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Nintendo has convinced Ryujinx's lead developer to shut down the project. According to The Verge, the Switch emulator's download page is empty and its GitHub is gone. The Verge reports: "Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he's in control of," writes developer and moderator ripinperiperi on Discord. "While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it's safe to say what the outcome is." The rest of ripinperiperi's message is a eulogy for the project, including a pair of videos showing the Ryujinx team's progress on iOS and Android ports of the Nintendo Switch emulator, among other core changes -- ones that will now presumably never ship. Nintendo would not confirm or deny to The Verge that it made a deal with the developer. Instead, Nintendo spokesperson Eddie Garcia mysteriously pointed me to the Entertainment Software Association's head of public affairs Aubrey Quinn -- who said she couldn't speak on behalf of Nintendo.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At its DevDay event today, OpenAI announced that it is giving third-party developers access to its speech-to-speech engine that powers ChatGPT's advanced voice mode. "The move paves the way for a wave of AI apps that offer conversational voice interfaces," reports Axios. From the report: Early testers of the feature include nutrition and fitness app Healthify and Speak, a language learning app. Other new features being made available to developers include the ability to fine tune models based on pictures. In a demo for reporters, OpenAI executives showed an example of the new audio capabilities combined with Twilio's API to allow an AI assistant to call a fictional candy shop and place an order for 400 chocolate covered strawberries. Developers will only be able to use the voices provided by OpenAI -- the same ones that are options within ChatGPT. While the voice won't be watermarked in any way and developers won't have to make the AI system identify itself, OpenAI says it's against the company's terms of service to use its systems to spam or mislead people.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Firefox extension for the uBlock Origin Lite content blocker is no longer available. According to Neowin, "Raymond Hill, the maker of the extension, pulled support and moved uBlock Origin Lite to self-hosting after multiple encounters with a 'nonsensical and hostile' review process from the store review team." From the report: It all started in early September when Mozilla flagged every version of the uBlock Origin Lite extension as violating its policies. Reviewers then claimed the extension apparently collected user data and contained "minified, concatenated or otherwise machine-generated code." The developer seemingly debunked those allegations, saying that "it takes only a few seconds for anyone who has even basic understanding of JavaScript to see the raised issues make no sense." Raymond Hill decided to drop the extension from the store and move it to a self-hosted version. This means that those who want to continue using uBlock Origin Lite on Firefox should download the latest version from GitHub (it can auto-update itself). The last message from the developer in a now-closed GitHub issue shows an email from Mozilla admitting its fault and apologizing for the mistake. However, Raymond still pulled the extension from the Mozilla Add-ons Store, which means you can no longer find it on addons.mozilla.org. It is worth noting that the original uBlock Origin for Firefox is still available and supported.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit accusing eBay of violating environmental laws by allowing the sale of hundreds of thousands of harmful products on its platform, including pesticides and devices to evade motor vehicle pollution controls. U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant in Brooklyn ruled on Monday that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over user content, shielded eBay from liability in the civil lawsuit. The judge said eBay's administrative and technical support to sellers "does not materially contribute to the products' alleged unlawfulness" and does not make the San Jose, California, company a "publisher or speaker" on sellers' behalf. Merchant also said eBay was not a "seller" of some of the challenged products, because it did not physically possess them or hold title. She rejected the government's argument that eBay was a seller because it exchanged the products for money. The U.S. government argued eBay violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the sale of harmful products, including more than 343,000 aftermarket "defeat" devices that help vehicles generate more power and get better fuel economy by evading emissions controls. The company also was accused of allowing sales of 23,000 unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use pesticides, as well as distributing more than 5,600 paint and coating removal products that contained methylene chloride, a chemical linked to brain and liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register's Simon Sharwood reports: AT&T has claimed that Broadcom made it an offer to increase prices by 1,050 percent, and may be influencing other vendors to make a migration harder. The claim of the colossal price hike came in an email [PDF] filed in evidence by AT&T in its case alleging Broadcom hasn't honored a contract that would allow the carrier to acquire an additional two years of support services for its VMware estate. The email was penned by AT&T executive vice president and general manager Susan A Johnson and appears to be addressed to Broadcom CEO Hock Tan. "After a 10 plus year strategic relationship with Broadcom ... I am sad to report that we appear to be at an impasse on our VMware deal," Johnson wrote on August 19. "The latest offer that we have received would put us at an average of $REDACTED per year for a 5 year deal, where we currently pay $REDACTED per year to support previously purchased perpetual licenses with a right to renew support through September, 2026. This proposed annual increase of +1,050 percent in one year is extreme and certainly not how we expect strategic partners to engage in doing business with AT&T."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI co-founder Durk Kingma announced that he'll be joining Anthropic. "Anthropic's approach to AI development resonates significantly with my own beliefs," Kingma wrote in a post on X. "[L]ooking forward to contributing to Anthropic's mission of developing powerful AI systems responsibly. Can't wait to work with their talented team, including a number of great ex-colleagues from OpenAI and Google, and tackle the challenges ahead!" TechCrunch reports: Kingma, who has a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Amsterdam, spent several years as a doctoral fellow at Google before joining OpenAI's founding team as a research scientist. At OpenAI, Kingma focused on basic research, leading the algorithms team to develop techniques and methods primarily for generative AI models, including image generators (e.g. DALL-E 3) and large language models (e.g. ChatGPT). In 2018, Kingma left to become a part-time angel investor and advisor for AI startups. He rejoined Google in July of that year, and started at Google Brain, which became one of the tech giant's premiere AI R&D labs before it merged with DeepMind in 2023.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal prosecutors have charged a man for an alleged "hack-to-trade" scheme that earned him millions of dollars by breaking into the Office365 accounts of executives at publicly traded companies and obtaining quarterly financial reports before they were released publicly. The action, taken by the office of the US Attorney for the district of New Jersey, accuses UK national Robert B. Westbrook of earning roughly $3.75 million in 2019 and 2020 from stock trades that capitalized on the illicitly obtained information. After accessing it, prosecutors said, he executed stock trades. The advance notice allowed him to act and profit on the information before the general public could. The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate civil suit against Westbrook seeking an order that he pay civil penalties and return all ill-gotten gains. [...] By obtaining material information, Westbrook was able to predict how a company's stock would perform once it became public. When results were likely to drive down stock prices, he would place "put" options, which give the purchaser the right to sell shares at a specific price within a specified span of time. The practice allowed Westbrook to profit when shares fell after financial results became public. When positive results were likely to send stock prices higher, Westbrook allegedly bought shares while they were still low and later sold them for a higher price. The prosecutors charged Westbrook with one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud and five counts of computer fraud. The securities fraud count carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years' prison time and $5 million in fines The wire fraud count carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of either $250,000 or twice the gain or loss from the offense, whichever is greatest. Each computer fraud count carries a maximum five years in prison and a maximum fine of either $250,000 or twice the gain or loss from the offense, whichever is greatest. "The SEC is engaged in ongoing efforts to protect markets and investors from the consequences of cyber fraud," Jorge G. Tenreiro, acting chief of the SEC's Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, said in a statement. "As this case demonstrates, even though Westbrook took multiple steps to conceal his identity -- including using anonymous email accounts, VPN services, and utilizing bitcoin -- the Commission's advanced data analytics, crypto asset tracing, and technology can uncover fraud even in cases involving sophisticated international hacking."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is bringing some new AI-powered Paint and Photos features to Copilot Plus PCs that could make creatives less reliant on more powerful image editing software. From a report: Generative Fill and Generative Erase -- which appear to be heavily inspired by similar AI tools in Adobe Photoshop -- are being introduced to Paint, allowing users to precisely add or remove objects in their images. Both tools utilize a size-adjustable brush to "paint" over specific areas of an image to edit. Generative Erase will remove unwanted figures, objects like background clutter, and other distractions, similar to the Magic Eraser feature on Google's Pixel phones. Generative Fill allows Paint users to add new AI-generated assets to an image using a text description and select precisely where they should be placed -- much like the Photoshop tool that shares the same name. These build on the Cocreator tool for Paint announced for Copilot Plus PCs earlier this year that can generate images using a combination of text prompts and reference sketches. The company says the diffusion-based model powering these features has been updated to improve output quality and speed and now includes "built-in moderation" to help prevent it from being abused.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

French video game publisher Ubisoft has delayed its upcoming "Assassin's Creed Shadows" by three months following disappointing sales of "Star Wars Outlaws". Ubisoft shares have hit a 10-year low as activist investor AJ Investments, backed by 10% of shareholders, pushes for a sale. "Star Wars Outlaws" sold just 1 million copies in its first month, far below expectations. TechSpot adds: Ubisoft has never had the best reputation among gamers. It's been voted the most-hated gaming brand in the world more than once, and there are those who blame the Outlaws reception on trolls who target Ubisoft games and modern Star Wars media. "The game received an unusual number of user reviews with a clear negative bias (including a large percentage of "zero" reviews), despite seeing acceptable review scores from reputable review sites," Wedbush analysts Michael Pachter, Alicia Reese and Kade Bar wrote in a note last week. "This is a case of a rare incel victory that led to Ubisoft having to take down its numbers," they added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is introducing a new "Quick Insert" button on Chromebooks, offering contextual AI tools across the operating system. The feature debuts on Samsung's Galaxy Chromebook Plus, replacing the traditional Caps Lock key. Older Chromebooks can access Quick Insert via a keyboard shortcut. The button opens an overlay providing access to emojis, GIFs, Google's Help Me Write AI feature, and recent web links. Future updates will include AI-generated image creation. Google is also rolling out new AI features to Chromebook Plus devices, including automatic transcription, real-time translation, and voice isolation for video calls. Standard Chromebooks will receive updates like Welcome Recap and Focus mode. Lenovo and Samsung are launching new Chromebook models to coincide with these software updates. The Lenovo Duet, a detachable 2-in-1, features an 11-inch 2K screen and starts at $349. Samsung's Galaxy Chromebook Plus boasts a 15.6-inch OLED display in a lightweight 2.58-pound package.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft won't impose a new return-to-office mandate unless management concludes that productivity has dropped, a high-level exec has reportedly told workers. From a report: The software and cloud-computing giant currently allows employees to work remotely, with many new hires promised the flexibility of working from home at least half the week. But that isn't written in stone. According to two anonymous sources that spoke with Business Insider, executive vice president Scott Guthrie recently told staff at his Microsoft's Cloud and AI group, which includes Azure, that a policy change isn't on the cards at present -- so long as workers stay productive. While no statement has been provided as of press time, Microsoft told Business Insiderthat the company's work policies have not changed. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's bombshell decree has roiled tech employees across the sector, many of whom dread a return to hours wasted in traffic jams on the long daily commute.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft launched its annual Windows 11 update today, introducing significant changes to the operating system. The Windows 11 2024 Update, or 24H2, will roll out gradually, starting with PCs running versions 22H2 or 23H2 that have opted for faster feature updates. Key additions include an Energy Saver feature, Wi-Fi 7 support, and 80Gbps USB4 Version 2.0 compatibility. Select high-end PCs meeting Copilot+ requirements will gain access to enhanced features like an improved Recall function and generative AI tools in Paint. This update marks the most substantial overhaul of Windows 11 since its 2021 release, with major changes to the compiler, kernel, and scheduler. Microsoft has also improved the Arm-to-x86 app translation layer, now dubbed "Prism." While stable, users may encounter occasional issues. The update maintains Windows 11's existing hardware requirements but raises the bar for unsupported installations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: HoloLens 2 production has ended, Microsoft confirmed to UploadVR. Now is the last time to buy the device before stock runs out, the company has been telling its partners and customers. HoloLens 2 will continue to receive "updates to address critical security issues and software regressions" until December 31 2027. As soon as 2028 starts, software support for HoloLens 2 will end. For the original HoloLens headset from 2016, software support will end after December 10 of this year, just over two months from now. Production of it ended back in 2018. HoloLens 2 launched in 2019, three years after the original, with upgrades to almost every aspect: a wider field of view, higher resolution, eye tracking, vastly improved hand tracking, and more powerful compute housed in the rear of the strap to deliver a balanced comfortable design.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jimmy Carter reached his 100th birthday Tuesday, the first time an American president has lived a full century and the latest milestone in a life that took the son of a Depression-era farmer to the White House and across the world as a Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian and advocate for democracy. Associated Press: Living the last 19 months in home hospice care in Plains, the Georgia Democrat and 39th president has continued to defy expectations, just as he did through a remarkable rise from his family peanut farming and warehouse business to the world stage. He served one presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and then worked more than four decades leading The Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 to "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope." "Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it's worth celebrating," Jason Carter, the former president's grandson and chair of The Carter Center governing board, said in an interview. "These last few months, 19 months, now that he's been in hospice, it's been a chance for our family to reflect," he continued, "and then for the rest of the country and the world to really reflect on him. That's been a really gratifying time." James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924 in Plains, where he has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. He is expected to mark his birthday in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the early 1960s -- before his first election to the Georgia state Senate. The former first lady, who was also born in Plains, died last November at 96. President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's 1976 campaign, praised his longtime friend for an "unwavering belief in the power of human goodness." "You've always been a moral force for our nation and the world (and) a beloved friend to Jill and me and our family," the 81-year-old president tells Carter in a tribute video filmed in front of Carter's presidential portrait at the White House.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world's tallest mountain is getting taller. Mount Everest, also known as Chomolungma, has grown about 15 to 50 meters (50 to 164 feet) higher over the past 89,000 years than expected, according to a modeling study released Monday. From a report: The culprit is a nearby river eroding and pushing down land, causing the ground under Mount Everest to rebound and lift. "It's a new additional component of uplift of Mount Everest," said Matthew Fox, study co-author and geologist at University College London. He expects this spurt of Everest and its surrounding peaks to continue for millions of years. He added "the biggest impact is probably on the climbers that have to climb another 20 meters or so to the top." The additional height may also lead to the growth of more ice at the higher elevations. Mount Everest, part of the Himalayan mountain range, towers along the Nepal-Tibet border at around 8,850 meters (29,000 feet) high. Not only is it the tallest worldwide, it leaves its surrounding peaks in the dust -- rising around 250 meters above the next tallest mountain in the Himalayas, the 8,611-meter (28,251-foot) K2 mountain. But what could cause Everest's anomalous height compared to its neighbors? These extra meters on Mount Everest can be chalked up to a relatively rare "river capture event" from 89,000 years ago, according to the authors' computer models. During such an event, one river changes it course, interacts with another and steals its water, Fox said. In this case, the team said the Arun river network -- about 75 kilometers east of Mount Everest -- stole water from a river flowing north of Everest. Fox said the capture could have been initiated by a dramatic flood, which rerouted the water to a new drainage network. Today, the Arun River is a main tributary to the Kosi River to the south.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has unveiled new features for its Copilot AI assistant, including screen analysis and voice interaction capabilities. Copilot Vision, available to Copilot Pro subscribers, can analyze web content in Microsoft Edge and answer queries about on-screen information. The company said processed data is immediately deleted and not used for model training. A new Think Deeper function aims to tackle complex problems using advanced reasoning models. Copilot Voice introduces synthetic speech output and voice input in select English-speaking countries. Microsoft also announced personalization features, leveraging user history to tailor Copilot recommendations. This functionality will be limited initially, with the company evaluating options for European Economic Area users due to regulatory considerations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Russian criminal gang secretly conducted cyberattacks and espionage operations against NATO allies on the orders of the Kremlin's intelligence services, according to the UK's National Crime Agency. From a report: Evil Corp., which includes a man who gained notoriety for driving a Lamborghini luxury sports car, launched the hacks prior to 2019, the NCA said in statement on Tuesday.The gang has been accused of using malicious software to extort millions of dollars from hundreds of banks and financial institutions in more than 40 countries. In December 2019, the US government sanctioned Evil and accused its alleged leader, Maksim Yakubets, of providing "direct assistance" to the Russian state, including by "acquiring confidential documents." The NCA's statement on Tuesday provides new detail on the work Yakubets and other members allegedly carried out to aid the Kremlin's geopolitical aims. The exact nature of the hacks against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies wasn't immediately clear.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has unveiled a plan to address the fallout from the company's botched app release in May 2024. The audio equipment maker aims to overhaul its software development practices and rebuild customer trust after the controversial update sparked widespread criticism, The Verge reports. The company will extend warranties by one year for select products and implement more rigorous testing processes, including an expanded beta program. Sonos has also pledged to introduce major app changes gradually and create an opt-in system for experimental features. To improve internal accountability, Sonos will appoint a "quality ombudsperson" to escalate concerns and report to leadership. The firm also plans to establish a customer advisory board for pre-launch feedback. Executive bonuses will be tied to app quality improvements and regaining customer confidence.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vertical Bridge has acquired the rights to lease and operate over 6,000 wireless towers from Verizon for $3.3 billion as part of a 10-year agreement, with potential extensions of up to 50 years. Capacity Media reports: "Upon the completion of this transaction, these assets, together with our existing portfolio which includes thousands of young, purpose-built towers, enhance Vertical Bridge's position as a fast, friendly, and flexible colocation partner to the wireless industry," said Ron Bizick, President and CEO of Vertical Bridge. Terms of the deal provide Verizon access to additional space on the towers for future use. The US carrier said its latest deal with Vertical Bridge supports existing efforts to drive tower-related costs. "As the nation's largest mobility provider, we are well positioned with greater financial flexibility to invest in our business, return value to our shareholders and make the nation's best network even better for customers," said Hans Vestberg, chair and CEO of Verizon. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2024, subject to closing conditions. Earlier this month, Verizon announced a deal to acquire Frontier Communications for $9.6 billion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Russian authorities are considering a ban on Discord, citing unspecified legal violations. According to the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant, the ban may happen "in the coming days." PC Gamer reports: The opening salvo has already been fired. The Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor has issued five separate rulings relating to Discord since September 20, which can all now be used as justification for an upcoming ban. Say what you will about authoritarian regimes, but they love their bureaucracy. Kommersant quotes an anonymous official source as saying the ban is being considered for violations of Russian law: needless to say, these violations have not been detailed, nor are likely to be. Russian users have also complained about periodic outages on Discord over September, with many resorting to VPNs, and both the web and mobile versions of the platform affected. Should the ban become a reality, the big losers will be Russian players and developers, with no obvious domestic replacement. "The problem is that for Russian developers, communication with the community, including the international one, and technical support are implemented through Discord," said Vasily Ovchinnikov, head of Russia's Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry. Today, a Moscow court fined Discord 3.5 million roubles ($37,675) for, apparently, failing to restrict access to banned information.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers, caused by climate change. Part of the area affected will be beneath the Matterhorn, one of Europe's tallest mountains, and close to a number of popular ski resorts. Large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are determined by glacier ridgelines or areas of perpetual snow, but melting glaciers have caused these natural boundaries to shift, leading to both countries seeking to rectify the border. Switzerland officially approved the agreement on the change on Friday, but Italy is yet to do the same. This follows a draft agreement by a joint Swiss-Italian commission back in May 2023. Statistics published last September showed that Switzerland's glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second biggest loss ever after 2022's record melt of 6%. An annual report is issued each year by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), which attributed the record losses to consecutive very warm summers, and 2022 winter's very low snowfall. Researchers say that if these weather patterns continue, the thaw will only accelerate. On Friday, Switzerland said that the redefined borders had been drawn up in accordance with the economic interests of both parties.It is thought that clarifying the borders will help both countries determine which is responsible for the upkeep of specific natural areas. Swiss-Italian boundaries will be changed in the region of Plateau Rosa, the Carrel refuge and Gobba di Rollin -- all are near the Matterhorn and popular ski resorts including Zermatt. The exact border changes will be implemented and the agreement published once both countries have signed it. Switzerland says that the approval process for signing the agreement is under way in Italy.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has obtained (PDF) a default judgment against two men who abused its DMCA takedown system to falsely target 117,000 URLs of competitors' online stores. With none of the defendants showing up in court, a California federal court sided with the search engine. Through an injunction, the men are now prohibited from sending false takedown notices and creating new Google accounts. TorrentFreak reports: Last November, Google decided to take action against the rampant DMCA abuse. In a lawsuit filed at a federal court in California, it accused Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien of sending over 100,000 fraudulent takedown requests. Many of these notices were allegedly filed against third-party T-shirt shops. [...] Following the complaint, the defendants, who are believed to reside in Vietnam, were summoned via their Gmail accounts and SMS. However, the pair remained quiet and didn't respond in court. Without the defendants representing themselves, Google requested a default judgment. According to the tech giant, it's clear that the duo violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law. Google said that, absent a default judgment, the defendants would continue to harm consumers and third-party businesses. These actions, in turn, will damage Google's reputation as a search engine. In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim recommended granting Google's motion for default judgment. The recommendation included an injunction that prevents the two men from abusing Google's services going forward. However, the District Judge had the final say. Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila adopted the recommendations, issuing a default judgment in favor of Google. The order confirms that defendants Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law. In typical copyrights-related verdicts, most attention is paid to the monetary damages, but not here. While Google could have requested millions of dollars in compensation, it didn't request a penny. Google's primary goal was to put an end to the abusive behavior, not to seek financial compensation. Therefore, the company asked for an injunction to prohibit the defendants from sending false takedowns going forward. This includes a ban on registering any new Google accounts. The request ticked all the boxes and, without a word from the defendants, Judge Davila granted the default judgment as well as the associated injunction.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cerebras Systems, an AI chip startup, filed (PDF) for an IPO and plans to trade under the ticker "CBRS" on Nasdaq. CNBC reports: Cerebras competes with Nvidia, whose graphics processing units are the industry's choice for training and running AI models. Cerebras says on its website that its WSE-3 chip comes with more cores and memory than Nvidia's popular H100. It's also a physically larger chip. In addition to selling chips, Cerebras offers cloud-based services that rely on its own computing clusters. [...] In addition to Nvidia, Cerebras cites AMD, Intel, Microsoft and Google as competitors, "as well as internally developed custom application-specific integrated circuits and a variety of private companies." Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company makes the Cerebras chips. Cerebrus warned investors that any possible supply chain disruptions may hurt the company. Cerebras was founded in 2016 and is based in Sunnyvale, California. Andrew Feldman, the startup's co-founder and CEO, sold server startup SeaMicro to AMD for $355 million in 2012. The company said in 2021 that it was valued at over $4 billion in a $250 million funding round.In May, G42 committed to purchasing $1.43 billion in orders from Cerebras before March 2025, according to the filing. G42 currently owns under 5% of Cerebras' Class A shares, and the firm has an option to purchase more depending on how much Cerebras product it buys.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon Prime is launching a new Shark Tank-style competition show where contestants pitch products to a panel of celebrity investors and a live audience called "The 100." If a product wins audience approval, it gets featured in Amazon's Buy It Now Store, accessible via QR codes during episodes. The show, called Buy It Now and hosted by JB Smoove, premieres on October 30, 2024. You can watch a trailer for it on YouTube. The Verge reports: The company announced the show earlier this year but has now released a trailer showing what it will look like. Contestants pitch their ideas to the audience. If the crowd votes for them, then the panelists pick which ones will show up on Amazon's Buy It Now Store: a new storefront launching alongside the show that viewers can reach using a QR code that shows up during episodes. One presenter per episode will get a $20,000 prize, too. Apart from Smoove -- who you may remember from Curb Your Enthusiasm and Harley -- the show will feature "a star-studded rotating panel of celebrity panelists," including Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson, Tabitha Brown, Tony Hawk, and Christian Siriano. It will also include three Amazon executives, and Ring founder and current CEO of Door.com (formerly Latch) Jamie Siminoff will serve as the "resident judge and entrepreneurial panelist." Oh, and those panelists will be selling their own products on that Buy It Now Store.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Arch Linux team has announced a collaboration with Valve, working to support critical infrastructure projects like a build service and secure signing enclave for the Arch Linux distribution. Tom's Hardware reports: If you're familiar with Valve and Steam Deck, you may already know that the Deck uses SteamOS 3, which is built on top of Arch Linux. Thanks to the Arch Linux base and Valve's development of the Proton compatibility layer for playing Windows games on Linux, we now have a far improved Linux gaming scene, especially on Valve's Steam Deck and Deck OLED handhelds. While Valve's specific reasons for picking Arch Linux for Steam Deck remain unknown, it's pretty easy to guess why it was picked. Mainly, it's a particularly lightweight distribution maintained since March 2002, which lends itself well to gaming with minimal performance overhead. A more intensive Linux distribution may not have been the ideal base for SteamOS 3, which is targeted at handhelds like Steam Deck first. As primary Arch Linux developer Levente Polyak discloses in the announcement post, "Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers." Polyak continues, "This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors [...] We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on the mailing list as work progresses."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Raspberry Pi, the company that sells tiny, cheap, single-board computers, is releasing an add-on that is going to open up several use cases -- and yes, because it's 2024, there's an AI angle. Called the Raspberry Pi AI Camera, this image sensor comes with on-board AI processing and is going to cost $70. In more technical terms, the AI Camera is based on a Sony image sensor (the IMX500) paired with a RP2040, Raspberry Pi's own microcontroller chip with on-chip SRAM. Like the rest of the line-up, the RP2040 follows Raspberry Pi's overall philosophy -- it is inexpensive yet efficient. In other words, AI startups aren't going to replace their Nvidia GPUs with RP2040 chips for inference. But when you pair it with an image sensor, you get an extension module that can capture images and process those images through common neural network models. As an added benefit, on-board processing on the camera module means that the host Raspberry Pi isn't affected by visual data processing. The Raspberry Pi remains free to perform other operations -- you don't need to add a separate accelerator. The new module is compatible with all Raspberry Pi computers. This isn't Raspberry Pi's first camera module. The company still sells the Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3, a simple 12-megapixel image sensor from Sony (IMX708) mounted on a small add-on board that you can pair with a Raspberry Pi with a ribbon cable. As Raspberry Pi promises to keep production running for many years, the Camera Module 3 will remain available for around $25. The AI Camera is the same size as the Camera Module 3 (25mm x 24mm) but slightly thicker due to the structure of the optical sensor. It comes pre-loaded with the MobileNet-SSD model, an object detection model that can run in realtime.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it has fined Cruise $1.5 million for failing to disclose that a pedestrian was seriously injured by one of its driverless vehicles in San Francisco last year. The Verge reports: Last October, a Cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian and then dragged her 20 feet after she was initially struck by a human driver in a hit-and-run incident. In the aftermath, Cruise disclosed that its vehicle had struck a pedestrian but omitted details about the victim being dragged. As a result, the California Department of Motor Vehicles pulled the GM-backed company's permit to operate self-driving cars in the state, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into the incident. Today, NHTSA announced the $1.5 million penalty as part of a broader consent order with Cruise that includes additional requirements around safety and disclosure. The company submitted several "incomplete reports" under the agency's Standing General Order, which requires crash reports to be filed within a certain period of time, depending on their severity. In its first report to NHTSA, filed one day after the incident, Cruise failed to disclose "that the Cruise vehicle had dragged the pedestrian," the consent order reads. The company also filed an additional report 10 days later in which it also failed to disclose the dragging incident. "It is vitally important for companies developing automated driving systems to prioritize safety and transparency from the start," NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said. "NHTSA is using its enforcement authority to ensure operators and manufacturers comply with all legal obligations and work to protect all road users." After its permit was suspended, Cruise hired a law firm to conduct an investigation into what went wrong. The firm's report concluded that the company had tried to send a 45-second video to regulators that showed its vehicle dragging the victim but was hampered by "internet connectivity issues." Also, Cruise employees failed to point out the dragging incident in subsequent conversations with regulators.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has withdrawn from discussions to invest in OpenAI's $6.5 billion funding round, though reasons for the decision remain unclear. The company still plans to proceed with integrating ChatGPT into Siri. MacRumors reports: The development comes just a month after WSJ reported that Apple was considering an investment in OpenAI as part of a fundraising effort that could value the AI company at over $100 billion. The high valuation reflects the intense competition in the artificial intelligence sector that OpenAI helped ignite with ChatGPT's launch in late 2022. While Apple has stepped away, other major tech companies remain involved. Microsoft, which has already invested $13 billion in OpenAI, is expected to contribute about $1 billion to this latest round. Nvidia is also reportedly in talks to participate. OpenAI's transition into a for-profit structure may have factored into Apple's decision. Last week, Reuters reported on OpenAI's plan to restructure its core business into a for-profit benefit corporation that will no longer be controlled by its non-profit board. "Chief executive Sam Altman will also receive equity for the first time in the for-profit company, which could be worth $150 billion after the restructuring as it also tries to remove the cap on returns for investors," reported Reuters.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: It will soon be illegal for public and private universities in California to consider an applicant's relationship to alumni or donors when deciding whether to admit them. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a ban on the practice known as legacy admissions, a change that will affect prestigious institutions including Stanford University and the University of Southern California. California's law, which will take effect Sept. 1, 2025, is the nation's fifth legacy admissions ban, but only the second that will apply to private colleges. "In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work," Newsom said in a statement. "The California Dream shouldn't be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we're opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly." Like other states, California won't financially penalize violators, but it will post the names of violators on the state Department of Justice's website. California will also add to data reporting requirements that it implemented in 2022, when private colleges had to start sharing the percentage of admitted students who were related to donors and alumni. Schools that run afoul of the new law will also have to report more granular demographic information about their incoming classes to the state, including the race and income of enrolled students as well as their participation in athletics. [...] Public universities in California won't be affected by the change. California State University does not consider legacy or donor ties, and the University of California system stopped doing so in 1998, two years after California voters banned race-conscious admissions through a statewide ballot measure.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand. He points to several moves by Mazda as reasons for his anger toward them. However, it turns out that customers might still have a workaround. Previously, the Japanese carmaker offered connected services, that included several features such as remote start, without the need for a subscription. At the time, the company informed customers that these services would eventually transition to a paid model. It's important to clarify that there are two very different types of remote start we're talking about here. The first type is the one many people are familiar with where you use the key fob to start the vehicle. The second method involves using another device like a smartphone to start the car. In the latter, connected services do the heavy lifting. What is wild is that Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda's subscription fees.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More American workers are seeing their compensation tied to performance metrics, a shift from traditional fixed salaries. A 2024 survey by Alexander Group found 28% of over 300 companies are incorporating incentive pay into new roles, extending a practice once limited to sales and executive positions. Employers argue this model boosts productivity, while some workers report earning less than expected, WSJ reported Monday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Udemy, an e-learning platform with more than 250,000 online classes, recently announced that it would train generative AI on the classes that its users contribute to the site. Not only were class teachers automatically opted in to having their classes used as training, Udemy said teachers would have only a three-week "window" to opt-out of training. That window has now passed. "We want to officially announce that the opt-out period for our Generative AI Program (GenAI Program) begins today, August 21st, and goes through September 12th. The choice to participate in the GenAI program is yours. If you want to participate, no action is needed!," Udemy said in a post on its community forums August 21. In an "Instructor Generative AI Policy" document, it says it plans to offer "Annual Periods designated by us" during which instructors can opt-out of having their classes trained on, and said that when people opt-out of training, it will remove the instructors' classes from its dataset "by the end of the calendar year." It has also told instructors that "By opting out, you'll lose access to all AI features and benefits, which may affect your course visibility and potential earnings." With the first opt-out window having passed, instructors are now seeing a grayed-out option in their settings if they didn't know about the window or would like to opt-out now.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DirecTV has agreed to acquire struggling rival Dish Network, creating a satellite TV behemoth with nearly 20 million subscribers. The complex transaction, announced Monday, involves private equity firm TPG acquiring a majority stake in DirecTV from AT&T for $7.6 billion. DirecTV will then purchase Dish for $1 and assume its debt. The deal provides a lifeline for Dish, which faces $2 billion in debt due November with only $500 million in available cash. EchoStar, Dish's parent company, will retain its wireless spectrum investments and operate independently. Subject to regulatory approval and creditor agreement, the merger is expected to close in late 2025. DirecTV and TPG will provide $2.5 billion to cover Dish's immediate financial needs. The deal's fate remains uncertain, as a similar 2002 merger attempt was blocked on antitrust grounds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reddit has implemented new restrictions on moderators' ability to alter community visibility settings, the social media platform announced Monday. Moderators must now obtain admin approval before switching subreddits between public, private, or NSFW status. The move comes in response to last year's widespread protests against API pricing changes, during which thousands of subreddits went private, disrupting platform accessibility. Reddit VP Laura Nestler stated the policy aims to prevent actions that "deliberately cause harm" and protect the site's long-term health.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Energy Department said on Monday that it had finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help a company restart a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan -- the latest sign of rising government support for nuclear power. From a report: Two rural electricity providers that planned to buy power from the reactor would also receive $1.3 billion in federal grants [Editor's note: the link is likely paywalled; alternative source] under a program approved by Congress to help rural communities tackle climate change. The moves will help Holtec International reopen the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert Township, Mich., which ceased operating in 2022. The company plans to inspect and refurbish the plant's reactor and seek regulatory approval to restart the plant by October 2025. After years of stagnation, America's nuclear industry is seeing a resurgence of interest. Both Congress and the Biden administration have offered billions of dollars in subsidies to prevent older nuclear plants from closing and to build new reactors. Despite concerns about high costs and hazardous waste, nuclear plants can generate electricity at all hours without emitting the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. David Turk, the deputy secretary of energy, said he expected U.S. electricity demand would grow by 15 percent over the next few years, driven by an increase in electric vehicles, a boom in battery and solar factories as well as a surge of new data centers for artificial intelligence. That meant the nation needs new low-carbon sources of power that could run 24/7 and complement wind and solar plants.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AmiMoJo writes: The UK is about to stop producing any electricity from burning coal -- ending its 142-year reliance on the fossil fuel. The country's last coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, finishes operations on Monday after running since 1967. This marks a major milestone in the country's ambitions to reduce its contribution to climate change. Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel producing the most greenhouse gases when burnt. The UK was the birthplace of coal power, and from tomorrow it becomes the first major economy to give it up. The first coal-fired power station in the world, the Holborn Viaduct power station, was built in 1882 in London by the inventor Thomas Edison -- bringing light to the streets of the capital. In the early 1990s, coal began to be forced out of the electricity mix by gas, but coal still remained a crucial component of the UK grid for the next two decades. In 2012, it still generated 39% of the UK's power. In 2010, renewables generated just 7% of the UK's power. By the first half of 2024, this had grown to more than 50% -- a new record. The rapid growth of green power meant that coal could even be switched off completely for short periods, with the first coal-free days in 2017.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thousands of Verizon users across the United States reported having little or no cellphone service on Monday morning in major cities, including in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, New York and Phoenix. From a report: According to the website Downdetector, which tracks user reports of internet disruptions, more than 104,000 cases of Verizon outages were reported across the country as of 11:20 a.m. Eastern, more than an hour after the first issues were reported. A map posted on the site showed cities with the most reports. On the site, many users said their cellphones were intermittently displaying SOS mode and that they could not place calls or send or receive text messages. "We're aware of the issue affecting service for some customers," a spokesman for Verizon, Ilya Hemlin, said in a telephone interview at 11:30 a.m. "Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to solve the issue," he added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, R.E.M., Burna Boy, Rush and many others are currently unplayable on YouTube in the U.S. due to a legal dispute between the platform and the performing rights organization SESAC. Attempts to play many, but not all, songs by those artists on Saturday met with the following message: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country." A similar dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok raged on for several months earlier this year before being resolved. In a statement to Variety, a YouTube rep said: "We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible." A source close to the situation tells Variety that the previous deal actually does not expire until next week, and suggests that YouTube's move is a negotiating tactic. SESAC is far smaller than ASCAP and BMI -- with approximately 30,000 members and 1.5 million compositions while ASCAP has nearly 800,000 members -- but as the caliber of artists affected by the block shows, it represents a comparatively large percentage of the marketplace.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AMD has released BIOS updates to boost performance and reduce latency for its Ryzen 9600X and 9700X processors. The updates come a month after disappointing Zen 5 desktop CPU reviews and coincide with Windows 11 optimizations for AMD chips. The new AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 firmware addresses high core-to-core latency issues and introduces a 105-watt cTDP option, promising up to 10% performance gains for multithreaded workloads.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Epic Games filed a new antitrust lawsuit against Google and Samsung, alleging they conspired to undermine third-party app stores. The suit focuses on Samsung's "Auto Blocker" feature, now enabled by default on new phones, which restricts app installations to "authorized sources" - primarily Google and Samsung's stores. Epic claims Auto Blocker creates significant barriers for rival stores, requiring users to navigate a complex process to install third-party apps. The company argues this feature does not actually assess app safety, but is designed to stifle competition. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney stated the lawsuit aims to benefit all developers, not secure special privileges for Epic. The company seeks either default deactivation of Auto Blocker or creation of a fair whitelisting process for legitimate apps. This legal action follows Epic's December victory against Google in a separate antitrust case. Epic recently launched its own mobile app store, which it claims faces unfair obstacles due to Auto Blocker.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Newsweek writes that the missing atmosphere of Mars "may be locked up in the planet's clay-rich surface, a new study by MIT geologists has suggested."According to the researchers, ancient water trickling through Mars' rocks could have triggered a series of chemical reactions, converting CO2 into methane and trapping the carbon in clay minerals for billions of years... The dominant explanation relies on an interaction between the sun's rays and gases in the atmosphere. Mars lost its protective magnetic field billions of years ago, likely allowing high-energy solar particles to strike the upper atmosphere, kicking molecules off into space, according to NASA... But this might not be the whole story. The researchers focused on a type of clay mineral called smectite, known for its ability to trap carbon. These minerals, abundant on Mars, contain tiny folds that can store carbon molecules for aeons. The study was published in the journal Science Advances. "There is plenty of evidence for a thick clay layer on the Martian surface. Almost 80 percent of satellite spectra detect these high-surface-area clay minerals on the Martian surface. Clay has been detected in craters as deep as 17 kilometers [10.5 miles]," [lead author Joshua] Murray said... Their model suggested that Mars' surface could contain up to 1.7 bar of CO2 - roughly 80 percent of its early atmospheric volume - sequestered as methane within clay deposits. This methane could still be present today, lying beneath the planet's dry and barren crust. "We know this process happens, and it is well-documented on Earth. And these rocks and clays exist on Mars," Oliver Jagoutz, the study's author, said in a statement. "So, we wanted to try and connect the dots." The discovery that Mars' ancient atmosphere could be hidden within its surface clays offers a new perspective on the planet's history and raises intriguing possibilities for future exploration. For example, if the sequestered carbon could be recovered and converted, it could serve as a propellant for future space missions between Earth, Mars and beyond. "In some ways, Mars' missing atmosphere could be hiding in plain sight," says the study's lead author - and the article adds that this raises some interesting possibilities. "For example, if the sequestered carbon could be recovered and converted, it could serve as a propellant for future space missions between Earth, Mars and beyond..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:In recent years - as longstanding efforts to recycle plastics have faltered - Exxon Mobil has touted advanced recycling as a groundbreaking technology that will turn the tide on the plastic crisis. But despite its seemingly eco-friendly name, the attorney general's lawsuit denounced advanced recycling as a "public relations stunt" that largely involves superheating plastics to convert them into fuel. At Exxon Mobil's only "advanced recycling" facility in Baytown, Texas, only 8% of plastic is remade into new material, while the remaining 92% is processed into fuel that is later burned. [California attorney general Rob] Bonta's lawsuit seeks a court order to prohibit the company from describing the practice as "advanced recycling," arguing the vast majority of plastic is destroyed. Many environmental advocates and policy experts lauded the legal action as a major step toward ending greenwashing by Exxon Mobil - the world's largest producer of single-use plastic polymer... Advanced recycling, which is also called chemical recycling, is an umbrella term that typically involves heating or dissolving plastic waste to create fuel, chemicals and waxes - a fraction of which can be used to remake plastic. The most common techniques yield only 1% to 14% of the plastic waste, according to a 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Exxon Mobil has largely used reclaimed plastic for fuel production while ramping up its virgin plastic production, according to Bonta. The executive director of California Communities Against Toxics complains Exxon Mobil's "advanced" recycling is "the same technology we've had since the Industrial Revolution... a blast furnace." (The article also quotes her as asking "How is that better than coal?") And a UCLA researcher who studied the issue blames misperceptions about plastic recycling on "an industry-backed misinformation campaign." He agrees that the reality is "having to burn more oil to turn that plastic back into oil, which you then burn." California's attorney general "alleges Exxon Mobil has had a patent for this technology since 1978, and the company is falsely rebranding it as 'new' and 'advanced'... It recently reemerged after the company learned that the term 'advanced recycling' resonated with members of the public..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientific American has surprising news about the possibility of black holes the size of an atom but containing the mass of an asteroid - the so-called "primordial black holes" formed after the birth of the universe which could solve the ongoing mystery of the missing dark matter. These atom-sized black holes "may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade, scientists say... And if they sneak by the moon or Mars, scientists should be able to detect them, a new study shows."If one of these black holes comes near a planet or large moon, it should push the body off course enough to be measurable by current instruments. "As it passes by, the planet starts to wobble," says Sarah R. Geller, a theoretical physicist now at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of the study, which was published on September 17 in Physical Review D. "The wobble will grow over a few years but eventually it will damp out and go back to zero." Study team member Tung X. Tran, then an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, built a computer model of the solar system to see how the distance between Earth and nearby solar system objects would change after a black hole flyby. He found that such an effect would be most noticeable for Mars, whose distance scientists know within about 10 centimeters. For a black hole in the middle of the mass range, "we found that after three years the signal would grow to between one to three meters," Tran says. "That's way above the threshold of precision that we can measure." The Earth-Mars distance is particularly well tracked because scientists have been sending generations of probes and landers to the Red Planet... In a coincidence, an independent team published a paper about its search for signs of primordial black holes flying near Earth in the same issue of Physical Review D. The researchers' simulations found that such signals could be detectable in orbital data from Global Navigation Satellite Systems, as well as gravimeters that measure variations in Earth's gravitational field. "For decades physicists thought dark matter was likely to take the form of so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs)," the article points out. "Yet generations of ever more sensitive experiments meant to find these particles have come up empty." California astrophysicist Kevork Abazajian tells the site that now in the scientific community, "Primordial black holes are really gaining popularity."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the Vice President of the United States travelled in a motorcade Saturday to a San Francisco hotel, they ended up stopped behind "a Waymo vehicle that had to be driven away from the motorcade route by police," according to a local newscast (which called it an "only in San Francisco moment"). And that's not all. One local reporter following the vice president's motorcade said "we saw not one but two driverless cars get stuck." The San Francisco Standard adds that on Friday, California's governor "signed a bill that allows law enforcement to cite driverless car companies for traffic violations."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. real estate developers "are having a hard time keeping up with demand," reports the Los Angeles Times, "as businesses in search of secure spots for their servers rent nearly every square foot that becomes available..."Construction of new data centers is at "extraordinary levels" driven by "insatiable demand," a recent report on the industry by real estate brokerage JLL found. "Never in my career of 25 years in real estate have I seen demand like this on a global scale," said JLL real estate broker Darren Eades, who specializes in data centers... The biggest drivers are AI and cloud service providers that include some of the biggest names in tech, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle. With occupancy in conventional office buildings still down sharply following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and property values falling, data centers represent a rare ripe opportunity for real estate developers, who are pursuing opportunities in major markets like Los Angeles and less urban locales that are served by plentiful and preferably cheap power needed to run data centers. "If you can find a cluster of power to build a site, they'll come," Eades said of developers. Construction is taking place at an "extraordinary" pace nationwide and still not keeping up, the JLL data center report said. [Data center] "Vacancy declined to a record low of 3% at midyear due to insatiable demand and despite rampant construction." Development increased more than sevenfold in two years, with the pipeline of new projects leveling off in the first half of 2024, a potential signal that the U.S. power grid cannot support development at a faster pace. But when projects currently under construction or planned are complete, the U.S. colocation market, in which businesses rent space in a data center owned by another company for their servers and other computing hardware, will triple in size from current levels... Real estate investors and landlords are being drawn into the market because demand from tenants is high and they are likely to renew their leases after shouldering the costs of setting up data centers. "They invest in their space and in your space and they tend to stick around longer," said Mark Messana, president of Downtown Properties, which owns offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. "As we all know, the office market is struggling a little bit, so it's nice to be able to have some data customers in the mix..." Power demand for computing is growing so intense that it threatens to strain the nation's electrical grid, sending users to remote locations where power is plentiful and preferably cheap. Data center developers are working in Alabama, the Dakotas and Indiana, "traditionally states that wouldn't have data centers," Eades said. The article includes "the mother of all data centers" in the western U.S. - a 30-story building where "thousands of miles of undersea fiber-optic cables disappear into an ordinary-looking office tower." Once a prestigious location for businesses, "The recent departure of a law firm that had been in the building more than 50 years cleared out five floors that will quickly be re-leased to data tenants, said Eades, who represents the landlord..." To retrofit the building for data centers, "two elevators were removed so the empty shafts could hold water pipes used to help keep the temperature cool enough for the heat-producing servers" - and developers are happy rents "can be double what they are at newer downtown office high-rises, according to real estate data provider CoStar... "By 2030, data centers could account for as much as 11% of U.S. power demand - up from 3% now, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed SB 1047, a high-profile bill that would have regulated the development of AI," reports TechCrunch.The bill "would have made companies that develop AI models liable for implementing safety protocols to prevent 'critical harms'."The rules would only have applied to models that cost at least $100 million and use 10^26 FLOPS (floating point operations, a measure of computation) during training. SB 1047 was opposed by many in Silicon Valley, including companies like OpenAI, high-profile technologists like Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, and even Democratic politicians such as U.S. Congressman Ro Khanna. That said, the bill had also been amended based on suggestions by AI company Anthropic and other opponents. In a statement about today's veto, Newsom said, "While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data. Instead, the.." bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions - so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology." "Over the past 30 days, Governor Newsom signed 17 bills covering the deployment and regulation of GenAI technology..." according to a statement from the governor's office, "cracking down on deepfakes, requiring AI watermarking, protecting children and workers, and combating AI-generated misinformation... The Newsom Administration will also immediately engage academia to convene labor stakeholders and the private sector to explore approaches to use GenAI technology in the workplace." In a separate statement the governor pointed out California " is home to 32 of the world's 50 leading Al companies," and warned that the bill "could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology. Smaller, specialized models may emerge as equally or even more dangerous than the models targeted by SB 1047 - at the potential expense of curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good..." "While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data. Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions - so long as a large system deploys it. "I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology." Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times reported that the vetoed bill had been supported by Mark Hamill, J.J. Abrams, and "more than 125 Hollywood actors, directors, producers, music artists and entertainment industry leaders" who signed a letter of support. (And that bill also cited the support of "over a hundred current and former employees of OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI..."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"For the first time, scientists have created a flexible programmable chip that is not made of silicon..." reports IEEE Spectrum - opening new possibilities for implantable devices, on-skin computers, brain-machine interfaces, and soft robotics. U.K.-based Pragmatic Semiconductor produced an "ultralow-power" 32-bit microprocessor, according to the article, and "The microchip's open-source RISC-V architecture suggests it might cost less than a dollar..." This shows potential for inexpensive applications like wearable healthcare electronics and smart package labels, according to the chip's inventors:For example, "we can develop an ECG patch that has flexible electrodes attached to the chest and a flexible microprocessor connected to flexible electrodes to classify arrhythmia conditions by processing the ECG data from a patient," says Emre Ozer, senior director of processor development at Pragmatic, a flexible chip manufacturer in Cambridge, England. Detecting normal heart rhythms versus an arrhythmia "is a machine learning task that can run in software in the flexible microprocessor," he says... Pragmatic sought to create a flexible microchip that cost significantly less to make than a silicon processor. The new device, named Flex-RV, is a 32-bit microprocessor based on the metal-oxide semiconductor indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). Attempts to create flexible devices from silicon require special packaging for the brittle microchips to protect them from the mechanical stresses of bending and stretching. In contrast, pliable thin-film transistors made from IGZO can be made directly at low temperatures onto flexible plastics, leading to lower costs... "Our end goal is to democratize computing by developing a license-free microprocessor," Ozer says... Other processors have been built using flexible semiconductors, such as Pragmatic's 32-bit PlasticARM and an ultracheap microcontroller designed by engineers in Illinois. Unlike these earlier devices, Flex-RV is programmable and can run compiled programs written in high-level languages such as C. In addition, the open-source nature of RISC-V also let the researchers equip Flex-RV with a programmable machine learning hardware accelerator, enabling artificial intelligence applications. Each Flex-RV microprocessor has a 17.5 square millimeter core and roughly 12,600 logic gates. The research team found Flex-RV could run as fast as 60 kilohertz while consuming less than 6 milliwatts of power... The Pragmatic team found that Flex-RV could still execute programs correctly when bent to a curve with a radius of 3 millimeters. Performance varied between a 4.3 percent slowdown to a 2.3 percent speedup depending on the way it was bent.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"SpaceX has temporarily grounded its Falcon 9 rocket," reports Space.com, "after the vehicle experienced an issue on the Crew-9 astronaut launch for NASA."Crew-9 lifted off on Saturday (Sept. 28) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aloft aboard the Crew Dragon capsule "Freedom" [for a 5-month stay, returning in February with Starliner's two astronauts]. Everything appeared to go well. The Falcon 9's first stage aced its landing shortly after liftoff, and the rocket's upper stage deployed Freedom into its proper orbit; the capsule is on track to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 29) as planned. But the upper stage experienced an issue after completing that job, SpaceX announced early Sunday morning. "After today's successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9's second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn. As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area. We will resume launching after we better understand root cause," SpaceX wrote in a post on X. Indeed, a Falcon 9 had been scheduled to launch 20 broadband satellites for the company Eutelsat OneWeb from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday night, but that liftoff has been postponed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Long-time Slashdot reader AsylumWraith writes: Visual Capitalist has posted an article and graph showing that, on average, 67% of US tech workers would be interested in joining a union. The percentage is highest at companies like Intuit, with 94% or respondents indicating they'd be interested in joining a union. On the other end of the scale, fewer than half of the employees at Apple, Tesla, and Google, who were surveyed were interested in such a move.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:Look at the top right corner of your phone. You might see an icon with "5G" and another with vertical bars showing the strength of your internet connection. Those symbols don't mean what you think they do. If your phone shows "5G," you're not necessarily connected to the latest and zippiest cellphone network technology. It might just mean that 5G connections are available nearby. And the bars are a cellular version of a shrug. There is no standard measure of how much signal strength each bar represents. "The connection icon is a lie," said Avi Greengart, president of the technology analysis firm Techsponential... The good news is you might not need 5G, anyway. Most of the time, your phone calls, texting and web surfing are perfectly fine on the prior generation of wireless technology called 4G or sometimes "LTE." Many phone networks will funnel you over 5G service when it makes a real difference, like if you're on a video call or playing an intense video game. If you see more specific types of 5G icons, like "5G UW" used by Verizon or "5G UC" if you're on T-Mobile service, Hyers said you're probably connected to a 5G network at that moment. Those extra letters or symbols sometimes indicate types of 5G technology that are capable of faster and more reliable connections, but they aren't always better, depending on your circumstances. Confusingly, AT&T has showed "5G E" icons on phones. That is not 5G service at all. Here's how major carriers responded to the Post's reporter:"AT&T said its '5G' indicators on phones line up with a telecommunications standards organization that established the icon to mean 5G networks are available.""Verizon didn't respond to my questions.""T-Mobile said for most of its cellphone network, your phone accurately reflects if you're on 5G."The article suggests setting your phone to just automatically switch to 5G networks when high-bandwidth applications are in use...Read more of this story at Slashdot.