutting down critical resources that the public needs, like the 911 system, or potentially impacting the public's ability to communicate everything, including business transactions," said Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor who was formerly with the Secret Service.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI's valuation has surged to $500 billion after a $6.6 billion secondary stock sale, briefly making it the world's most valuable startup ahead of SpaceX and ByteDance. The Associated Press reports: Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company's valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The investors buying the shares included Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and T. Rowe Price, along with Japanese tech giant SoftBank and the United Arab Emirates' MGX, the source said Thursday. The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI's remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015. But with the San Francisco-based company not yet turning a profit, it could also amplify concerns about an AI bubble if the generative AI products made by OpenAI and its competitors don't meet the expectations of investors pouring billions of dollars into research and development.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As we careen toward a future in which Google has final say over what apps you can run, the company has sought to assuage the community's fears with a blog post and a casual "backstage" video. Google has said again and again since announcing the change that sideloading isn't going anywhere, but it's definitely not going to be as easy. The new information confirms app installs will be more reliant on the cloud, and devs can expect new fees, but there will be an escape hatch for hobbyists. Confirming app verification status will be the job of a new system component called the Android Developer Verifier, which will be rolled out to devices in the next major release of Android 16. Google explains that phones must ensure each app has a package name and signing keys that have been registered with Google at the time of installation. This process may break the popular FOSS storefront F-Droid. It would be impossible for your phone to carry a database of all verified apps, so this process may require Internet access. Google plans to have a local cache of the most common sideloaded apps on devices, but for anything else, an Internet connection is required. Google suggests alternative app stores will be able to use a pre-auth token to bypass network calls, but it's still deciding how that will work. The financial arrangement has been murky since the initial announcement, but it's getting clearer. Even though Google's largely automated verification process has been described as simple, it's still going to cost developers money. The verification process will mirror the current Google Play registration fee of $25, which Google claims will go to cover administrative costs. So anyone wishing to distribute an app on Android outside of Google's ecosystem has to pay Google to do so. What if you don't need to distribute apps widely? This is the one piece of good news as developer verification takes shape. Google will let hobbyists and students sign up with only an email for a lesser tier of verification. This won't cost anything, but there will be an unclear limit on how many times these apps can be installed. The team in the video strongly encourages everyone to go through the full verification process (and pay Google for the privilege). We've asked Google for more specifics here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dozens of countries have yet to secure accommodation at next month's COP30 climate summit in Brazil and some delegates are considering staying away as a shortage of hotels has driven prices to hundreds of dollars per night. Reuters: Small island states on the frontline of rising sea levels are confronted with having to consider reducing the size of delegations they send to Belem, while two European nations said they were considering not attending at all. COP30 organisers are racing to convert love motels, cruise ships and churches into lodgings for an anticipated 45,000 delegates. Brazil chose to hold the climate talks at Belem, which typically has 18,000 hotel beds available, in the hope its location on the edge of the Amazon rainforest would focus attention on the threat climate change poses to this ecosystem, and its role in absorbing climate-warming emissions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report from The Verge: Microsoft is getting ready to announce an ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the software maker has started testing ad-supported games streaming internally, allowing employees to play select titles free without a Game Pass subscription. I understand that the free ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming will include the ability to stream some games you own, as well as eligible Free Play Days titles, which let Xbox players try games over a weekend. You'll also be able to stream Xbox Retro Classics games. Sources tell me the internal testing includes around two minutes of preroll ads before a game is available to stream for free through Xbox Cloud Gaming. [...] The ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming version will be available on PC, Xbox consoles, handheld devices, and via the web.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The blackout that left Spain without power last April was the most severe incident to hit European networks in two decades and the first of its kind, according to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity. Damian Cortinas, the organization's chairman, said the April 28 outage was Europe's first blackout linked to cascading voltages. More than 50 million people lost electricity for several hours. A preliminary report published in July attributed the outage to a chain of power generation disconnections and abnormal voltage surges. The final assessment will be released in the first quarter of next year and presented to the European Commission and member states. A government probe in June found that grid operator Red Electrica failed to replace one of 10 planned thermal plants, reducing reserve capacity. Spain spent only $0.3 on its grid for every dollar invested in renewables between 2020 and 2024, the lowest ratio among European countries and well below the $0.7 average.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes: From Thursday's Code.org press release announcing the replacement of the annual Hour of Code for K-12 schoolkids with the new Hour of AI: "A decade ago, the Hour of Code ignited a global movement that introduced millions of students to computer science, inspiring a generation of creators. Today, Code.org announced the next chapter: the Hour of AI, a global initiative developed in collaboration with CSforALL and supported by dozens of leading organizations. [...] As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms how we live, work, and learn, the Hour of AI reflects an evolution in Code.org's mission: expanding from computer science education into AI literacy. This shift signals how the education and technology fields are adapting to the times, ensuring that students are prepared for the future unfolding now." "Just as the Hour of Code showed students they could be creators of technology, the Hour of AI will help them imagine their place in an AI-powered world," said Hadi Partovi, CEO and co-founder of Code.org. "Every student deserves to feel confident in their understanding of the technology shaping their future. And every parent deserves the confidence that their child is prepared for it." "Backed by top organizations such as Microsoft, Amazon, Anthropic, Zoom, LEGO Education, Minecraft, Pearson, ISTE, Common Sense Media, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and Scratch Foundation, the Hour of AI is designed to bring AI education into the mainstream. New this year, the National Parents Union joins Code.org and CSforALL as a partner to emphasize that AI literacy is not only a student priority but a parent imperative." The announcement of the tech-backed K-12 CS education nonprofit's mission shift into AI literacy comes just days after Code.org's co-founders took umbrage with a NY Times podcast that discussed "how some of the same tech companies that pushed for computer science are now pivoting from coding to pushing for AI education and AI tools in schools" and advancing the narrative that "the country needs more skilled AI workers to stay competitive, and kids who learn to use AI will get better job opportunities."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ha Dang, a self-taught accountant from Scunthorpe who trained via YouTube, won the inaugural Microsoft Excel UK Championships on September 30. The victory earned him a spot at the Microsoft Excel World Championships in Las Vegas, a three-day tournament inside a 30,000-square-foot esports arena where players compete for $5,000 and are broadcast on ESPN. Thirty competitors sat shoulder to shoulder through three gruelling rounds of spreadsheet challenges. Each round featured a custom case with seven levels of increasing difficulty. The second round case, Right Royal Battle Part II, took 80 drafts to perfect. Players calculated troop sizes from emoji battalions and army movements across fourteenth-century France. Hadyn Wiseman, who once held the Guinness World Record for most backflips in a minute, placed fourth. Lara Holding-Jones finished thirteenth. Jaq Kennedy founded the UK chapter last year. National chapters have since formed in Germany, Brazil, and Chile.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Social media usage peaked in 2022 and has been on a steady decline since. An analysis of 250,000 adults across more than 50 countries by the digital audience insights company GWI found that adults aged 16 and older spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social platforms at the end of 2024. That figure is down almost 10% from 2022. The decline is most pronounced among teenagers and people in their twenties. Usage has traced a smooth curve upward and then downward over the past decade. This is not simply the unwinding of increased screen time during pandemic lockdowns. The data also captured a shift in how people use these platforms. The share of people who report using social media to stay in touch with friends, express themselves or meet new people has fallen by more than a quarter since 2014. Opening the apps reflexively to fill spare time has risen. North America is an exception to the global trend. Social media consumption there continues to climb. By 2024 it reached levels 15% higher than Europe. Meta and OpenAI recently announced new social platforms that will be filled with AI-generated short-form videos.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jeff Bezos told an audience on Friday that gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space within the next ten to twenty years. The Amazon founder said these orbital facilities would eventually outperform their terrestrial counterparts because space offers uninterrupted solar power around the clock. Bezos was speaking in a fireside chat with Ferrari and Stellantis Chairman John Elkann. He said the giant training clusters needed for AI would be better built in space because there are no clouds, rain or weather to interrupt power generation. Bezos predicted that space-based data centers would beat the cost of Earth-based ones within a couple of decades. He described the shift as part of a broader pattern that has already occurred with weather satellites and communication satellites. The next steps would be data centers and then other kinds of manufacturing.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Air pollution increases the likelihood of people becoming frail in middle and old age, according to an international review of studies. The Guardian: The review team found 10 studies that looked at outdoor air pollution and frailty. The people studied came from 11 countries including China, the UK, Sweden, South Africa and Mexico. Two of the studies showed that men were more vulnerable than woman, with a stronger association between particle pollution and frailty. The risk of frailty increased with outdoor particle pollution. For the UK, this could mean about 10-20% of frailty cases are attributable to air pollution. Exposure to secondhand smoking was the environmental factor that presented the greatest risk of frailty. The risk of frailty was increased by about 60% for people who breathed other people's smoke at home. Using solid fuels for cooking or home heating also carried an extra risk of frailty. This was about half the risk of living with a smoker, based on studies from six countries.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pew Research: Public awareness of legal sports betting has grown in recent years -- and so has the perception that it is a bad thing for society and sports, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Today, 43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society. That's up from 34% in 2022. And 40% of adults now say it's a bad thing for sports, up from 33%. Despite these increasingly critical views of legal sports betting, many Americans continue to say it has neither a bad nor good impact on society and on sports. Fewer than one-in-five see positive impacts. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who have bet money on sports in the past year has not changed much since 2022. Today, 22% of adults say they've personally bet money on sports in the past year. That's a slight uptick from 19% three years ago. This figure includes betting in any of three ways:1. With friends or family, such as in a private betting pool, fantasy league or casual bet2. Online with a betting app, sportsbook or casino3. In person at a casino, racetrack or betting kiosk Further reading: Filipinos Are Addicted to Online Gambling. So Is Their Government.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

No automaker has matched Tesla's ability to deliver over-the-air software updates despite years of effort and billions in spending. Tesla introduced the technology in 2012 and issued 42 updates within six months, Jean-Marie Lapeyre, Capgemini's chief technology officer for automotive, told WIRED. Other automakers ship updates "maybe once a year," Lapeyre said. General Motors actually introduced OTA functionality first in 2010, two years before Tesla, but limited it to the OnStar telematics system. Traditional automakers treat software as one bolt-on component among many. Tesla and other digital-native brands like Rivian, Lucid and Chinese companies including BYD and Xpeng treat it as central. There are now 69 million OTA-capable vehicles in the United States, S&P Global estimates. More than 13 million vehicles were recalled in 2024 due to software-related issues, a 35 percent increase over the prior year. OTA updates cost automakers $66.50 per vehicle for each gigabyte of data, Harman Automotive estimates.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act expired on Wednesday when the federal government shut down. The law had provided legal protections since 2015 for organizations to share cyber threat intelligence with federal agencies. Without these protections, private sector companies that control most U.S. critical infrastructure face potential legal risks when sharing information about threats. Sen. Gary Peters called the lapse "an open invitation to cybercriminals and hostile actors to attack our economy and our critical infrastructure." The intelligence sharing enabled by CISA 2015 helped expose Chinese campaigns including Volt Typhoon in 2023 and Salt Typhoon last year. Several cybersecurity firms pledged to continue sharing threat data despite the law's expiration. Halcyon and CrowdStrike confirmed they would maintain information sharing. Palo Alto Networks said it remained committed to public-private partnerships but did not specify whether it would continue sharing threat data. Multiple bipartisan reauthorization efforts failed before the shutdown. The House Homeland Security Committee had approved a 10-year extension last month.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

James Marriott, writing in a column: The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. "To engage with the written word," the media theorist Neil Postman wrote, "means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning." As Postman pointed out, it is no accident, that the growth of print culture in the eighteenth century was associated with the growing prestige of reason, hostility to superstition, the birth of capitalism, and the rapid development of science. Other historians have linked the eighteenth century explosion of literacy to the Enlightenment, the birth of human rights, the arrival of democracy and even the beginnings of the industrial revolution. The world as we know it was forged in the reading revolution. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. More than three hundred years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Numerous studies show that reading is in free-fall. Even the most pessimistic twentieth-century critics of the screen-age would have struggled to predict the scale of the present crisis. In America, reading for pleasure has fallen by forty per cent in the last twenty years. In the UK, more than a third of adults say they have given up reading. The National Literacy Trust reports "shocking and dispiriting" falls in children's reading, which is now at its lowest level on record. The publishing industry is in crisis: as the author Alexander Larman writes, "books that once would have sold in the tens, even hundreds, of thousands are now lucky to sell in the mid-four figures." [...] What happened was the smartphone, which was widely adopted in developed countries in the mid-2010s. Those years will be remembered as a watershed in human history. Never before has there been a technology like the smartphone. Where previous entertainment technologies like cinema or television were intended to capture their audience's attention for a period, the smartphone demands your entire life. Phones are designed to be hyper-addictive, hooking users on a diet of pointless notifications, inane short-form videos and social media rage bait.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: Big Tech Told Kids to Code. The Jobs Didn't Follow, a New York Times podcast episode discussing how the promise of a six-figure salary for those who study computer science is turning out to be an empty one for recent grads in the age of AI, drew the ire of the co-founders of nonprofit Code.org, which -- ironically -- is pivoting to AI itself with the encouragement of, and millions from, its tech-giant backers. In a LinkedIn post, Code.org CEO and co-founder Hadi Partovi said the paper and its Monday episode of "The Daily" podcast were cherrypicking anecdotes "to stoke populist fears about tech corporations and AI." He also took to X, tweeting: "Today the NYTimes (falsely) claimed CS majors can't find work. The data tells the opposite story: CS grads have the highest median wage and the fifth-lowest underemployment across all majors. [...] Journalism is broken. Do better NYTimes." To which Code.org co-founder Ali Partovi (Hadi's twin), replied: "I agree 100%. That NYTimes Daily piece was deplorable -- an embarrassment for journalism."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snapchat will start charging users who exceed 5GB of saved Memories, with paid plans starting at $1.99/month for 100GB. "If your memories exceed this limit, you'll need to subscribe to one of its new Memories Storage plans," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The company told TechCrunch in an email that the introductory storage plan offers up to 100GB of storage for $1.99 per month. Snapchat+ users will get up to 250GB of storage as part of their $3.99 monthly subscription, while Snapchat Platinum users will get 5TB as part of their $15.99 monthly subscription. Snapchat explains that when it first launched Memories, it didn't expect it to grow to what it has today, as users have saved more than 1 trillion Memories on the platform. Snapchat will provide 12 months of temporary Memories storage for any Memories that exceed the 5GB storage limit. The company notes that users can download Memories directly to their devices. If you're over the limit, but don't sign up for a plan, your oldest Snaps will be saved, while the most recent ones that are over the storage limit will be deleted. Snapchat says the change won't affect most users, as the vast majority have under 5GB of Memories. It will mainly impact those with "thousands of Snaps," the company notes. "It's never easy to transition from receiving a service for free to paying for it, but we hope the value we provide with Memories is worth the cost," Snapchat wrote in a blog post. "These changes will allow us to continue to invest in making Memories better for our entire community."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: A team at Microsoft says it used artificial intelligence to discover a "zero day" vulnerability in the biosecurity systems used to prevent the misuse of DNA. These screening systems are designed to stop people from purchasing genetic sequences that could be used to create deadly toxins or pathogens. But now researchers led by Microsoft's chief scientist, Eric Horvitz, says they have figured out how to bypass the protections in a way previously unknown to defenders.The team described its work today in the journalScience. Horvitz and his team focused on generative AI algorithms that propose new protein shapes. These types of programs are already fueling the hunt for new drugs at well-funded startups like Generate Biomedicines and Isomorphic Labs, a spinout of Google. The problem is that such systems are potentially "dual use." They can use their training sets to generate both beneficial molecules and harmful ones. Microsoft says it began a "red-teaming" test of AI's dual-use potential in 2023 in order to determine whether "adversarial AI protein design" could help bioterrorists manufacture harmful proteins. The safeguard that Microsoft attacked is what's known as biosecurity screening software. To manufacture a protein, researchers typically need to order a corresponding DNA sequence from a commercial vendor, which they can then install in a cell. Those vendors use screening software to compare incoming orders with known toxins or pathogens. A close match will set off an alert. To design its attack, Microsoft used several generative protein models (including its own, called EvoDiff) to redesign toxins -- changing their structure in a way that let them slip past screening software but was predicted to keep their deadly function intact. "This finding, combined with rapid advances in AI-enabled biological modeling, demonstrates the clear and urgent need for enhanced nucleic acid synthesis screening procedures coupled with a reliable enforcement and verification mechanism," says Dean Ball, a fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a think tank in San Francisco.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alternative_right shares a report from the Smoking Gun: Minutes after vandalizing 17 cars in a Missouri college parking lot, a 19-year-old sophomore had a lengthy ChatGPT conversation during which he confessed to the crime, asked about the possibility of getting caught, and wondered, "is there any way they could know it was me," according to a police probable cause statement. Ryan Schaefer was arrested yesterday and charged with felony property damage for a rampage early Sunday at a Missouri State University parking lot. Investigators allege that Schaefer shattered car windows, ripped off side mirrors, dented hoods, and broke windshield wipers during the 3 AM spree. When confronted with surveillance footage and other evidence, Schaefer said that he could see the resemblance between the suspect and himself. At that point, Schaefer reportedly consented to a search of his iPhone. A subsequent review of the device revealed location data placing Schaefer "at or near the scene of the crime," as well as a "troubling dialogue exchange this defendant seems to have had with artificial intelligence software installed on his phone," prosecutors reported. The incriminating ChatGPT conversation can be found here.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian: Those diagnosed as small children typically have distinct genetic profile from those diagnosed later, [finds an international study based on genetic data from more than 45,000 autistic people in Europe and the U.S]. So, there's more than one condition out there that's being diagnosed as "autism." This, of course, messes with the debate about causes; one version of autism may be caused by something for which the evidence is very weak overall. "The term 'autism' likely describes multiple conditions," said Dr Varun Warrier, from Cambridge's department of psychiatry, senior author of the research. "For the first time, we have found that earlier and later diagnosed autism have different underlying biological and developmental profiles." "It is a gradient," added Warrier. "There are also many other factors that contribute to age of diagnosis, so the moment you go from averages to anything that is applicable to an individual, it's false equivalency." The analysis has been published in the journal Nature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ford's push for a four-day in-office workweek hit turbulence when someone hijacked meeting room screens to display an anti-RTO protest image targeting CEO Jim Farley. The company quickly removed it and is investigating. The Detroit Free Press reports: According to photos employees took of the image, which were posted on social media and sent to the Detroit Free Press, it contained an image of CEO Jim Farley along with a big red circle with a slash through it over his face and the words "(Expletive) RTO." "We're aware of an inappropriate use of Ford's IT technology and we're investigating it," Dave Tovar, Ford spokesman, told the Detroit Free Press. Tovar said the image was up for "a short amount of time" and Ford was able to quickly remove it. He said the company is investigating whether the image appeared only in Dearborn offices or globally. Farley mandated that employees return to the office four days a week earlier this year and it has been in place since Sept. 1, with no fallout such as people quitting over it, Tovar said. Therefore, Tovar said, "I wouldn't be able to speculate on it, as to why someone would do this."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Colorado unveiled an autonomous crash-protection truck designed to absorb highway work zone collisions, removing human drivers from one of the most dangerous road maintenance roles. The Denver Gazette reports: At a press event in Falcon on Monday, the Colorado Department of Transportation demonstrated an autonomous truck-mounted attenuator -- a driverless crash-protection vehicle designed to absorb impacts in roadside work areas. These trucks are already in the state's fleet, but previously required a worker in the cab, leaving them exposed during crashes. "These vehicles are designed to get hit so people don't have to," said Kay Kelly, CDOT's chief of innovative mobility. "We want to remove the human from that truck whenever possible." [...] Colorado pioneered this technology in 2017, becoming the first state to test it. Developed by San Diego-based defense contractor Kratos Defense, the company started on autonomous follower systems in 2012 and installed its initial version in Colorado in 2013, according to Maynard Factor, Kratos' vice president of business development. The system uses sensors, actuators, and video links, allowing the unmanned crash truck to trail directly behind a paint-striping or maintenance vehicle. The lead vehicle records its route and transmits navigation data to the follower. Both are equipped with global positioning system and communication tools, with the lead driver monitoring via video feed. "It's a convoy system," Factor said. "The leader does the work, while the driverless vehicle mirrors its path. This protects the operator with the crash truck instead of sitting inside it." Sensors detect objects darting into the lane, triggering an automatic stop. Operators can pause or override via a user interface featuring forward-facing cameras on the autonomous truck and rear-facing ones on the work vehicle. The trucks, existing state assets, are driven to sites and then switched to autonomous mode. Outfitting each with the technology costs about $1 million, excluding the base vehicle and crash absorber.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: New Zealand's Institute of IT Professionals has discovered it is insolvent and advised members it has no alternative but to enter liquidation. The Institute (ITP) wrote to members on Thursday and posted a document titled "Important Update on ITP's Future" that reveals it has "reached a point where the organization cannot continue. After a full review of our finances, the Board has confirmed that ITP is insolvent." Insolvency seems to have come as something of a surprise. "These debts are historic. They go back over many years. While some of the issues were worked on in more recent times, the full scale of the problem only became visible during the leadership change in 2025," the Update states. "Once the Board understood the full picture, it was clear that there was no responsible way forward other than liquidation." [...] ITP's constitution requires its members to formally resolve to wind up the organization, so as one of its final acts the group has called a Special General Meeting (SGM) for 23 October 2025 to confirm liquidation and appoint a liquidator. This situation impacts more than ITP's ~10,000 members, because the organization offers assessment services that assess whether IT professionals' skills and qualifications make them eligible to move to New Zealand for work. ITP also certifies IT degrees at New Zealand universities, and oversees the NZ Cloud Computing Code of Practice. ITP also conducted educational and advocacy activities aimed at growing New Zealand's tech workforce.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Your AMD chips may have Intel Inside soon," writes longtime Slashdot reader DesScorp. "Discussions are underway between the two companies to move an undisclosed amount of AMD's chip business to Intel foundries. (AMD currently does their production through TSMC.) The talks come hot on the heels of a flurry of other Intel investments." Tom's Hardware reports: In the past several weeks, Intel has seen a flurry of activity and investments. The United States announced a 9.9% ownership stake in Intel, while Softbank bought $2 billion worth of shares. Alongside Nvidia, Intel announced new x86 chips using Nvidia graphics technology, with the graphics giant also purchasing $5 billion in Intel shares. There have also been reports that Intel and Apple have been exploring ways to work together. The article notes that there is a trade/political dimension to an AMD-Intel deal as well: It makes sense for Intel's former rivals -- especially American companies -- to consider coming to the table. The White House is pushing for 50% of chips bound for America to be built domestically, and tariffs on chips aren't off the table. Additionally, doing business with Intel could make the US government, Intel's largest shareholder, happy, which can be good for business. AMD faced export restrictions on its GPUs earlier this year as the US attempted to throttle China's AI business.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two Amazon Prime Air drones collided with a crane in Tolleson, Arizona near 96th Avenue and Roosevelt Street. Amazon confirmed the incident and is working with authorities to determine what happened, though no injuries have been reported. CNBC reports: The incident occurred on Wednesday around 1 p.m. EST in Tolleson, Arizona, a city west of Phoenix. Two MK30 drones crashed into the boom of a stationary construction crane that was in a commercial area just a few miles away from an Amazon warehouse. One person was evaluated on the scene for possible smoke inhalation, said Sergeant Erik Mendez of the Tolleson Police Department. Both drones sustained "substantial" damage from the collision on Wednesday, which occurred when the aircraft were mid-route, according to preliminary FAA crash reports. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident. The drones were believed to be flying northeast back-to-back when they collided with the crane that was being used for roof work on a distribution facility, Tolleson police said in a release. The drones landed in the backyard of a nearby building, according to the release.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The operator of a popular pirate sports streaming site in Argentina has gone from spending time in jail with murderers to landing a new high-profile job a month later. Alejo "Shishi" Warles, the 25-year-old operator of Al Angulo TV, was arrested on August 20 in a LaLiga-backed crackdown. After his release on bail, he was hired by professional esports team 9z Globant, a partnership involving Argentine tech unicorn Globant. [...] The team is the result of a partnership between 9z Team and Argentinian tech unicorn Globant. Somewhat ironically, Globant previously worked with LaLiga to monitor the live-streaming user experience. Warles welcomed himself to 9z Globant via the team's social media account, referring to himself as an idol, genius, and GOAT. Lucia Quinteros, the main social media manager at the esports team, informed Entre Rios that after considering their new hire's history, they believe that he can add value to the team. "We hired Alejo, not the person who set up that project (Al Angulo TV). Of course, we evaluated what happened, but we believe that, from now on, Alejo can pursue a different career path," Quinteros said. According to Warles himself, he was hired because he's the best. Like many of his comments, this bravado should not be taken too seriously, but nevertheless sits in stark contrast to the typical pirate site operator facing criminal charges.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on January 15, 2022. The pyroclastic flow severed both of Tonga's underwater internet cables. The eruption cut sixty-five miles from the domestic cable and fifty-five miles from the international link to Fiji. Tonga lost all internet access. The cables sit on the ocean floor and carry 95% of the world's international internet traffic. The Guardian has a long read on what happened in the aftermath. A.T.M.s (cash machines) stopped working because banks could not verify account balances. Businesses could not file export paperwork. Foreign remittances made up 44% of the country's G.D.P. The government found old satellite phones. Three or four days later, officials restored a hundred and twenty megabytes per second of bandwidth for essential work. A month after the eruption, SpaceX donated fifty Starlink terminals. SubCom's repair ship Reliance took five weeks to restore the international cable. Vava'u did not get broadband back until August, 2023. Another earthquake in the summer of 2024 severed the domestic cable again.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AI has run out of training data, according to Neema Raphael, Goldman Sachs' chief data officer and head of data engineering. "We've already run out of data," Raphael said on the bank's podcast. He said this shortage is already shaping how developers build new AI systems. China's DeepSeek may have kept costs down by training on outputs from existing models instead of fresh data. The web has been tapped out. Developers have been using synthetic data -- machine-generated material that offers unlimited supply but carries quality risks. Raphael said he doesn't think the lack of fresh data will be a massive constraint. "From an enterprise perspective, I think there's still a lot of juice I'd say to be squeezed in that," he said. Proprietary datasets held by corporations could make AI tools far more valuable. The challenge is "understanding the data, understanding the business context of the data, and then being able to normalize it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google said hackers are sending extortion emails to an unspecified number of executives, claiming to have stolen sensitive data from their Oracle business applications. In a statement, Google said a group claiming affiliation with the ransomware gang cl0p, opens new tab was sending emails to "executives at numerous organizations claiming to have stolen sensitive data from their Oracle E-Business Suite." Google cautioned that it "does not currently have sufficient evidence to definitively assess the veracity of these claims."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Walmart plans to deploy sensors across its 4,600 US stores by the end of 2026 to track 90 million pallets of groceries shipped annually [Editor's note: non-paywalled source]. The retailer and technology vendor Wiliot announced the expansion Thursday. The sensors will monitor the location, condition and temperature of perishables as they move from warehouses to stores. Walmart started testing Wiliot's sensors at a Texas warehouse in 2023 and has expanded to 500 locations. The full rollout will cover the retailer's US store network and 40 distribution centers. The microchips measure 0.7 square millimeters and are embedded in shipping labels. They use Bluetooth to transmit real-time data about pallets. Walmart previously relied on manual scanning and paper checks by employees. The Arkansas-based company employs 2.1 million people but increased revenues by $150 billion over five years without adding workers. Walmart accounts for more than a fifth of US grocery sales.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Top college degrees may no longer provide the edge they once did in the job market, per LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. "I think the mindset shift is probably the most exciting thing because my guess is that the future of work belongs not anymore to the people that have the fanciest degrees or went to the best colleges, but to the people who are adaptable, forward thinking, ready to learn, and ready to embrace these tools," Roslansky said. "It really kind of opens up the playing field in a way that I think we've never seen before." A 2024 Microsoft survey found 71% of business leaders would choose less-experienced candidates with AI skills over experienced candidates without them. LinkedIn data showed job postings requiring AI literacy increased about 70% year-over-year. Roslansky said AI will not replace humans but people who embrace AI will replace those who don't.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: It's not the vibes; Earth is literally getting darker. Scientists have discovered that our planet has been reflecting less light in both hemispheres, with a more pronounced darkening in the Northern hemisphere, according to a study published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The new trend upends longstanding symmetry in the surface albedo, or reflectivity, of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. In other words, clouds circulate in a way that equalizes hemispheric differences, such as the uneven distribution of land, so that the albedos roughly match -- though nobody knows why. "There are all kinds of things that people have noticed in observations and simulations that tend to suggest that you have this hemispheric symmetry as a kind of fundamental property of the climate system, but nobody's really come up with a theoretical framework or explanation for it," said Norman Loeb, a physical scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center, who led the new study. "It's always been something that we've observed, but we haven't really explained it fully." To study this mystery, Loeb and his colleagues analyzed 24 years of observations captured since 2000 by the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES), a network of instruments placed on several NOAA and NASA satellites. Instead of an explanation for the strange symmetry, the results revealed an emerging asymmetry in hemispheric albedo; though both hemispheres are darkening, the Northern hemisphere shows more pronounced changes which challenges "the hypothesis that hemispheric symmetry in albedo is a fundamental property of Earth," according to the study.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Japan is just a few days away from running out of Asahi Super Dry as the producer of the nation's most popular beer wrestles with a devastating cyber attack that has shut down its domestic breweries. From a report: The vast majority of Asahi Group's 30 factories in Japan have not operated since Monday after the attack disabled its ordering and delivery system, the company said. Retailers are already expecting empty shelves as the outage stretches into its fourth day with no clear timeline for factories recommencing operations. Super Dry could also run out at izakaya pubs, which rely on draught and bottles. Lawson, one of Japan's big convenience stores, said in a statement that it stocks many Asahi Group products and "it is possible that some of these products may become increasingly out of stock from tomorrow onwards." "This is having an impact on everyone," said an executive at another of Japan's major retailers. "I think we will run out of products soon. When it comes to Super Dry, I think we'll run out in two or three days at supermarkets and Asahi's food products within a week or so."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans' confidence in the mass media has edged down to a new low, with just 28% expressing a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, according to Gallup. From the report: This is down from 31% last year and 40% five years ago. Meanwhile, seven in 10 U.S. adults now say they have "not very much" confidence (36%) or "none at all" (34%). When Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in the 1970s, between 68% and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in reporting. However, by the next reading in 1997, public confidence had fallen to 53%. Media trust remained just above 50% until it dropped to 44% in 2004, and it has not risen to the majority level since. The highest reading in the past decade was 45% in 2018, which came just two years after confidence had collapsed amid the divisive 2016 presidential campaign.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A hacking group claims to have pulled data from a GitLab instance connected to Red Hat's consulting business, scooping up 570 GB of compressed data from 28,000 customers. From a report: The hack was first reported by BleepingComputer and has been confirmed by Red Hat itself. "Red Hat is aware of reports regarding a security incident related to our consulting business and we have initiated necessary remediation steps," Stephanie Wonderlick, Red Hat's VP of communications told 404 Media. A file released by the hackers and viewed by 404 Media suggested that the hacking group may have acquired some data related to about 800 clients, including Vodafone, T-Mobile, the US Navy's Naval Surface Warfare Center, the Federal Aviation Administration, Bank of America, AT&T, the U.S. House of Representatives, and Walmart.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tech companies are struggling to fill AI-specialized roles despite a surplus of available tech talent. U.S. colleges more than doubled the number of computer science degrees awarded between 2013 and 2022. Major layoffs at Google, Meta, and Amazon flooded the job market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts businesses will employ 6% fewer computer programmers in 2034 than last year. The disconnect stems from companies seeking workers with specific AI expertise. Runway CEO Cristobal Valenzuela estimates only hundreds of people worldwide possess the skills to train complex AI models. His company advertises base salaries up to $490,000 for a director of machine learning. Daniel Park's startup Pickle offers up to $500,000 base salary and expects candidates willing to work seven days a week. The WSJ story includes the example of one James Strawn, who was laid off from Adobe over the summer after 25 years as a senior software quality-assurance engineer. The 55-year-old has had one interview since his layoff. Matt Massucci, CEO of recruiting firm Hirewell, told the publication companies can automate some low-level engineering tasks and redirect that money to high-end talent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than 100,000 people were sent to hospitals due to heatstroke in Japan between May 1 and Sunday, according to preliminary data from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Bloomberg, via Japan Times: The number is the most on record, according to NHK. Transport to hospitals of patients linked to heatstroke over the period rose almost 3% to 100,143 from a year earlier as Japan saw its national temperature record broken twice in a matter of days. The country's average temperature during this summer was the highest since the statistic began being compiled in 1898, the nation's weather agency said last month. Heat waves around the world are being made stronger and more deadly due to human-caused climate change. Government officials in August pledged to boost public health protections and encouraged the installation of more air conditioners in school gymnasiums and the use of cooling centers in communal spaces like libraries. New rules came into effect this summer that require employers to take adequate measures to protect workers from extreme temperatures.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Major health insurers are threatening to drop renowned cancer centers from their networks during contract negotiations, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's president and CEO Selwyn M. Vickers and chairman Scott M. Stuart wrote in a story published by WSJ. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center reported that both Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and UnitedHealthcare prepared to terminate network agreements while patients underwent active cancer treatment. FTI Consulting found that 45% of 133 provider-payer disputes in 2024 failed to reach timely agreements. The disruptions have affected tens of thousands of patients. Research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that care disruptions lead to more advanced-stage diagnoses and worse outcomes. Similar contract disputes involved Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University and University of North Carolina Health. New York lawmakers introduced legislation this year requiring insurers to maintain coverage for cancer patients during negotiations and until treatment concludes. Memorial Sloan Kettering's leadership described the practice as using patients as bargaining chips despite record insurer profits.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has laid off over 100 employees in design-related roles, including user experience research and cloud design teams, as part of broader cost-cutting measures to prioritize AI infrastructure. CNBC reports: Earlier this week, the company laid off employees within the cloud unit's "quantitative user experience research" teams and "platform and service experience" teams, as well as some adjacent teams, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. The roles often focus on using data, surveys and other tools to understand and implement user behaviors that inform product development and design. Google has halved some of the cloud unit's design teams, and many of those affected are U.S.-based roles. Some employees have been given until early December to find a new role within the company.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists have discovered complex organic molecules within the icy plume erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, strengthening the case that its hidden saltwater ocean may harbor the conditions for life. The Guardian reports: The sixth largest of Saturn's moons, Enceladus has become one of the leading contenders in the search for bodies that could harbor extraterrestrial life, with the Cassini mission -- which ended in 2017 -- revealing the moon has a plume of water ice grains and vapors erupting from beneath the surface at its south pole. The phenomenon has since been captured by the James Webb space telescope, with the plume reaching nearly 6,000 miles into space. The source of this material is thought to be a saltwater ocean that lies beneath the moon's icy crust. Now researchers studying data from the Cassini mission say they have discovered organic substances within the plume, with some types of molecule detected there for the first time. Dr Nozair Khawaja, a planetary scientist at Freie University Berlin and lead author of the work, said the results increased the known complexity of the chemistry that is happening below the surface of Enceladus. "When there is complexity happening, that means that the habitable potential of Enceladus is increasing right now," he said. Writing in the journal Nature Astronomy, Khawaja and colleagues reported how their previous work had revealed the presence of organic substances and salts within ice grains found in a ring of Saturn, known as the "E-ring," that is composed of material ejected from Enceladus. [...] While the new findings do not show that there is life on Enceladus, Khawaja said they indicate there are complex chemical pathways at play that could lead to the formation of substances that could be biologically relevant. The results, he added, support plans by the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate the moon for signs of life. "I think all the signals are green here for Enceladus," Khawaja said. The findings add momentum to ESA's proposed mission to directly search for biological signs around 2042. According to the ESA, the mission will consist of an orbiter around Enceladus that will also fly through the plumes, as well as a lander that will touch down in the south pole region of the moon.Read more of this story at Slashdot.