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 » Nvidia Founder Tells Stanford Students Their High Expectations May Make It Hard For Them To Succeed
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: We are often told that setting the bar high is key to success. After all, if you shoot for the moon and miss, at least you'll land with the stars. But Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang wants privileged Gen Z grads to lower their expectations. "People with very high expectations have very low … [Link]
Slashdot » Bitcoin Fog Crypto Mixer Found Guilty of Money Laundering, Jury Finds
Roman Sterlingov, the founder of a $400 million crypto-mixing service called Bitcoin Fog, has been convicted of money laundering in a United State District Court on Tuesday. Other charges include money laundering conspiracy, operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and violations of the D.C. Money Transmitters Act. CoinTelegraph reports: Sterlingov, however, had argued throughout the trial that he was only a … [Link]
Slashdot » Stanford University Failed To Detect Ransomware Intruders For 4 Months
Connor Jones reports via The Register: Stanford University says the cybersecurity incident it dealt with last year was indeed ransomware, which it failed to spot for more than four months. Keen readers of El Reg may remember the story breaking toward the end of October 2023 after Akira posted Stanford to its shame site, with the university subsequently issuing a … [Link]
Slashdot » Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers In the Race To Get Hired
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a Wired article: The U.S. economy is showing remarkable health, but in the tech industry, layoffs keep coming. For those out of work, finding a new position can become a full-time job. And in tech — a sector notoriously always looking for the next hot, new thing — some people whose days as … [Link]
Slashdot » Who Uses Legacy Admissions?
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, there has been increased scrutiny on legacy admissions — the practice of giving special considerations to the relatives of alumni. Critics say this practice disproportionately benefits white students from wealthy backgrounds. Much of the discussion and research on legacy admissions focuses on Ivy League and other highly … [Link]
Slashdot » America's Last Top Models
For decades, U.S. inventors sent in models with their patent applications — gizmos that reveal a secret history of unmet needs and relentless innovation. The New Yorker: The ruins of American invention have been recently resurrected in a former textile mill in Wilmington, Delaware. The Henry Clay Mill, now better known as Hagley Museum and Library Visitor Center, is perched … [Link]
Slashdot » Epic Says Apple Violated App Store Injunction, Seeks Contempt Order
Epic Games, which makes the popular video game "Fortnite," on Wednesday accused Apple of violating an injunction governing its lucrative App Store, and asked a U.S. judge to hold Apple in contempt and end its "sham" compliance. From a report: A September 2021 injunction by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, let developers provide links and buttons … [Link]
Slashdot » Waymo To Launch Commercial Robotaxi Service in Austin By End of the Year
Waymo will begin offering a robotaxi service to the public in Los Angeles this week and in Austin by the end of the year, the company's co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said Wednesday at SXSW. From a report: The Alphabet company has been testing and validating its driverless vehicles across about 43 square miles around downtown, Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin and … [Link]
New Scientist – News » One in eight ski resorts worldwide could have no snow by 2100
All major skiing regions worldwide are predicted to see a severe drop in snow days by the end of the century, with Australian resorts the worst affected [Link]
New Scientist – News » Watch an AI-powered robot dog crawl around an obstacle course
A four-legged robot can handle real-world obstacles that require scrambling up and down or leaping sizeable gaps. AI training lets it adapt to new terrain it hasn’t seen before [Link]
Slashdot » Ethereum Network Completes Cost-Cutting 'Dencun' Software Upgrade
Ethereum has successfully completed a major software upgrade that should make using the blockchain network ecosystem cheaper. The update enables transactions that previously cost $1 on linked Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum, Polygon, and Coinbase's Base to be executed for just a cent. The Dencun upgrade, a combination of the "Deneb" and "Cancun" portions of the update, introduces a … [Link]
Slashdot » OpenAI's Sora Text-to-Video Generator Will Be Publicly Available Later This Year
You'll soon get to try out OpenAI's buzzy text-to-video generator for yourself. From a report: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati says Sora will be available "this year" and that it "could be a few months." OpenAI first showed off Sora, which is capable of generating hyperrealistic scenes based on a text … [Link]
Slashdot » Google DeepMind's Latest AI Agent Learned To Play Goat Simulator 3
Will Knight, writing for Wired: Goat Simulator 3 is a surreal video game in which players take domesticated ungulates on a series of implausible adventures, sometimes involving jetpacks. That might seem an unlikely venue for the next big leap in artificial intelligence, but Google DeepMind today revealed an AI program capable of learning how to complete tasks in a number … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Methane leaks from US oil and gas are triple government estimates
The largest ever dataset of its kind suggests methane is leaking from US oil and gas fields at a much higher rate than previously thought, implying the environmental damage caused by the greenhouse gas is greater too [Link]
New Scientist – News » Alzheimer’s may be caused by a build-up of fat in brain cells
Fat droplets accumulating in brain immune cells could be behind the biggest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease [Link]
New Scientist – News » Extreme heat could trigger the worst global financial crisis ever seen
Thanks to globalisation, severe heatwaves in one part of the world can cause financial losses in another. Annual losses could reach as much as $25 trillion by 2060 if we don't curb emissions, dwarfing any previous financial crisis [Link]
Slashdot » Why Are So Many Young People Getting Cancer? What the Data Say
Rates of more than a dozen cancers are increasing among adults under 50 worldwide, with the number of early-onset cancer cases predicted to rise by around 30% between 2019 and 2030. Investigators are searching for explanations, considering factors such as obesity, early-cancer screening, gut microbiome, and tumor genomes. Despite increased screening and awareness, mortality from early-onset cancers has risen by … [Link]
Slashdot » US House Passes Bill To Force ByteDance To Divest TikTok or Face Ban
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Wednesday that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of the short-video app used by about 170 million Americans or face a ban. From a report: The bill passed 352-65, with bipartisan support, but it faces a more uncertain path in the Senate … [Link]
New Scientist – News » US legislators vote to ban TikTok unless it severs ties with China
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that will require TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or risk a nationwide ban [Link]
Slashdot » European Lawmakers Approve Landmark AI Legislation
European lawmakers approved the world's most comprehensive legislation yet on AI (non-paywalled link), setting out sweeping rules for developers of AI systems and new restrictions on how the technology can be used. From a report: The European Parliament on Wednesday voted to give final approval to the law after reaching a political agreement last December with European Union member states. … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Google AI learns to play open-world video games by watching them
An artificial intelligence from Google DeepMind can play nine open-world video games like a human, by watching video from a screen and controlling a keyboard and mouse [Link]
Slashdot » Spotify To Test Full Music Videos in Potential YouTube Faceoff
Swedish music streaming company Spotify is rolling out full-length music videos in a limited beta launch for premium subscribers, venturing into an arena that YouTube has dominated for nearly two decades. From a report: Music videos will be available to premium users in the UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, and Kenya, in beta starting on … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Europa’s seafloor may be impenetrable and inhospitable to life
The seafloor of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa was thought to provide energy and nutrients to its ocean, but it turns out that may not be possible [Link]
New Scientist – News » Starship launch 3: What time is the SpaceX flight and what to expect?
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is gearing up for the third launch of its massive Starship rocket on 14 March, following two failed missions. What will the company be hoping for and what can we expect? [Link]
New Scientist – News » Rethinking space and time could let us do away with dark matter
Most physicists believe that only a quantum theory of gravity can fully explain mysteries of the universe like dark matter, but now an idea called "post-quantum gravity" is demonstrating an alternative approach [Link]
New Scientist – News » Plant-killing genetic technology could wipe out superweeds
A ‘gene drive’ that spreads through plant populations could be used to wipe out pests such as superweeds, or to help save species by making them resistant to heat or disease [Link]
Slashdot » SpaceX Gets E-Band Radio Waves To Boost Starlink Broadband
Jason Rainbow reports via SpaceNews: SpaceX has secured conditional approval to use extremely high-frequency E-band radio waves to improve the capacity of its low Earth orbit Starlink broadband constellation. The Federal Communications Commission said March 8 it is allowing SpaceX to use E-band frequencies between second-generation Starlink satellites and gateways on the ground, alongside already approved spectrum in the Ka … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Sleeping black hole is way more massive than it should be
The James Webb Space Telescope has found an unusual galaxy in the early universe with a black hole almost half the mass of the galaxy itself, raising questions about how it formed [Link]
Slashdot » 'Larger Than Everest' Comet Could Become Visible To Naked Eye This Month
12P/Pons-Brooks, a Halley-type comet larger than Mount Everest and with a 71.3-year orbit, is expected to become visible to the naked eye in the coming weeks as it makes its closest approach to the sun on April 21. The Guardian reports: While some reports suggest 12P/Pons-Brooks was spotted as far back as the 14th century, it is named after the … [Link]
Slashdot » Across the Nation, Lawmakers Aim To Ban Lab-Grown Meat
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inside Climate News: Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees — those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers and meatpackers in each state. State legislators from Florida to Arizona are seeking … [Link]
Slashdot » Google Paid $10 Million In Bug Bounty Rewards Last Year
Bill Toulas reports via BleepingComputer: Google awarded $10 million to 632 researchers from 68 countries in 2023 for finding and responsibly reporting security flaws in the company's products and services. Though this is lower than the $12 million Google's Vulnerability Reward Program paid to researchers in 2022, the amount is still significant, showcasing a high level of community participation in … [Link]
Slashdot » Binance Executives Were Arrested In Nigeria For Allegedly Destabilizing Its Currency
Two top executives from the crypto exchange Binance have been arrested in Nigeria for allegedly destabilizing the national currency. Quartz reports: According to a Wall Street Journal report, Tigran Gambaryan, head of financial-crime compliance at Binance who previously worked at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan national and Binance's regional manager for Africa, have been … [Link]
Slashdot » Pentagon Scraps $2.5 Billion Grant To Intel
According to Bloomberg (paywalled), the Pentagon has reportedly scrapped its plan to allocate $2.5 billion in grants to Intel, causing the firm's stock to slip in extended-hours trading. From a report: The decision now leaves the U.S. Commerce Department, which is responsible for doling out the funds from the U.S. CHIPs and Science Act, to make up the shortfall, the … [Link]
Slashdot » Europe Lifts Sanctions On Yandex Cofounder Arkady Volozh
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Arkady Volozh, the billionaire cofounder of Russia's biggest internet company, was removed from the EU sanctions list today, clearing the way for his return to the world of international tech. On Tuesday a spokesperson for the European Council confirmed to WIRED that the Yandex cofounder was among three people whose sanctions were … [Link]
New Scientist – News » City moths may have evolved smaller wings due to light pollution
Populations of moths living in urban places may have evolved smaller wings to limit how much bright city lights disrupt their lives [Link]
New Scientist – News » Giant sequoia trees are growing surprisingly quickly in the UK
Since their introduction in the 1800s, giant sequoia trees in the UK have grown up to 55 metres tall and capture 85 kilograms of carbon a year on average [Link]
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