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.
New Scientist – News » 1 in 8 people worldwide has obesity
Between 1990 and 2022, obesity rates more than doubled among adults and quadrupled among children and adolescents worldwide [Link]
New Scientist – News » How will AIs like ChatGPT affect elections this year?
We are beginning to see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to threats from chatbots. In a huge election year, how will AI affect upcoming votes, asks Alex Wilkins [Link]
Slashdot » Ford EV Owners Can Now Charge On Tesla's Network
Starting today, Ford electric vehicle owners can use one of Tesla's 2,400+ superchargers, but there's a hitch. "They'll need to get an adapter that Ford will provide for free, although the company won't start shipping those until the end of March," notes the Associated Press. Product Reviewer MKBHD also notes that non-Teslas will need to park in a spot that … [Link]
Slashdot » BC Lawyer Reprimanded For Citing Fake Cases Invented By ChatGPT
A B.C. lawyer has been ordered to pay costs for opposing counsel for the time they took to discover that two cases she cited as precedent were created by ChatGPT. CBC News reports: The cases would have provided compelling precedent for a divorced dad to take his children to China — had they been real. But instead of savouring courtroom … [Link]
Slashdot » Cheap Doorbell Cameras Can Be Easily Hijacked, Says Consumer Reports
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Video doorbell cameras have been commoditized to the point where they're available for $30-$40 on marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Temu, and Shein. The true cost of owning one might be much greater, however. Consumer Reports (CR) has released the findings of a security investigation into two budget-minded doorbell brands, Eken and … [Link]
Slashdot » Google is Making Search Suggestions in Chrome More Helpful
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is introducing improvements to search suggestions in Chrome, the company announced today. As part of the changes, users will start to get more helpful search suggestions in Chrome based on what others are searching for, see more images for suggested searches and find search suggestions even with a poor connection. Search suggestions are … [Link]
Slashdot » Popular Video Doorbells Can Be Easily Hijacked, Researchers Find
Several internet-connected doorbell cameras have a security flaw that allows hackers to take over the camera by just holding down a button, among other issues, according to research by Consumer Reports. From a report: On Thursday, the non-profit Consumer Reports published research that detailed four security and privacy flaws in cameras made by EKEN, a company based in Shenzhen, China, … [Link]
Slashdot » 'Grand Theft Auto' Maker Rockstar Games Asks Workers To Return To Office Five Days a Week
Rockstar Games, a division of Take-Two Interactive Software, will ask employees to return to the office five days a week beginning in April as the video-game maker enters the final stages of development on its next game, the hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI. Bloomberg: In an email to staff on Wednesday reviewed by Bloomberg, Rockstar Head of Publishing Jenn … [Link]
Slashdot » Apple Wants You To Know It's Working On AI
Apple plans to disclose more about its plans to put generative AI to use later this year, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said during the company's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. From a report: Cook said that the iPhone maker sees "incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that … [Link]
Slashdot » Microsoft is Working With Nvidia, AMD and Intel To Improve Upscaling Support in PC Games
Microsoft has outlined a new Windows API designed to offer a seamless way for game developers to integrate super resolution AI-upscaling features from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. From a report: In a new blog post, program manager Joshua Tucker describes Microsoft's new DirectSR API as the "missing link" between games and super resolution technologies, and says it should provide "a … [Link]
Slashdot » Ultraprocessed Foods Linked To Heart Disease, Diabetes, Mental Disorders and Early Death, Study Finds
Eating ultraprocessed foods raises the risk of developing or dying from dozens of adverse health conditions, according to a new review of 45 meta-analyses on almost 10 million people. From a report: "We found consistent evidence linking higher intakes of ultra-processed foods with over 70% of the 45 different health outcomes we assessed," said senior author Wolfgang Marx, a senior … [Link]
New Scientist – News » El Niño will cause record-breaking heat across the world this year
A climate model has forecast where the most extreme heat will occur during the current El Niño phase, including the Caribbean and the South China Sea [Link]
Slashdot » Avoiding Common Pitfalls When First Contributing To Open Source
Angie Byron, a long-time member of the Drupal community, offers guidance on avoiding common mistakes and general good-practices for those new to contributing to open-source projects: […] You might not know it yet, but as a newcomer to an open source project, you have this AMAZING superpower: you are often-times the only one in that whole project capable of reading … [Link]
Slashdot » 'Anyone Rooting Against Self-driving Cars is Cheering For Tens of Thousands of Deaths, Year After Year'
Journalist Eric Newcomer, writing at The Free Press: There was a time when I believed that self-driving cars should be held to the standard of airplanes. Every mistake needed to be rigorously understood and any human death was unforgivable. But my view has evolved over time as human drivers have continued to kill tens of thousands of people a year. … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Squid-like plant that lives mostly underground is new to science
For the first time in nearly a century, a new genus of plant has been discovered in Japan, but it looks more like a squid or an alien than a plant [Link]
Slashdot » 'Paying People To Work on Open Source is Good Actually'
Jacob Kaplan-Moss, one of the lead developers of Django, writes in a long post that he says has come from a place of frustration: […] Instead, every time a maintainer finds a way to get paid, people show up to criticize and complain. Non-OSI licenses "don"t count" as open source. Someone employed by Microsoft is "beholden to corporate interests" and … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Keto diet helps people maintain weight loss after stopping Ozempic
In a small study, people with type 2 diabetes maintained their weight loss on the low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet for a year after they stopped using Ozempic or similar medications [Link]
New Scientist – News » How do you recycle a nuclear fusion reactor? We're about to find out
The UK's JET nuclear fusion reactor has been shut down after 40 years, and now researchers hope to repurpose many of its components in a world-first attempt at recycling a tokamak reactor [Link]
Slashdot » US Will Investigate National Security Risks Posed By Chinese-made 'Smart Cars'
Citing potential national security risks, the Biden administration says it will investigate Chinese-made "smart cars" that can gather sensitive information about Americans driving them. From a report: The probe could lead to new regulations aimed at preventing China from using sophisticated technology in electric cars and other so-called connected vehicles to track drivers and their personal information. Officials are concerned … [Link]
Slashdot » Adobe's New Prototype Generative AI Tool Is the 'Photoshop' of Music-Making and Editing
Adobe has announced a new prototype tool called Project Music GenAI Control that allows users to create original music by inputting text prompts, then edit the audio without switching to separate software. Users can specify musical styles in their prompts to produce tracks like "happy dance" or "sad jazz." Adobe says integrated editing controls let users tweak patterns, tempo, intensity … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Miso paste made in space opens a new frontier for fermented foods
A fermentation experiment on the International Space Station produced miso paste with a flavour distinct from two samples that were fermented on Earth [Link]
Slashdot » HDMI Forum Rejects Open-Source HDMI 2.1 Driver Support Sought By AMD
Michael Larabel, reporting at Phoronix: One of the limitations of AMD's open-source Linux graphics driver has been the inability to implement HDMI 2.1+ functionality on the basis of legal requirements by the HDMI Forum. AMD engineers had been working to come up with a solution in conjunction with the HDMI Forum for being able to provide HDMI 2.1+ capabilities with … [Link]
New Scientist – News » The art of olfaction should take its place alongside other art forms
Smell has unrivalled emotional power. As such, the art of olfaction is rightfully being included in a new multisensory performance, says perfumer Mathilde Laurent [Link]
New Scientist – News » We aren't addicted to our phones and we don't need a 'digital detox'
Describing ourselves as addicted to our phones is a counterproductive way to frame our overuse of technology, argues Pete Etchells [Link]
New Scientist – News » A simple trick can make a dog treat a stranger as their friend
If an unfamiliar person spends 15 minutes following a dog, it tends to follow them back in a possible sign of friendship [Link]
Slashdot » GitHub Besieged By Millions of Malicious Repositories In Ongoing Attack
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: GitHub is struggling to contain an ongoing attack that's flooding the site with millions of code repositories. These repositories contain obfuscated malware that steals passwords and cryptocurrency from developer devices, researchers said. The malicious repositories are clones of legitimate ones, making them hard to distinguish to the casual eye. An unknown … [Link]
Slashdot » Winklevoss Twins' Start-Up Will Pay Burned Customers $1 Billion
Emily Shugerman reports via The Daily Beast: Gemini, the crypto startup owned by the Winklevoss twins, will have to return $1.1 billion to customers who lost money in their partnership with the now-bankrupt crypto lender Genesis. In a deal with the New York State Department of Financial Services, Gemini agreed to return the funds lost by customers of its Earn … [Link]
New Scientist – News » AIs get better at maths if you tell them to pretend to be in Star Trek
Chatbots vary their answers depending on the exact wording used to prompt them, and now it seems that asking an AI to answer as if it were a Star Trek captain boosts its mathematical ability [Link]
New Scientist – News » Habitable ocean world K2-18b may actually be inhospitable gas planet
An exoplanet called K2-18b has been suggested as a good place to look for alien life, but a new analysis shows it is probably made from gas [Link]
Slashdot » 'Mathematically Perfect' Star System Being Investigated For Potential Alien Tech
Astronomers are investigating a star system 100 light-years away with six sub-Neptune planets in near-perfect orbital resonance, piquing the interest of scientists searching for alien technology, or technosignatures. Space.com reports: To be clear, no such evidence was found in the system, dubbed HD 110067. However, the researchers say they're not done looking yet. HD 11067 remains an interesting target for … [Link]
Slashdot » Wildfires Threaten Nuclear Weapons Plant In Texas
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Wildfires sweeping across Texas briefly forced the evacuation of America's main nuclear weapons facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blaze. Pantex Plant, the main facility that assembles and disassembles America's nuclear arsenal, shut down its operations on Tuesday night as the Windy Deuce fire roared … [Link]
Slashdot » The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet Sue OpenAI and Microsoft
The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet have filed separate lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement and the removal of copyright information while training AI models. The Verge reports: The publications said ChatGPT "at least some of the time" reproduces "verbatim or nearly verbatim copyright-protected works of journalism without providing author, title, copyright or terms of use information contained … [Link]
Slashdot » Cloudflare Makes Pingora Rust Framework Open-Source
Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Back in 2022 Cloudflare announced they were ditching Nginx for an in-house, Rust-written software called Pingora. Today Cloudflare is open-sourcing the Pingora framework. Cloudflare announced today that they have open-sourced Pingora under an Apache 2.0 license. Pingora is a Rust async multi-threaded framework for building programmable network services. Pingora has long been used internally within … [Link]
Slashdot » European Parliament Bans Amazon From Its Premises
Longtime Slashdot reader Kant shares a report from Euractiv: The European Parliament decided to ban Amazon representatives from accessing its buildings on Tuesday (February 27), due to multiple events where the global retailing giant did not attend meetings requested by members of the European Parliament, the European Parliament press service confirmed Euractiv. "In line with rule 123/3 and at the … [Link]
Slashdot » StarCoder 2 Is a Code-Generating AI That Runs On Most GPUs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Perceiving the demand for alternatives, AI startup Hugging Face several years ago teamed up with ServiceNow, the workflow automation platform, to create StarCoder, an open source code generator with a less restrictive license than some of the others out there. The original came online early last year, and work has been underway … [Link]
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