Anyone who works as a freelancer these days has to be at least a bit familiar with techie things. But it isn’t just that. When I was a kid and those vaguely SF puppet shows were on the television and all the other kids wanted to be Greg Gogetem or Steve Savetheuniverse, I wanted to be the guy in a white coat and glasses called Doc or Brains. Here are some technology-related feeds I find useful and/or entertaining.
Slashdot » Leaked Hacking Files Show Chinese Spying On Citizens and Foreigners Alike
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PBS: Chinese police are investigating an unauthorized and highly unusual online dump of documents from a private security contractor linked to the nation's top policing agency and other parts of its government — a trove that catalogs apparent hacking activity and tools to spy on both Chinese and foreigners. Among the apparent targets … [Link]
Slashdot » Waymo's Application To Expand California Robotaxi Operations Paused By Regulators
The California Public Utilities Commission's Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division (CPED) has suspended Waymo's application to expand its robotaxi service in Los Angeles and San Mateo counties, putting "an abrupt halt to the company's aspirations to expand where it can operate — at least until June 2024," reports TechCrunch. It does not, however, change the autonomous car company's ability to … [Link]
Slashdot » Reddit To Offer Shares In IPO To 75,000 of Its Most Active Users
According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Reddit plans to sell a chunk of its IPO shares to 75,000 of its most loyal users. Reuters reports: It aims to reserve an as-yet-undetermined number of shares for 75,000 of its most prolific so-called redditors when it goes public next month, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. The users … [Link]
Slashdot » ChatGPT Goes Temporarily 'Insane' With Unexpected Outputs, Spooking Users
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, ChatGPT users began reporting unexpected outputs from OpenAI's AI assistant, flooding the r/ChatGPT Reddit sub with reports of the AI assistant "having a stroke," "going insane," "rambling," and "losing it." OpenAI has acknowledged the problem and is working on a fix, but the experience serves as a high-profile example … [Link]
Slashdot » China's Rush To Dominate AI Comes With a Twist: It Depends on US Technology
China's tech firms were caught off guard by breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence. Beijing's regulations and a sagging economy aren't helping. From a report: In November, a year after ChatGPT's release, a relatively unknown Chinese start-up leaped to the top of a leaderboard that judged the abilities of open-source artificial intelligence systems. The Chinese firm, 01.AI, was only eight months … [Link]
Slashdot » Firefly Software Snafu Sends Lockheed Satellite on Short-Lived Space Safari
A software error on the part of Firefly Aerospace doomed Lockheed Martin's Electronic Steerable Antenna (ESA) demonstrator to a shorter-than-expected orbital life following a botched Alpha launch. From a report: According to Firefly's mission update, the error was in the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) software algorithm, preventing the system from sending the necessary pulse commands to the Reaction Control … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Ultra-dry Death Valley has a temporary lake thanks to extreme rainfall
Death Valley may be the driest place in the US, but a large lake has now formed there because of severe rain [Link]
Slashdot » Microsoft's Gaming CEO Says Xbox Won't Go All-Digital Just Yet
It's no surprise that the broader tech industry has largely moved away from physical disks to digital subscription-based models. But Microsoft's Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says Xbox isn't trying to do away with disks just yet — even though making disk slots could become challenging in the future. From a report: "Our strategy does not hinge on people moving all-digital," … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Humpback whales have a specialised larynx for underwater singing
The distinctive melodies of baleen whales are produced by pushing air against a fatty cushion on one side of the larynx, and a sac lets them recycle air back into the lungs [Link]
Slashdot » Microsoft Will Use Intel To Manufacture Home-Grown Processor
Intel has landed Microsoft as a customer for its made-to-order chip business, marking a key win for an ambitious turnaround effort under Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger. From a report: Microsoft plans to use Intel's 18A manufacturing technology to make a forthcoming chip that the software maker designed in-house, the two companies said at an event Wednesday. They didn't identify … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Insight into memories may alter our view of eyewitness testimonies
We seem to generally remember where an object was located, despite forgetting its other details, a discovery that could change how we perceive eyewitness testimonies [Link]
Slashdot » US Offers Up To $15 Million For Information on LockBit Leaders
A day after the U.S., UK and EU said they had disrupted the ransomware group LockBit, the State Department said the U.S. is offering a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the identification or location of the leaders of the ransomware group. 
Read more of this story at Slashdot. [Link]
Slashdot » Lives vs. Livelihoods: The Impact of the Great Recession on Mortality and Welfare
Academics have found that the U.S. mortality declines during recessions, with "reductions in air pollution… a quantitatively important mechanism." Abstract of a paper on National Bureau of Economic Research: We leverage spatial variation in the severity of the Great Recession across the United States to examine its impact on mortality and to explore implications for the welfare consequences of recessions. … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Magnificent yellow-crested bird photographed for the first time
The yellow-crested helmetshrike was considered lost after going unseen for nearly 20 years – now an expedition has rediscovered what appears to be a healthy population in central Africa [Link]
New Scientist – News » Largest volcanic eruption in recorded history happened 7300 years ago
The Kikai-Akahoya eruption of an underwater volcano off the coast of Japan ejected enough material to fill Lake Tahoe twice, three times as much as the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 [Link]
Slashdot » Apple Says the iPhone 15's Battery Has Double the Promised Lifespan
Apple has updated the iPhone 15's battery lifespan, noting the new handsets can retain 80 percent of their original charging capacity after 1,000 cycles — double the company's previous estimate — without any new hardware or software updates. From a report: Not so coincidentally, the change will arrive in time for upcoming EU regulations that will assign an energy grade … [Link]
Slashdot » Apple Rolls Out iMessage Upgrade To Withstand Decryption By Quantum Computers
Apple is rolling out an upgrade to its iMessage texting platform to defend against future encryption-breaking technologies. From a report: The new protocol, known as PQ3, is another sign that U.S. tech firms are bracing for a potential future breakthrough in quantum computing that could make current methods of protecting users' communications obsolete. "More than simply replacing an existing algorithm … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Batteries made with water could power e-scooters without exploding
In the hunt for an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, which can catch fire, researchers have developed an improved water-based power source [Link]
New Scientist – News » 'Useless' appendage of the ovaries may play key role in fertility
An appendage of the ovaries that had been dismissed as useless may actually help control ovulation and the menopause [Link]
Slashdot » Google Launches Two New Open LLMs
Barely a week after launching the latest iteration of its Gemini models, Google today announced the launch of Gemma, a new family of lightweight open-weight models. From a report: Starting with Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, these new models were "inspired by Gemini" and are available for commercial and research usage. Google did not provide us with a detailed paper … [Link]
Slashdot » Google DeepMind Alumni Unveil Bioptimus: Aiming To Build First Universal Biology AI Model
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: As the French startup ecosystem continues to boom — think Mistral, Poolside, and Adaptive — today the Paris-based Bioptimus, with a mission to build the first universal AI foundation model for biology, emerged from stealth following a seed funding round of $35 million. The new open science model will connect the different … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Pet dogs smell Parkinson's disease with almost 90 per cent accuracy
Pet dogs of various breeds have been trained to detect smells related to Parkinson's disease, potentially offering a new approach to diagnosing the condition [Link]
Slashdot » Darwin Online Has Virtually Reassembled the Naturalist's Personal Library
Jennifer Ouellette reports via Ars Technica: Famed naturalist Charles Darwin amassed an impressive personal library over the course of his life, much of which was preserved and cataloged upon his death in 1882. But many other items were lost, including more ephemeral items like unbound volumes, pamphlets, journals, clippings, and so forth, often only vaguely referenced in Darwin's own records. … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Deepfakes are out of control – is it too late to stop them?
AI-manipulated audio clips, images and videos have been used to harass people, scam money and influence elections, despite efforts to rein them in [Link]
New Scientist – News » Researchers increasingly view tech as having human-like qualities
Anthropomorphism – attributing human-like characteristics to non-human objects – is on the rise amongst technology researchers, particular when it comes to AI chatbots [Link]
Slashdot » Disney Strikes Deal For Sony To Take Over Its DVD, Blu-ray Disc Business
Disney is outsourcing its DVD and Blu-ray disc business to Sony Pictures Entertainment. Variety reports: As part of the deal, Sony will market, sell and distribute all Disney's new releases and catalog titles on physical media to consumers through retailers and distributors in the U.S. and Canada. Disney will continue to manage its own digital media, like premium video-on-demand. It's … [Link]
Slashdot » Frozen Embryos Are 'Children,' According To Alabama's Supreme Court
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday ruled that frozen embryos are "children," entitled to full personhood rights, and anyone who destroys them could be liable in a wrongful death case. The first-of-its-kind ruling throws into question the future use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) involving in vitro fertilization for patients in … [Link]
Slashdot » YouTube Dominates TV Streaming In US, Per Nielsen's Latest Report
In a new report today, Nielsen found that YouTube is once again the overall top streaming service in the U.S., with 8.6% of viewing on television screens. Netflix was a close second at 7.9% of TV usage. TechCrunch reports: In a blog post celebrating the achievement, the Google-owned streaming service announced that viewers now watch a daily average of over … [Link]
Slashdot » Zuckerberg: Neural Wristband For AR/VR Input Will Ship 'In the Next Few Years'
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that it's working on a finger tracking neural wristband that will be ready to ship "in the next few years." UploadVR reports: Appearing on the Morning Brew Daily talk show on Friday, Mark Zuckerberg said "we're actually kind of close to having something here that we're going to have in a product in the next … [Link]
New Scientist – News » ADHD may have evolved to help foragers know when to cut their losses
Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, such as impulsivity, may have helped foragers in hunter-gatherer communities quickly move on to new areas when food sources were low [Link]
Slashdot » Cox Communications Wins Order Overturning $1 Billion US Copyright Verdict
Internet service provider Cox Communications has been cleared of a $1 billion jury verdict in favor of several major record labels that had accused it of failing to curb user piracy. "The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled on Tuesday that the amount of damages was not justified and that a federal district court should hold … [Link]
Slashdot » Fingerprints Can Be Recreated From the Sounds Made When Swiping On a Touchscreen
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: An interesting new attack on biometric security has been outlined by a group of researchers from China and the US. PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound [PDF] proposes a side-channel attack on the sophisticated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The attack leverages the sound characteristics … [Link]
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