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Google Begins Requiring JavaScript For Google Search
Google says it has begun requiring users to turn on JavaScript, the widely-used programming language to make web pages interactive, in order to use Google Search. From a report: In an email to TechCrunch, a company spokesperson claimed that the change is intended to “better protect” Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam, and to improve the over … ⌘ Read more

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Enron.com Announces Pre-Orders for Egg-Shaped Home Nuclear Reactor
“Nuclear you can trust,” reads the web page promoting “The Egg, an at home nuclear reactor.”
Yes, Enron.com is now announcing “a micro-nuclear reactor made to power your home.” (A quick reminder from CNN in December. “A company that makes T-shirts bought the Enron trademark and appears to be trying to sell some merch on behalf of the g … ⌘ Read more

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WordPress.org Accounts Deactivated for Contributors Said to Be Planning a Fork - by Automattic CEO
WordPress co-creator (and Automattic CEO) Matt Mullenweg “has deactivated the accounts of several WordPress.org community members,” reports TechCrunch, “some of whom have been spearheading a push to create a new fork of the open source WordPress project.”

Joost de Valk — creator … ⌘ Read more

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OpenAI’s Bot Crushes Seven-Person Company’s Website ‘Like a DDoS Attack’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: On Saturday, Triplegangers CEO Oleksandr Tomchuk was alerted that his company’s e-commerce site was down. It looked to be some kind of distributed denial-of-service attack. He soon discovered the culprit was a bot from OpenAI that was relentlessly attempting to scrape his entire, en … ⌘ Read more

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Zuckerberg: Apple ‘Hasn’t Invented Anything Great in a While’
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized Apple’s innovation record and business practices in a Joe Rogan podcast interview on January 10, claiming the iPhone maker has not “invented anything great in a while” and is “just sitting” on its flagship product 20 years after Steve Jobs created it.

Zuckerberg accused Apple of using arbitrary App Store rules and 30% … ⌘ Read more

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‘Omi’ Wants To Boost Your Productivity Using AI and a ‘Brain Interface’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: San Francisco startup Based Hardware announced during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week the launch of a new AI wearable, Omi, to boost productivity. The device can be worn as a necklace where Omi’s AI assistant can be activated by saying “Hey Omi.” The startup a … ⌘ Read more

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Religious Leaders Experiment With AI In Sermons
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: To members of his synagogue, the voice that played over the speakers of Congregation Emanu El in Houston sounded just like Rabbi Josh Fixler’s. In the same steady rhythm his congregation had grown used to, the voice delivered a sermon about what it meant to be a neighbor in the age of artificial intelligence. Then, Rabbi Fix … ⌘ Read more

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SvarDOS: DR-DOS is Reborn as an Open Source OS
SvarDOS, a compact open-source operating system derived from DR-DOS, has switched to using the EDRDOS kernel, marking a shift from its FreeDOS distribution roots. The change allows the operating system to fit on a single 1.4MB floppy disk while offering a network-capable package manager that can fetch from a repository of over 400 packages.

Unlike its rival FreeDOS, SvarDOS can run … ⌘ Read more

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ASUS Christmas Campaign Sparks Malware Panic Among Windows Users
ASUS computer owners have been reporting widespread alarm after a Christmas-themed banner suddenly appeared on their Windows 11 screens, accompanied by a suspicious “Christmas.exe” process in Task Manager.

The promotional campaign, first reported by WindowsLatest, was delivered through ASUS’ pre-installed Armoury Crate software. It displays a la … ⌘ Read more

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Secret To AI Profitability Is Hiring a Lot More Doctorates
As tech giants struggle to profit from AI, a growing industry of specialized AI training firms is emerging by hiring doctors, radiologists and other experts to develop commercially viable applications. The $20 billion data services sector, projected to grow 20% annually, is attracting major investment by focusing on high-value, specialized AI applications.

C … ⌘ Read more

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OpenAI Releases ‘Smarter, Faster’ ChatGPT - Plus $200-a-Month Subscriptions for ‘Even-Smarter Mode’
Wednesday OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced “12 Days of OpenAI,” promising that “Each weekday, we will have a livestream with a launch or demo…” And sure enough, today he announced the launch of two things:
- “o1, the smartest model in the world. Smarter, faster, and more features (e.g. … ⌘ Read more

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Ask Bruce Perens Your Questions About How He Hopes to Get Open Source Developers Paid
Bruce Perens wrote the original Open Source definition back in 1997, and then co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond in 1998. But after resigning from the group in 2020, Perens is now diligently developing an alternative he calls “Post Open” to “meet goals that Open Source fails at today” … ⌘ Read more

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Bluesky’s Open API Means Anyone Can Scrape Your Data for AI Training. It’s All Public
Bluesky says it will never train generative AI on its users’ data. But despite that, “one million public Bluesky posts — complete with identifying user information — were crawled and then uploaded to AI company Hugging Face,” reports Mashable (citing an article by 404 Media).

“Shortly after the article’s p … ⌘ Read more

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Oxford’s Word of the Year: ‘Brain Rot’
“Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok?” asks the BBC. “If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which has become the Oxford word of the year.”

It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The word’s usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024 … ⌘ Read more

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Bluesky Passes Threads for Active Website Users, But Confronts ‘Scammers and Impersonators’
Bluesky now has more active website users than Threads in the U.S., according to a graph from the Financial Times. And though Threads still leads in app usage, “Prior to November 5 Threads had five times more daily active users in the U.S. than Bluesky… Now, Threads is only 1.5 times larger tha … ⌘ Read more

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Google’s Chrome Worth Up To $20 Billion If Judge Orders Sale
Alphabet’s Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal to sell the business, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the world’s biggest tech companies. From a report: The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to require measur … ⌘ Read more

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Plastics Lobbyists Make Up Biggest Group at Vital UN Treaty Talks
Record numbers of plastic industry lobbyists are attending global talks that are the last chance to hammer out a treaty to cut plastic pollution around the world. From a report: The key issue at the conference will be whether caps on global plastic production will be included in the final UN treaty. Lobbyists and leading national producers are … ⌘ Read more

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Australia To Ban Under-16s From Social Media After Passing Landmark Law
Australia will ban children under 16 from using social media after its senate approved what will become a world-first law. From a report: Children will be blocked from using platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, a move the Australian government argue is necessary to protect their mental health and wellbeing.
… ⌘ Read more

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LinkedIn Posts Are Now Mostly AI-Written, Study Shows
More than half of longer English posts on LinkedIn are likely generated by AI, according to research from AI detection firm Originality AI. The company analyzed nearly 9,000 public posts over 100 words published between 2018 and 2024, finding AI usage surged 189% after ChatGPT’s launch in early 2023, Wired reported Wednesday.

LinkedIn, which also offers AI writing tools to … ⌘ Read more

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Stanford Research Reveals 9.5% of Software Engineers ‘Do Virtually Nothing’
A Stanford study of over 50,000 software engineers across hundreds of companies has found that approximately 9.5% of engineers perform minimal work while drawing full salaries, potentially costing tech companies billions annually.

The research showed the issue is most prevalent in remote work settings, where 14% of engine … ⌘ Read more

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Flamewar Leads to Declining of Bcachefs Pull Requests During Linux 6.13 Kernel Development Cycle
“Get your head examined. And get the fuck out of here with this shit.” That’s how Bcachefs developer Kent Overstreet ended a post on the Linux kernel mailing list.
This was followed by “insufficient action to restore the community’s faith in having otherwise productive technical disc … ⌘ Read more

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Meta Removed 2 Million Accounts Linked to Organized Crime ‘Pig Butching’ Scams
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNET:

Meta says it’s taken down more than 2 million accounts this year linked to overseas criminal gangs behind scam operations that human rights activists say forced hundreds of thousands of people to work as scammers and cost victims worldwide billions of dollars.

In a Thurs … ⌘ Read more

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Bluesky Says It Won’t Train AI On Your Posts
Bluesky, the social network surging in popularity, says it has “no intention” of training AI tools on users content. “The social network made the announcement on the same day that X (formerly Twitter) is implementing its new terms of service that allow the platform to use public posts to train AI,” notes TechCrunch. From the report: “A number of artists and creators have made their home … ⌘ Read more

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OpenAI and Others Seek New Path To Smarter AI as Current Methods Hit Limitations
AI companies like OpenAI are seeking to overcome unexpected delays and challenges in the pursuit of ever-large language models by developing training techniques that use more human-like ways for algorithms to “think.” From a report: A dozenAI scientists, researchers and investors told Reuters they believe that these … ⌘ Read more

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Generative AI Doesn’t Have a Coherent Understanding of the World, MIT Researchers Find
Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis writes: Despite its impressive output, a recent study from MIT suggests generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world. While the best-performing large language models have surprising capabilities that make it seem like the models are implicitly learn … ⌘ Read more

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Jack Dorsey’s Block Scraps ‘Web5’ Project
Block will abandon development of its Web5 decentralized internet project and reduce investment in music streaming service Tidal to focus on bitcoin mining hardware and self-custody wallets, the payments company announced in its third-quarter letter to shareholders. The Jack Dorsey-led firm cited strong market demand for its bitcoin mining products and Bitkey wallet as key drivers behind the st … ⌘ Read more

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Kremlin Says It Hopes $20.6 Decillion Fine Got Google’s Attention
An enormous fine levied by a Russian court on Google caught the attention of the Kremlin – which hopes Google will notice in turn. From a report: President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, commented on the sum on Thursday. It came after a court demanded payment equivalent of $20.6 decillion – an almost incomprehensible figure that exce … ⌘ Read more

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AI Slop Is Flooding Medium
AI slop is flowing onto every major platform where people post online – and Medium is no exception. Wired: The 12-year-old publishing platform has undertaken a dizzying number of pivots over the years. It’s finally on a financial upswing, having turned a monthly profit for the first time this summer. Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine and other executives at the company have described the platform as “a home for human writing.” But … ⌘ Read more

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The Fediverse Is Getting Its Own TikTok Competitor Called Loops
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Similar to how Mastodon offers an open source, distributed version of X, the fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor. This week, an app called Loops began accepting signups on its new platform for sharing short, looping videos. Still in the early stages, Loops is not yet open sourced, nor … ⌘ Read more

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Encrypted Chat App ‘Session’ Leaves Australia After Visit From Police
Session, a small but increasingly popular encrypted messaging app, is moving its operations outside of Australia after the country’s federal law enforcement agency visited an employee’s residence and asked them questions about the app and a particular user. 404 Media reports: Now Session will be maintained by an entity in Switzerland. The mo … ⌘ Read more

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Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Rebrands As ‘World,’ Unveils Next Generation Orb
The blockchain-based identity verification company founded by Sam Altman is now called “World.” It also unveiled a new version of the “Orb” biometric devices the company uses to scan users’ eyes. CoinTelegraph reports: World, as it’s now known, also revealed a slew of other updates including a new version of its Orb biometric scanning device … ⌘ Read more

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Trump Says Tim Cook Called Him To Complain About the EU
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook called him to discuss the billions of dollars that Apple has been fined in the European Union. Trump made the statement during his appearance on the PBD Podcast – and said that he won’t let the EU “take advantage” of US companies like Apple if reelected. “Two hours ago, thre … ⌘ Read more

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Bluesky Is Now Courting Threads Users
Bluesky, the decentralized social network cofounded by Jack Dorsey, created a Threads account to court users frustrated by Meta’s moderation issues. Thurrott reports: This week, the Bluesky team also used Threads to share some tips on how to get started on Bluesky, how to get more engagement, and more. The company also emphasized its decentralized structure and more extensive customization options, … ⌘ Read more

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Did Apple Just Kill Social Apps?
Apple’s iOS 18 update has introduced changes to contact sharing that could significantly impact social app developers. The new feature allows users to selectively share contacts with apps, rather than granting access to their entire address book. While Apple touts this as a privacy enhancement, developers warn it may hinder the growth of new social platforms. Nikita Bier, a start-up founder, called it “the en … ⌘ Read more

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Epic Games Sues Google and Samsung Over App Store Restrictions
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 creat … ⌘ Read more

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Are AI Coding Assistants Really Saving Developers Time?
Uplevel provides insights from coding and collaboration data, according to a recent report from CIO magazine — and recently they measured “the time to merge code into a repository

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HP Is Adding AI To Its Printers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld, written by Michael Crider: The latest perpetrator of questionable AI branding? HP. The company is introducing “Print AI,” what it calls the “industry’s first intelligent print experience for home, office, and large format printing.” What does that mean? It’s essentially a new beta software driver package for some HP printers. According to the press release, … ⌘ Read more

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Tor Project Merges With Tails
The Tor Project: Today the Tor Project, a global non-profit developing tools for online privacy and anonymity, and Tails, a portable operating system that uses Tor to protect users from digital surveillance, have joined forces and merged operations. Incorporating Tails into the Tor Project’s structure allows for easier collaboration, better sustainability, reduced overhead, and expanded training and outreach program … ⌘ Read more

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Critical Unauthenticated RCE Flaw Impacts All GNU/Linux Systems
“Looks like there’s a storm brewing, and it’s not good news,” writes ancient Slashdot reader jd. “Whether or not the bugs are classically security defects or not, this is extremely bad PR for the Linux and Open Source community. It’s not clear from the article whether this affects other Open Source projects, such as FreeBSD.” From a report: A critical … ⌘ Read more

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Apple A16 SoC Now Manufactured In Arizona
“Apple has begun manufacturing its A16 SoC at the newly-opened TSCM Fab 21 in Arizona,” writes Slashdot reader NoMoreACs. AppleInsider reports: According to sources of Tim Culpan, Phase 1 of TSMC’s Fab 21 in Arizona is making the A16 SoC of the iPhone 14 Pro in “small, but significant, numbers. The production is largely a test for the facility at this stage, but more production is expected … ⌘ Read more

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LinkedIn Is Training AI on User Data Before Updating Its Terms of Service
An anonymous reader shares a report: LinkedIn is using its users’ data for improving the social network’s generative AI products, but has not yet updated its terms of service to reflect this data processing, according to posts from various LinkedIn users and a statement from the company to 404 Media. Instead, the company says it … ⌘ Read more

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Ford Seeks Patent For Tech That Listens To Driver Conversations To Serve Ads
Ford is seeking a patent for technology that would allow it to tailor in-car advertising by listening to conversations among vehicle occupants, as well as by analyzing a car’s historical location and other data, according to a patent application published late last month. The Record: “In one example, the controller may moni … ⌘ Read more

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Telegram Disables ‘Misused’ Features As CEO Faces Criminal Charges
Following the arrest of its CEO Pavel Durov last month, the encrypted messaging service said it has disabled some “outdated” and “misused” features used by anonymous users. The Verge reports: The first changes to the app following his arrest in France last month affect its built-in blog posts and a “People Nearby” location-based feature.

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PwC ‘Tipping the Balance’ of Hybrid Working and Will Start Tracking Its Workers’ Locations
PwC has demanded staff spend less time working from home – and it’s going to start tracking their location to ensure they comply. From a report: The accountancy firm informed its 26,000 U.K. employees in a memo that from January they’ll be expected to be at their desks – or with clients – at leas … ⌘ Read more

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Bluesky Adds 2 Million New Users After Brazil’s X Ban
In the days following Brazil’s shutdown of X, the decentralized social networking startup Bluesky added over 2 million new users, up from just half a million as of Friday. “This rapid growth led some users to encounter the occasional error that would state there were ‘Not Enough Resources’ to handle requests, as Bluesky engineers scrambled to keep the servers stable un … ⌘ Read more

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Apple Stands By Decision To Terminate Account Belonging To WWDC Student Winner
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 devel … ⌘ Read more

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Far-Right ‘Terrorgram’ Chatrooms Are Fueling a Wave of Power Grid Attacks
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: People in a quiet neighborhood in Carthage, a town in Moore County, North Carolina, heard a series of six loud pops a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2022. A resident named Michael Campbell said he ducked at the sound. Another witness told police they thought they were he … ⌘ Read more

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Samsung TVs Will Get 7 Years of Free Tizen OS Upgrades
Samsung Electronics said it will provide Tizen OS updates for its newer TVs for at least seven years, starting with models released in March this year and some 2023 models. Business Korea reports:

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Microsoft Copilot Studio Exploit Leaks Sensitive Cloud Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Dark Reading: Researchers have exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Copilot Studio tool allowing them to make external HTTP requests that can access sensitive information regarding internal services within a cloud environment – with potential impact across multiple tenants. Tenable researchers discovered the ser … ⌘ Read more

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China Is Backing Off Coal Power Plant Approvals
Approvals for new coal-fired power plants in China dropped by 80% in the first half of this year compared to last, according to an analysis from Greenpeace and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The Associated Press reports: A review of project documents by Greenpeace East Asia found that 14 new coal plants were approved from January to June with a total capacity of 10 … ⌘ Read more

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VPN Apps Vanish from Brazilian App Store
Dozens of VPN apps have vanished from Brazil’s Apple App Store, including popular services NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark. Simone Magliano, Head of Research at Top10VPN, reports that at least 30 VPN apps have become unavailable, though their store listings remained visible. Proton VPN, a major free VPN provider, confirmed the App Store issues, speculating it could be “a bug, or Apple impleme … ⌘ Read more

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New Research Reveals AI Lacks Independent Learning, Poses No Existential Threat
ZipNada writes: New research reveals that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT cannot learn independently or acquire new skills without explicit instructions, making them predictable and controllable. The study dispels fears of these models developing complex reasoning abilities, emphasizing that while LLMs can genera … ⌘ Read more

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Jobhunters Flood Recruiters With AI-Generated CVs
About half of all job seekers are using AI tools to apply for roles, inundating employers and recruiters with low-quality applications in an already squeezed labour market. From a report: Candidates are turning increasingly to generative AI – the type used in chatbot products such as ChatGPT and Gemini to produce conversational passages of text – to assist them in writing th … ⌘ Read more

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Agile is Killing Software Innovation, Says Moxie Marlinspike
There’s a rot at the heart of modern software development that’s destroying innovation, and infosec legend Moxie Marlinspike believes he knows exactly what’s to blame: Agile development. Marlinspike argued that Agile methodologies, widely adopted over the past two decades, have confined developers to “black box abstraction layers” that limit creativ … ⌘ Read more

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ICANN Reserves .Internal For Private Use at the DNS Level
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has agreed to reserve the .internal top-level domain so it can become the equivalent to using the 10.0.0.0, 172.16.0.0 and 192.168.0.0 IPv4 address blocks for internal networks. From a report: Those blocks are reserved for private use by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which … ⌘ Read more

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Monday Was Hottest Recorded Day on Earth: ‘Uncharted Territory’
World temperature reached the hottest levels ever measured on Monday, beating the record that was set just one day before, data suggests. From a report: Provisional data published on Wednesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which holds data that stretches back to 1940, shows that the global surface air temperature reached 62.87F (17.15C), co … ⌘ Read more

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OpenAI’s Latest Model Closes the ‘Ignore All Previous Instructions’ Loophole
Kylie Robison reports via The Verge: Have you seen the memes online where someone tells a bot to “ignore all previous instructions” and proceeds to break it in the funniest ways possible? The way it works goes something like this: Imagine we at The Verge created an AI bot with explicit instructions to direct you to our excellent re … ⌘ Read more

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Microsoft Outage Hits Users Worldwide, Leading To Canceled Flights
Microsoft grappled with a major service outage, leaving users across the world unable to access its cloud computing platforms and causing airlines to cancel flights. From a report: Thousands of users across the world reported problems with Microsoft 365 apps and services to Downdetector.com, a website that tracks service disruptions. “We’re inve … ⌘ Read more

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AI Stocks Balloon Even As Earnings Lag, Jefferies Warns
An anonymous reader shares a report: A Jefferies basket of 27 large-cap AI stocks has surged 127% in value since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, adding about $10 trillion in market cap. However, 2025 earnings forecasts for these companies have increased only 25% over the same period, Jefferies warned in a note to clients.

This disconnect has pushed the incremental price … ⌘ Read more

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Whataburger App Becomes Unlikely Power Outage Map After Houston Hurricane
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Fast-food chain Whataburger’s app has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which left around 1.8 million utility customers in Houston, Texas without power. Hundreds of thousands of those people may remain without power for days as Houston anticipates a heat wave, wit … ⌘ Read more

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FTC Study Finds ‘Dark Patterns’ Used By a Majority of Subscription Apps and Websites
The U.S. FTC, along with two other international consumer protection networks, announced on Thursday the results of a study into the use of “dark patterns” – or manipulative design techniques – that can put users’ privacy at risk or push them to buy products or services or take other actions they otherwise … ⌘ Read more

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‘Girls In Tech’ Closes Its Doors After 17 Years
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: The Girls in Tech nonprofit women’s tech community is closing its doors after 17 years, according to a newsletter from founder Adriana Gascoigne. Gascoigne said the decision was made with “sadness and devastation” and was not made lightly. “It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that Girls in Tech will be closing its doo … ⌘ Read more

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Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Over GitHub Copilot AI Coding Assistant
A US District Court judge in San Francisco has largely dismissed a class-action lawsuit against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI, which challenged the legality of using code samples to train GitHub Copilot. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs failed to establish a claim for restitution or unjust enrichment but allowed the claim for breach of open-sourc … ⌘ Read more

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US Nuke Agency Buys Internet Backbone Data
A U.S. government agency tasked with supporting the nation’s nuclear deterrence capability has bought access to a data tool that claims to cover more than 90 percent of the world’s internet traffic, and can in some cases let users trace activity through virtual private networks, according to documents obtained by 404 Media. From the report: The documents provide more insight into the use c … ⌘ Read more

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Speed Limiters Now Mandatory In All New EU Cars
An anonymous reader shares a report: Cars have been able to figure out when they’re speeding for a while, thanks to GPS as well as traffic sign recognition, and they’ve also been able to pump the brakes automatically when needed. Having a computer automatically slow down a car in response to posted speed limits, therefore, was not really a question of technical feasibility for so … ⌘ Read more

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Google Maps Tests New Pop-up Ads That Give Users an Unnecessary Detour
An anonymous reader writes: Google Maps is testing a new ad format that could cause distractions while driving. It brings up a pop-up notification during navigation that covers the bottom half of the screen with an unnecessary detour suggestion.

Anthony Higman on X (formerly Twitter) recently spotted the new ad format during their co … ⌘ Read more

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‘How Good Is ChatGPT at Coding, Really?’
IEEE Spectrum (the IEEE’s official publication) asks the question. “How does an AI code generator compare to a human programmer?”

A study published in the June issue of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering evaluated the code produced by OpenAI’s ChatGPT in terms of functionality, complexity and security. The results show that ChatGPT has an extremely broad range of success when it come … ⌘ Read more

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Researchers Upend AI Status Quo By Eliminating Matrix Multiplication In LLMs
Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, LuxiTech, and Soochow University have developed a new method to run AI language models more efficiently by eliminating matrix multiplication, potentially reducing the environmental impact and operational costs of AI systems. Ars Technica’s Benj Edwards reports: Matrix multi … ⌘ Read more

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Windows 11 is Now Automatically Enabling OneDrive Folder Backup Without Asking Permission
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has made OneDrive slightly more annoying for Windows 11 users. Quietly and without any announcement, the company changed Windows 11’s initial setup so that it could turn on the automatic folder backup without asking for it. Now, those setting up a new W … ⌘ Read more

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Multiple AI Companies Ignore Robots.Txt Files, Scrape Web Content, Says Licensing Firm
Multiple AI companies are ignoring Robots.txt files meant to block the scraping of web content for generative AI systems, reports Reuters — citing a warning sent to publisher by content licensing startup TollBit.

TollBit, an early-stage startup, is positioning itself as a matchmaker between content-hungry … ⌘ Read more

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Ukraine Turning To AI To Prioritize 700 Years of Landmine Removal
MattSparkes shares a report from NewScientist: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen so many landmines deployed across the country that clearing them would take 700 years, say researchers. To make the task more manageable, Ukrainian scientists are turning to artificial intelligence to identify which regions are a priority for de-mining, thou … ⌘ Read more

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An AI-Generated Candidate Wants to Run For Mayor in Wyoming
An anonymous reader shared this report from Futurism:

An AI chatbot named VIC, or Virtually Integrated Citizen, is trying to make it onto the ballot in this year’s mayoral election for Wyoming’s capital city of Cheyenne.
But as reported by Wired, Wyoming’s secretary of state is battling against VIC’s legitimacy as a candidate — and now, an investigati … ⌘ Read more

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Chemical Makers Sue Over Rule To Rid Water of ‘Forever Chemicals’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Chemical and manufacturing groups sued the federal government late Monday (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) over a landmark drinking-water standard that would require cleanup of so-called forever chemicals linked to cancer and other health risks. The industry groups said th … ⌘ Read more

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Apple Brings ChatGPT To Its Apps, Including Siri
Apple is bringing ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot experience, to Siri and other first-party apps and capabilities across its operating systems. From a report: “We’re excited to partner with Apple to bring ChatGPT to their users in a new way,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. “Apple shares our commitment to safety and innovation, and this partnership aligns with O … ⌘ Read more

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Nvidia Takes 88% of the GPU Market Share
As reported by Jon Peddie Research, Nvidia now holds 88% of the GPU market after its market share jumped 8% in its most recent quarter. “This jump shaves 7% off of AMD’s share, putting it down to 19% total,” reports XDA Developers. “And if you’re wondering where that extra 1% went, it came from all of Intel’s market share, squashing it down to 0%.” From the report: Dr. Jon Peddie, president of … ⌘ Read more

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Elon Musk Says AI Could Eliminate Our Need to Work at Jobs
In the future, “Probably none of us will have a job,” Elon Musk said Thursday, speaking remotely to the VivaTech 2024 conference in Paris. Instead, jobs will be optional — something we’d do like a hobby — “But otherwise, AI and the robots will provide any goods and services that you want.”
CNN reports that Musk added this would require “universal high income” — a … ⌘ Read more

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Google Search’s ‘udm=14’ Trick Lets You Kill AI Search For Good
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you’re tired of Google’s AI Overview extracting all value from the web while also telling people to eat glue or run with scissors, you can turn it off – sort of. Google has been telling people its AI box at the top of search results is the future, and you can’t turn it off, but that ignores how … ⌘ Read more

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Amazon Defends Its Use of Signal Messages in Court
America’s Federal Trade Commission and 17 states filed an antitrust suit against Amazon in September. This week Amazon responded in court about its usage of Signal’s “disappearing messages” feature.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp shares GeekWire’s report:

At a company known for putting its most important ideas and strategies into comprehensive six-page memos, quick messa … ⌘ Read more

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OpenAI’s Sam Altman Wants AI in the Hands of the People - and Universal Basic Compute?
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave an hour-long interview to the “All-In” podcast (hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg).

And when asked about this summer’s launch of the next version of ChatGPT, Altman said they hoped to “be thoughtful about how we do it, like we may releas … ⌘ Read more

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Google Cloud Accidentally Deletes UniSuper’s Online Account Due To ‘Unprecedented Misconfiguration’
A “one-of-a-kind” Google Cloud “misconfiguration” resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s account last week, disrupting the financial services provider’s than half a million members. “Services began being restored for UniSuper customers on Thursday, more than a week after the sy … ⌘ Read more

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TikTok Sues US Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban
Less than two weeks after President Biden signed a bill that will force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, TikTok said it sued the federal government on Tuesday, arguing the law was unconstitutional. From a report: TikTok said that the law violated the First Amendment by effectively removing an … ⌘ Read more

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Jack Dorsey Departs Bluesky
Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the Twitter alternative he helped start. The announcement comes shortly after Dorsey unfollowed all but three accounts on X and referred to Elon Musk’s platform as “freedom technology.” The Verge reports: In two posts today, Bluesky thanked Dorsey while confirming his departure and adding that it’s searching for a new board member “who shares our commitment to building a … ⌘ Read more

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Ex-White House Cyber Policy Director: Microsoft is a National Security Risk
This week the Register spoke to former senior White House cyber policy director A.J. Grotto — who complained it was hard to get even slight concessions from Microsoft:
“If you go back to the SolarWinds episode from a few years ago …

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San Francisco’s Light Rail To Upgrade From Floppy Disks
Those taking public transport in the tech hub of San Francisco may be reassured to know that their rides will soon no longer be dependent on floppy disks. From a report: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s director of transportation Jeffrey Tumlin told ABC that the city’s automatic light-rail control system is running on outdated tech and “relies on three … ⌘ Read more

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Florida Braces For Lawsuits Over Law Banning Kids From Social Media
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, Florida became the first state to ban kids under 14 from social media without parental permission. It appears likely that the law – considered one of the most restrictive in the US – will face significant legal challenges, however, before taking effect on January 1. Under HB … ⌘ Read more

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Trump’s Truth Social Is Going Public
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Former president Donald Trump’sTruth Social, a shameless Twitter clone, is set to become a publicly traded company as soon as next week. Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted on Friday to merge with Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social. The vote is a culmination of a years-long saga attempting to merge Trump Me … ⌘ Read more

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Cognition Emerges From Stealth To Launch AI Software Engineer ‘Devin’
Longtime Slashdot reader ahbond shares a report from VentureBeat: Today, Cognition, a recently formed AI startup backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and tech industry leaders including former Twitter executive Elad Gil and Doordash co-founder Tony Xu, announced a fully autonomous AI software engineer called “Devin.” While there are mult … ⌘ Read more

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Most Subscription Apps Don’t Make Money, Report Shows
According to a new analysis of the subscription app economy from mobile subscription toolkit provider RevenueCat, the top 5% of apps generate 200 times the revenue of the bottom quartile after their first year, while the median monthly revenue an app generates after 12 months is under $50 USD. From a report: The “State of Subscription Apps” report offers a bird’s-eye view in … ⌘ Read more

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YouTube Stops Recommending Videos When Signed Out of Google
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: YouTube is no longer showing recommended videos to users logged out of a Google account or using Incognito mode, making people concerned they are being bullied into always being signed into the service. This change, which is now rolling out, shows a simple YouTube homepage without any videos or tip … ⌘ Read more

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California State Legislator Proposes Ending Daylight Saving Time
Legislation proposed in California “aims to repeal Daylight saving time and put California permanently on Standard time,” reports a San Diego news station:

In November 2018, California voters passed Prop 7, a measure that would allow the state legislature to change Daylight saving time by either keeping it year-round or getting rid of it altogeth … ⌘ Read more

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Public Trust In AI Is Sinking Across the Board
Trust in AI technology and the companies that develop it is dropping, in both the U.S. and around the world, according to new data from Edelman shared first with Axios. Axios reports: Globally, trust in AI companies has dropped to 53%, down from 61% five years ago. In the U.S., trust has dropped 15 percentage points (from 50% to 35%) over the same period. Trust in AI is low across … ⌘ Read more

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1960s Chatbot ELIZA Beat OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 In a Recent Turing Test Study
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In a preprint research paper titled “Does GPT-4 Pass the Turing Test?”, two researchers from UC San Diego pitted OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI language model against human participants, GPT-3.5, and ELIZA to see which could trick participants into thinking it was human with the greatest success. B … ⌘ Read more

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BBC BASIC Is Back In a Big Way
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hackaday: The BBC has a long history of teaching the world about computers. The broadcaster’s name was proudly displayed on the BBC Micro, and BBC Basic was the programming language developed especially for that computer. Now, BBC Basic is back and running on a whole mess of modern platforms. BBC Basic for SDL 2.0 will run on Windows, MacOS, x86 Linux, and even Raspb … ⌘ Read more

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Evernote Pushes Users To Upgrade
After making steep cuts to personnel earlier this year, Evernote’s Milan-based owner Bending Spoons is now experimenting with a new plan that would push more users to upgrade to paid versions of its service. From a report: The company confirmed to TechCrunch it’s been running a small test that placed limits on the number of notes free users could create, but said the new plan is not yet finalized. TechCrunch was al … ⌘ Read more

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Broadcom Lays Off VMware Employees After Closing Its $69 Billion Acquisition
After acquiring VMware for $69 billion, Broadcom is eliminating several positions at the virtualization technology company. Business Insider reports: Employees whose positions were eliminated received an email on Monday, viewed by Business Insider, that read: “Broadcom recently completed its acquisition of VMware. As part o … ⌘ Read more

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Plex Users Fear New Feature Will Leak Porn Habits To Their Friends and Family
Many Plex users were alarmed when they got a “week in review” email last week that showed them what they and their friends had watched on the popular media server software. From a report: Some users are saying that their friends’ softcore porn habits are being revealed to them with the feature, while others are horrified … ⌘ Read more

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World’s Richest 1% Emit As Much Carbon As Bottom Two-Thirds, Report Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: The richest one percent of the global population are responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the world’s poorest two-thirds, or five billion people, according to an analysis published Sunday by the nonprofit Oxfam International.

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