Waymo Robotaxis Are Coming To Tokyo In 2025
Waymo will begin testing its autonomous vehicles in Tokyo in early 2025, marking its first deployment outside the U.S. TechCrunch reports: The move to Japan is part of Waymo’s “road trips,” a development program that involves bringing its technology to a variety of cities and testing it – with each city having different challenges. In Tokyo, the Waymo robotaxis will face left-hand drivi … ⌘ Read more

Huge Math Error Corrected In Black Plastic Study
Ars Technica’s Beth Mole reports: Editors of the environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere have posted an eye-catching correction to a study reporting toxic flame retardants from electronics wind up in some household products made of black plastic, including kitchen utensils. The study sparked a flurry of media reports a few weeks ago that urgently implored people to ditch … ⌘ Read more

Infosys Founder Calls For 70-Hour Work Week, Again
Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy has once again argued for Indian workers to spend 70 hours a week in paid employment. From a report: Murthy called for the long working hours in October 2023 and then again in January 2024, and recently shared his opinion that two-day weekends were a mistake.

His views have earned plenty of criticism, but he’s not backing down. On Sunday he add … ⌘ Read more

Uber Will Need To Fingerprint Drivers In California To Transport Teens
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Uber has 30 days to require certain drivers to get fingerprinted if the ride-hail giant intends to continue transporting unaccompanied teens in California. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a ruling Thursday that requires taxi and ride-hail drivers who are car … ⌘ Read more

YouTube Is Letting Creators Opt Into Third-Party AI Training
YouTube is introducing an optional feature allowing creators to let third-party companies use their videos to train AI models, with the default setting being opt-out. The Verge reports: “We see this as an important first step in supporting creators and helping them realize new value for their YouTube content in the AI era,” a TeamYouTube staffer named Ro … ⌘ Read more

Hackers Hit Rhode Island Benefits System In Major Cyberattack
A cyberattack on Rhode Island’s RIBridges system has exposed personal data of individuals involved in programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and others, with hackers demanding a ransom. The breach may include sensitive details like Social Security numbers and banking information. The Associated Press reports: Anyone who has been involved in Medicaid, the Supplem … ⌘ Read more

Cloudflare 2024: Global Traffic Up, Google Still King, US Churning Out Bots
Cloudflare’s 2024 internet traffic report highlights a 17.2% global increase in traffic, with Google maintaining its position as the most visited service and the U.S. responsible for 34.6% of bot traffic. The Register reports: One surprise (or perhaps not) is that IPv6 traffic is actually down as a percentage of the packets tha … ⌘ Read more

Most iPhone Owners See Little To No Value In Apple Intelligence
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: A new survey suggests that Apple Intelligence matters to iPhone buyers, but the majority say that the initial features add little to no value. It remains to be seen whether Genmoji and ChatGPT integration will change that view. Things are even worse for Samsung smartphones, with an even greater maj … ⌘ Read more

More Than a Million Vapes a Day in UK Thrown Away, Says Research
Thirteen vapes are thrown away every second in the UK – more than a million a day – leading to an “environmental nightmare,” according to research. From a report: There has also been a rise in “big puff” vapes which are bigger and can hold up to 6,000 puffs per vape, with single use vapes averaging 600. Three million of these larger vapes are be … ⌘ Read more

To Log Into WordPress, You Now Have To Agree Pineapple on Pizza Is Good
WordPress co-founder and CEO of Automattic Matt Mullenweg is trolling contributors and users of the WordPress open-source project by requiring them to check a box that says “Pineapple is delicious on pizza.” From a report: The change was spotted by WordPress contributors late Sunday, and is still up as of Monday morning. Trying to log … ⌘ Read more

Google DeepMind Unveils a New Video Model To Rival Sora
Google DeepMind announced a next-gen video-generating AI tool to rival OpenAI’s Sora. Called Veo 2, it can generate AI video clips longer than two minutes with resolutions up to 4K (4096 x 2160). TechCrunch reports: In Google’s experimental video creation tool, VideoFX, where Veo 2 is now exclusively available, videos are capped at 720p and eight seconds in length. (So … ⌘ Read more

AI Helps ID Paint Chemistry of Berlin Wall Murals
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was a seminal moment in 20th century history, paving the way for German reunification. Many segments, both large and small, were preserved for posterity – including portions covered in graffiti or murals. A team of Italian scientists used a combination of spectroscopic analysi … ⌘ Read more

EU Signs $1 Billion Deal For Sovereign Satellite Constellation To Rival Starlink
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The European Union is forging ahead with plans for a constellation of internet satellites to rival Elon Musk-owned Starlink, after signing a $11.1 billion deal to launch nearly 300 satellites into low- and medium-Earth orbits by 2030. The bloc wants the space tech … ⌘ Read more

BlackBerry Sells Cylance For $160M, a Fraction of the $1.4B It Paid in 2018
Arctic Wolf has acquired Cylance, BlackBerry’s beleaguered cybersecurity business, for $160 million – a significant discount from the $1.4 billion BlackBerry paid to acquire the startup in 2018. From a report: Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close in BlackBerry’s fiscal Q4, BlackBerry will sell its Cylance assets t … ⌘ Read more

Now ChromeOS Can Reset Itself Without Erasing Your Laptop
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google announced it’s rolling out ChromeOS M131 to non-beta users, bringing with it a handy “Safety reset” feature that lets Chromebook users reset their laptops without totally wiping them. The update also introduced a new “Flash notifications” accessibility option to help those who might not otherwise easily hear or see t … ⌘ Read more

Apple Plans Thinner, Foldable iPhones To Revive Growth
Apple is preparing a series of major design and format changes to its lineup of iPhones and potentially other products, according to WSJ, a bid to revive growth after years of offering largely incremental upgrades. From the report: Starting next year, Apple plans to introduce an iPhone that will be thinner than the approximately 8-millimeter profile of current model … ⌘ Read more

SoftBank Chief And Trump To Unveil $100 Billion US Investment Plan
An anonymous reader shares a report: Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son will announce a $100 billion investment in the U.S. over the next four years during a Monday visit to President-elect Donald Trump’s residence Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s Sara Eisen.

The billionaire investor and founder of the Ja … ⌘ Read more

Are Adults Forgetting How To Read?
One in five adults in developed nations demonstrate primary school-level literacy and numeracy skills, according to an OECD study of 160,000 people across 31 countries released December 10. The decennial Survey of Adult Skills reveals declining literacy rates over the past decade despite rising secondary education completion.

Finland topped rankings across all tested areas – numeracy, literacy, and probl … ⌘ Read more

Bill Gates Recommends Four Books That ‘Make Sense of the World’
This month Bill Gates recommended four books about making sense of the world, including The Coming Wave, by Mustafa Suleyman. Gates calls it “the book I recommend more than any other on AI — to heads of state, business leaders, and anyone else who asks — because it offers something rare: a clear-eyed view of both the extraordinary opportunities and g … ⌘ Read more

Study Finds Most Fulfilling Jobs: Self-Employment, Government Work, Managing, and Social Service
“Envy the lumberjacks, for they perform the happiest, most meaningful work on earth,” the Washington Post wrote almost two years ago, after analyzing more than 13,000 journals from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ time-use survey. (For the first time the surveys asked how workers felt … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Announces Phi-4 AI Model Optimized for Accuracy and Complex Reasoning
An anonymous reader shared this report from Computerworld:

Microsoft has announced Phi-4 — a new AI model with 14 billion parameters — designed for complex reasoning tasks, including mathematics. Phi-4 excels in areas such as STEM question-answering and advanced problem-solving, surpassing similar models in performance. … ⌘ Read more

Does Space Need Environmentalists?
Does space need environmentalists, asks the headline from a new article in Noema magazine. “As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson notes, the first trillionaire will be made in space.

“But amid such promising developments are worries among some scientists and environmentalists who fear humans will repeat the errors that resource extraction has wrought on Earth…”

If we have mining in space, do we need … ⌘ Read more

San Francisco Unicorn ‘Scale AI’ Accused of Wage Theft
They provide training data to top AI companies including OpenAI and Meta, according to its web site. Founded in 2016, San Francisco-based Scale AI now has over 900 employees, eventually growing beyond “unicorn” status with over $1.35 billion in ivnestments. In May the company’s valuation was over $14 billion, with investors including Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Cisco, Intel, and … ⌘ Read more

Two Drone Pilots Arrested Near Boston, and Drones Cause One-Hour Runway Closure at North New York Airport
Saturday night two men were arrested near Boston “following a hazardous drone operation near Logan Airport’s airspace,” according to a police statement. They credit an officer “leveraging advanced UAS monitoring technology” who “identified the drone’s location, altit … ⌘ Read more

Are AI-Powered Tools - and Cheating-Detection Tools - Hurting College Students?
A 19-year-old wrongfully accused of using AI told the Guardian’s reporter that “to be accused of it because of ‘signpost phrases’, such as ‘in addition to’ and ‘in contrast’, felt very demeaning.” And another student “told me they had been pulled into a misconduct hearing — despite having a low score on Turnitin’s AI d … ⌘ Read more

Protecting ‘Funko’ Brand, AI-Powered ‘BrandShield’ Knocks Itch.io Offline After Questionable Registrar Communications
Launched in 2013, itch.io lets users host and sell indie video games online — now offering more than 200,000 — as well as other digital content like music and comics. But then someone uploaded a page based on a major videogame title, according to … ⌘ Read more

Let’s Encrypt Announces New-Certificate-Every-6-Days Offering
The non-profit, free certificate authority Let’s Encrypt shared some news from their executive director as they approach their 10th anniversary in 2025:

Internally things have changed dramatically from what they looked like ten years ago, but outwardly our service hasn’t changed much since launch. That’s because the vision we had for how best to do our j … ⌘ Read more

Are People Starting to Love Self-Driving Robotaxis?
“In a tiny handful of places…” Wired wrote last month, “you can find yourself flanked by taxis with no one in the drivers’ seats.” But they added that “Granted, practically everyone has been numbed by the hype cycle.”

Wired’s response? “[P]ile a few of us into an old-fashioned, human-piloted hired car, then follow a single Waymo robotaxi wherever it goes for a whole wor … ⌘ Read more

Single Crystal Lithium-Ion Batteries Last 8x Longer, Researchers Show
Researchers used Canada’s national synchrotron light source facility “to analyze a new type of lithium-ion battery material — called a single-crystal electrode — that’s been charging and discharging non-stop in a Halifax lab for more than six years,” reports Tech Xplore.

The results? The battery material “lasted more than 20,000 cyc … ⌘ Read more

New ‘The Witcher 4’ Trailer: Pre-Rendered on an ‘Unannounced’ NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU
Witcher 4’s first trailer debuted at the 2024 Game Awards — a six-minute cinema-quality thriller. It’s a teaser for a game that “aims to be the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date,” according to an announcement from CD Projekt Red.

The trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal … ⌘ Read more

A Fake Uber Driver Borrowed Phones, Then Stole $200K in Cryptocurrency, Police Say
“A man is accused of several felony charges after he allegedly posed as an Uber driver and then stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency from customers in Scottsdale,” reports Arizona news channel Fox 10.

“Prosecutors have called it an ‘extremely sophisticated electronic fraud,’” reports Gizmodo, … ⌘ Read more

Wales Police Begin Using a Facial-Recognition Phone App
“There are concerns human rights will be breached,” reports the BBC, as Wales police forces launch a facial-recognition app that “will allow officers to use their phones to confirm someone’s identity.”

The app, known as Operator Initiated Facial Recognition (OIFR), has already been tested by 70 officers across south Wales and will be used by South Wales Police and … ⌘ Read more

Why a Bacteria Can Withstand Radiation Which Would Kill a Human
Long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat writes: Scientist have unlocked the secret to a bacteria dubbed ‘Conan the Bacterium’ which is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most radiant-resistant life-form. Deinococcus radiodurans can withstand radiation doses 28,000 times greater than that which would kill a human [and every other … ⌘ Read more

Was the US Telecom Breach Inevitable, Proving Backdoors Can’t Be Secure?
America’s 1994 “Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act” (or CALEA) created the security hole that helped enable a massive telecomm breach. But now America’s FBI “is falling back on the same warmed-over, bad advice about encryption that it has trotted out for years,” argues the Intercept:

In response to the Salt Typhoon hack … ⌘ Read more

Waymo Robotaxis Pass Emergency Vehicle Review. But One Got Stuck in a Roundabout
An anonymous reader shared this report from The Verge:

Waymo’s driverless vehicles can detect emergency vehicles, know how to respond to hand signals for traffic cops, and can be disabled manually when something goes wrong, according to an independent review of the company’s first responder protocols. As such, the … ⌘ Read more

Donald Bitzer, a Pioneer of Cyberspace and Plasma Screens, Dies At 90
The Washington Post reports:

Years before the internet was created and the first smartphones buzzed to life, an educational platform called PLATO offered a glimpse of the digital world to come. Launched in 1960 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [UIUC], it was the first generalized, computer-based instructional system, … ⌘ Read more

Raspberry Pi Announces New $90 Computer in a Keyboard, Plus ‘Raspberry Pi Monitor’
“Single-board computer maker Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer-meet-keyboard device with better specifications…” reports TechCrunch.

They call the new $90 Raspberry Pi 500 “not as intimidating” because “when you look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you can’t see any chipsets or printed circuit board… … ⌘ Read more

Could an Undersea Hyperloop Train Tunnel Offer One-Hour Trips From London to New York?
“Proposals for a tunnel connecting the U.K. to the U.S. underneath the Atlantic Ocean have resurfaced,” reports Newsweek, “but with a price tag of almost $20 trillion, the project is a big ask.”

With the two global cities being over 3,000 miles apart, construction would take several years — the 23.5-mil … ⌘ Read more

America Prepares New AI Chip Restrictions to Close China’s Backdoor Access
The U.S. wants to limit China’s access to advanced AI chips, reports the Wall Street Journal, with new rules to restrict sales in parts of the world.

“The rules are aimed at China, but they threaten to create conflict between the U.S. and nations that may not want their purchases of chips micromanaged from Washington.

The … ⌘ Read more

America’s FCC Opens 6-GHz Band to Unlicensed Very-Low-Power Devices
America’s telecom-regulating Federal Communications Commission “has opened up the entire 6 GHz frequency band to very low-power devices,” reports the Register, “alongside other unlicensed applications such as Wi-Fi kits.”

The FCC said it has adopted extra rules to allow very low-power device operation across the entire 1,200 MHz of the 6 GH … ⌘ Read more

Chinese Electric Cars are Already Surging in Popularity in Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Africa
“The Chinese government has long subsidized carmakers with the goal of becoming a major auto exporter,” notes the New York Times. But this week they reported on dozens of dealerships around Mexico that are now selling China-made electric vehicles, saying it could be “a potentially grave threa … ⌘ Read more

AirPods To Be Made In India For the First Time Next Year
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple will begin making AirPods in India for the first time early next year, reports Bloomberg. Foxconn will make the wireless earphones at a factory near Hyderabad in Telangana state, beginning around Q1 2025. The factory has reportedly been making AirPods on a trial basis, with manufacturing set to ramp up qu … ⌘ Read more

NASA Thinks It Knows Why Ingenuity Crashed On Mars
NASA believes Ingenuity’s navigation system was responsible for its crash on the surface of Mars. Engineers determined that the helicopter’s navigation system struggled to track features over smooth terrain, leading to a hard landing and structural failure. Universe Today reports: Now, almost a year after the incident, a team of engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labor … ⌘ Read more

Linux Predictions For 2025
BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: As we close out 2024, we Linux enthusiasts are once again looking ahead to what the future holds. While Linux has long been the unsung hero of technology, powering servers, supercomputers, and the cloud, it’s also a dominant force in the consumer space, even if many don’t realize it. With Android leading the way as the most widely used Linux-based operating system, 2025 is sha … ⌘ Read more

Police Report OpenAI Whistleblower Committed Suicide in November
An anonymous reader shared this report from the SF Standard:

San Francisco police found Open AI whistleblower Suchir Balaji, 26, dead in his Lower Haight apartment November 26, SiliconValley.com reported on Friday. Police said there is “no evidence of foul play. “The manner of death has been determined to be suicide,” David Serrano Sewell, direc … ⌘ Read more

25 Years Ago Today: Slashdot Parodied by Suck.com
25 years ago today, the late, great Suck.com played a prank on Slashdot. Their daily column of pop-culture criticism was replaced by… Suckdot, a parody site satirically filed with Slashdot-style headlines like “Linux Possibly Defamed Somewhere.”

RabidZelot was one of a bunch to report: “In Richmond, California, this afternoon, this dude said something bad about Linux at the … ⌘ Read more

Yearlong Supply-Chain Attack Targeting Security Pros Steals 390,000 Credentials
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A sophisticated and ongoing supply-chain attack operating for the past year has been stealing sensitive login credentials from both malicious and benevolent security personnel by infecting them with Trojanized versions of open source software from GitHub and NPM, re … ⌘ Read more

Meta Asks the US Government To Block OpenAI’s Switch To a For-Profit
Meta is asking California Attorney General Rob Bonta to block OpenAI’s planned transition from a non-profit to for-profit entity. From a report: In a letter sent to Bonta’s office this week, Meta says that OpenAI “should not be allowed to flout the law by taking and reappropriating assets it built as a charity and using them for potentiall … ⌘ Read more

Google Says Its New Quantum Chip Indicates That Multiple Universes Exist
Tucked away in a blog post about Google’s quantum computing chip, Willow, Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven wrote that the chip was so “mind-boggling” fast that it seemed to borrow computational power from other universes. According to Neven, the chip’s performance suggests the existence of parallel universes, writing, “We li … ⌘ Read more

Intel Arc B580 Battlemage Tested: $250 Graphics Cards Are Worthy Once Again
MojoKid writes: Today’s release and review launch of the new Intel Arc B580 marks a second-gen effort from the company, with a fully refreshed Intel Xe2 graphics architecture, aka Battlemage, that promises big gains in performance and efficiency. Comparing Arc B580 to its Arc Alchemist ancestors, you can see that it’s somewhat … ⌘ Read more