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In a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists have identified a new Antarctic ice sheet "tipping point" where slight increases in the temperature of seawater infiltrating coastal ice sheets can lead to significant ice loss due to feedback loops that expand underwater cavities and accelerate ice collapse into the ocean. This mechanism could potentially cause future sea level rise to far exceed current predictions, impacting major global cities and billions of people. The Guardian reports: The researchers used computer models to show that a "very small increase" in the temperature of the intruding water could lead to a "very big increase" in the loss of ice -- ie, tipping point behavior. It is unknown how close the tipping point is, or whether it has even been crossed already. But the researchers said it could be triggered by temperature rises of just tenths of a degree, and very likely by the rises expected in the coming decades. [...] The new research [...] found that some Antarctic ice sheets were more vulnerable to seawater intrusion than others. The Pine Island glacier, currently Antarctica's largest contributor to sea level rise, is especially vulnerable, as the base of the glacier slopes down inland, meaning gravity helps the seawater penetrate. The large Larsen ice sheet is similarly at risk. The so-called "Doomsday" glacier, Thwaites, was found to be among the least vulnerable to seawater intrusion. This is because the ice is flowing into the sea so fast already that any cavities in the ice melted by seawater intrusion are quickly filled with new ice.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: An online gaming dispute made its way to the real world when a New Jersey man flew to Florida to attack another player with a hammer, authorities said. Edward Kang, 20, is charged with attempted second-degree murder and armed burglary with a mask, according to Nassau County court records. He was arrested early Sunday morning. Kang and the victim, another young man around the same age as Kang, had never met in real life, but they both played ArcheAge, a medieval fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The game's publisher announced in April that it would be shutting down servers in Europe and North America on June 27, citing a declining number of active players. Kang flew from Newark, New Jersey, to Jacksonville, Florida, last Thursday after telling his mother that he was going to visit a friend that he had met while playing a video game, officials said. Officials didn't say how Kang learned where the victim lives. Upon arrival, Kang took an Uber to a hotel in Fernandina Beach, about 35 miles north of Jacksonville, and then bought a hammer at a local hardware store, deputies said. Kang went to the victim's Fernandina Beach home, which was unlocked, around 2 a.m. Sunday, authorities said. The victim was walking out of his bedroom when he was confronted by Kang, who hit him on the head with the hammer, officials said. The two struggled as the victim called for help. His stepfather responded and helped to restrain Kang until police arrived. The victim suffered several head wounds that were not considered life-threatening, officials said. Online court records didn't list an attorney for Kang. He was being held without bond.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, LuxiTech, and Soochow University have developed a new method to run AI language models more efficiently by eliminating matrix multiplication, potentially reducing the environmental impact and operational costs of AI systems. Ars Technica's Benj Edwards reports: Matrix multiplication (often abbreviated to "MatMul") is at the center of most neural network computational tasks today, and GPUs are particularly good at executing the math quickly because they can perform large numbers of multiplication operations in parallel. [...] In the new paper, titled "Scalable MatMul-free Language Modeling," the researchers describe creating a custom 2.7 billion parameter model without using MatMul that features similar performance to conventional large language models (LLMs). They also demonstrate running a 1.3 billion parameter model at 23.8 tokens per second on a GPU that was accelerated by a custom-programmed FPGA chip that uses about 13 watts of power (not counting the GPU's power draw). The implication is that a more efficient FPGA "paves the way for the development of more efficient and hardware-friendly architectures," they write. The paper doesn't provide power estimates for conventional LLMs, but this post from UC Santa Cruz estimates about 700 watts for a conventional model. However, in our experience, you can run a 2.7B parameter version of Llama 2 competently on a home PC with an RTX 3060 (that uses about 200 watts peak) powered by a 500-watt power supply. So, if you could theoretically completely run an LLM in only 13 watts on an FPGA (without a GPU), that would be a 38-fold decrease in power usage. The technique has not yet been peer-reviewed, but the researchers -- Rui-Jie Zhu, Yu Zhang, Ethan Sifferman, Tyler Sheaves, Yiqiao Wang, Dustin Richmond, Peng Zhou, and Jason Eshraghian -- claim that their work challenges the prevailing paradigm that matrix multiplication operations are indispensable for building high-performing language models. They argue that their approach could make large language models more accessible, efficient, and sustainable, particularly for deployment on resource-constrained hardware like smartphones. [...] The researchers say that scaling laws observed in their experiments suggest that the MatMul-free LM may also outperform traditional LLMs at very large scales. The researchers project that their approach could theoretically intersect with and surpass the performance of standard LLMs at scales around 10^23 FLOPS, which is roughly equivalent to the training compute required for models like Meta's Llama-3 8B or Llama-2 70B. However, the authors note that their work has limitations. The MatMul-free LM has not been tested on extremely large-scale models (e.g., 100 billion-plus parameters) due to computational constraints. They call for institutions with larger resources to invest in scaling up and further developing this lightweight approach to language modeling.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MTVNews.com has been shut down, with more than two decades' worth of content no longer available. "Content on its sister site, CMT.com, seems to have met a similar fate," adds Variety. From the report: In 2023, MTV News was shuttered amid the financial woes of parent company Paramount Global. As of Monday, trying to access MTV News articles on mtvnews.com or mtv.com/news resulted in visitors being redirected to the main MTV website. The now-unavailable content includes decades of music journalism comprising thousands of articles and interviews with countless major artists, dating back to the site's launch in 1996. Perhaps the most significant loss is MTV News' vast hip-hop-related archives, particularly its weekly "Mixtape Monday" column, which ran for nearly a decade in the 2000s and 2010s and featured interviews, reviews and more with many artists, producers and others early in their careers. "So, mtvnews.com no longer exists. Eight years of my life are gone without a trace," Patrick Hosken, former music editor for MTV News, wrote on X. "All because it didn't fit some executives' bottom lines. Infuriating is too small a word." "sickening (derogatory) to see the entire @mtvnews archive wiped from the internet," Crystal Bell, culture editor at Mashable and one-time entertainment director of MTV News, posted on X."decades of music history gone... including some very early k-pop stories." "This is disgraceful. They've completely wiped the MTV News archive," longtime Rolling Stone senior writer Brian Hiatt commented. "Decades of pop culture history research material gone, and why?" The report notes that some MTV News articles may be available via internet archiving services like the Wayback Machine. However, older articles aren't available.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Waymo said on Tuesday its autonomous ride-hailing service, Waymo One, is now available to everyone in San Francisco, nearly four years after a similar move in Phoenix, Arizona. Driverless vehicles are expected to drive commercial success for automakers even as regulatory scrutiny remains tight amid concerns of investors about growing investments in the nascent technology. Waymo had started a test service with its research-focused program in San Francisco in 2021, which included an autonomous specialist on board for all rides at that time, as it looked to commercialize the technology. The company said that about 300,000 people had signed up to ride with Waymo since it first opened a waitlist in the city, signaling strong demand. Now with open access, anyone can request a ride on its app. The company had opened access to everyone in Phoenix, Arizona without a waitlist in 2020. Mountain View, California-based Waymo is a self-driving technology pioneer, which started its first U.S. driverless taxi service in 2020 over a decade after it was born in 2009 as a project inside Google. In March, the company received approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to start its Waymo One in Los Angeles and some cities near San Francisco.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kurt Schlosser reports via GeekWire: Living Computers Museum + Labs, the Seattle institution created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as a hands-on showcase for rare computing technology and interactive displays, will not reopen, more than four years after closing just ahead of the pandemic. Allen's estate, which has been managing and winding down his vast array of holdings since his death in 2018, confirmed to GeekWire that the 12-year-old museum is closed for good. The estate also announced Tuesday that some key pieces from Allen's personal collection of computer artifacts, displayed over the years at Living Computers, will be auctioned by Christie's as part of a broader sale of various Allen items later this year. As directed by Allen's wishes, proceeds from the sale of any items will go to charitable causes. Allen's sister Jody Allen is the executor of his estate and for several years has been selling pieces of it, ranging from Seattle's Cinerama movie theater, the Everett, Wash.-based Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, Vulcan Productions, Stratolaunch, the superyacht Octopus, and more. The estate previously teamed up with Christie's for a November 2022 auction of 155 masterpieces from Allen's extensive art collection. It was the world's most successful single-owner fine art auction ever, raising a record $1.62 billion. The new auction, titled "Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection," is billed as "a celebration of first-generation technologies and the pioneering minds behind them." The event will feature more than 150 items in three separate auctions, including "Firsts: The History of Computing," an online sale closing Sept. 12. This auction pays homage to Allen's role shaping the modern computing landscape. A highlight of the sale is a computer that Allen helped restore and on which he worked, a DEC PDP-10: KI-10. Built in 1971, it's the first computer that both Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ever used prior to founding Microsoft. It's estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000. Christie's said details about other computers and related items from Allen's collection will be shared this summer. The other two auctions of Allen property include "Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity," a live auction on Sept. 10 that will feature items intended to tell the story of scientific and technological achievements spanning centuries. The top item is a 1939 signed letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited as the impetus behind the establishment of the Manhattan Project. It's estimated to fetch $4 million to $6 million. The third auction is "Over the Horizon: Art of the Future," an online auction closing Sept. 12, showcasing art devoted to interplanetary travel. A sale highlight is Chelsey Bonestell's "Saturn as Seen from Titan," circa 1952, and estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Last week, an in-depth investigative report from JBTC revealed that Korean Internet provider KT, formerly known as Korea Telecom, distributed malware onto subscribers' computers to interfere with and block torrent traffic. File-sharing continues to be very popular in South Korea, but operates differently than in most other countries. "Webhard" services, short for Web Hard Drive, are particularly popular. These are paid BitTorrent-assisted services, which also offer dedicated web seeds, to ensure that files remain available. Webhard services rely on the BitTorrent-enabled 'Grid System', which became so popular in Korea that ISPs started to notice it. Since these torrent transfers use a lot of bandwidth, which is very costly in the country, providers would rather not have this file-sharing activity on their networks. KT, one of South Korea's largest ISPs with over 16 million subscribers, was previously caught meddling with the Grid System. In 2020, their throttling activities resulted in a court case, where the ISP cited 'network management' costs as the prime reason to interfere. The Court eventually sided with KT, ending the case in its favor, but that wasn't the end of the matter. An investigation launched by the police at the time remains ongoing. New reports now show that the raid on KT's datacenter found that dozens of devices were used in the 'throttling process' and they were doing more than just limiting bandwidth. When Webhard users started reporting problems four years ago, they didn't simply complain about slow downloads. In fact, the main concern was that several Grid-based Webhard services went offline or reported seemingly unexplainable errors. Since all complaining users were KT subscribers, fingers were pointed in that direction. According to an investigation by Korean news outlet JBTC, the Internet provider actively installed malware on computers of Webhard services. This activity was widespread and effected an estimated 600,000 KT subscribers. The Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency, which carried out the raid and investigation, believes this was an organized hacking attempt. A dedicated KT team allegedly planted malware to eavesdrop on subscribers and interfere with their private file transfers. [...] Why KT allegedly distributed the malware and what it precisely intended to do is unclear. The police believe there were internal KT discussions about network-related costs, suggesting that financial reasons played a role.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cruise, the autonomous vehicle unit from General Motors, named Amazon and Microsoft executive Marc Whitten as its new CEO, replacing former CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt. CNBC reports: Whitten was a founding engineer at Microsoft's Xbox before leaving the company after more than 17 years to become chief product officer of audio company Sonos in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then worked at Amazon as vice president of entertainment devices and services before his most recent role as chief product and technology officer for software development company Unity's Create. His appointment comes at a crucial time for Cruise, which is testing and relaunching its autonomous vehicles on public roadways. It ceased operations weeks after an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi. A third-party probe into the October incident ordered by GM and Cruise found that culture issues, ineptitude and poor leadership fueled regulatory oversights that led to the accident. The probe also investigated allegations of a cover-up by Cruise leadership, but investigators did not find evidence to support those claims. During that time, San Francisco-based Cruise was attempting to expand its operations into a revenue-generating business for GM, which has been a majority owner of the company since acquiring it in 2016. Other investors now include Honda Motor, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart. As of this month, Cruise has resumed supervised driving in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, in addition to its ongoing testing in Dubai. It has not relaunched in San Francisco, where it remains under investigation related to the accident.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Volkswagen today announced it will invest up to $5 billion in U.S. electric-vehicle maker Rivian as part of a new, equally controlled joint venture to share EV architecture and software. Shares surged 40% in extended Nasdaq trading after the announcement. Reuters reports: The investment will provide Rivian - known for its flagship R1S SUVs and R1T pickups - the funding it needs to develop its less-expensive and smaller R2 SUVs that are set to roll out in 2026, CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters. Volkswagen will initially invest $1 billion in Rivian and a further $4 billion in investments later, the companies said. The partnership will help Volkswagen accelerate its plans to develop software-defined vehicles (SDV), with Rivian licensing its existing intellectual property rights to the joint venture.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has sent out emails to users based in countries it considers "unsupported," saying it will block their access for good starting July 9. From a report: The email, reproduced on the OpenAI community forum here, includes a brief statement. "Our data shows that your organization has API traffic from a region that OpenAI does not currently support," it reads. "We will be taking additional measures to block API traffic from regions that are not on our supported countries and territories list starting on July 9." "To continue using OpenAI's services, you will need to access the service in a supported region," it concludes. Much of the world has access to OpenAI including virtually the entire West, most of Eastern Europe, South Asia, and about half of Africa. However, there are some notable absences on the list such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and mainland China.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Slack announced a significant change to its platform, saying it will "begin deleting messages and files more than one year old from free workspaces on a rolling basis." Slack's prior policy involved keeping messages and files for the lifetime of a free workspace, although accessing that full history required switching to a paid account. Under the new policy, Slack reserves the right to delete content from free workspaces after one year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is switching back to pagination for its search results, abandoning the continuous scroll feature introduced in 2022 for desktop and 2021 for mobile. The change, effective immediately for desktop users, aims to improve search result loading speeds, Google said, adding that infinite scrolling did not significantly enhance user satisfaction. Mobile users will see the change in coming months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Federal regulators have given Amazon key permission that will allow it to expand its drone delivery program, the company announced Thursday. From a report: In a blog post published on its website, Seattle-based Amazon said that the Federal Aviation Administration has given its Prime Air delivery service the OK to operate drones "beyond visual line of sight," removing a barrier that has prevented its drones from traveling longer distances. With the approval, Amazon pilots can now operate drones remotely without seeing it with their own eyes. An FAA spokesperson said the approval applies to College Station, Texas, where the company launched drone deliveries in late 2022. Amazon said its planning to immediately scale its operations in that city in an effort to reach customers in more densely populated areas. It says the approval from regulators also "lays the foundation" to scale its operations to more locations around the country. Businesses have wanted simpler rules that could open neighborhood skies to new commercial applications of drones, but privacy advocates and some airplane and balloon pilots remain wary.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China brought a capsule full of lunar soil [non-paywalled link] from the far side of the moon down to Earth on Tuesday, achieving the latest success in an ambitious schedule to explore the moon and other parts of the solar system. From a report: The sample, retrieved by the China National Space Administration's Chang'e-6 lander after a 53-day mission, highlights China's growing capabilities in space and notches another win in a series of lunar missions that started in 2007 and have so far been executed almost without flaw. "Chang'e-6 is the first mission in human history to return samples from the far side of the moon," Long Xiao, a planetary geologist at China University of Geosciences, wrote in an email. "This is a major event for scientists worldwide," he added, and "a cause for celebration for all humanity." Such sentiments and the prospects of international lunar sample exchanges highlighted the hope that China's robotic missions to the moon and Mars will serve to advance scientific understanding of the solar system. Those possibilities are contrasted by views in Washington and elsewhere that Tuesday's achievement is the latest milestone in a 21st-century space race with geopolitical overtones. In February, a privately operated American spacecraft landed on the moon. NASA is also pursuing the Artemis campaign to return Americans to the lunar surface, although its next mission, a flight by astronauts around the moon, has been delayed because of technical issues. China, too, is looking to expand its presence on the moon, landing more robots there, and eventually human astronauts, in the years to come.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India is set to embark on an ambitious $168 billion project to link its major rivers, aiming to address water scarcity and boost agriculture in the world's most populous nation. The National River Linking Project, conceived over a century ago, plans to construct 30 canals to transfer an estimated 7 trillion cubic feet of water annually across the country. While government officials tout the project's potential to irrigate farmland and generate hydroelectric power, scientists and environmental experts have raised concerns about its ecological impact. Recent research suggests the project could disrupt monsoon patterns, potentially exacerbating water stress in some regions.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Birth rates in the world's rich economies have more than halved since 1960 to hit a record low, according to a study that urged countries to prepare for a "lower fertility future." From a report: The average number of children per woman across the 38 most industrialised countries has fallen from 3.3 in 1960 to 1.5 in 2022, according to a study by the OECD published on Thursday. The fertility rate is now well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 children per woman -- at which a country's population is considered to be stable without immigration -- in all the group's member countries except for Israel. "This decline will change the face of societies, communities and families and potentially have large effects on economic growth and prosperity," warned the Paris-based organisation. Faltering population growth acts as a drag on economic expansion. Across the EU, the rise in overall labour force participation will soon not be enough to compensate for its falling working-age population, exacerbating labour shortages, according to the IMF and European Commission's 2024 ageing report. Coupled with rising life expectancy, low births also put pressure on public finances as they leave fewer people contributing the tax revenues needed to pay for the rising costs of an ageing population. A lack of pupils is also driving an increase in school closures across Europe, Japan and South Korea.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boozt, an online Nordic department store, has banned thousands of customers for returning an excessive number of purchased items. From a report: The retailer has blocked about 60,000 of a total 3.5 million customers, in a bid to reduce the significant costs associated with "serial returners," the company said in a statement. "Their behavior is too expensive for both the company and the environment," it added. Returns are costly for retailers both in lost revenue and in the cost of trying to turn around an item to be sold again. In some instances items returned aren't fit to be sold again, leading to waste.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the weekend, a clip from a recent interview with Telegram's founder Pavel Durov went semi-viral on X (previously Twitter). In the video, Durov tells right-wing personality Tucker Carlson that he is the only product manager at the company, and that he only employs "about 30 engineers." Security experts say that while Durov was bragging about his Dubai-based company being "super efficient," what he said was actually a red flag for users. "Without end-to-end encryption, huge numbers of vulnerable targets, and servers located in the UAE? Seems like that would be a security nightmare," Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University, told TechCrunch. (Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn disputed this, saying it has no data centers in the UAE.) Green was referring to the fact that -- by default -- chats on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted like they are on Signal or WhatsApp. A Telegram user has to start a "Secret Chat" to switch on end-to-end encryption, making the messages unreadable to Telegram or anyone other than the intended recipient. Also, over the years, many people have cast doubt over the quality of Telegram's encryption, given that the company uses its own proprietary encryption algorithm, created by Durov's brother, as he said in an extended version of the Carlson interview. Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a longtime expert in the security of at-risk users, said that it's important to remember that Telegram, unlike Signal, is a lot more than just a messaging app.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Biden administration is investigating China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom over concerns the firms could exploit access to American data through their U.S. cloud and internet businesses by providing it to Beijing, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. From the report: The companies still have a small presence in the United States, for example, providing cloud services and routing wholesale U.S. internet traffic. That gives them access to Americans' data even after telecom regulators barred them from providing telephone and retail internet services in the United States. Reuters found no evidence the companies intentionally provided sensitive U.S. data to the Chinese government or committed any other type of wrongdoing. The investigation is the latest effort by Washington to prevent Beijing from exploiting Chinese firms' access to U.S. data to harm companies, Americans or national security, as part of a deepening tech war between the geopolitical rivals. It shows the administration is trying to shut down all remaining avenues for Chinese companies already targeted by Washington to obtain U.S. data.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Union on Tuesday accused Microsoft of breaching antitrust rules with the "abusive" bundling of its Teams and Office products. From a report: "The European Commission has informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has breached EU antitrust rules by tying its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular productivity applications included in its suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365," the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- said in a Statement of Objections, which is sent to inform companies of concerns raised against them. If the commission decides that an infringement has taken place once companies have responded, it can ban the conduct and fine the charged company up to 10% of its global revenue. Microsoft this year took the preemptive step to unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 in an effort to quash antitrust concerns by the EU. However, the commission said in its Tuesday statement that the changes were "insufficient to address its concerns and that more changes to Microsoft's conduct are necessary to restore competition." Microsoft said it would work to find solutions to address the commission's additional concerns.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple might finally allow retro video game emulators on the App Store, but this month, the company rejected submissions of iDOS 3, a new version of the popular DOS emulator, and UTM SE, an app that lets you emulate operating systems like Windows on iOS. In both instances, Apple said the new releases violate guideline 4.7 of the App Review Guidelines, which is the one that allows for retro game emulators. Chaoji Li, the developer of iDOS 3, shared some of Apple's reasoning for the rejection with The Verge. "The app provides emulator functionality but is not emulating a retro game console specifically," according to Apple's notice. "Only emulators of retro game consoles are appropriate per guideline 4.7." "When I asked what changes I should make to be compliant, they had no idea, nor when I asked what a retro game console is," Li said in a blog post. "It's still the same old unreasonable answer along the line of 'we know it when we see it.'" UTM posted about its rejection on X. "The App Store Review Board determined that 'PC is not a console' regardless of the fact that there are retro Windows / DOS games for the PC that UTM SE can be useful in running," according to the post. UTM also noted that Apple is barring UTM SE from being notarized for third-party app stores because the app apparently violated guideline 2.5.2. That rule states that apps have to be self-contained and can't execute code "which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps." Apple typically hasn't allowed just-in-time (JIT) compilation. However, and somewhat confusingly, UTM said that UTM SE doesn't include just-in-time compilation. Additionally, Apple clarified that guideline 4.7, which allows apps to offer "certain software that is not embedded in the binary," is "an exception that only applies to App Store apps" but isn't one that UTM SE qualifies for, UTM said in a follow-up post.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Passant Rabie reports via Gizmodo: A video circulating online appears to show debris from a Chinese rocket falling above a populated area, with residents running for cover as a heavy cloud of dark yellow smoke trails across the sky in a frightening scene. The suspected debris may have come from China's Long March 2C rocket, which launched on Saturday, June 22, carrying a joint mission by China and France to study Gamma-ray bursts. The launch was declared a success, but its aftermath was captured by videos posted to Chinese social media sites. The videos show what appears to be the first stage rocket booster of the Long March 2C rocket tumbling uncontrollably over a village in southwest China, while local residents cover their ears and run for shelter from the falling debris. There are no reports of injuries or damage to property. That said, unverified video and images show a gigantic cloud erupting at the site of the crashed rocket, and the booster itself seemingly next to a roadway. The first stage of the rocket can be seen leaking fuel, the color of which is consistent with nitrogen tetroxide. The chemical compound is a strong oxidizing agent that is used for rocket propulsion but it can be fatally toxic, according to Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center. "It's known in the rocket industry as BFRC, a big fucking red cloud," McDowell told Gizmodo. "And when you see a BFRC, you run for your life." Nitrogen tetroxide was accepted as the rocket propellant oxidizer of choice in the early 1950s by the U.S.S.R. and the United States, however it became less commonly used over the years because it is extremely toxic, according to NASA (PDF). If it comes in contact with skin, eyes, or respiratory system, it can destroy human tissue, and if inhaled through the lungs, it can lead to a build up of fluids or, in extreme cases, death. "It's pretty scary, but this is just how the Chinese do business," McDowell told Gizmodo. "They have a different level of acceptable public risk." "I think over a 10 year period, we may see the older rockets phased out but they're not in any hurry to do so," added McDowell. "They're still launching one a week or something like that, and they are really quite dangerous."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While NASA engineers review propulsion system data, Boeing's Starliner will remain docked at the ISS longer than planned, with a new departure date yet to be specified due to upcoming spacewalks and ongoing engineering reviews. "After repeated delays, the spacecraft was set to leave the outpost on June 25 and land at White Sands, New Mexico," notes The Register. NASA has stated that the crew is not in a hurry to leave, with sufficient supplies available, and the delay will allow more time to address helium leaks and thruster issues observed during docking. From the report: The Starliner will need to depart the ISS before August without some additional engineering analysis. During the post-docking news conference, Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, gave a figure of 45 days for the docked duration, meaning a docking would have to occur during the latter half of July at the very latest. The delay will remove any potential conflict with the upcoming spacewalks and give engineers more time to review data from the Starliner's propulsion system. The vehicle has been bedeviled by helium leaks and thruster problems. Once the Starliner commences its return to Earth, the service module where the problematic hardware is located will be discarded, depriving engineers of an avenue of investigation. Stich said, "We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process. We are letting the data drive our decision-making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking. Additionally, given the duration of the mission, it is appropriate for us to complete an agency-level review, similar to what was done ahead of NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 return after two months on orbit, to document the agency's formal acceptance on proceeding as planned." The Starliner has been cleared for use as a return vehicle in the event of an emergency. In the highly unlikely event that NASA opts not to use the Starliner as a crew return vehicle, the agency has a few options open to it. One could be to remove two crew members from the next Crew Dragon launch -- currently set for the latter half of August -- or use an upcoming Soyuz, although the latter requires custom seat liners for the crew. During the June 18 teleconference Stich confirmed that the team had already cleared the vehicle for a contingency or emergency return, and added "I think we will work through each of these issues and we will get to a point where we can bring Butch and Suni back in Starliner."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple rejected overtures by Meta Platforms to integrate the social networking company's AI chatbot into the iPhone months ago, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The two companies aren't in discussions about using Meta's Llama chatbot in an AI partnership and only held brief talks in March, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. The dialogue about a partnership didn't reach any formal stage, and Apple has no active plans to integrate Llama. [...] Apple decided not to move forward with formal Meta discussions in part because it doesn't see that company's privacy practices as stringent enough, according to the people. Apple has spent years criticizing Meta's technology, and integrating Llama into the iPhone would have been a stark about-face.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A new law coming into effect in Colorado in July is banning everyday products that intentionally contain toxic "forever chemicals," including clothes, cookware, menstruation products, dental floss and ski wax -- unless they can be made safer. Under the legislation, which takes effect on 1 July, many products using per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances -- or PFAS chemicals linked to cancer risk, lower fertility and developmental delays -- will be prohibited starting in 2026. By 2028, Colorado will also ban the sale of all PFAS-treated clothes, backpacks and waterproof outdoor apparel. The law will also require companies selling PFAS-coated clothing to attach disclosure labels. The initial draft of state senate bill 81, introduced in 2022, included a full ban on PFAS beginning in 2032. But that measure was written out after facing opposition. Colorado has already passed a measure requiring companies to phase out PFAS in carpets, furniture, cosmetics, juvenile products, some food packaging and those used in oil and gas production. The incoming law's diluted version illustrates the challenges lawmakers have in regulating chemicals that are used to make products waterproof, nonstick or resistant to staining. Manufacturers say the products, at best, will take time to make with a safer replacement -- or at worst, are not yet possible to get made in such fashion. [...] In Colorado, state senator Lisa Cutter, one of the sponsors of the new law there, has said she still wants a complete ban on PFAS but acknowledges the problems. "As much as I want PFAS to go away forever and forever, there are going to be some difficult pivots," she told the outlet. They include balancing the potential cost to consumers in making products PFAS-free. Cutter told CBS News that it was "really hard" challenging lobbying groups that "spent a lot of money ensuring that these chemicals can continue being put into our products and make profits." Cutter had been accused of stifling innovation and industry. She said she believed companies could be successful while also looking out for the communities they serve. "Certainly, there are cases where it's not plausible right away to gravitate away from them, but we need to be moving in that direction," Cutter said. "Our community shouldn't have to pay the price for their health."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has made OneDrive slightly more annoying for Windows 11 users. Quietly and without any announcement, the company changed Windows 11's initial setup so that it could turn on the automatic folder backup without asking for it. Now, those setting up a new Windows computer the way Microsoft wants them to (in other words, connected to the internet and signed into a Microsoft account) will get to their desktops with OneDrive already syncing stuff from folders like Desktop Pictures, Documents, Music, and Videos. Depending on how much is stored there, you might end up with a desktop and other folders filled to the brim with shortcuts to various stuff right after finishing a clean Windows installation. Automatic folder backup in OneDrive is a very useful feature when used properly and when the user deliberately enables it. However, Microsoft decided that sending a few notification prompts to enable folder backup was not enough, so it just turned the feature on without asking anybody or even letting users know about it, resulting in a flood of Reddit posts about users complaining about what the hell are those green checkmarks next to files and shortcuts on their desktops.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department over his alleged role in one of the largest U.S. government breaches of classified material. As a result, he will avoid imprisonment in the United States. CNN reports: Under the terms of the new agreement (PDF), Justice Department prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence -- which is equal to the amount of time Assange has served in a high-security prison in London while he fought extradition to the US. The plea deal would credit that time served, allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia, his native country. The plea deal must still be approved by a federal judge. Assange had faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his alleged role in the breach that carried a max of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full. Assange was being pursued by US authorities for publishing confidential military records supplied by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and 2011. US officials alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since May, Meta has been labeling photos created with AI tools on its social networks to help users better identify the content they're consuming. However, as TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta reports, this approach has faced criticism as many photos not created using AI tools have been incorrectly labeled, prompting Meta to reevaluate its labeling strategy to better reflect the actual use of AI in images. From the report: There are plenty of examples of Meta automatically attaching the label to photos that were not created through AI. For example, this photo of Kolkata Knight Riders winning the Indian Premier League Cricket tournament. Notably, the label is only visible on the mobile apps and not on the web. Plenty of other photographers have raised concerns over their images having been wrongly tagged with the "Made with AI" label. Their point is that simply editing a photo with a tool should not be subject to the label. Former White House photographer Pete Souza said in an Instagram post that one of his photos was tagged with the new label. Souza told TechCrunch in an email that Adobe changed how its cropping tool works and you have to "flatten the image" before saving it as a JPEG image. He suspects that this action has triggered Meta's algorithm to attach this label. "What's annoying is that the post forced me to include the 'Made with AI' even though I unchecked it," Souza told TechCrunch. Meta would not answer on the record to TechCrunch's questions about Souza's experience or other photographers' posts who said their posts were incorrectly tagged. However, after publishing of the story, Meta said the company is evaluating its approach to indicate labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image. "Our intent has always been to help people know when they see content that has been made with AI. We are taking into account recent feedback and continue to evaluate our approach so that our labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "For now, Meta provides no separate labels to indicate if a photographer used a tool to clean up their photo, or used AI to create it," notes TechCrunch. "For users, it might be hard to understand how much AI was involved in a photo." "Meta's label specifies that 'Generative AI may have been used to create or edit content in this post' -- but only if you tap on the label. Despite this approach, there are plenty of photos on Meta's platforms that are clearly AI-generated, and Meta's algorithm hasn't labeled them."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has decided to end its Project Natick experiment, which involved submerging a datacenter capsule 120 miles off the coast of Scotland to explore the feasibility of deploying underwater datacenters. TechSpot's Rob Thubron reports: Project Natick's origins stretch all the way back to 2013. Following a three-month trial in the Pacific, a submersible data center capsule was deployed 120 miles off the coast of Scotland in 2018. It was brought back to the surface in 2020, offering what were said to be promising results. Microsoft lost six of the 855 servers that were in the capsule during its time underwater. In a comparison experiment being run simultaneously on dry land, it lost eight out of 135 servers. Microsoft noted that the constant temperature stability of the external seawater was a factor in the experiment's success. It also highlighted how the data center was filled with inert nitrogen gas that protected the servers, as opposed to the reactive oxygen gas in the land data center. Despite everything going so well, Microsoft is discontinuing Project Natick. "I'm not building subsea data centers anywhere in the world," Noelle Walsh, the head of the company's Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) division, told DatacenterDynamics. "My team worked on it, and it worked. We learned a lot about operations below sea level and vibration and impacts on the server. So we'll apply those learnings to other cases," Walsh added. Microsoft also patented a high-pressure data center in 2019 and an artificial reef data center in 2017, but it seems the company is putting resources into traditional builds for now. "I would say now we're getting more focused," Walsh said. "We like to do R&D and try things out, and you learn something here and it may fly over there. But I'd say now, it's very focused." "While we don't currently have data centers in the water, we will continue to use Project Natick as a research platform to explore, test, and validate new concepts around data center reliability and sustainability, for example with liquid immersion."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google announced on Monday that it's bringing its AI technology Gemini to teen students using their school accounts, after having already offered Gemini to teens using their personal accounts. The company is also giving educators access to new tools alongside this release. Google says that giving teens access to Gemini can help prepare them with the skills they need to thrive in a future where generative AI exists. Gemini will help students learn more confidently with real-time feedback, the company believes. Google claims it will not use data from chats with students to train and improve its AI models, and has taken steps to ensure it's bringing this technology to students responsibly. Gemini has guardrails that will prevent inappropriate responses, such as illegal or age-gated substances, from appearing in responses. It will also actively recommend teens use its double-check feature to help them develop information literacy and critical thinking skills. Gemini will be available to teen students while using their Google Workspace for Education accounts in English in more than 100 countries. Gemini will be off by default for teens until admins choose to turn it on. Google also announced that it's launching its Read Along in Classroom feature worldwide to help students improve reading skills with real-time support. Educators can assign grade-level or phonics-based reading activities and receive insights on students' reading accuracy, speed, and comprehension.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Top officials from the European Union and China agreed to negotiate a planned series of import taxes on Chinese electric vehicles. "The call marks the first time the two sides have agreed to negotiate since the EU threatened China with electric vehicle (EV) tariffs of up to 38%," reports the BBC. From the report: The EU said Chinese EVs were unfairly subsidised by its government. In response, China accused the EU of protectionism and trade rule breaches.An EU spokesperson told the BBC the call between Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao was "candid and constructive." They said the two sides would "continue to engage at all levels in the coming weeks." However, the spokesperson also doubled down on the EU's opposition to how the Chinese EV industry is funded. They said "any negotiated outcome" to the proposed tariffs must address the "injurious subsidisation" of Chinese EVs. China released a similar statement on Saturday and made clear it still disagreed with the EU. As well as its call with the EU, Mr Wang met German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck on Saturday. In a Facebook post about the meeting, China's Ministry of Commerce said it had told Mr Habeck about its "firm opposition" to the tariffs. It repeated its threat to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) "to firmly defend its legitimate rights and interests." Germany has also expressed criticism of the tariffs. When the EU first proposed them last week following its investigation of Chinese EVs in the trading bloc, Germany's Transport Minister, Volker Wissing, said the move risked a "trade war" with Beijing. "The European Commission's punitive tariffs hit German companies and their top products," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the time. The European car industry has been critical too. Stellantis - which owns Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Fiat, and several other brands - said it did not support measures that "contribute to the world fragmentation [of trade]."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI has purchased Multi (previously Remotion), "a five-person startup based in New York City that focuses on screenshare and collaboration technologies for workers using Mac computers," reports VentureBeat. The latest acquisition comes just days after the AI company announced it had acquired enterprise analytics startup Rockset. No details were provided on the terms of the deal. From the report: Multi's co-founder and CEO Alexander Embiricos posted on his X account today stating specifically that he (and presumably the entire Multi team) has joined OpenAI's "ChatGPT desktop team," the unit at the company responsible for building the ChatGPT for Mac desktop app that was unveiled back in May 2024. Multi broke the news first to its users and followers in a blog post, writing: "Recently, we've been increasingly asking ourselves how we should work with computers. Not on or using computers, but truly with computers. With AI. We believe it's one of the most important product questions of our time. And so, we're beyond excited to share that Multi is joining OpenAI!" The news has users on X speculating that OpenAI will use Multi to allow its AI models such as GPT-4o to "take over" a user's computer and perform actions on their behalf based on text or voice prompts. So you could say something like "ChatGPT, create a spreadsheet of my latest hours and send it to my manager" and it would try to do this. Based on what I've learned about Multi (see final section of this article below) and zero insider knowledge, I think it is at least as likely that OpenAI will seek to use the acquisition as a means of souping up and adding features to its ChatGPT Team and Enterprise subscription plans, as those are already more focused on providing tech for teams to help all the individuals on them work better together. However, Multi also broke the news that it is "sunsetting" the current version of its software and will end support for it in one month: on July 24, 2024, as well as delete all user data. Egads! Multi states in a short FAQ in its blog post that users should go ahead and export their data before that time, using the "Export Session Notes" setting under the URL: https://app.multi.app/account. It is also opening the door to users asking for extensions to the deletion date of July 24, 2024 for their individual or company accounts, if they email Embiricos himself directly at alexander@multi.app. Multi also says its team members can help recommend alternatives through the same email address.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Car dealerships in North America continue to wrestle with major disruptions that started last week with cyberattacks on a software company used widely in the auto retail sales sector. CDK Global, a company that provides software for thousands of auto dealers in the U.S. and Canada, was hit by back-to-back cyberattacks Wednesday. That led to an outage that has continued to impact operations. For prospective car buyers, that's meant delays at dealerships or vehicle orders written up by hand. There's no immediate end in sight, with CDK saying it expects the restoration process to take "several days" to complete. On Monday, Group 1 Automotive Inc., a $4 billion automotive retailer, said that it continued to use "alternative processes" to sell cars to its customers. Lithia Motors and AutoNation, two other dealership chains, also disclosed that they implemented workarounds to keep their operations going. [...] Several major auto companies -- including Stellantis, Ford and BMW -- confirmed to The Associated Press last week that the CDK outage had impacted some of their dealers, but that sales operations continue. In light of the ongoing situation, a spokesperson for Stellantis said Friday that many dealerships had switched to manual processes to serve customers. That includes writing up orders by hand. A Ford spokesperson added that the outage may cause "some delays and inconveniences at some dealers and for some customers." However, many Ford and Lincoln customers are still getting sales and service support through alternative routes being used at dealerships. Group 1 Automotive Inc., which owns 202 automotive dealerships, 264 franchises, and 42 collision centers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, said Monday that the incident has disrupted its business applications and processes in its U.S. operations that rely on CDK's dealers' systems. The company said that it took measures to protect and isolate its systems from CDK's platform. All Group 1 U.S. dealerships will continue to conduct business using alternative processes until CDK's dealers' systems are available, the company said Monday. Group 1's dealerships in the U.K. don't use CDK's dealers' systems and are not impacted by the incident. In regulatory filings, Lithia Motors and AutoNation disclosed that last week's incident at CDK had disrupted their operations as well. Lithia said it activated cyber incident response procedures, which included "severing business service connections between the company's systems and CDK's." AutoNation said it also took steps to protect its systems and data -- adding that all of its locations remain open "albeit with lower productivity," as many are served manually or through alternative processes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Uber has begun locking New York City drivers out of its app during periods of low demand in an attempt to fight a minimum wage rule, and Lyft is threatening to do the same. As a result, some drivers say their wages have fallen by as much as 50%. At the heart of the move, say the two companies, is a six-year-old pay rule in New York that, among other things, requires firms like Uber and Lyft to pay drivers for the idle time they rack up between rides. The lockouts, which began last month, are aimed at limiting how much non-passenger time drivers are able to log and be paid for. Drivers, meanwhile, say they need to work longer hours to earn the same amount as before.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JD.com founder Richard Liu warned employees against prioritizing work-life balance during a recent video conference, stating those who "put life first and work second" were not welcome at the company. This stance reflects a broader trend in China's tech sector as executives face slowing growth and increased competition. Major tech firms, including Alibaba and Tencent, have cut tens of thousands of jobs since 2021. Companies are now seeking younger, cheaper workers and demanding longer hours from existing staff. Pinduoduo, an e-commerce group known for its high productivity and grueling work culture, is seen as a model by some in the industry. In 2021, two Pinduoduo employees died in incidents linked to overwork by colleagues. Older tech professionals, typically over 35, face the greatest risk of redundancy and struggle to find new positions. Employers often view them as expensive and less flexible due to family responsibilities. A 2023 survey of 2,200 professionals in China's largest cities revealed widespread anxiety about career prospects and work-life balance. Many in the industry report experiencing depression and high stress levels.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

French universities are becoming hotbeds for AI innovation, attracting investors seeking the next tech breakthrough. Ecole Polytechnique, a 230-year-old institution near Paris, stands out with 57% of France's AI startup founders among its alumni, according to Dealroom data analyzed by Accel. The school's approach combines STEM education with humanities and military training, producing well-rounded entrepreneurs. "AI is now instilling every discipline the same way mathematics did years ago," said Dominique Rossin, the school's provost. "We really push our students out of their comfort zone and encourage them to try new subjects and discover new areas in science," he added. France leads Europe in AI startup funding, securing $2.3 billion and outpacing the UK and Germany, according to Dealroom.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has received a thumbs-up from iFixit, with a provisional 8 out of 10 for repairability on its latest Surface Pro and Laptop devices. From a report: Despite some issues with software recovery, the devices have been built for hardware repairability. It is quite the turnaround from the days of the first iteration of the Surface Laptop, in which the iFixit team was forced to use a scalpel to get into the device. "This is definitely not going back together without a roll of duct tape," the team observed during the 2017 teardown. In comparison, the team described Microsoft's latest laptop as "an astonishingly repair friendly device." Where once there might have been glue or fragile clips, there are now screws and even QR codes linking to the service manuals (made available on release day, according to iFixit). Stripping the device is a breeze, assuming the correct tools are used. Microsoft has helpfully provided "Wayfinders" to indicate the type and quantity of screws being used to secure components, meaning that a repairer could even do without the online guides when pulling the hardware apart.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: We're at a transitional moment in streaming -- user growth is slowing and major players are looking to consolidate, but the long-promised dream of profitability finally seems within reach (especially if you're Netflix). The perfect time, then, for The New York Times to interview many of the industry's big names -- including Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Amazon's Prime Video head Mike Hopkins, and IAC chairman Barry Diller -- about what they think comes next. There seemed to be broad agreement on most of the big themes: More ads, higher prices, and fewer big swings on prestige TV. These changes are all united by the shift towards profitability, rather than growth-at-all-costs. If the initial prices of many streaming services seemed unsustainably low at launch, it turns out they were -- prices have been steadily rising, while the streamers have also introduced more affordable subscription tiers for viewers who are willing to watch ads. In fact, some execs told The Times that streamers will keep raising prices for the ad-free tiers with the aim of pushing more customers to sign up for ad-supported subscriptions instead. The growth of ad-supported streaming could also affect the kinds of movies and shows that get produced, since advertisers generally want to reach a mass audience -- think of the heyday of ad-supported network TV, with its endless shows about doctors and cops, compared to the more ambitious fare on subscription-supported HBO.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has quietly erased instructions for switching to a local account on Windows 11 from its official support website. The move took place between June 12 and June 17, 2024, according to Tom's Hardware. The tech giant has been increasingly pushing users towards Microsoft Account logins, citing benefits like enhanced security and cross-device syncing. While the option to use a local account still exists, this latest development suggests Microsoft is steering users away from it.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A group of record labels including the big three -- Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records -- are suing two of the top names in generative AI music making, alleging the companies violated their copyright "en masse." From a report: The two AI companies, Suno and Udio, use text prompts to churn out original songs. Both companies have enjoyed a level of success: Suno is available for use in Microsoft Copilot though a partnership with the tech giant. Udio was used to create "BBL Drizzy," one of the more notable examples of AI music going viral. The case against Suno was filed in Boston federal court, and the Udio case was filed in New York. The labels say artists across genres and eras had their work used without consent. The lawsuits were brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the powerful group representing major players in the music industry, and a group of labels. The RIAA is seeking damages of up to $150,000 per work, along with other fees.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dutch technology investor Prosus has written down its stake in Indian edtech firm Byju's to zero, a stark fall for a startup once valued at $22 billion. Prosus, holding a 9.6% stake, cited a "significant decrease in value for equity investors" in its earnings report. Byju's, which sells online courses to K12 students, is grappling with financial and governance issues and declining revenues. The departure of its auditor and board members, including a Prosus executive, further rattled investor confidence last year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is imposing unfair restrictions on developers of apps for its App Store in violation of a new European Union law meant to encourage competition in the tech industry, regulators in Brussels said on Monday. From a report: The charges further escalated a tussle between Apple, which says its products are designed in the best interest of customers, and E.U. regulators, who say the company is unfairly using its size and considerable resources to stifle competition. Apple is the first company to be charged for violating the Digital Markets Act, a law passed in 2022 that gives European regulators wide authority to force the largest "online gatekeepers" to change their business practices. After initiating an investigation in March, E.U. regulators said Apple was putting unlawful restrictions on companies that make games, music services and other applications. Under the law, also known as the D.M.A., Apple cannot limit how companies communicate with customers about sales and other offers and content available outside the App Store. The company faces a penalty of 10 percent of global revenue, a fine that could go up to 20 percent for repeat infringements, regulators said. Apple reported $383 billion in revenue last year. "Today is a very important day for the effective enforcement of the D.M.A.," said Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission executive vice president in charge of competition policy. She said Apple's App Store policies make developers more dependent on the company and prevent consumers from being aware of better offers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two prominent unions are teaming up to challenge Amazon, reports the New York Times - "after years of organizing Amazon workers and pressuring the company to bargain over wages and working conditions." Members of the Amazon Labor Union "overwhelmingly chose to affiliate with the 1.3-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters" in a vote last Monday. While the Amazon Labor Union (or ALU) is the only union formally representing Amazon warehouse workers anywhere in America after an election in 2022, "it has yet to begin bargaining with Amazon, which continues to contest the election outcome."Leaders of both unions said the affiliation agreement would put them in a better position to challenge Amazon and would provide the Amazon Labor Union with more money and staff support... The Teamsters are ramping up their efforts to organize Amazon workers nationwide. The union voted to create an Amazon division in 2021, and O'Brien was elected that year partly on a platform of making inroads at the company. The Teamsters told the ALU that they had allocated $8 million to support organizing at Amazon, according to ALU President Christian Smalls, and that the larger union was prepared to tap its more than $300 million strike and defense fund to aid in the effort... The Teamsters also recently reached an affiliation agreement with workers organizing at Amazon's largest airplane hub in the United States, a Kentucky facility known as KCVG. Experts have said unionizing KCVG could give workers substantial leverage because Amazon relies heavily on the hub to meet its one- and two-day shipping goals. Their agreement with the Teamsters says the Amazon Labor Union will also "lend its expertise to assist in organizing other Amazon facilities" across America, according to the article.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"The Short Happy Reign of the CD-ROM" was just one article in a Fast Company series called 1994 Week. As the week rolled along they also re-visited Yahoo, Netscape, and how the U.S. Congress "forced the videogame industry to grow up." But another article argues that it's in web pages from 1994 that "you can start to see in those weird, formative years some surprising signs of what the web would be, and what it could be."It's hard to say precisely when the tipping point was. Many point to September '93, when AOL users first flooded Usenet. But the web entered a new phase the following year. According to an MIT study, at the start of 1994, there were just 623 web servers. By year's end, it was estimated there were at least 10,000, hosting new sites including Yahoo!, the White House, the Library of Congress, Snopes, the BBC, sex.com, and something called The Amazing FishCam. The number of servers globally was doubling every two months. No one had seen growth quite like that before. According to a press release announcing the start of the World Wide Web Foundation that October, this network of pages "was widely considered to be the fastest-growing network phenomenon of all time." As the year began, Web pages were by and large personal and intimate, made by research institutions, communities, or individuals, not companies or brands. Many pages embodied the spirit, or extended the presence, of newsgroups on Usenet, or "User's Net." (Snopes and the Internet Movie Database, which landed on the Web in 1993, began as crowd-sourced projects on Usenet.) But a number of big companies, including Microsoft, Sun, Apple, IBM, and Wells Fargo, established their first modest Web outposts in 1994, a hint of the shopping malls and content farms and slop factories and strip mines to come. 1994 also marked the start of banner ads and online transactions (a CD, pizzas), and the birth of spam and phishing... [B]ack in '94, the salesmen and oilmen and land-grabbers and developers had barely arrived. In the calm before the storm, the Web was still weird, unruly, unpredictable, and fascinating to look at and get lost in. People around the world weren't just writing and illustrating these pages, they were coding and designing them. For the most part, the design was non-design. With a few eye-popping exceptions, formatting and layout choices were simple, haphazard, personal, and - in contrast to most of today's web - irrepressibly charming. There were no table layouts yet; cascading style sheets, though first proposed in October 1994 by Norwegian programmer Hakon Wium Lie, wouldn't arrive until December 1996... The highways and megalopolises would come later, courtesy of some of the world's biggest corporations and increasingly peopled by bots, but in 1994 the internet was still intimate, made by and for individuals... Soon, many people would add "under construction" signs to their Web pages, like a friendly request to pardon our dust. It was a reminder that someone was working on it - another indication of the craft and care that was going into this never-ending quilt of knowledge. The article includes screenshots of Netscape in action from browser-emulating site OldWeb.Today (albeit without using a 14.4 kbps modems). "Look in and think about how and why this web grew the way it did, and what could have been. Or try to imagine what life was like when the web wasn't worldwide yet, and no one knew what it really was." Slashdot reader tedlistens calls it "a trip down memory lane," offering "some telling glimpses of the future, and some lessons for it too." The article revisits 1994 sites like Global Network Navigator, Time-Warner's Pathfinder, and Wired's online site HotWired as well as 30-year-old versions of the home pages for Wells Fargo and Microsoft. What did they miss? Share your own memories in the comments. What do you remember about the web in 1994?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

America's National Labor Relations Board "has filed a complaint against Amazon..." reports the Verge, "that alleges the company 'unlawfully disciplined and terminated an employee' after they assisted in organizing walkouts last May in protest of Amazon's new return-to-work [three days per week] directives, issued early last year."[T]housands of Amazon employees signed petitions against the new mandate and staged a walkout several months later. Despite the protests and pushback, according to a report by Insider, in a meeting in early August 2023, Jassy reaffirmed the company's commitment to employees returning to the office for the majority of the week. The NLRB complaint alleges Amazon "interrogated" employees about the walkout using its internal Chime system. The employee was first put on a performance improvement plan by Amazon following their organizing efforts for the walkout and later "offered a severance payment of nine weeks' salary if the employee signed a severance agreement and global release in exchange for their resignation." According to the NLRB's lawyers, all of that was because the employee engaged in organizing, and the retaliation was intended to discourage "...protected, concerted activities...." The NLRB's general counsel is seeking several different forms of remediation from Amazon, including reimbursement for the employee's "financial harms and search-for-work and work related expenses," a letter of apology, and a "Notice to Employees" that must be physically posted at the company's facilities across the country, distributed electronically, and read by an Amazon rep at a recorded videoconference. Amazon says their actions were entirely unrelated to the workers activism against their return-to-work policies. An Amazon spokesperson told the Verge that instead, the employee "consistently underperformed over a period of nearly a year and repeatedly failed to deliver on projects she was assigned. Despite extensive support and coaching, the former employee was unable to improve her performance and chose to leave the company."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the OMG Ubuntu blog:Those of you who own a Framework Laptop 13 - consider me jealous, btw - or are considering buying one in the near future, you may be interested to know that a RISC-V motherboard option is in the works. DeepComputing, the company behind the recently-announced Ubuntu RISC-V laptop, is working with Framework Computer Inc, the company behind the popular, modular, and Linux-friendly Framework laptops, on a RISC-V mainboard. This is a new announcement; the component itself is in early development, and there's no tentative price tag or pre-order date pencilled in... [T]he Framework RISC-V mainboard will use soldered memory and non-upgradeable eMMC storage (though it can boot from microSD cards). It will 'drop into' any Framework Laptop 13 chassis (or Cooler Master Mainboard Case), per Framework's modular ethos... Framework mentions DeepComputing is "working closely with the teams at Canonical and Red Hat to ensure Linux support is solid through Ubuntu and Fedora", which is great news, and cements Canonical's seriousness to supporting Ubuntu on RISC-V. "We want to be clear that in this generation, it is focused primarily on enabling developers, tinkerers, and hobbyists to start testing and creating on RISC-V," says Framework's announcement. "The peripheral set and performance aren't yet competitive with our Intel and AMD-powered Framework Laptop Mainboards." They're calling the Mainboard "a huge milestone both for expanding the breadth of the Framework ecosystem and for making RISC-V more accessible than ever... DeepComputing is demoing an early prototype of this Mainboard in a Framework Laptop 13 at the RISC-V Summit Europe next week, and we'll be sharing more as this program progresses." And their announcement included two additional updates:"Just like we did for Framework Laptop 16 last week, today we're sharing open source CAD for the Framework Laptop 13 shell, enabling development of skins, cases, and accessories." "We now have Framework Laptop 13 Factory Seconds systems available with British English and German keyboards, making entering the ecosystem more affordable than ever.""We're eager to continue growing a new Consumer Electronics industry that is grounded in open access, repairability, and customization at every level."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's been a 1,000 years since there was a significant volcanic eruption from Mount Rainier, CNN reminds readers. It's a full 60 miles from Tacoma, Washington - and 90 miles from Seattle. Yet "more than Hawaii's bubbling lava fields or Yellowstone's sprawling supervolcano, it's Mount Rainier that has many U.S. volcanologists worried." "Mount Rainier keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities, said Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists, on an episode of CNN's series "Violent Earth With Liv Schreiber."The sleeping giant's destructive potential lies not with fiery flows of lava, which, in the event of an eruption, would be unlikely to extend more than a few miles beyond the boundary of Mount Rainier National Park in the Pacific Northwest. And the majority of volcanic ash would likely dissipate downwind to the east away from population centers, according to the US Geological Survey. Instead, many scientists fear the prospect of a lahar - a swiftly moving slurry of water and volcanic rock originating from ice or snow rapidly melted by an eruption that picks up debris as it flows through valleys and drainage channels. "The thing that makes Mount Rainier tough is that it is so tall, and it's covered with ice and snow, and so if there is any kind of eruptive activity, hot stuff ... will melt the cold stuff and a lot of water will start coming down," said Seth Moran, a research seismologist at USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. "And there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who live in areas that potentially could be impacted by a large lahar, and it could happen quite quickly." The deadliest lahar in recent memory was in November 1985 when Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Just a couple hours after the eruption started, a river of mud, rocks, lava and icy water swept over the town of Armero, killing over 23,000 people in a matter of minutes... Bradley Pitcher, a volcanologist and lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University, said in an episode of CNN's "Violent Earth"... said that Mount Rainier has about eight times the amount of glaciers and snow as Nevado del Ruiz had when it erupted. "There's the potential to have a much more catastrophic mudflow...." Lahars typically occur during volcanic eruptions but also can be caused by landslides and earthquakes. Geologists have found evidence that at least 11 large lahars from Mount Rainier have reached into the surrounding area, known as the Puget Lowlands, in the past 6,000 years, Moran said. Two major U.S. cities - Tacoma and South Seattle - "are built on 100-foot-thick (30.5-meter) ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier," the volcanologist said on CNN's "Violent Earth" series. CNN's article adds that the US Geological Survey already set up a lahar detection system at Mount Rainier in 1998, "which since 2017 has been upgraded and expanded. About 20 sites on the volcano's slopes and the two paths identified as most at risk of a lahar now feature broadband seismometers that transmit real-time data and other sensors including trip wires, infrasound sensors, web cameras and GPS receivers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this month Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to Siri. "Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and Facebook's parent company Meta are in talks around a similar deal," according to TechCrunch:A deal with Meta could make Apple less reliant on a single partner, while also providing validation for Meta's generative AI tech. The Journal reports that Apple isn't offering to pay for these partnerships; instead, Apple provides distribution to AI partners who can then sell premium subscriptions... Apple has said it will ask for users' permission before sharing any questions and data with ChatGPT. Presumably, any integration with Meta would work similarly.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michigan's House of Representatives passed a bill requiring all the state's public high schools to offer a computer science course by the start of the 2027-28 school year. (The bill now goes to the Senate, according to a report from Chalkbeat Detroit.) Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:Michigan is also removing the requirement for CS teacher endorsements in 2026, paving the way for CS courses to be taught in 2027 by teachers who have "demonstrated strong computer science skills" but do not hold a CS endorsement. Michigan's easing of CS teaching requirements comes in the same year that New York State will begin requiring credentials for all CS teachers. With lobbyist Julia Wynn from the tech giant-backed nonprofit Code.org sitting at her side, Michigan State Rep. Carol Glavnille introduced the CS bill (HB5649) to the House in May (hearing video, 16:20). "This is not a graduation requirement," Glavnille emphasized in her testimony. Code.org's Wynn called the Bill "an important first step" - after all, Code.org's goal is "to require all students to take CS to earn a HS diploma" - noting that Code.org has also been closely collaborating with Michigan's Education department "on the language and the Bill since inception." Wynn went on to inform lawmakers that "even just attending a high school that offers computer science delivers concrete employment and earnings benefits for students," citing a recent Brookings Institute article that also noted "30 states have adopted a key part of Code.org Advocacy Coalition's policy recommendations, which require all high schools to offer CS coursework, while eight states (and counting) have gone a step further in requiring all students to take CS as a high school graduation requirement." Minutes from the hearing report other parties submitting cards in support of HB 5649 included Amazon (a $3+ million Code.org Platinum Supporter) and AWS (a Code.org In-Kind Supporter), as well as College Board (which offers the AP CS A and CSP exams) and TechNet (which notes its "teams at the federal and state levels advocate with policymakers on behalf of our member companies").Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader unixbhaskar shared this report from Phoronix:Larry Finger who has contributed to the Linux kernel since 2005 and has seen more than 1,500 kernel patches upstreamed into the mainline Linux kernel has sadly passed away. His wife shared the news of Larry Finger's passing this weekend on the linux-wireless mailing list in a brief statement. Reactions are being shared around the internet. LWN writes:The LWN Kernel Source Database shows that Finger contributed to 94 releases in the (Git era) kernel history, starting with 2.6.16 - 1,464 commits in total. He will be missed... In part to his contributions, the Linux wireless hardware support has come a long way over the past two decades. Larry was a frequent contributor to the Linux Wireless and Linux Kernel mailing lists. (Here's a 2006 discussion he had about Git with Linus Torvalds.) Larry also answered 54 Linux questions on Quora, and in 2005 wrote three articles for Linux Journal. And Larry's GitHub profile shows 122 contributions to open source projects just in 2024. In Reddit's Linux forum, one commenter wrote, "He was 84 years old and was still writing code. What a legend. May he rest in peace."Read more of this story at Slashdot.