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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The Biden administration has finalized a plan to expand solar on 31 million acres of federal lands in 11 western states. The proposed updated Western Solar Plan is a roadmap for Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) governance of solar energy proposals and projects on public lands. It bumps up the acreage from the 22 million acres it recommended in January, and this plan adds five additional states -- Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming -- to the six states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah -- analyzed in the original plan. It would make the public lands available for potential solar development, putting solar farms closer to transmission lines or on previously disturbed lands and avoiding protected lands, sensitive cultural resources, and important wildlife habitats. [...] BLM surpassed its goal of permitting more than 25 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy projects on public lands earlier in 2024. It's permitted 29 GW of projects on public lands -- enough to power over 12 million homes. The Biden administration set the goal to achieve 100% clean electricity on the US grid by 2035.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reports: Apple is standing by its decision to terminate the Apple Developer Account of Appstun, a mobile app company created by one of Apple's own Worldwide Developer Conference 2021 student winners. According to an announcement published on Appstun's website, Apple moved to terminate the developer's account after multiple rejections of its app that Apple says violates its App Store guidelines. Apple's decision to shut down the developer's account was recently highlighted on X by Apple critic and 37signals co-owner and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson, where he celebrated how much better web developers had it, noting they could run their businesses without the involvement of big tech gatekeepers. "No fear on [sic] capricious rejections that might suddenly kill the business overnight," he remarked. Appstun co-founder Batuhan Karababa says that he and the other co-founder had been trying to work with Apple over the App Store rejections. (Karababa tells us that he's only the formal founder on paper.) "We responded transparently and collaborated with Apple to ensure our app doesn't violate any guidelines. However, as the process continued, we began to face rejection for the issue that we thought we had already resolved in previous submissions. Apple didn't find our solution good enough," according to the announcement on Appstun's website. The company went back and forth with App Review, receiving multiple rejections over an app for designing Apple Watch faces. In addition to a more standard watch face, Appstun also came up with a workaround that would allow it to offer more highly customizable watch faces. But these weren't actually watch faces in the traditional sense, but rather custom images and animations that run independently of the App Watch face system. Essentially, the app would take over the screen showing an image that was similar to a watch face, allowing Appstun to offer more customization. Of course, running a custom animation in this way could drain the Apple Watch battery faster. Apple was also concerned that customers wouldn't understand that they weren't running a normal watch face, and that Appstun deceived them by suggesting that's what it was offering. Though Appstun added notifications to its app that these were not real watch faces, in an attempt to placate App Review, Apple instead decided to terminate the company's developer account after repeated back-and-forth. The company pleaded on its website for any help in getting its developer account restored. According to Apple, there's more to this story, and it thinks it made the correct decision. The iPhone maker said Appstun's app repeatedly tried to mislead users into thinking that it offered features and functionality that it didn't support and also marketed the app with deceptive ads, leading to negative app ratings and reviews. [...] Apple pointed to its guideline 5.6 -- a developer code of conduct -- that warns developers that "repeated manipulative or misleading behavior or other fraudulent conduct will lead to your removal from the Apple Developer Program."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Denise Prudhomme, a 60-year-old Wells Fargo employee, was found dead at her desk four days after clocking in. Apparently, nobody noticed her body because of the secluded location of her cubicle and the fact that many employees were working remotely. VICE reports: Prudhomme last scanned into her office job in Tempe, Arizona, at 7 AM on Friday, and her body was reportedly discovered at 4:55 PM on Tuesday, August 20. Her coworkers did pick up that something weird was going on. They detected a weird smell but assumed it was some kind of plumbing issue. Prudhomme's cubicle was on the third floor of the building, tucked away from any main thoroughfares that employees would use to travel between departments. On top of that, most employees at the Tempe Wells Fargo location worked remotely, significantly cutting down the chance of someone finding her body. Tempe police and the Maricopa County Medical Examiner didn't detect any signs of foul play, but the woman's official cause of death remains to be seen. Wells Fargo has said that they're going to look into their internal procedures to make sure employees receive some kind of check-in to make sure they're not, you know, dead.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Dan Goodin: A judge in Ohio has issued a temporary restraining order against a security researcher who presented evidence that a recent ransomware attack on the city of Columbus scooped up reams of sensitive personal information, contradicting claims made by city officials. The order, issued by a judge in Ohio's Franklin County, came after the city of Columbus fell victim to a ransomware attack on July 18 that siphoned 6.5 terabytes of the city's data. A ransomware group known as Rhysida took credit for the attack and offered to auction off the data with a starting bid of about $1.7 million in bitcoin. On August 8, after the auction failed to find a bidder, Rhysida released what it said was about 45 percent of the stolen data on the group's dark web site, which is accessible to anyone with a TOR browser. Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said on August 13 that a "breakthrough" in the city's forensic investigation of the breach found that the sensitive files Rhysida obtained were either encrypted or corrupted, making them "unusable" to the thieves. Ginther went on to say the data's lack of integrity was likely the reason the ransomware group had been unable to auction off the data. Shortly after Ginther made his remarks, security researcher David Leroy Ross contacted local news outlets and presented evidence that showed the data Rhysida published was fully intact and contained highly sensitive information regarding city employees and residents. Ross, who uses the alias Connor Goodwolf, presented screenshots and other data that showed the files Rhysida had posted included names from domestic violence cases and Social Security numbers for police officers and crime victims. Some of the data spanned years. On Thursday, the city of Columbus sued Ross (PDF) for alleged damages for criminal acts, invasion of privacy, negligence, and civil conversion. The lawsuit claimed that downloading documents from a dark web site run by ransomware attackers amounted to him "interacting" with them and required special expertise and tools. The suit went on to challenge Ross alerting reporters to the information, which ii claimed would not be easily obtained by others. "Only individuals willing to navigate and interact with the criminal element on the dark web, who also have the computer expertise and tools necessary to download data from the dark web, would be able to do so," city attorneys wrote. "The dark web-posted data is not readily available for public consumption. Defendant is making it so." The same day, a Franklin County judge granted the city's motion for a temporary restraining order (PDF) against Ross. It bars the researcher "from accessing, and/or downloading, and/or disseminating" any city files that were posted to the dark web. The motion was made and granted "ex parte," meaning in secret before Ross was informed of it or had an opportunity to present his case.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader mmell writes: Regular Slashdot users will certainly be aware of the saga unfolding between the country of Brazil and X. Reuters has already reported that what I have to relay here will come as no surprise to Elon Musk, but reporting on CNN confirms that Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ordered X to suspend operations in Brazil until X names a representative to appear on X's behalf in Brazilian Courts. Is this the end of X or some brilliant Machiavellian ploy on the part of Elon Musk? Only time and the informed and spirited debate of the users here at /. can be sure. Here's a recap of the saga, as told by X's Grok-2 chatbot: The Beginning: Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice with a reputation for tackling misinformation, especially around elections, found himself at odds with Elon Musk, the space-faring, electric-car magnate turned social media mogul. The conflict kicked off when Moraes ordered X to block certain accounts in Brazil, part of his broader crackdown on what he deemed as misinformation. The Escalation: Musk, never one to shy away from a fight, especially when it involves what he perceives as free speech issues, declared on X that he would not comply with Moraes' orders. This defiance wasn't just a tweet; it was a digital declaration of war. Musk accused Moraes of overstepping his bounds, betraying the constitution, and even likened him to Darth Vader in a less than flattering comparison. Moraes, not amused, opened an investigation into Musk for obstruction of justice, accusing him of inciting disobedience and disrespecting Brazil's sovereignty. The stakes were raised with fines of around $20,000 per day for each reactivated account, and threats of arresting X employees in Brazil. The Drama Unfolds: The internet, as it does, had a field day. Posts on X ranged from Musk supporters calling Moraes a dictator to others backing Moraes, arguing he was defending democracy against foreign billionaires. The conflict became a global spectacle, with Musk's posts drawing international attention, comparing the situation to a battle for free speech versus censorship. Musk, in true Musk fashion, didn't just stop at defiance. He shared all of Moraes' demands publicly, suggesting users use VPNs, and even hinted at closing X's operations in Brazil, which eventually happened, citing the need to protect staff safety. The Latest Chapter: Recently, X announced the closure of its operations in Brazil, a move seen as the culmination of this legal and ideological battle. Musk framed it as a stand against what he saw as an assault on free speech, while critics viewed it as an overreaction or a strategic retreat.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Pidgin messaging app removed the ScreenShareOTR plugin from its third-party plugin list after it was found to be used to install keyloggers, information stealers, and malware targeting corporate networks. BleepingComputer reports: The plugin was promoted as a screen-sharing tool for secure Off-The-Record (OTR) protocol and was available for both Windows and Linux versions of Pidgin. According to ESET, the malicious plugin was configured to infect unsuspecting users with DarkGate malware, a powerful malware threat actors use to breach networks since QBot's dismantling by the authorities. [...] Those who installed it are recommended to remove it immediately and perform a full system scan with an antivirus tool, as DarkGate may be lurking on their system. After publishing our story, Pidgin's maintainer and lead developer, Gary Kramlich, notified us on Mastodon to say that they do not keep track of how many times a plugin is installed. To prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, Pidgin announced that, from now on, it will only accept third-party plugins that have an OSI Approved Open Source License, allowing scrutiny into their code and internal functionality.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When Amazon releases its revamped AI Alexa update in October, it'll be powered by Anthropic's Claude AI models due to performance issues with its in-house AI. Reuters reports: Amazon plans to charge $5 to $10 a month for its new "Remarkable" version of Alexa as it will use powerful generative AI to answer complex queries, while still offering the "Classic" voice assistant for free, Reuters reported in June. But initial versions of the new Alexa using in-house software simply struggled for words, sometimes taking six or seven seconds to acknowledge a prompt and reply, one of the people said. That's why Amazon turned to Claude, an AI chatbot developed by startup Anthropic, as it performed better than the online retail giant's own AI models, the people said. "Amazon uses many different technologies to power Alexa," a company spokeswoman said in a statement in response to detailed Reuters questions for this story. "When it comes to machine learning models, we start with those built by Amazon, but we have used, and will continue to use, a variety of different models - including (Amazon AI model) Titan and future Amazon models, as well as those from partners - to build the best experience for customers," the spokeswoman said. Amazon has typically eschewed relying on technology it hasn't developed in-house so it can ensure it has full control of the user experience, data collection and direct relationships with customers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Thousands of Tennesseans were illegally denied Medicaid and other benefits due to programming and data errors in an algorithmic system the state uses to determine eligibility for low-income residents and people with disabilities, a U.S. District Court judge ruled this week. The TennCare Connect system -- built by Deloitte and other contractors for more than $400 million -- is supposed to analyze income and health information to automatically determine eligibility for benefits program applicants. But in practice, the system often doesn't load the appropriate data, assigns beneficiaries to the wrong households, and makes incorrect eligibility determinations, according to the decision (PDF) from Middle District of Tennessee Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. "When an enrollee is entitled to state-administered Medicaid, it should not require luck, perseverance, and zealous lawyering for him or her to receive that healthcare coverage," Crenshaw wrote in his opinion. The decision was a result of a class action lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of 35 adults and children who were denied benefits. [...] ]Crenshaw found that TennCare Connect did not consider whether applicants were eligible for all available programs before it terminated their coverage. Deloitte was a major beneficiary of the nationwide modernization effort, winning contracts to build automated eligibility systems in more than 20 states, including Tennessee and Texas. Advocacy groups have asked (PDF) the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Deloitte's practices in Texas, where they say thousands of residents are similarly being inappropriately denied life-saving benefits by the company's faulty systems.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel is working with investment bankers to help navigate the most difficult period in its 56-year history, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The company is discussing various scenarios, including a split of its product-design and manufacturing businesses, as well as which factory projects might potentially be scrapped, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, Intel's longtime bankers, have been providing advice on the possibilities, which could also include potential M&A, the people said. The discussions have only grown more urgent since the Santa Clara, California-based company delivered a grim earnings report this month, which sent the shares plunging to their lowest level since 2013.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter meisdug writes: A new feature has been submitted for inclusion in Linux 6.12, allowing the display of a QR code when a kernel panic occurs using the DRM Panic handler. This QR code can capture detailed error information that is often missed in traditional text-based panic messages, making it more user-friendly. The feature, written in Rust, is optional and can be enabled via a specific build switch. This implementation follows similar ideas from other operating systems and earlier discussions in the Linux community.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: It's been a burning question for months -- are Intel's laptop chips susceptible to the same permanent damage that can potentially lay 24 different flagship desktop chips low? Today, Intel has finally confirmed: its 13th and 14th Gen laptop chips do not seem to have an instability issue. And the company claims they are definitely not affected by the too-high voltage issue, which it's now calling "Vmin Shift Instability." While Intel maintains that Vmin Shift Instability is not necessarily the root cause or only cause of the crashes -- it's still investigating -- Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford now tells The Verge that laptop chips basically aren't affected at all.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pakistani businesses say internet disruptions this month have harmed their businesses [non-paywalled link] and unsettled investors at a time when the country is counting on the information technology sector to help break a cycle of economic crises and bailouts. From a report: The warnings from executives, investors and a leading IT organisation come as internet watchdogs have reported a marked slowdown in connection speeds and service interruptions to applications such as WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform that is widely used in the country. Nadeem Elahi, managing director for TRG, a venture capital firm that operates Pakistan's biggest outsourcing services provider, said internet connectivity was "by far the worst it has been in the last 12 months." "If we want to be a global business processing operation destination, then 100 per cent reliable connectivity is essential for customers," he said, estimating that the quality of connection had degraded by 30 to 40 per cent. Technology is one of Pakistan's few standout sectors, and Islamabad is relying on software developers and IT freelancers to help lift the country out of a chronic foreign exchange rut that has sent it to the IMF for support two dozen times. IT exports rose 24 per cent to $3.2bn, an all-time high, in the 12 months to the end of June, according to the State Bank of Pakistan.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For decades drugmakers have taken a more-is-more model when dosing cancer drugs in clinical trials. U.S. regulators want them to reconsider that approach. From a report: Companies with cancer drugs in clinical trials must strike a balance between doses high enough to thwart tumors, but low enough to avoid intolerable side effects. For years, Food and Drug Administration officials have expressed concern that cancer drug doses are often too high, leading to unnecessary side effects. An FDA program launched in 2021, Project Optimus, requires companies to re-examine how they set doses of cancer treatments. This typically involves larger clinical trials to test doses to find those that optimally balance safety and efficacy. Entrepreneurs support the aim, but some fear the initiative will add time and cost to drug development, putting startups at a further disadvantage to larger competitors. [...] The FDA says it encourages drugmakers to discuss dosing plans with the agency and that new medications can still be brought to patients quickly.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: When French prosecutors charged Pavel Durov, the chief executive of the messaging app Telegram, with a litany of criminal offenses on Wednesday, one accusation stood out to Silicon Valley companies. Telegram, French authorities said in a statement, had provided cryptology services aimed at ensuring confidentiality without a license. In other words, the topic of encryption was being thrust into the spotlight. The cryptology charge raised eyebrows at U.S. tech companies including Signal, Apple and Meta's WhatsApp, according to three people with knowledge of the companies. These companies provide end-to-end encrypted messaging services and often stand together when governments challenge their use of the technology, which keeps online conversations between users private and secure from outsiders. But while Telegram is also often described as an encrypted messaging app, it tackles encryption differently than WhatsApp, Signal and others. So if Mr. Durov's indictment turned Telegram into a public exemplar of the technology, some Silicon Valley companies believe that could damage the credibility of encrypted messaging apps writ large, according to the people, putting them in a tricky position of whether to rally around their rival. Encryption has been a long-running point of friction between governments and tech companies around the world. For years, tech companies have argued that encrypted messaging is crucial to maintain people's digital privacy, while law enforcement and governments have said that the technology enables illicit behaviors by hiding illegal activity. The debate has grown more heated as encrypted messaging apps have become mainstream. Signal has grown by tens of millions of users since its founding in 2018. Apple's iMessage is installed on the hundreds of millions of iPhones that the company sells each year. WhatsApp is used by more than two billion people globally.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new AI model being developed by Google could make diagnosing tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments as easy as recording a voice note. From a report: Google is training one of its foundational AI models to listen for signs of disease using sound signals, like coughing, sneezing, and sniffling. This tech, which would work using people's smartphone microphones, could revolutionize diagnoses for communities where advanced diagnostic tools are difficult to come by. The tech giant is collaborating with Indian respiratory health care AI startup, Salcit Technologies. The tech, which was introduced earlier this year as Health Acoustic Representations, or HeAR, is what's known as a bioacoustic foundation model. HeAR was then trained on 300 million pieces of audio data, including 100 million cough sounds, to learn to pick out patterns in the sounds.Salcit is then using this AI model, in combination with its own product Swaasa, which uses AI to analyze cough sounds and assess lung health, to help research and improve early detection of TB based solely on cough sounds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. Space Command chief Gen. Stephen Whiting called for greater transparency from China regarding space debris this week, citing concerns over the recent breakup of a Long March 6A rocket's upper stage. The incident, which occurred after an August 6 satellite launch, scattered over 300 pieces of debris in low-Earth orbit. While acknowledging some improvement in U.S.-China military dialogue, Whiting stressed on the need for proactive communication about space junk, ArsTechnica reports. "I hope the next time there's a rocket like that, that leaves a lot of debris, that it's not our sensors that are the first to detect that, but we're getting communications to help us understand that," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

U.S. Space Command chief Gen. Stephen Whiting called for greater transparency from China regarding space debris this week, citing concerns over the recent breakup of a Long March 6A rocket's upper stage. The incident, which occurred after an August 6 satellite launch, scattered over 300 pieces of debris in low-Earth orbit. While acknowledging some improvement in U.S.-China military dialogue, Whiting stressed on the need for proactive communication about space junk, ArsTechnica reports. "I hope the next time there's a rocket like that, that leaves a lot of debris, that it's not our sensors that are the first to detect that, but we're getting communications to help us understand that," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man and the chairman of Reliance Industries, said this week that his telecom firm will offer users 100 GB of free cloud storage. Oil-to-retail giant Reliance, which is India's most valuable firm by market cap, has upended the telecom market in India by offering free voice calls and dirt-cheap internet access. Jio, Reliance's telecom subsidiary, serves 490 million subscribers, more than any rival in India. Jio offers access to at least 2GB of data per day for 14 days to subscribers for a total of $2.3. TechCrunch adds: Reliance plans to offer Jio users up to 100 GB of free cloud storage through its Jio AI Cloud service, set to launch around Diwali in October, Ambani said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AnandTech, a pioneering technology news website, is shutting down after 27 years on August 30, 2024. Founded in 1997 by Anand Lal Shimpi, the site earned a reputation for its in-depth hardware reviews and technical analysis. In a final post on the site, AnandTech Editor-in-Chief Ryan Smith cited changing market dynamics for written tech journalism as the primary reason for closure. The site's 21,500 articles will remain accessible indefinitely, hosted by publisher Future PLC. AnandTech's forums will continue operating under Future's management.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Facebook owner Meta struck a deal to buy geothermal power from Sage Geosystems to supply its U.S. data centers, it said on Monday, as it races to build out the infrastructure to support its massive investments in energy-hungry artificial intelligence. The first phase of the 150-megawatt project should be operational by 2027 and "significantly" expand the use of geothermal power in the United States, the social media company said. The location has yet to be determined, but the companies said it will be east of the Rocky Mountains. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. [...] Sage, which is based in Houston, is a four-year-old startup developing next-generation technology that it says can be deployed in more locations than traditional geothermal, which requires naturally occurring underground reservoirs of hot water and accounts for 0.4% of U.S. power generation. The company is backed by oil and gas firms Chesapeake Energy and Nabors Industries and venture capital firms Virya and Helium-3 Ventures. The project for Meta would be Sage's largest to date by far. The company said it first validated the technology in the field just two years ago. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters the company expected the Sage Geosystems energy to feed the power grid, rather than directly supplying any specific data center.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lego plans to make half of its bricks from renewable or recycled materials by 2026, with a goal of fully transitioning by 2032. While the company cites higher production costs and challenges with existing materials, it says it's committed to not passing these costs onto consumers. The Guardian reports: The Danish company last year ditched efforts to make bricks entirely from recycled bottles because of cost and production issues. At the moment, 22% of the material in its colourful bricks is not made from fossil fuels. The toymaker hopes gradually to bring down the amount of oil-based plastic it uses by paying up to 70% more for certified renewable resin, the raw plastic used to manufacture the bricks, in an attempt to encourage manufacturers to increase production. [...] Lego has also expanded its brick takeback programme, Replay -- where consumers can donate old bricks to the company through free shipping -- into the UK and continued to test similar models in the US and Europe.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Astronomy researchers are urging the FCC to reconsider exempting large constellations of low Earth satellites from environmental reviews due to growing concerns over pollution, safety risks, and the impact on stargazing. They argue that the decades-old exemption is outdated, given the massive increase in satellite launches and potential long-term effects on the ozone, climate, and environment. The Register reports: Astronomers from Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Arizona, among others, have added their names to a public letter that will be presented at some point to FCC space bureau chief Julie Kearney. The letter asks the FCC to follow prior recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which in 2022 issued a report calling for the telecom regulator to revisit its decision to exempt large constellations of satellites from environmental review. The exemption was created way back in 1986, when far fewer satellites were being launched. The GAO, however, urged the FCC to review the exemption, citing the recent proliferation of satellites and the questions that have been raised about the sustainability of the exemption. That recommendation was recently echoed by US PIRG, which earlier this month made a similar request to the FCC. US PIRG notes that the number of satellites in low Earth orbit has increased by a factor of 127 over the past five years, driven largely by the deployment of mega-constellations of communications satellites from SpaceX's Starlink subsidiary.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A recent indictment (PDF) of an Alaska man stands out due to the sophisticated use of multiple encrypted communication tools, privacy-focused apps, and dark web technology. "I've never seen anyone who, when arrested, had three Samsung Galaxy phones filled with 'tens of thousands of videos and images' depicting CSAM, all of it hidden behind a secrecy-focused, password-protected app called 'Calculator Photo Vault,'" writes Ars Technica's Nate Anderson. "Nor have I seen anyone arrested for CSAM having used all of the following: [Potato Chat, Enigma, nandbox, Telegram, TOR, Mega NZ, and web-based generative AI tools/chatbots]." An anonymous reader shares the report: According to the government, Seth Herrera not only used all of these tools to store and download CSAM, but he also created his own -- and in two disturbing varieties. First, he allegedly recorded nude minor children himself and later "zoomed in on and enhanced those images using AI-powered technology." Secondly, he took this imagery he had created and then "turned to AI chatbots to ensure these minor victims would be depicted as if they had engaged in the type of sexual contact he wanted to see." In other words, he created fake AI CSAM -- but using imagery of real kids. The material was allegedly stored behind password protection on his phone(s) but also on Mega and on Telegram, where Herrera is said to have "created his own public Telegram group to store his CSAM." He also joined "multiple CSAM-related Enigma groups" and frequented dark websites with taglines like "The Only Child Porn Site you need!" Despite all the precautions, Herrera's home was searched and his phones were seized by Homeland Security Investigations; he was eventually arrested on August 23. In a court filing that day, a government attorney noted that Herrera "was arrested this morning with another smartphone -- the same make and model as one of his previously seized devices." The government is cagey about how, exactly, this criminal activity was unearthed, noting only that Herrera "tried to access a link containing apparent CSAM." Presumably, this "apparent" CSAM was a government honeypot file or web-based redirect that logged the IP address and any other relevant information of anyone who clicked on it. In the end, given that fatal click, none of the "I'll hide it behind an encrypted app that looks like a calculator!" technical sophistication accomplished much. Forensic reviews of Herrera's three phones now form the primary basis for the charges against him, and Herrera himself allegedly "admitted to seeing CSAM online for the past year and a half" in an interview with the feds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI said that ChatGPT now has more than 200 million weekly active users -- twice as many as last year. Axios reports: OpenAI also said that 92% of Fortune 500 companies are using its products and that usage of its automated API has doubled since the release of GPT-4o mini in July. "People are using our tools now as a part of their daily lives, making a real difference in areas like healthcare and education -- whether it's helping with routine tasks, solving hard problems, or unlocking creativity," CEO Sam Altman said in a statement to Axios. Further reading: Apple Is in Talks To Invest in OpenAI, WSJ SaysRead more of this story at Slashdot.

Most of the attention today has been focused on California's controversial "kill switch" AI safety bill, which passed the California State Assembly by a 45-11 vote. However, California legislators passed another tech bill this week which requires internet browsers and mobile operating systems to offer a simple tool for consumers to easily opt out of data sharing and selling for targeted advertising. Slashdot reader awwshit shares a report from The Record: The state's Senate passed the landmark legislation after the General Assembly approved it late Wednesday. The Senate then added amendments to the bill which now goes back to the Assembly for final sign off before it is sent to the governor's desk, a process Matt Schwartz, a policy analyst at Consumer Reports, called a "formality." California, long a bellwether for privacy regulation, now sets an example for other states which could offer the same protections and in doing so dramatically disrupt the online advertising ecosystem, according to Schwartz. "If folks use it, [the new tool] could severely impact businesses that make their revenue from monetizing consumers' data," Schwartz said in an interview with Recorded Future News. "You could go from relatively small numbers of individuals taking advantage of this right now to potentially millions and that's going to have a big impact." As it stands, many Californians don't know they have the right to opt out because the option is invisible on their browsers, a fact which Schwartz said has "artificially suppressed" the existing regulation's intended effects. "It shouldn't be that hard to send the universal opt out signal," Schwartz added. "This will require [browsers and mobile operating systems] to make that setting easy to use and find."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to The Information (paywalled), Meta plans to ship an extremely light mixed reality headset in 2027, codenamed Puffin. It follows a report that the company canceled a high-end headset planned for the same year, which previous reports speculated as being a Quest Pro 2. UploadVR reports: Puffin reportedly resembles "a bulky pair of glasses" and weighs less than 110 grams, yet is an opaque VR-style headset with pancake lenses and passthrough cameras. Its remarkably light weight is apparently being achieved by offloading both the battery and computing hardware to an external tethered puck, which Meta "hopes" will be small enough to fit in the user's pocket. If the report is accurate, Puffin will be significantly lighter than any other shipping fully functional VR headset to date. For comparison, Meta Quest 3 weighs around 400 grams without its straps and facial interface and around 515 grams with them. Of this weight, the battery is around 70 grams. The report describes Puffin as not including controllers, instead using the gaze-and-pinch input scheme introduced by Apple Vision Pro.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotify claims Apple may be again in violation of European regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires interoperability from big technology companies dubbed "gatekeepers." From a report: This time, the issue isn't about in-app purchases, links or pricing information, but rather how Apple has discontinued the technology that allows Spotify users to control the volume on their connected devices. When streaming to connected devices via Spotify Connect on iOS, users were previously able to use the physical buttons on the side of their iPhone to adjust the volume. As a result of the change, this will no longer work. To work around the issue, Spotify iOS users will instead be directed to use the volume slider in the Spotify Connect menu in the app to control the volume on connected devices. The company notes that this issue doesn't affect users controlling the volume on iOS Bluetooth or AirPlay sessions, nor users on Android. It only applies to those listening via Spotify Connect on iOS. As a result, Spotify iOS users globally will be directed to use the new in-app volume slider beginning on September 3.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Every day for the last four years, dozens of people have shown up in the comments of one particular YouTube, declaring their love and appreciation for the content. The content: two minutes and six seconds of deep, low buzzing, the kind that makes your phone vibrate on the table, underscoring a vaguely trippy animation of swirled stained glass. It's not a good video. But it's not meant to be. The video is called "Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )." [...] If you believe the comments, about half the video's 45 million views come from people who bring their phone into the shower or bathtub and trust that they can play this video and everything will be fine. The theory goes like this: all a speaker is really doing is pushing air around, and if you can get it to push enough air, with enough force, you might be able to push droplets of liquid out from where they came. "The lowest tone that that speaker can reproduce, at the loudest level that it can play," says Eric Freeman, a senior director of research at Bose. "That will create the most air motion, which will push on the water that's trapped inside the phone." Generally, the bigger the speaker, the louder and lower it can go. Phone speakers tend to be tiny. "So those YouTube videos," Freeman says, "it's not, like, really deep bass. But it's in the low range of where a phone is able to make sound." The best real-world example of how this can work is probably the Apple Watch, which has a dedicated feature for ejecting water after you've gotten it wet. When I first reached out to iFixit to ask about my water-expulsion mystery, Carsten Frauenheim, a repairability engineer at the company, said the Watch works on the same theory as the videos. "It's just a specific oscillating tone that pushes the water out of the speaker grilles," he said. "Not sure how effective the third-party versions are for phones since they're probably not ideally tuned? We could test."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from overkill.wtf: The team behind popular emulation tool EmuDeck is today announcing something rather special: they've spent the first half of 2024 working on their very first hardware product, called the EmuDeck Machine, and it's due to arrive before the year is out. This EmuDeck Machine is an upcoming, crowdfunded, retro emulation mini PC running Bazzite, a Linux-based system similar to SteamOS. [...] This new EmuDeck Machine comes in two variants, the EM1 running an Intel N97 APU, and the EM2 -- based on an AMD Ryzen 8600G. While both machines are meant as emulation-first devices, the AMD-based variant can easily function as a console-like PC. This is also thanks to some custom work done by the team: "We've optimized the system for maximum power. The default configuration of an 8600G gets you 32 FPS in Cyberpunk; we've managed to reach 47 FPS with a completely stable system, or 60FPS if you use FSR." Both machines will ship with a Gamesir Nova Lite controller and EmuDeck preinstalled naturally. The team has also preinstalled all available Decky plugins. But that's not all: if the campaign is successful, the EmuDeck team will also work on a docking station for the EM2 that will upgrade the graphics to an AMD Radeon 7600 desktop GPU. With this, in games like Cyberpunk 2077, you'll be able to reach 160 FPS in 1080p as per EmuDeck's measurements. You can preorder the EmuDeck Machines via Indigogo, starting at $322 and shipping in December.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scientists are harvesting genetic data from microorganisms in a North Yorkshire quarry, fueling a global debate over ownership and profit-sharing of natural genetic resources. Researchers from London-based startup Basecamp Research are collecting samples and digitizing genetic codes for sale to AI companies. This practice of trading digital sequencing information (DSI) has become central to biotechnology research and development. The issue will be a focal point at October's COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, The Guardian reports. Developing nations, home to much of the world's biodiversity, are pushing for a global system requiring companies to pay for genetic data use. Past discoveries underscore the potential value: heat-resistant bacteria crucial for COVID-19 testing and marine organisms used in cancer treatments have generated significant profits. Critics accuse companies of "biopiracy" for commercializing genetic information without compensating source countries. Proposed solutions include a global fund for equitable benefit-sharing, though implementation details remain contentious.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has laid off about 100 employees in its services group (source may be paywalled; alternative source), primarily affecting roles associated with the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The impacted employees at the Cupertino-based tech giant were informed of the cuts on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported (paywalled). The layoffs spanned various teams under Senior Vice President Eddy Cue. The job cuts include roles primarily associated with the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore, with the company shifting its focus to other divisions. Additionally, other services teams, such as the one managing Apple News, also experienced layoffs. While Apple has largely avoided mass layoffs even as other major tech companies have downsized, it did lay off 614 employees in Santa Clara earlier this year. Those cuts marked Apple's first significant job reductions since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and coincided with the cancellation of its decade-long electric car project.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Midjourney, the AI image-generating platform, announced on Wednesday that it's "officially getting into hardware." TechCrunch reports: As for what hardware Midjourney, which has a team of fewer than 100 people, might pursue, there might be a clue in its hiring of Ahmad Abbas in February. Abbas, an ex-Neuralink staffer, helped engineer the Apple Vision Pro, Apple's mixed reality headset. Midjourney CEO David Holz is also no stranger to hardware. He co-founded Leap Motion, which built motion-tracking peripherals. (Abbas worked together with Holz at Leap, in fact.) Despite the lawsuits over its AI training approach working their way through the courts, Midjourney has said it's continuing to develop AI models for video and 3D generation. The hardware could perhaps be related to those efforts, as well.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A controversial bill aimed at enforcing safety standards for large artificial intelligence models has now passed the California State Assembly by a 45-11 vote. Following a 32-1 state Senate vote in May, SB-1047 now faces just one more procedural state senate vote before heading to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk. As we've previously explored in depth, SB-1047 asks AI model creators to implement a "kill switch" that can be activated if that model starts introducing "novel threats to public safety and security," especially if it's acting "with limited human oversight, intervention, or supervision." Some have criticized the bill for focusing on outlandish risks from an imagined future AI rather than real, present-day harms of AI use cases like deep fakes or misinformation. [...] If the Senate confirms the Assembly version as expected, Newsom will have until September 30 to decide whether to sign the bill into law. If he vetoes it, the legislature could override with a two-thirds vote in each chamber (a strong possibility given the overwhelming votes in favor of the bill). At a UC Berkeley Symposium in May, Newsom said he worried that "if we over-regulate, if we overindulge, if we chase a shiny object, we could put ourselves in a perilous position." At the same time, Newsom said those over-regulation worries were balanced against concerns he was hearing from leaders in the AI industry. "When you have the inventors of this technology, the godmothers and fathers, saying, 'Help, you need to regulate us,' that's a very different environment," he said at the symposium. "When they're rushing to educate people, and they're basically saying, 'We don't know, really, what we've done, but you've got to do something about it,' that's an interesting environment." Supporters of the AI safety bill include state senator Scott Weiner and AI experts including Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. Bengio supports the bill as a necessary step for consumer protection and insists that AI should not be self-regulated by corporations, akin to other industries like pharmaceuticals and aerospace. Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li opposes the bill, arguing that it could have harmful effects on the AI ecosystem by discouraging open-source collaboration and limiting academic research due to the liability placed on developers of modified models. A group of business leaders also sent an open letter Wednesday urging Newsom to veto the bill, calling it "fundamentally flawed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new study of broadband reliability finds a top-two finish that you might not expect from recent surveys of ISP customer satisfaction: Charter's Spectrum and Comcast's Xfinity, the two largest cable operators in the US. From a report: Opensignal's report, published Thursday, draws on software telemetry collected from April 1 through June 29 of downtime, consistency of service, and how well a provider meets basic thresholds for speed, latency, and other core performance metrics. Spectrum comes in first with a "Reliability Experience" score of 741 out of 1,000, followed by Xfinity with 710, Verizon with 625, AT&T with 546, and T-Mobile with 525. Opensignal chose those five companies to study because each passes more than a third of US homes. But while Comcast and Charter employ the same basic cable architecture except for a few fiber-to-the-home pockets, Verizon and AT&T have mixed networks. That includes extensive and growing fiber service but also fixed 4G and 5G wireless from Verizon and hybrid-fiber broadband from AT&T, both of which lack fiber's speed and capacity advantages, plus obsolete DSL connectivity. T-Mobile's home connectivity, meanwhile, is almost exclusively fixed wireless.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is in talks to invest in OpenAI, a move that would cement ties to a partner integral to its efforts to gain ground in the artificial-intelligence race. WSJ: The investment would be part of a new OpenAI fundraising round that would value the ChatGPT maker above $100 billion, people familiar with the situation said. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that venture-capital firm Thrive Capital is leading the round, which will total several billion dollars, and Apple rival Microsoft is also expected to participate. It couldn't be learned how much Apple or Microsoft will invest into OpenAI this round. To date, Microsoft has been the primary strategic investor into OpenAI. It owns a 49% share of the AI startup's profits after investing $13 billion since 2019. Apple in June announced OpenAI as the first official partner for Apple Intelligence, its system for infusing AI features throughout its operating system. The new AI will feature an improved Siri voice assistant, text proofreading and creating custom emojis.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new national survey reveals a concerning trend in school engagement among Gen Z students aged 12-18. The joint Gallup and Walton Family Foundation study [PDF] found that middle and high school students find classes less interesting than last year, with only half feeling positively challenged. Student engagement has dropped significantly since 2023, with 10% fewer respondents saying they learned something interesting at school in the past week. Non-college-bound students report feeling particularly disconnected, with only 41% saying schoolwork challenges them positively compared to 55% of college-bound peers. Despite only half of students planning to attend four-year colleges, schools heavily emphasize higher education. 68% of high schoolers report hearing "a lot" about college, while only 23% hear as much about vocational alternatives.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brussels is investigating whether Telegram breached EU digital rules by failing to provide accurate user numbers [non-paywalled source], as officials push to bring the controversial messaging app under stricter supervision. Financial Times: EU legal and data experts suspect that the app has understated its presence in the EU to stay under a 45mn user threshold, above which large online platforms are subject to a swath of Brussels regulations designed to check their influence. The EU probe comes alongside a wide-ranging French investigation into alleged criminal activity on Telegram that led to the arrest on Saturday of its founder, Russian-born billionaire Pavel Durov. Telegram has said Durov, who is now a French-Emirati citizen, has "nothing to hide." Telegram said in February it had 41mn users in the EU. Under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), Telegram was supposed to provide an updated number this month but did not, only declaring it had "significantly fewer than 45mn average monthly active recipients in the EU."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Verizon has teamed up with another satellite operator to offer US customers a commercial direct-to-device messaging service for when a terrestrial cell network is not available, starting this fall. From a report: The telecoms giant says that US customers with compatible smartphones will have access to emergency messaging and location sharing, even when out of range of a cell tower, and from early next year it will offer the ability to text anywhere via a satellite connection, again with compatible devices. Verizon told The Register that there are no additional costs planned for this service, and any customer with a capable device can take advantage of it, irrespective of price plan. It will be available on the Pixel 9 family of devices out of the box, with the Galaxy S25 to follow, a Verizon spokesperson told us. "Next year we will add text anywhere functionality to the emergency text and location services available this year," they added. This sounds somewhat similar to the Emergency SOS feature introduced by Apple with the iPhone 14 two years ago, which also enabled users to contact emergency services via a satellite link. Verizon says its service will complement Apple's iOS 18 satellite features, so customers using different devices will also have the ability to text anywhere. As partner for this service, Verizon has picked Skylo, a company that styles itself as a pioneer in Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) communications for smartphones and other devices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A U.S. appeals court has revived a lawsuit against TikTok over a child's death, potentially limiting tech companies' legal shield under Section 230. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law does not protect TikTok from claims that its algorithm recommended a deadly "blackout challenge" to a 10-year-old girl. Judge Patty Shwartz wrote that Section 230 only immunizes third-party content, not recommendations made by TikTok's own algorithm. The decision marks a departure from previous rulings, citing a recent Supreme Court opinion that platform algorithms reflect "editorial judgments." This interpretation could significantly impact how courts apply Section 230 to social media companies' content curation practices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google says it has evidence that Russian government hackers are using exploits that are "identical or strikingly similar" to those previously made by spyware makers Intellexa and NSO Group. From a report: In a blog post on Thursday, Google said it is not sure how the Russian government acquired the exploits, but said this is an example of how exploits developed by spyware makers can end up in the hands of "dangerous threat actors." In this case, Google says the threat actors are APT29, a group of hackers widely attributed to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, or the SVR. APT29 is a highly capable group of hackers, known for its long-running and persistent campaigns aimed at conducting espionage and data theft against a range of targets, including tech giants Microsoft and SolarWinds, as well as foreign governments. Google said it found the hidden exploit code embedded on Mongolian government websites between November 2023 and July 2024. During this time, anyone who visited these sites using an iPhone or Android device could have had their phone hacked and data stolen, including passwords, in what is known as a "watering hole" attack. The exploits took advantage of vulnerabilities in the iPhone's Safari browser and Google Chrome on Android that had already been fixed at the time of the suspected Russian campaign. Still, those exploits nevertheless could be effective in compromising unpatched devices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI and Anthropic will give a U.S. government agency early access to major new model releases under agreements announced on Thursday. From a report: Governments around the world have been pushing for measures -- both legislative and otherwise -- to evaluate the risks of powerful new AI algorithms. Anthropic and OpenAI have each signed a memorandum of understanding to allow formal collaboration with the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute, a part of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology. In addition to early access to models, the agreements pave the way for collaborative research around how to evaluate models and their safety as well as methods for mitigating risk. The U.S. AI Safety Institute was set up as part of President Biden's AI executive order.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anti-piracy coalition comprised of major studios in the U.S. and across the globe is claiming victory against Fmovies, a significant streaming operation based in Vietnam. From a report: On Thursday the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment revealed that it had worked with Hanoi police to shutter Fmovies and affiliated sites, which together made up "the largest pirate streaming operation in the world," according to the organization. With sites including bflixz, flixtorz, movies7, myflixer, and aniwave in addition to Fmovies, the operation attracted more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024, ACE says. The effort also shut down video hosting provider Vidsrc.to and its affiliated sites, which were "operated by the same suspects," per ACE. Two Vietnamese men were arrested by Hanoi police in connection with Fmovies and have yet to be charged. Charles Rivkin, the chairman and CEO of Hollywood trade group the Motion Picture Association and the chairman of ACE, called the action "a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe" in a statement. His colleague Larissa Knapp, evp and chief content protection officer for the MPA, said the takedown sent a "powerful deterrent message."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Too often, new tech product or service launches seem like solutions in search of a problem, but not this one: ESPN is launching software that lets you figure out just where you can watch the specific game you want to see amid an overcomplicated web of streaming services, cable channels, and arcane licensing agreements. Every sports fan is all too familiar with today's convoluted streaming schedules. Launching today on ESPN.com and the various ESPN mobile and streaming device apps, the new guide offers various views, including one that lists all the sporting events in a single day and a search function, among other things. You can also flag favorite sports or teams to customize those views. "At the core of Where to Watch is an event database created and managed by the ESPN Stats and Information Group (SIG), which aggregates ESPN and partner data feeds along with originally sourced information and programming details from more than 250 media sources, including television networks and streaming platforms," ESPN's press release says. ESPN previously offered browsable lists of games like this, but it didn't identify where you could actually watch all the games. There's no guarantee that you'll have access to the services needed to watch the games in the list, though. Those of us who cut the cable cord long ago know that some games -- especially those local to your city -- are unavailable without cable.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yelp has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of maintaining its local search monopoly by preferencing its own services over competitors, harming competition and reducing quality. "Yelp claims that the way Google directs users toward its own local search vertical from its general search engine results page should be considered illegal tying of separate products to keep rivals from reaching scale," adds The Verge. From the report: Yelp wants the court to order Google to stop the allegedly anticompetitive conduct and to pay it damages. It demanded a jury trial and filed the suit in the Northern District of California, where a different jury found that Google had an illegal monopoly through its app store in its fight against Epic Games. The company was emboldened to bring its own lawsuit against Google after the DOJ's win in its antitrust case about the company's allegedly exclusionary practices around the distribution of search services. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told The New York Times that following that decision, "the winds on antitrust have shifted dramatically." Previously, he told the Times, he'd hesitated to bring a suit because of the resources it would require and because he saw it as the government's job to enforce the antitrust laws. "Yelp's claims are not new," Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said in a statement. "Similar claims were thrown out years ago by the FTC, and recently by the judge in the DOJ's case. On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp's meritless claims."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A study found that Canada's 2023 wildfires released 647 megatons of carbon, surpassing the emissions of seven of the ten largest emitting countries, including Germany, Japan, and Russia. "Only China, India and the United States emitted more carbon emissions during that period, meaning that if Canada's wildfires were ranked alongside countries, they would have been the world's fourth largest emitter," adds Reuters. From the report: Typical emissions from Canadian forest fires over the last decade have ranged from 29 to 121 megatons. But climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is leading to drier and hotter conditions, driving extreme wildfires. The 2023 fires burned 15 million hectares (37 million acres) across Canada, or about 4% of its forests. The findings add to concerns about dependence on the world's forests to act as a long-term carbon sink for industrial emissions when instead they could be aggravating the problem as they catch fire. The worry is that the global carbon budget, or the estimated amount of greenhouse gases the world can continue to emit while holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, is based on inaccurate calculations. [...] The abnormally hot temperatures Canada experienced in 2023 are projected to be common by the 2050s, the study said. This is likely to lead to severe fires across the 347 million hectares (857 million acres) of woodlands that Canada depends on to store carbon. The study has been published in the journal Nature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American, written by science journalist Simon Makin: The persistence of memory is crucial to our sense of identity, and without it, there would be no learning, for us or any other animal. It's little wonder, then, that some researchers have called how the brain stores memories the most fundamental question in neuroscience. A milestone in the effort to answer this question came in the early 1970s, with the discovery of a phenomenon called long-term potentiation, or LTP. Scientists found that electrically stimulating a synapse that connects two neurons causes a long-lasting increase in how well that connection transmits signals. Scientists say simply that the "synaptic strength" has increased. This is widely believed to be the process underlying memory. Networks of neural connections of varying strengths are thought to be what memories are made of. In the search for molecules that enable LTP, two main contenders emerged. One, called PKMzeta (protein kinase Mzeta), made a big splash when a 2006 study showed that blocking it erased memories for places in rats. If obstructing a molecule erases memories, researchers reasoned, that event must be essential to the process the brain uses to maintain memories. A flurry of research into the so-called memory molecule followed, and numerous experiments appeared to show that it was necessary and sufficient for maintaining numerous types of memory. The theory had a couple of holes, though. First, PKMzeta is short-lived. "Those proteins only last in synapses for a couple of hours, and in neurons, probably a couple of days," says Todd Sacktor, a neurologist at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, who was co-senior author of the 2006 study. "Yet our memories can last 90 years, so how do you explain this difference?" Second, PKMzeta is created in cells as needed, but then it has to find the right synapses. Each neuron has around 10,000 synapses, only a few percent of which are strengthened, says neuroscientist Andre Fenton, the other co-senior author of the 2006 study, who is now at New York University. The strengthening of some synapses and not others is how this mechanism stores information, but how PKMzeta molecules accomplish this was unknown. A new study published in Science Advances by Sacktor, Fenton and their colleagues plugs these holes. The research suggests that PKMzeta works alongside another molecule, called KIBRA (kidney and brain expressed adaptor protein), which attaches to synapses activated during learning, effectively "tagging" them. KIBRA couples with PKMzeta, which then keeps the tagged synapses strengthened. Experiments show that blocking the interaction between these two molecules abolishes LTP in neurons and disrupts spatial memories in mice. Both molecules are short-lived, but their interaction persists. "It's not PKMzeta that's required for maintaining a memory, it's the continual interaction between PKMzeta and this targeting molecule, called KIBRA," Sacktor says. "If you block KIBRA from PKMzeta, you'll erase a memory that's a month old." The specific molecules will have been replaced many times during that month, he adds. But, once established, the interaction maintains memories over the long term as individual molecules are continually replenished. [...] "What seems clear is that there is no single 'memory molecule,'" concludes Scientific American. "Regardless of any competing candidate, PKMzeta needs a second molecule to maintain long-term memories, and there is another that can substitute in a pinch." "There are also some types of memory, such as the association of a location with fear, that do not depend on PKMzeta," the report adds. "Nobody knows what molecules are involved in those cases, and PKMzeta is clearly not the whole story."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register's Liam Proven reports: Microsoft's in-house professional networking site is moving to Microsoft's in-house Linux. This could mean that big changes are coming for the former CBL-Mariner distro. Ievgen Priadka's post on the LinkedIn Engineering blog, titled Navigating the transition: adopting Azure Linux as LinkedIn's operating system, is the visible sign of what we suspect has been a massive internal engineering effort. It describes some of the changes needed to migrate what the post calls "most of our fleet" from the end-of-life CentOS 7 to Microsoft Azure Linux -- the distro that grew out of and replaced its previous internal distro, CBL-Mariner. This is an important stage in a long process. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn way back in 2016. Even so, as recently as the end of last year, we reported that a move to Azure had been abandoned, which came a few months after it laid off almost 700 LinkedIn staff -- the majority in R&D. The blog post is over 3,500 words long, so there's quite a lot to chew on -- and we're certain that this has been passed through and approved by numerous marketing and management people and scoured of any potentially embarrassing admissions. Some interesting nuggets remain, though. We enjoyed the modest comment that: "However, with the shift to CentOS Stream, users felt uncertain about the project's direction and the timeline for updates. This uncertainty created some concerns about the reliability and support of CentOS as an operating system." [...] There are some interesting technical details in the post too. It seems LinkedIn is running on XFS -- also the RHEL default file system, of course -- with the notable exception of Hadoop, and so the Azure Linux team had to add XFS support. Some CentOS and actual RHEL is still used in there somewhere. That fits perfectly with using any of the RHELatives. However, the post also mentions that the team developed a tool to aid with deploying via MaaS, which it explicitly defines as Metal as a Service. MaaS is a Canonical service, although it does support other distros -- so as well as CentOS, there may have been some Ubuntu in the LinkedIn stack as well. Some details hint at what we suspect were probably major deployment headaches. [...] Some of the other information covers things the teams did not do, which is equally informative. [...]Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Three former Backpage executives, including co-founder Michael Lacey, were sentenced to prison for promoting prostitution and laundering money while disguising their activities as a legitimate classified business. The Associated Press reports: A jury convicted Lacey, 76, of a single count of international concealment money laundering last year, but deadlocked on 84 other prostitution facilitation and money laundering charges. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa later acquitted Lacey of dozens of charges for insufficient evidence, but he still faces about 30 prostitution facilitation and money laundering charges. Authorities say the site generated $500 million in prostitution-related revenue from its inception in 2004 until it was shut down by the government in 2018. Lacey's lawyers say their client was focused on running an alternative newspaper chain and wasn't involved in day-to-day operations of Backpage. But Humetewa told Lacey during Wednesday's sentencing he was aware of the allegations against Backpage and did nothing. "In the face of all this, you held fast," Humetewa said. "You didn't do a thing." Two other Backpage executives, Chief Financial Officer John Brunst and Executive Vice President Scott Spear, also were convicted last year and were each sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison. The judge ordered Lacey and the two executives to report to the U.S. Marshals Service in two weeks to start serving their sentences.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: South Korea's president has urged authorities to do more to "eradicate" the country's digital sex crime epidemic, amid a flood of deepfake pornography targeting young women. Authorities, journalists and social media users recently identified a large number of chat groups where members were creating and sharing sexually explicit "deepfake" images -- including some of underage girls. Deepfakes are generated using artificial intelligence, and often combine the face of a real person with a fake body. South Korea's media regulator is holding an emergency meeting in the wake of the discoveries. The spate of chat groups, linked to individual schools and universities across the country, were discovered on the social media app Telegram over the past week. Users, mainly teenage students, would upload photos of people they knew -- both classmates and teachers -- and other users would then turn them into sexually explicit deepfake images. The discoveries follow the arrest of the Russian-born founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, on Saturday, after it was alleged that child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud were taking place on the encrypted messaging app. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday instructed authorities to "thoroughly investigate and address these digital sex crimes to eradicate them." "Recently, deepfake videos targeting an unspecified number of people have been circulating rapidly on social media," President Yoon said at a cabinet meeting. "The victims are often minors and the perpetrators are mostly teenagers." To build a "healthy media culture," President Yoon said young men needed to be better educated. "Although it is often dismissed as 'just a prank,' it is clearly a criminal act that exploits technology to hide behind the shield of anonymity," he said. The Guardian notes that making sexually explicit deepfakes with the intention of distributing them is punishable by five years in prison or a fine of $37,500. Further reading: 1 in 10 Minors Say Their Friends Use AI to Generate Nudes of Other Kids, Survey Finds (Source: 404 Media)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded by the FAA for the second time in less than two months following the failed landing of a first-stage booster, which was destroyed in a fireball after its 23rd flight. Spaceflight Now reports: The booster, serial number B1062 in the SpaceX fleet, suffered a hard landing, at the tail end of its record-setting 23rd flight. It was consumed in a fireball on the deck of the drone ship 'A Shortfall of Gravitas', which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean about 250 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. The mishap was the first booster landing failure since February 2021. In a statement on Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that while no public injuries or public property damage was reported, "The FAA is requiring an investigation." The FAA made a similar declaration following a Falcon 9 upper-stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, which resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. Following that incident, SpaceX rockets did not return to flight until the Starlink 10-9 mission, on July 27. [...] The booster failure came the same week that SpaceX had to twice delay a launch attempt of the Polaris Dawn astronaut mission, first due to a helium leak and then for recovery weather at the end of the mission. The Polaris Dawn crew remain in quarantine for now, according to social media posts from Isaacman, but the timing of the next launch attempt is uncertain. In addition to landing weather concerns and resolving the FAA investigation, there is also the matter of launch pad availability.Read more of this story at Slashdot.