China’s AI ‘War of a Hundred Models’ Heads For a Shakeout
An anonymous reader shares a report: China’s craze over generative artificial intelligence has triggered a flurry of product announcements from startups and tech giants on an almost daily basis, but investors are warning a shakeout is imminent as cost and profit pressures grow. The buzz in China, first ignited by the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT almost a year ago, has g … ⌘ Read more

European Commission Hits Intel With New Fine Over Antitrust Findings
The European Commission has re-imposed a fine of about $400 million on chipmaker Intel for abusing its dominant position in the x86 processor market. The move is the latest twist in an antitrust saga that has been now running for more than two decades. The Register: According to the Commission, the fine is in response to previously established … ⌘ Read more

NASA’s Webb Finds Carbon Source on Surface of Jupiter’s Moon Europa
NASA, in a press release: Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of a handful of worlds in our solar system that could potentially harbor conditions suitable for life. Previous research has shown that beneath its water-ice crust lies a salty ocean of liquid water with a rocky seafloor. However, planetary scientists had not confirmed if that ocean co … ⌘ Read more

White House Could Force Cloud Companies To Disclose AI Customers
The White House is considering requiring cloud computing firms to report some information about their customers to the U.S. government, Semafor reported Friday, citing people familiar with an upcoming executive order on AI. From the report: The provision would direct the Commerce Department to write rules forcing cloud companies like Microsoft, Go … ⌘ Read more

FCC Closing Loophole That Gave Robocallers Easy Access To US Phone Numbers
The Federal Communications Commission is taking steps to restrict Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers from easily accessing US telephone numbers. Over the past several years, robocallers have exploited VoIP providers to inundate US citizens with unwanted calls, many of which come from falsified numbers. Previously, t … ⌘ Read more

Unity To Roll Back Some Key Aspects of Runtime Fee Policy
Unity has announced some key changes to its widely panned Runtime Fee policy, which spawned both derision and confusion from developers and the gaming community at large when it was unveiled earlier this month. From a report: It’s easing up on some big aspects of the previously announced charges, removing the fee from the Unity Personal tier entirely, althoug … ⌘ Read more

China Just Stopped Exporting Two Minerals the World’s Chipmakers Need
schwit1 writes: China’s exports of two rare minerals essential for manufacturing semiconductors fell to zero in August, a month after Beijing imposed curbs on sales overseas, citing national security. China produces about 80% of the world’s gallium and about 60% of germanium, according to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, but it didn’t sel … ⌘ Read more

US and China Launch Economic and Financial Working Groups With Aim of Easing Tensions
The U.S. Treasury Department and China’s Ministry of Finance launched a pair of economic working groups on Friday in an effort to ease tensions and deepen ties between the nations. From a report: Led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Vice Premier He Lifeng, the working groups will be divided into econ … ⌘ Read more

Cruise CEO Says SF ‘Should Be Rolling Out the Red Carpet’ for Robotaxis, Threatens To Maybe Leave Town
In his first major public interview since the DMV cut their San Francisco fleet in half, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said “we cannot expect perfection” from the self-driving cars, and vaguely threatened to leave town if regulators curtail them any further. From a report: The self-dr … ⌘ Read more

Nearly 500 Smartphone Brands Have Left the Market Since 2017
How many smartphone brands do you think have left the market since 2017? The likes of LG probably come to mind, then there are the many local, lesser-known brands. Maybe fifty, or one hundred? The actual figure is, astoundingly, nearly 500. TechSpot: Counterpoint Research’s analysis shows that at its peak in 2017, there were more than 700 smartphone br … ⌘ Read more

Amazon To Run Ads on Prime Video in Key Markets Starting in 2024
Amazon, following other streaming platforms looking to further monetize their content, will run ads on its Prime Video service in key markets – a move that will help offset rising costs and provide a boost to an already robust advertising business. From a report: Ad-supported streaming will be the default on Prime Video in US, UK, Germany and Canada s … ⌘ Read more

Android 14 Adds Support for Using Smartphones as Webcams
Esper: Starting in Android 14, it may not be necessary to use a third-party app to turn your smartphone into a webcam for your PC, as that functionality is getting baked into the Android OS itself – though there’s a catch.

When you plug an Android phone into a PC, you have the option to change the USB mode between file transfer/Android Auto (MTP), USB tethering … ⌘ Read more

95% of NFTs May Now Be Worthless
An anonymous reader shares a news story: A report by dappGambl based on data provided by NFT Scan and CoinMarketCap showed that out of 73,257 NFT collections the researchers looked at, 69,795 of them, or slightly over 95%, had a market cap of zero ether. By their estimates, almost 23 million people hold these worthless assets. “This daunting reality should serve as a sobering check on the euphoria that has ofte … ⌘ Read more

Google Mourns Veteran Engineer Luiz Andre Barroso Who Invented the Modern Data Center
Brazilian engineer Luiz Andre Barroso, who ripped up the rulebook at Google, has died. His radical ideas for data centers laid the foundations for cloud computing. Wired: Luiz Andre Barroso had never designed a data center before Google asked him to do it in the early 2000s. By the time he finished his fi … ⌘ Read more

Google Sued Over Fatal Google Maps Error After Man Drove Off Broken Bridge
FrankOVD writes: Google is being sued by a widow who says her husband drowned in September 2022 after Google Maps directed him over a collapsed bridge in Hickory, North Carolina. Google failed to correct its map service despite warnings about the broken bridge two years before the accident, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesd … ⌘ Read more

Rishi Sunak Presses On With Net Zero U-Turn
Rishi Sunak has vowed to press ahead with watering down key green measures despite intense criticism, because he still believes the UK will hit its net zero target in 2050. From a report: The prime minister defended defying the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and said he had “absolute confidence and belief” the country was on track to meet its end goal. In a BBC rad … ⌘ Read more

Google Takes a Snarky Shot at Apple Over RCS in Its Latest Ad
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has been trying to publicly pressure Apple into adopting the GSMA’s RCS (Rich Communications Service) messaging protocol for a long time now, with nothing to show for it. As a matter of fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to completely dismiss the idea when he answered a question on the subject by saying that con … ⌘ Read more

DuckDuckGo CEO Says It Takes ‘Too Many Steps’ To Switch From Google
An anonymous reader shares a report: DuckDuckGo, a privacy-centric search engine founded about 15 years ago, has languished with a small market share as consumers face difficulties switching from Google when the behemoth is the default option on computer screens, the upstart’s founder said in an antitrust trial. Founded in 2008, DuckDuckGo cu … ⌘ Read more

Windows 11 Gains Support for Managing Passkeys
At an event today focused on AI and security tools and new Surface devices, Microsoft announced that Windows 11 users will soon be able to take better advantage of passkeys, the digital credentials that can be used as an authentication method for websites and apps. From a report: Once the expanded passkeys support rolls out, Windows 11 users will be able to create a passkey using Wi … ⌘ Read more

MGM Resorts Computers Back Up After 10 Days as Analysts Eye Effects of Casino Cyberattacks
MGM Resorts brought to an end a 10-day computer shutdown prompted by efforts to shield from a cyberattack data including hotel reservations and credit card processing, the casino giant said Wednesday, as analysts and academics measured the effects of the event. From a report: “We are pleased that … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Launches Surface Laptop Studio 2 With Upgraded Chips and Ports
Microsoft just showed off its new high-end convertible laptop, the Surface Laptop Studio 2, at its launch event in New York City. The Laptop Studio 2 keeps the overall aesthetic of its predecessor, including the pull-forward 14.4-inch display that makes it a much more touch-friendly device but adds some welcome power-user features. Fro … ⌘ Read more

Cisco Buys Splunk for $28 Billion in Massive AI-Powered Data Bet
Cisco agreed to buy Splunk in a deal valued at about $28 billion, representing its biggest acquisition yet and a massive push into software and artificial intelligence-powered data analysis. From a report: Cisco will pay $157 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement Thursday, or a 31% premium to Splunk’s previous closing price on Wednesday. C … ⌘ Read more

Windows 11’s Next Big Update Arrives on September 26th With Copilot, RAR Support
Microsoft will release its next big Windows 11 update, 23H2, on September 26th. The update will include the new AI-powered Windows Copilot feature, a redesigned File Explorer, a new Ink Anywhere feature for pen users, big improvements to the Paint app, native RAR and 7-zip file support, a new volume mixer, and much mo … ⌘ Read more

Rupert Murdoch To Step Down as Chair of Fox and News Corp After Seven-Decade Career
Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chair of Fox and News Corp, after building a media empire over seven decades that revolutionized news and entertainment and made him one of the world’s most influential and controversial tycoons. WSJ: Murdoch, 92 years old, will exit his roles atop each company as of Novembe … ⌘ Read more

New Revelations From the Snowden Archive Surface
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Computer Weekly: A doctoral thesis by American investigative journalist and post-doctoral researcher Jacob Appelbaum has now revealed unpublished information from the Snowden archive. These revelations go back a decade, but remain of indisputable public interest:
- The NSA listed Cavium, an American semiconductor company marketing Cent … ⌘ Read more

Waymo Begins Testing the Waters For a Robotaxi Service In Los Angeles
Waymo announced a “tour across Los Angeles” that allows curious residents the opportunity to ride in fully autonomous vehicles as the Alphabet-owned company begins to lay the groundwork for the launch of a commercial robotaxi service. The Verge reports: Waymo says it will make six multi-week “tour stops” in LA neighborhoods where people … ⌘ Read more

SpaceX Rocket Launches Starlink Satellites On Record-Breaking 17th Flight
SpaceX just extended its Falcon 9 rocket-reuse record. Space.com reports: The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday at 11:38 p.m. EDT (0338 GMT Sept. 20), carrying 22 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites toward low Earth orbit (LEO). The rocket’s first stage came back to Earth 8 … ⌘ Read more

French Drillers May Have Stumbled Upon a Mammoth Hydrogen Deposit
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: On the outskirts of the small town of Folschviller in eastern France stand three nondescript sheds. One of these temporary structures has recently become a hive of activity due to a continuous stream of visitors, including scientists, journalists, and the public. The shed sits above a borehole … ⌘ Read more

Neuralink Is Recruiting Subjects For the First Human Trial of Its Brain-Computer Interface
A few months after getting FDA approval for human trials, Neuralink is looking for its first test subjects. The Verge reports: The six-year initial trial, which the Elon Musk-owned company is calling “the PRIME Study,” is intended to test Neuralink tech designed to help those with paralysis c … ⌘ Read more

Parents In US Offered Refunds For Purchases Kids Made In Fortnite
Parents in the U.S. whose children purchased items in the popular game Fortnite without their permission will be able to claim a refund from today. The BBC reports: The U.S. regulator accused the game of tricking players into making unintended purchases and breaching privacy. Fortnite developer Epic Games agreed to pay $245 million in refunds … ⌘ Read more

Airbnb’s Naba Banerjee Reduced Partying By 55% In Two Years
Hayden Field writes via CNBC: Naba Banerjee is a proud party pooper. As the person in charge of Airbnb’s worldwide ban on parties, she’s spent more than three years figuring out how to battle party “collusion” by users, flag “repeat party houses” and, most of all, design an anti-party AI system with enough training data to halt high-risk reservations before the o … ⌘ Read more

FCC Plays Whack-a-Mole With Telcos Accused of Profiting From Robocalls
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A suspicious phone company is on the verge of having all its calls blocked by US-based telcos after being accused of ignoring orders to investigate and block robocalls. One Owl Telecom is a US-based gateway provider that routes phone calls from outside the U.S. to consumer phone com … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Is Set To Supercharge Alexa With Generative AI
At its fall hardware event Wednesday, Amazon revealed an all-new Alexa voice assistant powered by its new Alexa large language model. The Verge reports: According to Dave Limp, Amazon’s current SVP of devices and services, this new Alexa can understand conversational phrases and respond appropriately, interpret context more effectively, and complete multiple reques … ⌘ Read more

Yelp Has a Wall of Shame For Businesses Caught Paying For Fake Reviews
Yelp is releasing a new index that tracks every U.S. establishment it’s ever caught engaging in “suspicious” activity to influence its reviews. Engadget reports: [T]he index is the first time the company has offered a single place where users can find a historical record of every business that’s ever been subject to such a warning as well … ⌘ Read more

Terraform Fork Gets Renamed OpenTofu, Joins Linux Foundation
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: When HashiCorp announced it was changing its Terraform license in August, it set off a firestorm in the open source community, and actually represented an existential threat to startups that were built on top of the popular open source project. The community went into action and within weeks they had w … ⌘ Read more

Unified Acceleration Foundation Wants To Create an Open Standard for Accelerator Programming
At the Open Source Summit Europe in Bilbao, Spain, the Linux Foundation this week announced the launch of the Unified Acceleration (UXL) Foundation. The group’s mission is to deliver “an open standard accelerator programming model that simplifies development of performant, cross-platform ap … ⌘ Read more

Y Combinator Says Visa Challenges Hampering Participation of International Startups
An anonymous reader shares a report: The declining participation of Indian and Southeast Asian startups in Y Combinator is slowly becoming a trend. The previous batches showed a steeper presence with 10 startups in the batch prior, 20 in S22, 37 in W22, 33 in S21 and a peak of 44 in W21. In a statement to TechCrun … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Debuts Next Version of Its Image Generation Tool
OpenAI is offering an early look at DALL-E 3, the next version of its image generation tool. From a report: The update allows DALL-E 3 to be summoned and controlled using ChatGPT and aims to produce higher-quality images that more faithfully reflect queries. OpenAI says that DALL-E 3 is significantly better at understanding the intent of prompts, particularly longer on … ⌘ Read more

Almost Everyone in Europe is Breathing Toxic Air
Europe is facing a “severe public health crisis,” with almost everyone across the continent living in areas with dangerous levels of air pollution, an investigation by the Guardian has found. From the report: Analysis of data gathered using cutting-edge methodology – including detailed satellite images and measurements from more than 1,400 ground monitoring stations – reveals … ⌘ Read more

Xbox Exec Says Leaked ‘Old Emails and Documents’ Have ‘Outdated’ Info
Yesterday’s massive leaks from the Microsoft vs. FTC case have a large swath of the gaming world expecting that a more powerful, disc-free Xbox Series X refresh could be coming as soon as next year. But Xbox boss Phil Spencer is warning that players shouldn’t put too much stock in what he called “old emails and documents.” ArsTechnica adds: … ⌘ Read more

Top Google Search Result for Tiananmen Square ‘Tank Man’ Is AI Generated Selfie
Slash_Account_Dot writes: The first thing you’ll see if you search Google for “tank man” right now will not be the iconic picture of the unidentified Chinese man who stood in protest in front of a column of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square, but an entirely fake, AI-generated selfie of that historical event. While the AI-gen … ⌘ Read more

Sysadmin, Spouse Admit To Part in ‘Massive’ Pirated Avaya Licenses Scam
A sysadmin and his partner pleaded guilty this week to being part of a “massive” international ring that sold software licenses worth $88 million for “significantly below the wholesale price.” From a report: Brad and Dusti Pearce admitted one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. … ⌘ Read more

Amazon’s Eero Max 7 Mesh Router Adds Wi-Fi 7 - For a Whopping $600
Simon Hill, reporting for Wired: Every new hardware announcement is always described as “the best ever,” but Amazon’s new Eero Max 7 mesh might just be a real leap forward. This is Eero’s first tri-band mesh router that utilizes the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard, promising roughly double the speeds of its previous flagship system up to 4.3 Gigabits … ⌘ Read more

John Grisham, George RR Martin, Other Top US Authors Sue OpenAI Over Copyrights
A trade group for U.S. authors has sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court on behalf of prominent writers including John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Jodi Picault and “Game of Thrones” novelist George R.R. Martin, accusing the company of unlawfully training its popular artificial-intelligence based chatbot … ⌘ Read more

China Accuses US of Hacking Huawei Servers as Far Back as 2009
China accused the U.S. of infiltrating Huawei servers beginning in 2009, part of a broad-based effort to steal data that culminated in tens of thousands of cyber-attacks against Chinese targets last year. From a report: The Tailored Access Operations unit of the National Security Agency carried out the attacks in 2009, which then continuously monitor … ⌘ Read more

Apple and Goldman Planned Stock-Trading Feature for iPhones Until Markets Turned
As equities soared in 2020 and consumers flocked to trading apps like Robinhood, Apple and Goldman Sachs were working on an investing feature that would let consumers buy and sell stocks, CNBC reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plans. From the report: The project was shelved last year as the marke … ⌘ Read more

WhatsApp Appears To Be About To Launch Its Long-Overdue iPad App
An anonymous reader shares a report: A few lucky WhatsApp beta testers got a surprising treat this week: the company appears to be testing a version of its iOS app that is also optimized for the iPad. As first spotted by WABetaInfo, version 23.19.1.71 of WhatsApp’s TestFlight app includes the new iPad app as well. From what we can see in screensho … ⌘ Read more

The International Criminal Court In The Hague Says It Has Been Hacked
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The International Criminal Court said Tuesday that it detected “anomalous activity affecting its information systems” last week and took urgent measures to respond. It didn’t elaborate on what it called a “cybersecurity incident.” Court spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said in a wr … ⌘ Read more

Long-Term Support For Linux Kernel To Be Cut As Maintenance Remains Under Strain
Steven Vaughan-Nichols writes via ZDNet: BILBAO, Spain: At the Open Source Summit Europe, Jonathan Corbett, Linux kernel developer and executive editor of Linux Weekly News, caught everyone up with what’s new in the Linux kernel and where it’s going from here. Here’s one major change coming down the road: Long-ter … ⌘ Read more

Space Drugs Factory Denied Reentry To Earth
After manufacturing crystals of an HIV drug in space, the first orbital factory is stuck in orbit after being denied reentry back to Earth due to safety concerns. Gizmodo reports: The U.S. Air Force denied a request from Varda Space Industries to land its in-space manufacturing capsule at a Utah training area, while the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not grant the compa … ⌘ Read more