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A new six-episode Dune series premiers tonight on HBO and Max - a prequel to the Denis Villeneuve-directed Dune movies set 10,000 years before the birth f Paul Atreides. The Hollywood Reporter writes that it "draws on source material from the 2012 novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, the origin of the Dune universe."Cord-cutters can stream Dune: Prophecy online without cable on Max, with subscriptions starting at $9.99 per month through both Prime Video and the Max website directly. Amazon offers a seven-day free trial to the Max channel. Those who want to watch Dune: Prophecy online without a traditional cable service can also get Max as an add-on to existing streaming services, including Hulu and DirecTV Stream. The San Francisco Chronicle describes the series as "">all palace intrigues, agonizing deaths and magical mind games."Taking a further cue from the network's top-rated Game of Thrones, this show indulges more sex and nudity than the Dune movies allow. It could be argued that elements like this introduce a liveliness often missing from the portentous big-screen behemoths, marking an improvement. Another fun touch here: Many characters are constantly baked. Set a millennium before Frank Herbert's novels and the films' events, and a century after humans overthrew their "thinking machine" overlords, the psychoactive "Spice" from the desert planet Arrakis is already the most valued substance in the universe. It's not only vital for spaceship navigation and to expand the mental powers of sorceressy sisterhoods like the Bene Gesserit, it's the club drug of choice for younger members of the galaxy-ruling Great Houses. As ever with "Dune" business, control of the Spice trade fuels much of the conflict and character motivations. Of which there are just enough to keep things interesting without becoming confusing... While the show can't match the outsize visual scope of Denis Villeneuve's films, it does pleasingly approximate those vast alien landscapes, Brutalist edifices and high-ceilinged chambers on a TV budget. For those who find Villeneuve's formal gigantism oppressive, the series' more human scale might be another welcome change of pace... There may not be an original thought in this "Dune" product's Spice-soaked head, but it is one professionally put-together piece of this sort of entertainment. "Tasked with making more material with less money and time, Prophecy cannot hope to equal Villeneuve's aesthetic accomplishments," writes Variety. "But at its best, the show does justice to the intricate politics and ethical debates that form a cornerstone of Frank Herbert's fictional universe... The primary Dune plot finds many echoes throughout Prophecy..." On the other hand, Vulture argues the six-episode series is "stuck in prequel quicksand," even calling it "an act of cowardice and abdication of creativity" (while also noting moments where it "feels like it's stretching itself to be something other than what we expect..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot unixbhaskar writes: Linus has released a fresh Linux kernel for public consumption. Please give it a try and report any glitches to the maintainers for improvement. Also, please do not forget to express your appreciation to those tireless folks who did all the hard work for you. The blog OMG Ubuntu calls it "one of the most biggest kernel releases for a while," joking that it's a "really real-time kernel."The headline feature in Linux 6.12 is mainline support for PREEMPT_RT. This patch set dramatically improves the performance of real-time applications by making kernel processes pre-emptible - effectively enabled proper real-time computing... Meanwhile, Linus Torvalds himself contributes a new method for user-space address masking designed to claw back some of the performance lost due to Spectre-v1 mitigations. You might have heard that kernel devs have been working to add QR error codes to Linux's kernel panic BSOD screen (as a waterfall of error text is often cut off and not easily copied for ad-hoc debugging). Well, Linux 6.12 adds support for those during Direct Rendering Manager panics... A slew of new RISC-V CPU ISA extensions are supported in Linux 6.12; hybrid CPU scaling in the Intel P-State driver lands ahead of upcoming Intel Core Ultra 2000 chips; and AMD P-State driver improves AMD Boost and AMD Preferred Core features. More coverage from the blog 9to5Linux highlights a new scheduler called sched_ext, Clang support (including LTO) for nolibc, support for NVIDIA's virtual command queue implementation for SMMUv3, and "an updated cpuidle tool that now displays the residency value of cpuidle states for a clearer and more detailed view of idle state information when using cpuidle-info."Linux kernel 6.12 also introduces SWIG bindings for libcpupower to make it easier for developers to write scripts that use and extend the functionality of libcpupower, support for translating normalized error addresses reported by an AMD memory controller into system physical addresses using a UEFI mechanism called platform runtime mechanism (PRM), as well as simplified loading of microcode patches on AMD Zen and newer CPUs by using the family, model, and stepping encoded in the patch revision number... Moreover, Linux 6.12 adds support for running as a protected guest on Android as well as perf and support for a bunch of new interconnect PMUs. It also adds the final conversions to the new Intel VFM CPU model matching macros, rewrites the PCM buffer allocation handling and locking optimizations, and improves the USB audio driver...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week Alphabet CEO Sundar Picahi assured investors that their long-term AI focus and investment (and a "commitment to innovation") "are paying off," reports the Associated Press. Alphabet's stock has already soared 20% this year, and it's "still thriving" as the company "navigates through a pivotal shift to AI and battles regulators..."Alphabet earned $26.3 billion, or $2.12 per share during the most recent quarter, a 34% increase from a year ago. Revenue rose 15% from the same time last year to $88.27 billion... The profits would have been even higher if Google wasn't pouring so much money into building up its AI arsenal in a technological arms race that includes other industry heavyweights Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook parent Meta Platforms and rising star OpenAI. The AI investments are the primary reason Google's capital expenditures in the past quarter soared 62% from the same time last year to $13.1 billion. The AI spending will likely stay at roughly the same level during the current October-December period, and the rise even higher next year, according to Anat Ashkenazi, Alphabet's chief financial officer. But Ashkenazi also emphasized the Mountain View, California, company will act on cost-cutting opportunities in other areas to help boost profits. Alphabet already has trimmed its payroll from more than 190,000 worldwide employees early last year to about 181,000 workers now. In an example of how AI can perform tasks that once required human brainpower, Pichai said the technology is now writing more than 25% of the company's new computer coding. After the results, investors sent Alphabet's stock price up 5% in extended trading, the article points out. "Both Alphabet's profit and revenue increased at a brisker pace than industry analysts anticipated, thanks primarily to a moneymaking machine powered by Google's ubiquitous search engine... [Google's digital search-engine ads earned $49.39 billion, 12% more than the same quarter of 2023.] And Google's cloud division is growing at an even more robust rate, thanks to demand for AI services. The cloud division generated $11.35 billion in revenue during the past quarter, a 35% increase from last year." And meanwhile over at Microsoft, quarterly sales surged 16% to $65.6 billion, reports the Associated Press. But again, "the company sought to assure investors its huge spending on artificial intelligence is paying off."The company has spent billions of dollars to expand its global network of data centers and other physical infrastructure required to develop AI technology... As a result, AI-related products are now on track to contribute about $10 billion to the company's annual revenue, the "fastest business in our history to reach this milestone," CEO Satya Nadella said on a call with analysts Wednesday. [Though Microsoft "hasn't yet formally reported revenue specifically from AI products," the article notes later, with Microsoft instead saying it's infused AI and Copilot into all its business segments.] Just in the last quarter, Microsoft spent $20 billion "mostly for its cloud computing and AI needs," the article points out. But there's still making plenty of money...The software maker also reported an 11% increase in quarterly profit to $24.7 billion, or $3.30 per share, which beat Wall Street expectations for the July-September period... Leading in sales for the quarter was Microsoft's productivity business segment, which includes its Office suite of email and other workplace products, growing 12% to $28.3 billion. Microsoft's cloud-focused business segment grew 20% from the same time last year to $24.1 billion for the three months ending Sept. 30. Its personal computing business, led by its Windows division, grew 17% to $13.2 billion. A big part of that growth came from Microsoft's Xbox video game business, which was boosted by its purchase of game publishing giant Activision Blizzard a year ago.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On a small network of islands north of Seattle, Washington, San Juan County just completed its first full year of 32-hour workweeks, reports CNN. And Tuesday the county released a report touting "a host of positive outcomes - from recruiting to retention to employee happiness - and a cost savings of more than $975,000 compared to what the county would have paid if it met the union's pay increase demands."The county said the 32-hour workweek has attracted a host of new talent: Applications have spiked 85.5% and open positions are being filled 23.75% faster, while more employees are staying in their jobs - separation (employees quitting or retiring) dropped by 48%. And 84% of employees said their work-life balance was better. "This is meeting many of the goals that we set out to do when we implemented it," County Manager Jessica Hudson said. said, noting the county is looking for opportunities to expand the initiative... Departments across San Juan County have implemented the 32-hour workweek differently, some staggering staffing to maintain their previous availability to the public while others have shortened schedules to be open just four days a week... "I tell people, you're not going to see things change from your perspective," said Joe Ingman, a park manager in the county. "Offices are going to stay open, bathrooms are going to get cleaned, grass is going to get mowed." His department adjusted schedules to stay staffed seven days a week, and while communication across shifts was an initial hurdle, issues were quickly ironed out. "It was probably the smoothest summer I've had, and I've been working in parks for over a decade," he said, crediting the new schedule as a boon for recruiting. While job postings used to languish unfilled for months, last summer the applicant pool was not only bigger but more qualified, and the two staffers he hired both cited coming to the county because of the 32-hour workweek. "It's no more cost to the public to work 32 hours - but we have better applicants," he said. Ingman also said the four-day workweek has done wonders for his job satisfaction; he'd watched colleagues burn out for years, but now sees a path for his own future in the department... County employees have used their extra time off to spend less money on childcare, volunteer in their kids' schools, and contribute to the community... While San Juan County's motivation in adopting a shortened workweek was financial, the benefits its employees cite speak to a larger trend, as workplaces around the country increasingly explore flexible schedules to combat burnout and attract and retain talent. A survey of CEOs this spring found nearly one third of large US companies were looking into solutions like four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks... Even without a reduction in total hours, a Gallup poll last year found a third day off would be widely embraced: 77% of US workers said a 4-day, 40-hour workweek would have a positive impact on their wellbeing. One worker shared their thoughts with CNN. "Life shouldn't be about just working yourself into the ground..." And they added that "So far, I feel happy; I feel seen as an employee and as a human, and I feel like it could be a beautiful step forward for other people if we just trust it and try it." They even had some advice for other employers. "Change happens by somebody actually doing the change. The only way we're going to find out if it works is by doing."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nyx is a new reusable space capsule that "safely and affordably carries cargo to and from space stations," according to the web page of its European-based manufacturer, The Exploration Company, "launching from any heavy launcher worldwide." And the company "just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe's first reusable space capsule," reports TechCrunch - pointing out that right now, "Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States."The $160 million Series B round will fund the continued development of the Nyx spacecraft, which will be capable of carrying 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. The company, which was founded three years ago by aerospace engineers Helene Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine, is aiming to conduct Nyx's maiden flight to and from the International Space Station in 2028. "We are the first company in the world where this is for the first time mainly funded by private investors," Huby said in a recent interview. This is in contrast to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which she said was "mainly funded by NASA." The new funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and Plural, brings the startup's total funding to date to over $208 million. The Series B also included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, NGP Capital, and two sovereign European funds, French Tech Souverainete and DeepTech & Climate Fonds. "We've been able to deliver on promises in the past three years," Huby said. "We've been able to meet our cash target ever quarter ... The investors, they could see that we basically can deliver on time, on cost, on quality." The startup has made traction with the European Space Agency, which has recognized the need to foster native space launch and transportation capabilities... It's a promising start, but equally promising is the traction The Exploration Company is seeing on the commercial side. Around 90% of the startup's $770 million contract backlog has come from private station developers Vast, Axiom Space, and Starlab, according to recent reporting... The second sub-scale demonstrator mission, called Mission Possible, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year. TechCrunch quotes Huby as saying "I highly respect what SpaceX has been able to achieve.We are trying to learn as much as possible from that, we are inspired by what they have achieved." In a CNBC interview, Huby says "It's a big market, and it's growing about a bit more than 10% per year because more nations want to fly their astronauts and more nations want to go to the moon. So there is an increased demand for sending people to stations, sending cargo to stations." "Join us on our mission to democratize access to space," says a home-page link to the company's recruiting page - with a link further down titled "Book a mission."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Here's how Apple's next major product will work," writes Bloomberg's Mark Gurman: The company has been developing a smart home command center that will rival products like the Amazon Echo Hub and Google Nest Hub... The product will run many of Apple's core apps, like Safari, Notes and Calendar, but the interface will be centered on a customizable home screen with iOS-like widgets and smart home controls... The device looks like a low-end iPad and will include a built-in battery, speakers and a FaceTime camera oriented for a horizontal landscape view. The square device, which includes a roughly 6-inch screen, has sensors that let it change the interface depending on how far a user is from the screen. It will also have attachments for walls, plus a base with additional speakers so it can be placed on a table, nightstand or desk. Apple envisions customers using the device as an intercom, with people FaceTiming each other from different rooms. They'll also be able to pull up home security footage, control their lights, and videoconference with family while cooking in the kitchen. And it will control music throughout the home on HomePod speakers. The device will work with hundreds of HomeKit-compatible items, a lineup that includes third-party switches, lights, fans and other accessories. But the company doesn't plan to roll out a dedicated app store for the product. Given the lack of success with app marketplaces for the Vision Pro, Apple Watch and Apple TV, that's not too surprising. Looking ahead, the article concludes "The success of this device is still far from assured. Apple's recent track record pushing into new categories has been spotty, and its previous home products haven't been major hits." But Gurman shares the most interesting part on X.com:If the product does catch on, it will help set the stage for more home devices. Apple is working on a high-end AI companion with a [$1,000] robotic arm and large display that could serve as a follow-up. The company could also put more resources into developing mobile robots, privacy-focused home cameras and speakers. It may even revisit the idea of making an Apple-branded TV set, something it's evaluating. But if the first device fails, Apple may have to rethink its smart home ambitions once again. Gurman also writes that Apple is also working on a new AirTag with more range and improved privacy features (including "making it more difficult for someone to remove the speaker.")Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Amazon is making it harder for disabled employees to get permission to work from home," reports Bloomberg, a move they say shows Amazon's "determination" to enforce a five-days-a-week return to the office.The company recently told employees with disabilities that it was implementing a more rigorous vetting process, both for new requests to work from home and applications to extend existing arrangements. Affected workers must submit to a "multilevel leader review" and could be required to return to the office for monthlong trials to determine if accommodations meet their needs... Affected employees are receiving calls from "accommodation consultants" who explain how the new policy works. They review medical documentation and discuss how effective working from home has been for employees who've already received an accommodation as well as any previous attempts to help the person work in the office. If the consultant agrees that the person should be allowed to work from home, another Amazon manager must sign off. If they don't, the request goes to a third manager... Some workers fear the process was designed to make requests less likely to be approved, two employees said. In internal chat rooms, according to one of them, employees have accused [Chief Executive Officer Andy] Jassy of hypocrisy because the bureaucratic process belies his stated determination to cut through red tape that he says is slowing Amazon down. "Jassy says the return-to-office requirement will strengthen the company's culture, which he believes has suffered since the pandemic and become overly bureaucratic," the article points out. But it adds that down at the workforce level, the move "is seen by some employees as a way to get people to quit and shrink the workforce."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Michigan college student writing about the elderly received this suggestion from Google's Gemini AI: "This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please." Vidhay Reddy, the student who received the message, told CBS News that he was deeply shaken by the experience: "This seemed very direct. So it definitely scared me, for more than a day, I would say." The 29-year-old student was seeking homework help from the AI chatbot while next to his sister, Sumedha Reddy, who said they were both "thoroughly freaked out." "I wanted to throw all of my devices out the window. I hadn't felt panic like that in a long time to be honest," she said... Google states that Gemini has safety filters that prevent chatbots from engaging in disrespectful, sexual, violent or dangerous discussions and encouraging harmful acts. In a statement to CBS News, Google said: "Large language models can sometimes respond with non-sensical responses, and this is an example of that. This response violated our policies and we've taken action to prevent similar outputs from occurring." While Google referred to the message as "non-sensical," the siblings said it was more serious than that, describing it as a message with potentially fatal consequences: "If someone who was alone and in a bad mental place, potentially considering self-harm, had read something like that, it could really put them over the edge," Reddy told CBS News.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A reusable uncrewed spaceplane was unveiled this week for delivering and returning cargo from the Chinese Tiangong space station. It was built by the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute (part of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China). (See YouTube footage here...) Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis writes:Like the Sierra Space "Dream Chaser" [still under development], the vehicle is to be launched as a payload on a separate launch vehicle, and land horizontally on Earth on a runway. The design is aerodynamically a hybrid, incorporating features of both winged and lifting-body designs. A model of the Haolong will make its debut at the 15th "Airshow China", November 12 to 17 in Zhuhai. "The China Manned Space Agency shortlisted the spacecraft as one of two proposed affordable cargo spacecraft designs," reports Aviation Week.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last year 30,000 people moved into central Florida's Polk County - more than to any other county in America. Its largest city has just 112,641 people, living a full 35 miles east of the 3.1 million residents in the metropolitan area around Tampa. But the Associated Press says something similar is happening all over the country: "the rise of the far-flung exurbs."Outlying communities on the outer margins of metro areas - some as far away as 60 miles (97 kilometers) from a city's center - had some of the fastest-growing populations last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those communities are primarily in the South, like Anna, Texas on the outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area; Fort Mill, South Carolina [just 18 miles from North Carolina city Charlotte]; Lebanon, Tennessee outside Nashville; and Polk County's Haines City... [C]ommuting to work can take up to an hour and a half one-way. But [Marisol] Ortega, who lives in Haines City about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from her job in Orlando, says it's worth it. "I love my job. I love what I do, but then I love coming back home, and it's more tranquil," Ortega said. The rapid growth of far-flung exurbs is an after-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Census Bureau, as rising housing costs drove people further from cities and remote working allowed many to do their jobs from home at least part of the week... Recent hurricanes and citrus diseases in Florida also have made it more attractive for some Polk County growers to sell their citrus groves to developers who build new residences or stores... Anna, Texas, more than 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, is seeing the same kind of migration. It was the fourth-fastest growing city in the U.S. last year and its population has increased by a third during the 2020s to 27,500 residents. Like Polk County, Anna has gotten a little older, richer and more racially diverse. The article points out that in Anna, Texas, "close to 3 in 5 households have moved into their homes since 2020, according to the Census Bureau."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe "and in any hypothetical ones beyond it" can be estimated by a new theoretical model, reports the Royal Astronomical Society. Since stars are a precondition for the emergence of life, the new research predicts that a typical observer [i.e., intelligent life] should experience a substantially larger density of dark energy than is seen in our own Universe...The approach presented in the paper involves calculating the fraction of ordinary matter converted into stars over the entire history of the Universe, for different dark energy densities. The model predicts this fraction would be approximately 27% in a universe that is most efficient at forming stars, compared to 23% in our own Universe. Dark energy makes the Universe expand faster, balancing gravity's pull and creating a universe where both expansion and structure formation are possible. However, for life to develop, there would need to be regions where matter can clump together to form stars and planets, and it would need to remain stable for billions of years to allow life to evolve. Crucially, the research suggests that the astrophysics of star formation and the evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe combine in a subtle way to determine the optimal value of the dark energy density needed for the generation of intelligent life. Professor Lucas Lombriser, Universite de Geneve and co-author of the study, added: "It will be exciting to employ the model to explore the emergence of life across different universes and see whether some fundamental questions we ask ourselves about our own Universe must be reinterpreted." The study was funded by the EU's European Research Council, and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press:Even as Earth sets new heat records, humanity this year is pumping 330 million tons (300 million metric tons) more carbon dioxide into the air by burning fossil fuels than it did last year. This year the world is on track to put 41.2 billion tons (37.4 billion metric tons) of the main heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere. It's a 0.8% increase from 2023, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who track emissions... This year's pollution increase isn't quite as large as last year's 1.4% jump, scientists said while presenting the data at the United Nations climate talks in Azerbaijan... The continued rise in carbon emissions is mostly from the developing world and China. Many analysts had been hoping that China - by far the world's biggest annual carbon polluting nation with 32% of the emissions - would have peaked its carbon dioxide emissions by now. Instead China's emissions rose 0.2% from 2023, with coal pollution up 0.3%, Global Carbon Project calculated... [Although its growth rate now is "basically flat," O'Sullivan said.] That's nothing close to the increase in India, which at 8% of the globe's carbon pollution is third-largest carbon emitter. India's carbon pollution jumped 4.6% in 2024, the scientists said. Carbon emissions fell 0.6% in the U.S. mostly from reduced coal, oil and cement use. The U.S. was responsible for 13% of the globe's carbon dioxide in 2024. Historically, it's responsible for 21% of the world's emissions since 1950... Twenty-two nations have shown steady decreases in emissions, O'Sullivan said, singling out the United States as one of those. The biggest emission drops from 2014 to 2023 were in the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. Europe, which accounts for 7% of the world's carbon pollution, saw its carbon dioxide output drop 3.8% from last year - driven by a big cut in coal emissions. Some interesting statistics from the article:Burning coal, oil, and natural gas is currently emitting 2.6 million pounds (1.2 million kilograms) of carbon dioxide every second..." In the last 10 years, emissions have gone up about 6%. Global carbon emissions are more than double what they were 50 years ago, and 50% more than they were in 1999."If the world continues burning fossil fuels at today's level, it has six years before passing 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, the limit agreed to at the 2015 climate talks in Paris, said study co-author Stephen Sitch. The Earth is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit), according to the United Nations." Yet "Total carbon emissions - which include fossil fuel pollution and land use changes such as deforestation - are basically flat because land emissions are declining, the scientists said."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's transistion to Safe Coding and memory-safe languages "will take multiple years," according to a post on Google's security blog. So "we're also retrofitting secure-by-design principles to our existing C++ codebase wherever possible," a process which includes "working towards bringing spatial memory safety into as many of our C++ codebases as possible, including Chrome and the monolithic codebase powering our services."We've begun by enabling hardened libc++, which adds bounds checking to standard C++ data structures, eliminating a significant class of spatial safety bugs. While C++ will not become fully memory-safe, these improvements reduce risk as discussed in more detail in our perspective on memory safety, leading to more reliable and secure software... It's also worth noting that similar hardening is available in other C++ standard libraries, such as libstdc++. Building on the successful deployment of hardened libc++ in Chrome in 2022, we've now made it default across our server-side production systems. This improves spatial memory safety across our services, including key performance-critical components of products like Search, Gmail, Drive, YouTube, and Maps... The performance impact of these changes was surprisingly low, despite Google's modern C++ codebase making heavy use of libc++. Hardening libc++ resulted in an average 0.30% performance impact across our services (yes, only a third of a percent) ... In just a few months since enabling hardened libc++ by default, we've already seen benefits. Hardened libc++ has already disrupted an internal red team exercise and would have prevented another one that happened before we enabled hardening, demonstrating its effectiveness in thwarting exploits. The safety checks have uncovered over 1,000 bugs, and would prevent 1,000 to 2,000 new bugs yearly at our current rate of C++ development... The process of identifying and fixing bugs uncovered by hardened libc++ led to a 30% reduction in our baseline segmentation fault rate across production, indicating improved code reliability and quality. Beyond crashes, the checks also caught errors that would have otherwise manifested as unpredictable behavior or data corruption... Hardened libc++ enabled us to identify and fix multiple bugs that had been lurking in our code for more than a decade. The checks transform many difficult-to-diagnose memory corruptions into immediate and easily debuggable errors, saving developers valuable time and effort. The post notes that they're also working on "making it easier to interoperate with memory-safe languages. Migrating our C++ to Safe Buffers shrinks the gap between the languages, which simplifies interoperability and potentially even an eventual automated translation."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"The Pentagon's latest report on UFOs has revealed hundreds of new reports of unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena," reports the Associated Press, "but no indications suggesting an extraterrestrial origin. "The review includes hundreds of cases of misidentified balloons, birds and satellites as well as some that defy easy explanation, such as a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York."Federal efforts to study and identify UAPs have focused on potential threats to national security or air safety and not their science fiction aspects. Officials at the Pentagon office created in 2022 to track UAPs, known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, have said there's no indication any of the cases they looked into have unearthly origins. "It is important to underscore that, to date, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology," the authors of the report wrote...Reporting witnesses included commercial and military pilots as well as ground-based observers. Investigators found explanations for nearly 300 of the incidents. In many cases, the unknown objects were found to be balloons, birds, aircraft, drones or satellites. According to the report, Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system is one increasingly common source as people mistake chains of satellites for UFOs. Hundreds of other cases remain unexplained, though the report's authors stressed that is often because there isn't enough information to draw firm conclusions. No injuries or crashes were reported in any of the incidents, though a commercial flight crew reported one near miss with a "cylindrical object" while flying over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York. That incident remains under investigation. In three other cases, military air crews reported being followed or shadowed by unidentified aircraft, though investigators could find no evidence to link the activity to a foreign power. The article points out that the report's publication comes "a day after House lawmakers called for greater government transparency during a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena." And it concludes with this quote from Republican Represenative Andy Ogles of Tennessee. "There is something out there. The question is: Is it ours, is it someone else's, or is it otherworldly?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remember those 43 monkeys that escaped from a U.S. research lab? They've caught 35 of them - but haven't yet caught the other eight. But even worse... The Independent reports that now another animal escape has led to "reports of two large emus running riot..."The birds' owner, Sam Morace, took to social media to plead with locals for their patience, saying: "For everyone that keeps seeing an emu, yes it is mine. There are 2 of them out." Morace said their two flightless birds broke loose three months ago.... "They are feral and not trained like the ones we have at the house." This provoked some discussion on Facebook. ("Does nobody learn to lasso anymore?") But Morace responded that you "can't lasso a bird you have to grab them by their feet. Their necks are super long and fragile." In another post Morace detailed efforts to capture their birds. "Local law enforcement has already been at my house, we are trying to get a tranquilizer approved so we can bring them home. "Thank you for all the concerns and questions. But if the emus were that easy to catch they would be home already. If you're wondering how the escaped monkeys are doing out in the wild, someone who photographed them earlier this week said they appeared "playful, curious and jumping from tree to tree." The Guardian reports local officials have now "requested that the public avoid using drones near the facility. Earlier in the week, they reported that a drone incident 'spooked' the monkeys, increasing their stress levels and complicating efforts to recapture them." Their article also notes reports that the facility houses 7,000 monkeys. And this isn't the first time some have escaped...In 2016, 19 monkeys escaped from the same facility, according to the Post and Courier newspaper, but were returned after six hours. Earlier, in 2014, 26 macaques reportedly escaped and were captured within two days. Documents from federal regulators from previous years revealed other incidents at the facility, as reported by the New York Times. One involved a primate escaping while being transported to the medical clinic and subsequently disappearing into the woods. Another involved two monkeys breaking out of their outdoor chain-link enclosure, which reportedly resulted in one monkey being lured back inside and the other dying shortly after being recaptured. In 2017, the Department of Agriculture fined the company more than $12,000 partly due to failures to contain the animals, according to the New York Times. The Guardian also links to a related read from February: "Plan for US 'mini-city' of 30,000 monkeys for medical research faces backlash."Over the next 20 years, the facility will assemble a mega-troop of about 30,000 long-tailed macaques, a species native to south-east Asia, in vast barn-like structures in Bainbridge, Georgia, which has a human population of just 14,000... But the plan faces fierce opposition, with some Bainbridge residents calling on local authorities to block the construction of the proposed primate manse. "They're an invasive species and 30,000 of them, we'd just be overrun with monkeys," claimed Ted Lee, a local man. "I don't think anybody would want 30,000 monkeys next door," added David Barber, who would live just 400ft from the new facility.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google appears to be working on an email-forwarding alias system, according to the blog Android Authority, giving users a new way to "shield" their main email address. The site performed a teardown on the newest Google Play Services' APK looking for work-in-progress code , and spotted "a whole boatload of strings referencing and in support of something called 'Shielded Email'."Just from that text, we're able to infer quite a lot about what we're looking at here, and it appears that Shielded Email consists of a system to create single-use or limited-use email aliases that will forward messages along to your primary account. And while we could imagine that something like this might be pretty useful in Chrome, here it looks like Google is building it specifically to address apps that ask for your email address. The messages in there touch on a couple reasons beyond spam that you might want to keep your main email private, like reducing the extent to which your online activities can be tracked, and mitigating your personal risk from potential future data breaches. They also sighted a reference to "Shielded Email" in the Autofill settings menu - though their article acknowledges that even features hinted at by work-in-progress code may not ultimately make it into a public release. But Forbes suggests that the idea sounds similar to Apple's Hide My Email service, which "provides an automated random email address creator to help keep your personal email address private when subscribing to services."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Kyiv Independent:The United States will partner with Ukraine to transition Ukraine's coal-fired plants to small modular nuclear reactors, and to use them to help decarbonize its steel industry, the countries announced on November 16 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan... The partnership will build a roadmap and provide technical support to "rebuild, modernize, and decarbonize Ukraine's steel industry with small modular reactors," according to a statement from the U.S. State Department... It will also "facilitate the transition of Ukraine's coal-fired power plants to secure and safe SMR nuclear power plants utilizing existing infrastructure and retraining the workforce," the statement read. Another project announced at the conference, known as COP29, will build a pilot plant in Ukraine to demonstrate production of clean hydrogen and ammonia using simulated small modular reactor technology. That clean hydrogen/ammonia project involves a multinational public-private consortium which also includes Japan and South Korea, according to the U.S. State Department. Their announcement says the three projects "will help position Ukraine to take a leadership role on secure and safe nuclear energy" (as well as industrial decarbonization). Three years ago the U.S. State Department launched a program to help countries develop nuclear energy programs "to support clean energy goals under the highest international standards for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation." That program will send $30 million for these three projects...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge:Bluesky might be on the rise, but Instagram and Threads boss Adam Mosseri wants you to know that Threads is still much bigger.In a post on Thursday, Mosseri said that Threads has gotten "more than 15 million signups in November alone," seemingly trying to throw some cold water over Bluesky crossing 15 million users total on Wednesday. Mosseri also reiterated that the platform has been getting more than a million signups per day - a stat that CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during last month's earnings call - and noted that the platform has been seeing that volume of signups for "going on three months." As November began, Mosseri posted that Threads had 275 million monthly active users....Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"NASA has emphasized the ISS crew is in no immediate danger," reports Space.com. "The leaking area in the Russian segment of the orbital complex has been ongoing for five years," and "there was a temporary increase in the leak rate that was patched earlier this year..." Former astronaut Bob Cabana emphasized that troubleshooting is ongoing during a brief livestreamed meeting on Wednesday. But NASA and Roscosmos "don't have a common understanding of what the likely root causes or the severity of the consequences of these leaks.""The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the cracks is high cycling caused by micro-vibrations," Cabana said, referring to flexing of metal and similar components that heat and cool as the ISS orbits in and out of sunlight. "NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal - including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties and environmental exposures," Cabana continued. NASA and Russia disagree about whether "continued operations are safe", he added, but the remedy for now is to keep the hatch closed between the U.S. and Russian side as investigations continue. The two agencies will continue meeting to seek "common understanding of the structural integrity", Cabana pledged, but he did not provide a timeline. Academic and industry experts will also be consulted.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Automotive Grade Linux is a collaborative open source project developing "an open platform from the ground up that can serve as the de facto industry standard" for fast development of new features. Automakers have joined with tech companies and suppliers to speed up development (and adoption) of "a fully open software stack for the connected car" - hosted at the Linux Foundation, and "with Linux at its core..." And this week they created a new Open Source Program Office expert group, led by Toyota, to promote the establishment of Open Source Program Offices within the automotive industry, "and encourage the sharing of information and best practices between them."Open source software has become more prevalent across the automotive industry as automakers invest more time and resources into software development. Automakers like Toyota and Subaru are using open source software for infotainment and instrument cluster applications. Other open source applications across the automotive industry include R&D, testing, vehicle-to-cloud and fleet management. "Historically, there has been little code contributed back to the open source community," said Dan Cauchy, Executive Director of Automotive Grade Linux. "Often, this was because the internal procedures or IT infrastructure weren't in place to support open source contributions. The rise of software-defined vehicles has led to a growing trend of automakers not just using, but also contributing, to open source software. Many organizations are also establishing Open Source Program Offices to streamline and organize open source activities to better support business goals." Automakers including Toyota, Honda, and Volvo have already established Open Source Program Offices. The new AGL OSPO Expert Group provides a neutral space for them to share pain points and collaborate on solutions, exchange information, and develop best practices that can help other automakers build their own OSPOs. "Toyota has been participating in AGL and the broader open source community for over a decade," said Masato Endo, Group Manager of Open Source Program Group, Toyota. "We established an OSPO earlier this year to promote the use of open source software internally and to help guide how and where we contribute. We are looking forward to working with other open source leaders to solve common problems, collaborate on best practices, and invigorate open source activities in the automotive industry." The AGL OSPO EG is led by Toyota with support from Panasonic and AISIN Corporation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader jjslash brings word that Casio "has reintroduced its iconic calculator watch featuring a retro design with green text on a negative LCD and a classic keypad layout." TechSpot reports that the watch was based on the Casio Mini personal calculator first released in the early 1970s - even offering a keypad using the original fonts (with numbers separated by grid lines):Even the mode button, colored red, is a nod to the calculator's power indicator. The watches' calculator function can add, subtract, multiply, and divide up to eight digits. As for watch functions, you get dual time, an alarm, stopwatch functionality, and more... Casio's original personal calculator debuted in 1972, and cost $59.95. It featured a six-digit display, was a quarter the size of its competitors, and cost just a third of rival products. The calculator was an instant hit for Casio, selling a million units in the first 10 months on the market and more than six million units over the span of the series. Long-time Slashdot reader antdude says "I still wear one! Casio Data Bank 150 model...!" Share your own vintage calculator memories in the comments...Read more of this story at Slashdot.

French private AI lab PleIAs "is committed to training LLMs in the open," they write in a blog post at Mozilla.org. "This means not only releasing our models but also being open about every aspect, from the training data to the training code. We define 'open' strictly: all data must be both accessible and under permissive licenses." Wednesday PleIAs announced they were releasing the largest open multilingual pretraining dataset, according to their blog post at HuggingFace:Many have claimed that training large language models requires copyrighted data, making truly open AI development impossible. Today, Pleias is proving otherwise with the release of Common Corpus (part of the AI Alliance Open Trusted Data Initiative) - the largest fully open multilingual dataset for training LLMs, containing over 2 trillion tokens of permissibly licensed content with provenance information (2,003,039,184,047 tokens). As developers are responding to pressures from new regulations like the EU AI Act, Common Corpus goes beyond compliance by making our entire permissibly licensed dataset freely available on HuggingFace, with detailed documentation of every data source. We have taken extensive steps to ensure that the dataset is high-quality and is curated to train powerful models. Through this release, we are demonstrating that there doesn't have to be such a [heavy] trade-off between openness and performance. Common Corpus is: - Truly Open: contains only data that is permissively licensed and provenance is documented - Multilingual: mostly representing English and French data, but contains at least 1B tokens for over 30 languages - Diverse: consisting of scientific articles, government and legal documents, code, and cultural heritage data, including books and newspapers - Extensively Curated: spelling and formatting has been corrected from digitized texts, harmful and toxic content has been removed, and content with low educational content has also been removed. Common corpus builds on a growing ecosystem of large, open datasets, such as Dolma, FineWeb, RefinedWeb. The Common Pile currently in preparation under the coordination of Eleuther is built around the same principle of using permissible content in English language and, unsurprisingly, there were many opportunities for collaborations and shared efforts. But even together, these datasets do not provide enough training data for models much larger than a few billion parameters. So in order to expand the options for open model training, we still need more open data... Based on an analysis of 1 million user interactions with ChatGPT, the plurality of user requests are for creative compositions... The kind of content we actually need - like creative writing - is usually tied up in copyright restrictions. Common Corpus tackles these challenges through five carefully curated collections... Last week AMD also released its first series of fully open 1 billion parameter language models, AMD OLMo. And last month VentureBeat reported that the non-profit Allen Institute for AI had unveiled Molmo, "an open-source family of state-of-the-art multimodal AI models which outpeform top proprietary rivals including OpenAI's GPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google's Gemini 1.5 on several third-party benchmarks."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More than 120,000 bitcoin were stolen in a 2016 breach of Bitfinex. Seven years later the perpetrator pleaded guilty. And Thursday he was sentenced to a five-year prison term, reports the Associated Press:Ilya Lichtenstein masterminded one of the largest-ever thefts from a virtual currency exchange before he and his wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, carried out an elaborate scheme to liquidate the stolen funds, according to federal prosecutors... "Over half a decade, the defendant engaged in what IRS agents described as the most complicated money laundering techniques they had seen to date," prosecutors wrote... The couple successfully laundered about 21 percent of the funds stolen from Bitfinex. The laundered money was worth at least $14 million at 2016 prices. Its value would have exceeded $1 billion at the time of their 2022 arrest. Authorities seized the remaining funds, collectively valued at over $6 billion at current prices... An attorney for Bitfinex said the hack "devastated" its finances and its reputation with its customers, with the stolen funds accounting for approximately 36% of the company's assets at the time of theft. "Bitfinex had to take unprecedented and immediate action to ensure that any losses from the Hack would ultimately be borne by Bitfinex and its shareholders alone, not its customers," the lawyer, Barry Berke, wrote in a letter to the judge. A prosecutor said Lichtenstein immediately began cooperating with federal authorities after his arrest, helping them with other cybercrime investigations. Over 96% of the stolen funds have been recovered, with help from Lichtenstein, according to defense attorney Samson Enzer. The "vast bulk" of the stolen money was never spent, the lawyer said. Lichtenstein also "pleaded with the judge to spare his wife from prison, blaming himself for her involvement," according to the article. His wife - a rap artist who records under the name Razzlekhan - will be sentenced Monday, but has pleaded guilty to the same charge, and prosecutors are recommending an 18-month sentence.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's Chang'e-6 mission made history by retrieving the first surface samples from the moon's far side, revealing evidence of volcanic activity spanning 1.4 billion years. Reuters reports: Researchers said on Friday the soil brought back from the Chang'e-6 landing site contained fragments of volcanic rock - basalt - dating to 4.2 billion years ago and to 2.8 billion years ago. This points to a long period of volcanic activity - at least 1.4 billion years - on the far side during the first half of the moon's history, when it was a more dynamic world than it is today. The moon, like Earth, formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Volcanism on the moon, Earth and other planetary bodies involves the eruption of molten rock from the mantle - the layer just under the outer crust - onto the surface. The landing site in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impact crater, is an area with the thinnest crust on the moon, helpful for finding evidence of volcanism. The samples contained various volcanic rock fragments, and the researchers used a method called radioisotope dating to determine their age. Lunar basalt samples previously were obtained from the moon's near side, which perpetually faces Earth, during U.S. Apollo, Soviet Luna and Chinese Chang'e-5 missions. These showed that volcanism on the near side had occurred as long ago as 4.0 billion years ago and continued for at least two billion years, Li said. "The exact timing and duration of lunar volcanism is elusive and maybe varied across different regions. Some small-scale volcanism may have also occurred on the near side as late as about 120 million years ago as recorded by volcanic glass beads from Chang'e-5 samples" collected in 2020, Li said. The new study also found that the basalt dating to 4.2 billion years ago differed in composition from the basalt dating to 2.8 billion years ago, meaning they originated from different sources of molten rock - magma - in the mantle, Li said. The Chang'e-6 samples, Li said, also differ in composition compared with previously collected lunar samples from the near side.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"NASA has squandered $27 billion on the SLS moon rocket -- $6 billion over budget and 5 years late," writes longtime Slashdot reader schwit1. "The SLS isn't reusable so even if they finished it -- it is already obsolete. It is clear to everyone that the boondoggle has failed but the newest plan is to find a way to blame Trump. There is a big desire for big changes." Futurism reports: According to Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger's insider sources, there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled." "Not Block 1B. Not Block 2," he added, referring to the variant that was used during NASA's uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022 and a more powerful design with a much higher translunar injection payload capacity, respectively. "All of it." To be clear, as Berger himself points out, we're still far "from anything being settled." Nonetheless, the reporter's sources have historically been highly reliable, suggesting the space agency may indeed be getting cold feet about continuing to pour billions of dollars into the non-reusable rocket. [...] "Honestly the people who will ultimately make this decision aren't even in place yet," Berger wrote in a followup tweet, likely referring to the incoming Trump administration. "But there is a big desire for big changes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: Qubits, the strange devices at the heart of a quantum computer that can be set to 0, 1, or both at once, could hardly be more different from the mechanical clockwork used in the earliest computers. Today, most quantum computers rely on qubits made out of tiny circuits of superconducting metal, individual ions, photons, or other things. But now, physicists have made a working qubit from a tiny, moving machine, an advance that echoes back to the early 20th century when the first computers employed mechanical switches. "For many years, people were thinking it would be impossible to make a qubit from a mechanical system," says Adrian Bachtold, a condensed matter physicist at the Institute of Photonic Sciences who was not involved in the work, published today in Science. Stephan Durr, a quantum physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, says the result "puts a new system on the map," which could be used in other experiments-and perhaps to probe the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. [...] The new mechanical qubit is unlikely to run more mature competition off the field any time soon. Its fidelity -- a measure of how well experimenters can set the state they desire -- is just 60%, compared with greater than 99% for the best qubits. For that reason, "it's an advance in principle," Bachtold says. But Durr notes that a mechanical qubit might serve as a supersensitive probe of forces, such as gravity, that don't affect other qubits. And ETHZ researchers hope to take their demonstration a step further by using two mechanical qubits to perform simple logical operations. "That's what Igor is working on now," [says Yiwen Chu, a physicist at ETH Zurich]. If they succeed, the physical switches of the very first computers will have made a tiny comeback.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jojowombl shares a report from The Guardian: Legal documents released in ongoing US litigation between NSO Group and WhatsApp have revealed for the first time that the Israeli cyberweapons maker -- and not its government customers -- is the party that "installs and extracts" information from mobile phones targeted by the company's hacking software. The new details were contained in sworn depositions from NSO Group employees, portions of which were published for the first time on Thursday. It comes five years after WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, first announced it was filing suit against NSO. The company, which was blacklisted by the Biden administration in 2021, makes what is widely considered the world's most sophisticated hacking software, which -- according to researchers -- has been used in the past in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, India, Mexico, Morocco and Rwanda. [...] At the heart of the legal fight was an allegation by WhatsApp that NSO had long denied: that it was the Israeli company itself, and not its government clients around the world, who were operating the spyware. NSO has always said that its product is meant to be used to prevent serious crime and terrorism, and that clients are obligated not to abuse the spyware. It has also insisted that it does not know who its clients are targeting. [...] To make its case, WhatsApp was allowed by Judge Phyllis Hamilton to make its case, including citing depositions that have previously been redacted and out of public view. In one, an NSO employee said customers only needed to enter a phone number of the person whose information was being sought. Then, the employee said, "the rest is done automatically by the system." In other words, the process was not operated by customers. Rather NSO alone decided to access WhatsApp's servers when it designed (and continuously upgraded) Pegasus to target individuals' phones. A spokesperson for NSO, Gil Lainer, said in a statement: "NSO stands behind its previous statements in which we repeatedly detailed that the system is operated solely by our clients and that neither NSO nor its employees have access to the intelligence gathered by the system. We are confident that these claims, like many others in the past, will be proven wrong in court, and we look forward to the opportunity to do so."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese hackers, reportedly linked to a Chinese intelligence agency, breached T-Mobile as part of a broader cyber-espionage campaign targeting telecom companies to spy on high-value intelligence targets. "T-Mobile is closely monitoring this industry-wide attack, and at this time, T-Mobile systems and data have not been impacted in any significant way, and we have no evidence of impacts to customer information," a company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. Reuters reports: It was unclear what information, if any, was taken about T-Mobile customers' calls and communications records, according to the report. On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. cyber watchdog agency CISA said China-linked hackers have intercepted surveillance data intended for American law enforcement agencies after breaking into an unspecified number of telecom companies. Further reading: U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked HackRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Chegg, the online education company, is laying off 319 workers as it struggles to compete against modern AI chatbots. SFGATE reports: Chegg announced the new layoff round, which will hit 21% of its workforce, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The company delivered the news alongside another brutal quarterly financial report; Chegg lost more than $212 million from July through September. CEO Nathan Schultz, in prepared remarks accompanying the report, expressed some optimism but called it a "trying time" for his company. Chegg provides grammar and plagiarism checkers, plus course-by-course study help, along with much-used textbook solution guides. "Technology shifts have created headwinds for our industry and Chegg's business specifically," Schultz said. "Recent advancements in the AI search experience and the adoption of free and paid generative AI services by students, have resulted in challenges for Chegg. These factors are adversely affecting our business outlook and are requiring us to refocus and adjust the size of our business." He specifically called out Google's AI overviews, a recent change to search results that pulls information from news outlets and sites like Chegg and summarizes above the classic blue links. Schultz said that his team believes Google is "shifting from being a search origination point to the destination" in an attempt to keep market share. Schultz also blamed generative AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, saying that students see the tool and others like it as "strong alternatives" to Chegg. Web traffic has dropped sharply as a result, Schultz wrote. A Wall Street Journal story published Saturday said Chegg "is trying to avoid becoming [ChatGPT's] first major victim" and that the company had lost more than 500,000 subscribers, some who paid almost $20 a month, since the chatbot's 2022 launch. Despite the negative business impact, it seems Chegg is experimenting with new tech. Schultz said in the remarks that the company had formed an "arena" to evaluate AI models and aims to "integrate AI into the full learning journey."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bluesky, the social network surging in popularity, says it has "no intention" of training AI tools on users content. "The social network made the announcement on the same day that X (formerly Twitter) is implementing its new terms of service that allow the platform to use public posts to train AI," notes TechCrunch. From the report: "A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data," Bluesky said in a post on its app. "We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." The company went on to note that it uses AI internally to help with content moderation and that it also uses the technology in its "Discover" algorithmic feed. However, Bluesky says "none of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Europe's biggest meal delivery firm, Just Eat Takeaway, said on Wednesday it had struck a deal to sell its U.S. unit Grubhub to Wonder for $650 million, sending its shares soaring 20% in early trading. The Amsterdam-listed company had been looking to offload Chicago-based Grubhub since as early as 2022, after acquiring it in 2020 in a $7.3 billion deal amid a pandemic-driven boom in delivery services -- a process that was hampered by slowing growth, high taxes and a question of fee caps in New York City. "Just Eat Takeaway is at last putting an end to its disastrous U.S. journey," Bryan Garnier analyst Clement Genelot said, noting the group had destroyed more than $7 billion in shareholder value there. Grubhub's enterprise value of $650 million includes $500 million of senior notes and $150 million cash, Wonder said in a statement. Wonder is a food-delivery startup led by former Walmart executive Marc Lore.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The White House said it's completed a $6.6 billion grant agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) through the Chips and Science Act. "Today's announcement is among the most critical milestones yet in the implementation of the bipartisan CHIPS & Science Act, and demonstrates how we are ensuring that the progress made to date will continue to unfold in the coming years, benefitting communities all across the country," Biden said in a statement. The Hill reports: The grant is expected to create $65 billion of private investment by TSMC in Arizona, Biden said, which will include three new facilities and the creation of tens of thousands of jobs by the end of the decade. The first of the company's new facilities is on track to open next year. Biden earlier this year announced a slew of preliminary grant agreements with companies, including TSMC, through the CHIPS law. The announcement of a final agreement underscores how the administration is hoping to get those deals across the finish line before President-elect Trump takes office. [...] Biden has repeatedly touted the importance of the CHIPS and Science Act, citing the prevalence of microchips that are used in everyday technology such as phones, cars, home appliances and more. Officials have said the law is critical to bolster domestic production of the chips to make the U.S. less reliant on foreign supply chains.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader DaPhil writes: I taught myself to code at 12 years old in the 90s and I've always liked the back-and-forth with the runtime to achieve the right result. I recently got back from other roles to code again, and when starting a new project last year, I decided to give the new "AI assistants" a go. My initial surprise at the quality and the speed you can achieve when using ChatGPT and/or Copilot when coding turned sour over the months, as I realized that all the joy I felt about trying to get the result I want -- slowly improving my code by (slowly) thinking, checking the results against the runtime, and finally achieving success -- is, well, gone. What I do now is type English sentences in increasingly desperate attempts to get ChatGPT to output what I want (or provide snippets to Copilot to get the right autocompletion), which -- as they are pretty much black boxes -- is frustrating and non-linear: it either "just works," or it doesn't. There is no measure of progress. In a way, having Copilot in the IDE was even worse, since it often disrupts my thinking when suggesting completions. I've since disabled Copilot. Interestingly, I myself now feel somehow "disabled" without it in the IDE; however, the abstention has given me back the ability to sit back and think, and through that, the joy of programming. Still, it feels like I'm now somehow an ex-drug addict always on the verge of a relapse. I was wondering if any of you felt the same, or if I'm just... old.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: This year's Web Summit, in Lisbon, was all about artificial intelligence -- and a robot sorting laundry. Digit, a humanoid built by the US firm Agility Robotics, demonstrated how far AI has come in a few years by responding to voice commands -- filtered through Google's Gemini AI model -- to sift through a pile of colored T-shirts and place them in a basket. It wasn't a seamless demonstration but the enthusiastic response, nearly two years on from the launch of ChatGPT, reflected the excitement about all things AI that pervaded Europe's biggest annual tech conference. [...] Digit is being used in warehouses by GXO, a US logistics company, to lift boxes and place them on conveyor belts. According to the chief executive of Agility Robotics, Peggy Johnson, a new role could be created managing teams of Digits doing physical work. "Employees who were previously doing this physical work, appreciate the fact that they can hand that off to Digit," she said. "Then it allows them to do a number of other things, one of which is to be a robot manager." "Talk of a bust in the AI boom could not be heard over the shouts of encouragement for Digit as it pondered different shades of garment," reports The Guardian. "Nonetheless, the voices of caution were there, discussing familiar themes such as safety, jobs and the climate, as AI comes to influence a huge range of industries."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Federal Trade Commission reported Friday that the number of consumer complaints about unwanted telemarketing phone calls has dropped over 50% since 2021, continuing a trend that started three years ago. From a report: This year, the FTC has received 1.1 million reports regarding robocalls, down from 1.2 million one year before 2023 and from more than 3.4 million in 2021. According to this year's National Do Not Call Registry Data Book -- which provides the most recent data on robocall complaints together with a complete state-by-state analysis -- the highest number of consumer complaints targeted unwanted calls about medical and prescription issues, with more than 170,000 reports (most of them robocalls) received until September 30, 2024.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Economist: Britain has long been a pioneer in telecoms. In 1837 it built the world's first commercial telegraph; the first transatlantic call was placed from London in 1927; in 1992 a British programmer sent the first text message to a mobile phone. Today it lags rather than leads. According to figures provided to The Economist by Opensignal, a research firm, Britain ranks 46th for download speeds out of the 56 developed and developing countries for which there are data. That gives it the worst mobile service in the rich world. Some of this is due to demand. Over the past three years data usage on mobile devices has doubled as people stream films and play games. The busiest parts of cities often lack mobile reception because the system is at capacity. But mainly it is an issue of supply. British users of 5G are only on it 11% of the time. That puts Britain 43rd out of the 56 countries. This lacklustre performance is caused by a combination of government U-turns, insufficient investment and sclerotic planning.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Future UN climate summits should be held only in countries that can show clear support for climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying, according to a group of influential climate policy experts. The group includes former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and the prominent climate scientist Johan Rockstrom. They have written to the UN demanding the current complex process of annual "conferences of the parties" under the UN framework convention on climate change -- the Paris agreement's parent treaty -- be streamlined, and meetings held more frequently, with more of a voice given to developing countries. "It is now clear that the Cop is no longer fit for purpose. We need a shift from negotiation to implementation," they wrote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Classic first-person shooters Unreal (1998) and Unreal Tournament are now available for free on the Internet Archive, with official OK from publisher Epic Games. An Epic spokesperson confirmed to PC Gamer that users are permitted to "independently link to and play these versions." Players can download the games directly from the Internet Archive and apply patches from Github for modern Windows compatibility, or use simplified installers through oldunreal.com. Both titles run on current hardware despite their age, though users may need to adjust dated default settings like 640x480 resolution and inverted mouse controls.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony faces mounting challenges after a year marked by major setbacks in its gaming and film divisions. The company's $200-400 million gaming project "Concord" sold only 25,000 copies before being discontinued, while PlayStation 5 sales targets were cut from 25 million to 21 million units. Sony Pictures struggled with underperforming Spider-Man spin-offs and high-profile departures, including CEO Tony Vinciquerra. Over 1,200 employees were laid off across divisions, and profits fell 39% to $124 million in the latest quarter. Sony's stock dropped 5% over the past year while broader markets rose nearly 40%.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Server maker Super Micro Computer is facing mounting challenges after EY resigned as its auditor on October 24, citing concerns about management's integrity and ethical values. EY's departure came just months after replacing Deloitte & Touche, which had audited Super Micro for two decades through June 2023. The resignation raises questions about potential issues Deloitte may have missed. Super Micro has appointed a special committee and hired legal and forensic accounting firms to investigate, though details remain undisclosed. The company faces a November 16 deadline to submit a compliance plan to Nasdaq regarding delayed financial reports. A former employee's lawsuit alleges improper revenue recognition between 2020-2022 under Deloitte's watch, prompting a Justice Department investigation. WSJ adds: Persuading another major audit firm to sign on under the current circumstances would be an impressive feat. EY in its resignation letter said it was "unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management." Why would any other auditor feel differently?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The cloud migration narrative that powered tech valuations during the pandemic is attempting a comeback, but the underlying data suggests a more complex story. UBS's new survey of IT services reveals a striking disconnect between industry expectations and customer reality. While executives proclaim "2025 will be far better than what we've seen in 2024," their enterprise clients report having migrated merely 15% of workloads to the cloud, with the remainder presenting increasingly complex challenges. The numbers are particularly telling: Growth rates for major cloud providers AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have declined from pandemic peaks of 40-50% to 10-20%. IT budgets for 2024, meanwhile, are projected to be "flattish to up very slightly, maybe a couple percent," marking a significant departure from the explosive growth of recent years.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British telecom Virgin Media O2 has deployed an AI tool to combat phone scammers by wasting their time with fake conversations, the company said. The AI system, named Daisy, uses voice synthesis to mimic an elderly woman and engages fraudsters in lengthy discussions about fictitious family members or provides false bank details, keeping them occupied for up to 40 minutes per call. Virgin Media O2 embedded phone numbers connected to Daisy within scammer call lists targeting vulnerable individuals. The system, developed with help from anti-scam YouTuber Jim Browning, automatically transcribes incoming calls and generates responses without human intervention. Further reading: Google Rolls Out Call Screening AI To Thwart Phone Fraudsters.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brazilian officials are scrambling to control a gambling boom that has led some citizens to take out loans with interest rates as high as 438% to fund their betting habits, sparking concerns about household debt levels. The surge in online betting has doubled Brazil's gambling population to 52 million in six months, with the central bank estimating monthly gambling spending between 18-21 billion reais ($3.1-3.6 billion) through August 2024. Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto said lower-income families are disproportionately affected, with 20% of government social program payments in August directed to online gambling sites. The Finance Ministry has accelerated regulatory measures, requiring over 100 betting companies to submit operating paperwork ahead of schedule. New rules starting January 1 will allow authorities to limit bet amounts, block payment systems, and monitor for money laundering. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recently raised concerns at the UN about gambling's impact on Brazil's poorest citizens, while officials are moving to ban credit card use for betting and restrict gambling advertisements.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eighteen Republican state attorneys general have sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Chair Gary Gensler on Thursday, challenging the agency's authority to regulate cryptocurrency markets. The lawsuit, led by Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, alleges the SEC has exceeded its statutory powers by attempting to assume broad regulatory control over digital assets without congressional authorization. The complaint argues the agency's actions infringe on states' rights to develop their own cryptocurrency regulations and harm consumers by imposing ill-fitting federal securities laws on digital assets. Speaking at a legal conference Thursday, Gensler defended the agency's approach, citing consistent court support for SEC enforcement actions in cryptocurrency cases. The regulatory landscape appears set for change following President-elect Trump's victory. Trump, who previously dismissed cryptocurrency as a "scam," has pledged to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the planet" and remove Gensler.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Australian government plans to enact laws requiring big tech firms to protect its citizens online, the latest move by the center-left Labor administration to crack down on social media including through age limits and curbs on misinformation. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced the government's plan for a legislated Digital Duty of Care in Australia on Wednesday night, saying it aligned with similar laws in the UK and European Union. "It is now time for industry to show leadership, and for social media to recognize it has a social responsibility," Rowland said in a speech in Sydney announcing the measures. It would "keep users safe and help prevent online harms." In response to the laws, Facebook and Instagram operator Meta Platforms Inc. called for the restrictions to be handled by app stores, such as those run by Google and Apple Inc., rather than the platforms themselves. The government has ignored those requests, but has yet to announce what fines companies would face or what age verification information will need to be provided. At the same time, Albanese has moved forward controversial laws to target misinformation and disinformation online, which opponents have labeled an attack on freedom of speech. Earlier this month, Albanese said the government would legislate for a ban on social media for children under 16, a policy the government says is world-leading. "Social media is doing harm to our kids and I'm calling time on it," Albanese told a news conference.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: [...] At KubeCon North America 2024 this week, CNCF executive director Priyanka Sharma said in her keynote, "Patent trolls are not contributors or even adopters in our ecosystem. Instead, they prey on cloud-native adopters by abusing the legal system. We are here to tell the world that these patent trolls don't stand a chance because CNCF is uniting the ecosystem to deter them. Like a herd of musk oxen, we will run them off our pasture." CNCF CTO Chris Aniszczyk added: "The reason trolls can make money is that many companies find it too expensive to fight back, so they pay trolls a settlement fee to avoid the even higher cost of litigation. Now, when a whole herd of companies band together like musk oxen to drive a troll off, it changes the cost structure of fighting back. It disrupts their economic model." How? Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation's executive director, said, "We don't negotiate with trolls. Instead, with United Patents, we go to the PTO and crush those patents. We strive to invalidate them by working with developers who have prior art, bringing this to the attention of the USPTO, and killing patents. No negotiation, no settlement. We destroy the very asset that made patent trolls' business work. Together, since we've started this effort, 90% of the time, we've been able to go in there and destroy these patents." "It's time for us to band together," said Joanna Lee, CNCF's VP of strategic programs and legal. "We encourage all organizations in our ecosystem to get involved. Join the fight, enhance your own company's protection, protect your customers, enhance our community defense, and save money on legal expenses." While getting your company and its legal department involved in the effort to fend off patent trolls is important, developers can also help. CNCF announced the Cloud Native Heroes Challenge, a patent troll bounty program in which cloud-native developers and technologists can earn swag and win prizes. They're asking you to find evidence of preexisting technology -- referred to by patent lawyers as "prior art" -- that can kill off bad patents. This could be open-source documentation (including release notes), published standards or specifications, product manuals, articles, blogs, books, or any publicly available information. All entrants who submit an entry that conforms to the contest rules will receive a free "Cloud Native Hero" t-shirt that can be picked up at any future KubeCon+CloudNativeCon. The winner will also receive a $3,000 cash prize. In the inaugural contest, the CNCF is seeking information that can be used to invalidate Claim 1 from US Patent US-11695823-B1. This is the major patent asserted by Edge Networking Systems against Kubernetes users. As is often the case with such patents, it's much too broad. This patent describes a network architecture that facilitates secure and flexible programmability between a user device and across a network with full lifecycle management of services and infrastructure applications. That describes pretty much any modern cloud system. If you can find prior art that describes such a system before June 13, 2013, you could be a winner. Some such materials have already been found. This is already listed in the "known references" tab of the contest information page and doesn't qualify. If you care about keeping open-source software easy and cheap to use -- or you believe trolls shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of companies that make or use programs -- you can help. I'll be doing some digging myself.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rocket Lab says it has signed the first customer for its Neutron launch vehicle, with a launch planned for mid-2025. SpaceNews reports: The company announced Nov. 12 that it signed a contract with an undisclosed "commercial satellite constellation operator" for two launches of Neutron, one in mid-2026 and the other in 2027, a deal that could lead to additional launches for the same customer. "We see this agreement as an important opportunity that signifies the beginning of a productive collaboration that could see Neutron deploy this particular customer's entire constellation," Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in an earnings call Nov. 12 to discuss the company's third quarter financial results. [...] Beck said Rocket Lab is "deep into the qualification testing" of flight hardware, including vehicle structures and the Archimedes engine, which was hotfired for the first time in August at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. "Our engine test cadence in Mississippi has doubled over the quarter, and we've bought multiple engines to the test stand," he said. Neutron is a key part of the company's ambitions to deploy its own constellation, something that Beck has hinted at in some previous earnings calls. His presentation called that constellation the third pillar for Rocket Lab, after launch services and spacecraft production, both of which support the constellation. "We're not ready to reveal details on what this constellation or application may be," he said, "but I think it's important to understand the strong foundation we've built up across launch and space systems to enable it in due course." That includes Neutron, with Beck citing SpaceX's use of Falcon 9 to deploy its Starlink constellation. "Everything is irrelevant without a reusable high cadence launch. So, Neutron is really the key to unlocking that."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Each day leading up through the 16th (the official day Half-Life 2 was launched), Ars Technica will be publishing a new article looking back at the game and its impact. Here's an excerpt from an article published today by Ars Technica's Kyle Orland: When millions of eager gamers first installed Half-Life 2 20 years ago, many, if not most, of them found they needed to install another piece of software alongside it. Few at the time could imagine that piece of companion software -- with the pithy name Steam -- would eventually become the key distribution point and social networking center for the entire PC gaming ecosystem, making the idea of physical PC games an anachronism in the process. While Half-Life 2 wasn't the first Valve game released on Steam, it was the first high-profile title to require the platform, even for players installing the game from physical retail discs. That requirement gave Valve access to millions of gamers with new Steam accounts and helped the company bypass traditional retail publishers of the day by directly marketing and selling its games (and, eventually, games from other developers). But 2004-era Steam also faced a vociferous backlash from players who saw the software as a piece of nuisance DRM (digital rights management) that did little to justify its existence at the time. In honor of the anniversary, Orbifold Studios released a new Half-Life 2 RTX trailer. "[T]his is a remastering project that leverages the technologies of NVIDIA's RTX Remix and has the blessing of the original developer, Valve," reports Wccftech. "Orbifold Studios, a team of experienced modders, was founded specifically to bring this project to fruition." It's unclear when exactly this project will be finished. Nvidia is also giving away a custom Half-Life 2 themed RTX 480 Super Founders Edition.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: What if, rather than scouring the internet, ChatGPT could search all of the DNA on Earth? That future just got a bit closer with Evo, an AI model reported today in Science. The program -- trained on billions of lines of genetic sequences -- can design new proteins and even whole genomes. Previous AIs could only interpret and predict relatively short sections of DNA, and they could only work with groups of nucleotides -- the A, C, G, T alphabet of DNA -- not individual nucleotides. To take things to the next level, researchers trained Evo on 300 billion nucleotides of sequence information. In a first test, Evo bested other AI models on predicting the impact of mutations on protein performance. The team then had Evo design new versions of the CRISPR genome editor; the best designs were as good at cutting DNA as a commercial version. And in what study author Brian Hie, a computational biologist at Stanford University, calls the "most futuristic and crazy" part of the study, the researchers asked Evo to generate DNA sequences that are long enough to serve as genomes for bacteria -- a step toward AI-designed synthetic genomes. Much of the work on AI occurs in secret at companies. But the researchers have released Evo publicly so that other researchers can use it, and Hie says the team has no plans to commercialize its creation. "For now, I see this as a research project."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Datacenter operators are increasingly turning to small modular reactors (SMRs) like those developed by Oklo to meet growing energy demands. According to The Register, Oklo has secured commitments from two major datacenter providers for 750 MW of power, pending regulatory approvals. It brings the firm's planned nuclear build-out to 2.1 gigawatts. From the report: Oklo's designs are, from what we understand, inspired by the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) and utilize liquid-metal cooling. They are capable of producing between 15MW and 50MW of power, depending on the configuration. That means Oklo's datacenter customers plan to deploy somewhere between 15 and 50 of the reactors to satisfy their thirst for electricity. However, they may be waiting a while. According to Oklo's website, the nuclear startup hopes to bring its first plant online before the end of the decade. Before that can happen, though, Oklo will need to obtain approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- something for which it says it's already submitted applications. In 2022, the watchdog rejected an Oklo plan to build a small atomic reactor in Idaho, citing "significant information gaps" on safety-related measures. That said, Oklo has lately received support from US government agencies including the Department of Energy (DoE), which has awarded a site use permit, while Idaho National Laboratory -- home of EBR-II -- has provided fuel material to support the efforts. Speaking of fuel, Oklo's designs may not suffer from the challenges other SMR startups, like Terrapower, have encountered. Oklo's designs are intended to run on recycled nuclear waste products from traditional reactors. In fact, the startup is currently working with DoE national labs to develop new fuel recycling technologies. Oklo hopes to bring a commercial-scale recycling plan online by the early 2030s.Read more of this story at Slashdot.