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 » Cops Can Force Suspect To Unlock Phone With Thumbprint, US Court Rules
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination does not prohibit police officers from forcing a suspect to unlock a phone with a thumbprint scan, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The ruling does not apply to all cases in which biometrics are used to unlock an electronic device but is … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Cocaine seems to hijack brain pathways that prioritise food and water
Cocaine and morphine hijacked neural responses in the brains of mice, which resulted in them consuming less food and water [Link]
Slashdot » Software Glitch Saw Aussie Casino Give Away Millions In Cash
A software glitch in the "ticket in, cash out" (TICO) machines at Star Casino in Sydney, Australia, saw it inadvertently give away $2.05 million over several weeks. This glitch allowed gamblers to reuse a receipt for slot machine winnings, leading to unwarranted cash payouts which went undetected due to systematic failures in oversight and audit processes. The Register reports: News … [Link]
Slashdot » Meta Is Adding Real-Time AI Image Generation To WhatsApp
WhatsApp users in the U.S. will soon see support for real-time AI image generation. The Verge reports: As soon as you start typing a text-to-image prompt in a chat with Meta AI, you'll see how the image changes as you add more detail about what you want to create. In the example shared by Meta, a user types in the … [Link]
Slashdot » Colorado Bill Aims To Protect Consumer Brain Data
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use. With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming … [Link]
Slashdot » Feds Hit Coding Boot Camp With Big Fine For Allegedly Conning Students
The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has slapped coding boot camp BloomTech — formerly known as Lambda School — with several punishments for alleged deceptive business practices. From a report: The business, which claims on its site it will help students land their "dream job" in tech at companies like Amazon, Cisco, and Google, accepted the consent order without … [Link]
Slashdot » Crypto Trader Eisenberg Convicted of Fraud in $110 Million Mango Markets Scheme
A jury found Avraham "Avi" Eisenberg guilty on all three counts of fraud and manipulation in a $110 million crypto trade scheme using the Mango Markets platform. Axios: The case was the first known test for a jury to decide whether existing U.S. laws governing fraud and market manipulation apply to the world of decentralized finance (DeFi). The 28-year-old Eisenberg … [Link]
Slashdot » Boeing Aims To Bring Flying Cars To Asia By 2030
U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing plans to enter the flying car business in Asia by 2030, looking to tap demand for the fast travel the vehicles could provide in the region's traffic-choked cities. Nikkei: Boeing Chief Technology Officer Todd Citron revealed the plans in an interview with Nikkei. The company is developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) craft at subsidiary … [Link]
Slashdot » Nigeria To Criminalise Fiber Cable Damage Costing Telecoms Billions
Nigeria will criminalize the destruction of broadband fiber cables following repeated complaints by MTN Nigeria and other telecommunications companies that they are losing billions of naira, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Nigeria's works ministry, which supervises federal road constructors, is finalizing the regulation that will be signed as an executive order by President … [Link]
Slashdot » Author Granted Copyright Over Book With AI-Generated Text – With a Twist
The U.S. Copyright Office has granted a copyright registration to Elisa Shupe, a retired U.S. Army veteran, for her novel "AI Machinations: Tangled Webs and Typed Words," which extensively used OpenAI's ChatGPT in its creation. The registration is among the first for creative works incorporating AI-generated text, but with a significant caveat – Shupe is considered the author of the … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Fossil snake discovered in India may have been the largest ever
The vertebrae of Vasuki indicus, a snake that lived 47 million years ago, suggest it could have been as long as 15 metres [Link]
Slashdot » Hackers Are Threatening To Publish a Huge Stolen Sanctions and Financial Crimes Watchlist
An anonymous reader shares a report: A financially motivated criminal hacking group says it has stolen a confidential database containing millions of records that companies use for screening potential customers for links to sanctions and financial crime. The hackers, which call themselves GhostR, said they stole 5.3 million records from the World-Check screening database in March and are threatening to … [Link]
Slashdot » Meta Releases Llama 3 AI Models, Claiming Top Performance
Meta debuted a new version of its powerful Llama AI model, its latest effort to keep pace with similar technology from companies like OpenAI, X and Google. The company describes Llama 3 8B and Llama 3 70B, containing 8 billion and 70 billion parameters respectively, as a "major leap" in performance compared to their predecessors. Meta claims that the Llama … [Link]
Slashdot » Google is Combining Its Android and Hardware Teams
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced substantial internal reorganizations on Thursday, including the creation of a new team called "Platforms and Devices" that will oversee all of Google's Pixel products, all of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos, and more. From a report: The team will be run by Rick Osterloh, who was previously the SVP of devices and services, overseeing all of … [Link]
Slashdot » Canadian Science Gets Biggest Boost To PhD and Postdoc Pay in 20 Years
Researchers in Canada got most of what they were hoping for in the country's 2024 federal budget, with a big boost in postgraduate pay and more funding for research and scientific infrastructure. From a report: "We are investing over $5 billion in Canadian brainpower," said finance minister Chrystia Freeland in her budget speech on 16 April. "More funding for research … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Jupiter's moon Io has been a volcanic inferno for billions of years
Measurements of sulphur isotopes in Io’s atmosphere show that the moon may have been volcanically active for its entire lifetime [Link]
Slashdot » Odds of US TikTok Ban Increase After House Fast-Tracks Revised Bill, Picking Up Key Senate Support
U.S. lawmakers have moved closer to enacting a countrywide ban on TikTok. From a report: Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill by a wide margin that would ban distribution of TikTok in U.S. unless TikTok's Chinese parent, ByteDance, sells its ownership in the app within 165 days of the law's enactment. On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson … [Link]
Slashdot » US Air Force Confirms First Successful AI Dogfight
The US Air Force is putting AI in the pilot's seat. In an update on Thursday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) revealed that an AI-controlled jet successfully faced a human pilot during an in-air dogfight test carried out last year. From a report: DARPA began experimenting with AI applications in December 2022 as part of its Air Combat … [Link]
Slashdot » Google Terminates 28 Employees For Protest of Israeli Cloud Contract
Google said on Thursday it had terminated 28 employees after some staff participated in protests against the company's cloud contract with the Israeli government. From a report: The Alphabet unit said a small number of protesting employees entered and disrupted work at a few unspecified office locations. "Physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is … [Link]
Slashdot » Inside Amazon's Secret Operation To Gather Intel on Rivals
Amazon staff went undercover on Walmart, eBay and other marketplaces as a third-party seller called "Big River," WSJ reports. The mission: to scoop up information on pricing, logistics and other business practices. From the report: For nearly a decade, workers in a warehouse in Seattle's Denny Triangle neighborhood have shipped boxes of shoes, beach chairs, Marvel T-shirts and other items … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Quantum-proof encryption may not actually stop quantum hackers
Cryptographers are scrambling to understand an algorithm that could undermine the mathematics behind next-generation encryption methods, which are intended to protect against quantum computers [Link]
New Scientist – News » Why we need to change the way we think about exhaustion
One in five adults worldwide is living with fatigue. The general advice is to “do more” – but this isn’t the only solution to our exhaustion epidemic, says Amy Arthur [Link]
New Scientist – News » Particles move in beautiful patterns when they have ‘spatial memory’
A mathematical model of a particle that remembers its past so that it never travels the same path twice produces stunningly complex patterns [Link]
Slashdot » Is 8GB of RAM Enough For a Mac?
Apple is doubling down on 8GB of RAM for many of its entry-level Macs, claiming that it's "suitable for many tasks," including browsing, video streaming and even "light" video and image editing. As of this writing, all MacBook Air laptops, the Mac Mini, and the MacBook Pro 14 all start with a base configuration of 8GB RAM — which can't … [Link]
Slashdot » Sweden Becomes 38th Country To Sign NASA's Artemis Accords For Moon Exploration
Sweden is the newest nation to sign onto NASA's Artemis Accords — a series of non-binding bilateral arrangements for peaceful and responsible exploration. Space.com reports: During a signing event in Stockholm on Tuesday (April 16), Swedish Minister for Education Mats Persson penned the agreement alongside U.S. Ambassador Erik D. Ramanathan. "By joining the Artemis Accords, Sweden strengthens its strategic space … [Link]
New Scientist – News » Ancient Maya burned their dead rulers to mark a new dynasty
In the foundations of a Maya temple, researchers found the charred bones of royal individuals – possibly evidence of a fiery ritual to mark the end of one dynasty and the beginning of another [Link]
The Joy of Tech » Humane AI Pin is hurting!
Those reviews are almost inhumane! [Link]
Slashdot » House Passes Bill Requiring Warrant To Purchase Data From Third Parties
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The House on Wednesday approved a bill that would limit how the government can purchase data from third parties — legislation that scored a vote after negotiations with a group of GOP colleagues who briefly tanked a vote on warrantless spy powers. Dubbed the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale, the … [Link]
Slashdot » Google Workers Arrested After Nine-Hour Protest In Cloud Chief's Office
CNBC reports that nine Google workers were arrested on trespassing charges Tuesday night in protest of the company's $1.2 billion contract providing cloud computing services to the Israeli government. The sit-in happened at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in Sunnyvale and the 10th floor commons of Google's New York office. From the report: The arrests, which were livestreamed on … [Link]
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