Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. An Appeals Court May Kill a GNU GPL Software License
  2. Intel Delays $28 Billion Ohio Chip Factory To 2030
  3. Commercials Are Still Too Loud, Say ‘Thousands’ of Recent FCC Complaints
  4. Mozilla Responds To Backlash Over New Terms, Saying It’s Not Using People’s Data for AI
  5. Google’s Sergey Brin Urges Workers To the Office at Least Every Weekday
  6. US Workers See AI-Induced Productivity Growth, Fed Survey Shows
  7. DeepMind CEO Says AGI Definition Has Been ‘Watered Down’
  8. President Trump: UK Encryption Policy ‘Something You Hear About With China’
  9. Mozilla’s Updated ToS: We Own All Info You Put Into Firefox
  10. Google Tweak Creates Crisis for Product-Review Sites
  11. Microsoft To Shut Down Skype in May, Shift Users To Teams
  12. Citigroup Erroneously Credited Client Account With $81 Trillion in ‘Near Miss’
  13. MTA Uses Google Pixel Smartphones and AI To Detect Subway Track Defects
  14. More Random Rich People Are Going To Space
  15. Viral Video Shows AIs Conversing In Their Own Language

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

An Appeals Court May Kill a GNU GPL Software License

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is set to review a California district court’s ruling in Neo4j v. PureThink, which upheld Neo4j’s right to modify the GNU AGPLv3 with additional binding terms. If the appellate court affirms this decision, it could set a precedent allowing licensors to impose unremovable restrictions on open-source software, potentially undermining the enforceability of GPL-based licenses and threatening the integrity of the open-source ecosystem. The Register reports:
The GNU AGPLv3 is a free and open source software (FOSS) license largely based on the GNU GPLv3, both of which are published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Neo4j provided database software under the AGPLv3, then tweaked the license, leading to legal battles over forks of the software. The AGPLv3 includes language that says any added restrictions or requirements are removable, meaning someone could just file off Neo4j’s changes to the usage and distribution license, reverting it back to the standard AGPLv3, which the biz has argued and successfully fought against in that California district court.

Now the matter, the validity of that modified FOSS license, is before an appeals court in the USA. “I don’t think the community realizes that if the Ninth Circuit upholds the lower court’s ruling, it won’t just kill GPLv3,” PureThink’s John Mark Suhy told The Register. “It will create a dangerous legal precedent that could be used to undermine all open-source licenses, allowing licensors to impose unexpected restrictions and fundamentally eroding the trust that makes open source possible.”

Perhaps equally concerning is the fact that Suhy, founder and CTO of PureThink and iGov (the two firms sued by Neo4j), and presently CTO of IT consultancy Greystones Group, is defending GPL licenses on his own, pro se, without the help of the FSF, founded by Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU General Public License. “I’m actually doing everything pro se because I used up all my savings to fight it in the lower court,” said Suhy. “I’m surprised the Free Software Foundation didn’t care too much about it. They always had an excuse about not having the money for it. Luckily the Software Freedom Conservancy came in and helped out there.”

Intel Delays $28 Billion Ohio Chip Factory To 2030

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
According to The Columbia Dispatch, Intel’s promised $28 billion semiconductor project in central Ohio has been delayed again until 2030, with operations beginning sometime shortly thereafter in either 2030 or 2031. From the report:
By the time it opens, Intel’s first factory will have faced at least five or six years of delays, as it was originally scheduled to begin operating in 2025. Intel’s second Ohio factory won’t be completed until at least 2031 and will begin running in 2032, according to the company. The new timeline comes as Intel continues to struggle financially, which was a key factor in the latest delay for the company’s Ohio factories. The company was alerting its employees of the delays in a message Friday.

The changes were made so Intel can align its factory operation with market demand and better “manage our capital responsibly,” Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president, chief global operations officer and general manager of Intel Foundry Manufacturing wrote in a message to workers. The changes will ensure Intel’s Ohio fabs will be finished in a “financially responsible manner that sets up Ohio One for success,” Chandrasekaran wrote. “I wanted to be upfront and transparent with you all about our current plan. In no way does this diminish our long-term commitment to Ohio,” Chandrasekaran wrote. "(W)e will continue to scale our hiring as we approach our operational dates. Intel is proud to call Ohio home, and we remain excited about our future here.”

Thats the same year as fusion

By zawarski • Score: 4, Funny Thread
And Tesla FSD. Noice.

Commercials Are Still Too Loud, Say ‘Thousands’ of Recent FCC Complaints

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Thousands” of complaints about the volume of TV commercials have flooded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in recent years. Despite the FCC requiring TV stations, cable operators, and satellite providers to ensure that commercials don’t bring a sudden spike in decibels, complaints around loud commercials “took a troubling jump” in 2024, the government body said on Thursday.

Under The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, broadcast, cable, and satellite TV providers are required to ensure that commercials “have the same average volume as the programs they accompany,” per the FCC. The FCC’s rules about the volume of commercials took effect in December 2012. The law also requires linear TV providers to use the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s (ATSC’s) recommended practices. The practices include guidance around production, post production, metadata systems usage, and controlling dynamic range. If followed, the recommendations “result in consistency in loudness and avoidance of signal clipping,” per the ATSC [PDF]. The guidance reads: “If all programs and commercials were produced at a consistent average loudness, and if the loudness of the mix is preserved through the production, distribution, and delivery chain, listeners would not be subjected to annoying changes in loudness within and between programs.”

As spotted by PC Mag, the FCC claimed this week that The Calm Act initially reduced complaints about commercials aggressively blaring from TVs. However, the agency is seeing an uptick in grievances. The FCC said it received “approximately” 750 complaints in 2022, 825 in 2023, and “at least” 1,700 in 2024 [PDF]. Since The Calm Act regulates a commercial’s average loudness, some advertisers may be skirting the spirit of the law by making commercials very loud at the start (to get viewers’ attention) before quieting down for the rest of the ad. In response to growing complaints, the FCC is reexamining its rules and this week announced that it’s seeking comment from “consumers and industry on the extent to which The CALM Act rules are effective.” The FCC is also asking people to weigh in on what future actions the FCC, the TV industry, or standard developers could take.
The FCC is considering whether to extend the Calm Act to online streaming services, which are increasingly offering plans with ad-supported models and live event broadcasts.

Mozilla Responds To Backlash Over New Terms, Saying It’s Not Using People’s Data for AI

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Mozilla has denied allegations that its new Firefox browser terms of service allow it to harvest user data for artificial intelligence training, following widespread criticism of the recently updated policy language. The controversy erupted after Firefox introduced terms that grant Mozilla “a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information” when users upload content through the browser, prompting competitor Brave Software’s CEO Brendan Eich to suggest a business pivot toward data monetization.

“These changes are not driven by a desire by Mozilla to use people’s data for AI or sell it to advertisers,” Mozilla spokesperson Kenya Friend-Daniel told TechCrunch. “Our ability to use data is still limited by what we disclose in the Privacy Notice.” The company clarified that its AI features operate locally on users’ devices and don’t send content data to Mozilla. Any data shared with advertisers is provided only on a “de-identified or aggregated basis,” according to the spokesperson. Mozilla explained it used specific legal terms — “nonexclusive,” “royalty-free,” and “worldwide” — because Firefox is free, available globally, and allows users to maintain control of their own data.

“we promise!”

By MachineShedFred • Score: 5, Informative Thread

So what ARE they doing with it?

Wait, what?

By trelanexiph • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Obligatory IANAL, but I did just finish working with my attorneys on our new privacy policy, so this is fresh in mind.

“Mozilla explained it used specific legal terms — “nonexclusive,” “royalty-free,” and “worldwide” — because Firefox is free, available globally, and allows users to maintain control of their own data.”

This, children, is what we call lying. It is where you say a thing that isn’t true.

nonexclusive = use and sharing of data is not limited to Mozilla
royalty-free = the user who owns/generates the data doesn’t get paid (The intellectual property owner)
worldwide = we can send your data anywhere and into any regulatory regime and you can’t do anything about it.

I don’t know or care if Mozilla is using this for AI, but technically speaking, if you use Firefox to upload content you created to YouTube, Mozilla has a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to do anything they want to with your intellectual property.

Keep in mind Mozilla is a CORPORATION. They may or may not do any given thing, but they retain these rights and licenses meaning that if EvilCorp buys Mozilla at the impending bankruptcy, your personal licenses to everything you do or transmit in Mozilla goes with it.

Only the text matters

By sphealey • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Mozilla can issue as many blog posts and “clarifications” as it likes; only the text of the EUA matters.

Re:“we promise!”

By ls671 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I have been thinking about an alternative for some time. I decided to proceed two hours ago and after a quick search I installed Pale Moon.

I copied the same tabs I had open in firefox to Pale Moon and memory usage went from 3GB to 500MB and his now 800MB after two hours of browsing in favor of Pale Moon.

Pale Moon reminds me of the old firefox when it was using only one process back in the days. It’s really great and absolutely what I was looking for. Keep in mind that using a single process might be a little less secure but I don’t really care since I browse carefully and the bloat of current firefox was infuriating me more and more.

I installed these plugins in Pale Moon:
Swarth (Dark Reader)
nMatrix (uMatrix like same GUI)

Pale Moon was forked from old firefox code and is still well maintained. Anybody used to firefox will feel at home.

Kudos to Pale Moon devs!

Re:Wait, what?

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Uh, what? Hold on, you talked to intellectual property lawyers and this is what you came up with?

nonexclusive = Mozilla is not the only company that gets the data (e.g. you browse to Slashdot using Firefox, so Slashdot gets the data you send through Firefox). It’s the opposite of something like Audible or Amazon, where if you publish your work somewhere else, they terminate your account on Amazon/Audible.
royalty-free = Mozilla doesn’t pay you for the work it does for you.
worldwide = The Web. You do realize that spans the globe, right?

In fact, let’s look at that whole sentence:

“When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

Emphasis mine.

Further, you do realize this is legal language, not technical, right?

Do you realize that if you upload content to YouTube, you’ve already agreed to give THEM the same rights, or more? Or Gmail? Or Outlook? Using Firefox to talk to YouTube doesn’t give Firefox a copy of what you sent to YouTube, you used Firefox to send it to YouTube. If Firefox can’t utilize that data to send it to YouTube, it’s useless as a web browser.

Keep in mind Mozilla is a CORPORATION. They may or may not do any given thing, but they retain these rights and licenses meaning that if EvilCorp buys Mozilla at the impending bankruptcy, your personal licenses to everything you do or transmit in Mozilla goes with it.

Do you know where you are? Do you know that Slashdot is on its fifth set of owners now? Do you realize that by using this website, you have already granted the current owners access to everything you’ve ever done on this website?

Or is it just Mozilla that’s somehow going to nebulously use this information in some kind of hypothetical bankrupsy proceedings?

Google’s Sergey Brin Urges Workers To the Office at Least Every Weekday

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has urged employees working on the company’s Gemini AI products to be in the office "at least every weekday" [non-paywalled source] and suggested “60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity,” according to an internal memo cited by The New York Times. The directive comes as Brin warned that “competition has accelerated immensely and the final race to A.G.I. is afoot,” referring to artificial general intelligence, when machines match or surpass human intelligence.

“I think we have all the ingredients to win this race, but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts,” Brin wrote in the Wednesday evening memo. The guidance does not alter Google’s official policy requiring employees to work in-office three days weekly. Brin, who returned to Google following ChatGPT’s 2022 launch, also criticized staff who “put in the bare minimum,” calling them “highly demoralizing to everyone else.”

Re: Fuck off cunt

By RazorSharp • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It sounds like he would prefer seven days a week.

In other words

By Sebby • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

[Sergey Brin suggested] 60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity

In other words:

“Kill yourselves working with no social or family life. The beatings will continue until this is achieve throughout the entire workforce.”

Re:You say demoralize, I say inspire

By Vrallis • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

My old boss (who was a coder for the Apollo missions) told me a story of when he had his first management position, told by an executive he looked up to: “If you can’t do your job in 40 hours a week, either you’re doing something wrong, or your boss is doing something wrong.”

UNIONIZE!

By ttyler • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
When are tech workers finally going to unite?

What an idiot

By gweihir • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

He is making his workers much _less_ productive with his ignorance. The actual sweet spot for mental work is at around 36h/week. This has been known reliably for about 100 years. Make people work more an _lose_ productivity overall.

US Workers See AI-Induced Productivity Growth, Fed Survey Shows

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Workers reported saving a substantial number of work hours by using generative AI, according to research conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, along with Vanderbilt and Harvard universities. From a report:
The researchers, drawing from what they identified as the first nationally representative survey of generative AI adoption, measured the impact of generative AI on work productivity by how much workers used the technology and how intensely. They found users are saving meaningful amounts of time.

“On average, workers are 33% more productive in each hour that they use generative AI,” the paper found. Among respondents that used generative AI in the previous week, 21% said it saved them four hours or more in that week, 20% reported three hours, 26% said two hours and 33% reported an hour or less.

DeepMind CEO Says AGI Definition Has Been ‘Watered Down’

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says the definition of artificial general intelligence is being "watered down,” creating an illusion of faster progress toward this technological milestone. “There’s quite a long way, in my view, before we get to AGI,” Hassabis said. “The timelines are shrinking because the definition of AGI is being watered down, in my opinion.” DeepMind defines AGI as “AI systems that are at least as capable as humans at most cognitive tasks,” while OpenAI has historically described it as a “highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently declared his team is “confident we know how to build AGI,” while modifying his personal definition to an AI “system that can tackle increasingly complex problems, at human level, in many fields.” Hassabis suggested industry hype might be financially motivated: “There is a lot of hype for various reasons,” he said, including perhaps “that people need to raise money.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella separately dismissed AGI milestones as “nonsensical benchmark hacking,” preferring economic impact measurements.

How can something be “watered down”…

By MpVpRb • Score: 3 Thread

…if it was never precisely defined?

He is right

By gweihir • Score: 3 Thread

Altman and the other scammers promising AGI soon are lying directly by claiming things are GAI that are most definitely not AGI.

AGI is a long, long way off, far enough that it is not even clear whether it is possible at all.

AGI = Automatic Garbage Integrator

By ebunga • Score: 3 Thread

That’s what they’re selling, that’s what you’re eating.

Sticking a G between A and I is watering down.

By Fly Swatter • Score: 3 Thread
Nothing to water down when just redefining AI as it is now (nonexistant) with a classifier to be AGI already did all the watering. Whatever they have now is not the classic AI as defined by everyone.

What the current AGI is doing though is contributing to global catastrophe, either through the ridiculous energy waste or trying to let ‘AI’ control anything important.

President Trump: UK Encryption Policy ‘Something You Hear About With China’

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
President Trump has directly criticized the UK government’s approach to encryption, comparing recent actions to those of China. Speaking to The Spectator, Trump said he confronted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer about the Home Office’s request for “backdoor access” to encrypted iCloud data, which led Apple to remove its Advanced Data Protection feature from British services entirely.

“We told them you can’t do this… That’s incredible. That’s something, you know, that you hear about with China,” Trump said after his meeting with Starmer. The remarks come as the Trump administration has directed Treasury and Commerce officials to examine UK tech regulations, including the Online Safety Act, for potential free speech violations and discrimination against US companies.

I hope Trump is consistent

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
When the next American politician or agency asks for the very same type of back doors.

Re:what would you have him do

By MachineShedFred • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Let me ask a serious question for a moment:

What has happened in your life that compels you to make excuses for a President who abjectly and provably lies to the press?

Would you be doing the same gymnastics routine if Biden had done this? If not, congratulations, you’re a partisan hack with no objectivity at all.

Pot Meets Kettle

By organgtool • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Christopher Wray was appointed as director of the FBI by Donald Trump and he spent most of Trump’s first term petitioning companies to install backdoors in the encryption algorithms they were using. I don’t know if Trump even knew about that when Wray was doing it, or if he forgot, or if he just completely changed his opinion on the subject.

Re:what would you have him do

By spacepimp • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

ArchieBunker.,..Do you think that the UK government should have backdoor access to all encryption? Do you hate Trump so much that his declaring the request as something you would see in China as being abhorrent to your values? It seems to me people on this site used to think things like the Clipper Chip were wrong. Now when the acting President of the United States condemns a strikingly similar request what you do is spew hate against him versus his message. Even if you hate him this is not a sentiment that used to be derided on slashdot.

Re:what would you have him do

By spacepimp • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Maybe instead of spewing hate you could stay on message about the loss of privacy the world leaders seem bent on engineering. It is fine to despise Trump, but by turning the debate into another Trump is sweaty and eats fast food cesspool, you are doing nothing other than shifting the conversation from the real problem and helping the media gloss over the painful truths. Trump is not the problem here. What he said made sense and people should recognize that this is not a partisan issue. If any world leader stands up for privacy, we should celebrate. It doesn’t mean that world leader is not an asshat by every other metric.

Mozilla’s Updated ToS: We Own All Info You Put Into Firefox

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
New submitter SharkByte writes:
Mozilla just updated its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for Firefox with a very disturbing “You Give Mozilla Certain Rights and Permissions” clause:

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

H/T to reader agristin as well, who also wrote about this.

Re:Tale as old as time

By awwshit • Score: 5, Funny Thread

I had nothing to do with this mess.

Mozilla posted an update to this, just FYI

By SphericalCrusher • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Copied from https://blog.mozilla.org/en/pr… UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.

Re:Scandalous

By postbigbang • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Of many forms of unerring suicide, it makes you wonder why they chose this one to end their era.

Goodbye, Firefox. You had loyal fans until you were pulled out of every repository in the FOSS space.

WTF were you thinking?

Re:Storm in a teacup

By Some Guy • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You might think so, but they explicitly removed this:

Does Firefox sell your personal data?

Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.

That kinda sums it up…

Does Firefox sell your personal data?

By Some Guy • Score: 5, Informative Thread
They explicitly removed this:

Does Firefox sell your personal data?

Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.

GitHub repo

So regardless of the legalese & its interpretation, this kinda sums up what they want to do…

Google Tweak Creates Crisis for Product-Review Sites

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Google changed its rules around how product-review sites appear in its search engine. In the process, it devastated a once-lucrative corner [non-paywalled source] of the news media world. From a report:
Sites including CNN Underscored and Forbes Vetted offer tips on everything from mattresses and knife sets to savings accounts, making money when users click on links and buy products.

They depend on Google to drive much of their traffic, and therefore revenue. But over the past year, Google created stricter rules that dinged certain sites that farm out articles to freelancers, among other things. The goal, Google has said, was to give users higher-quality search results. The outcome was a crisis for some sites. Traffic for Forbes Advisor, a personal-finance recommendation site, fell 83% in January from the same month the year before, according to data firm Similarweb.

CNN Underscored and Buy Side from WSJ, which is operated by Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones, were both down by more than 25% in that period. Time magazine’s Time Stamped and the Associated Press’s AP Buyline, powered by Taboola Turnkey Commerce, ended their efforts in recent months. Taboola closed the commerce operation.

And nothing of value was lost

By Tony Isaac • Score: 3 Thread

CNN Underscored reviews are barely-disguised infomercials. I don’t know anything about Buy Side, but I suspect it’s no better. “Review Sites” aren’t what they used to be. I applaud Google’s change.

Good riddance

By Visarga • Score: 3 Thread
Those sites are leaching off main site PageRank to get huge traffic. The quality is no better than spam. Google made a good choice.

Microsoft To Shut Down Skype in May, Shift Users To Teams

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Microsoft said Friday it will shut down its Skype messaging service on May 5, replacing it with the free version of Microsoft Teams for consumers. Existing Skype users will have approximately 60 days to decide whether to migrate to Teams, where their message history, group chats and contacts will automatically transfer, or export their data including photos and conversation history.

The company will discontinue Skype’s telephony features for calling domestic and international numbers, though it will honor existing Skype credits and subscriptions inside Teams until users’ next renewal period. Skype Number users will need to port their numbers to other providers. Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011. The shutdown will not result in immediate job cuts.

p2p

By awwshit • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Besides becoming popular, the original skype was also decentralized and tried hard to make connections point-to-point rather than need to be proxied. Microsoft bought skype and centralized it a long time ago. Now there is nothing left. It was a long road to killing skype completely but Microsoft plays the long game.

Skype is a real tradgety of corporate stupidity

By dmay34 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Skype was awesome in the early 2000s. There was nothing like it. I could have and should have dominated the mobile and internet messaging industry, especially with the backing of Microsoft.

But instead, MS bought it up so that it would stop competing with MSN Messenger. They starved it.

I hope they don’t do the same thing to GroupMe -which is still awesome despite MS.

Re:p2p

By awwshit • Score: 4, Informative Thread

The skype protocol was a thing before standards like ICE, STUN and TURN. Yes, Teams does modern things that are now standardized.

When you need something like a directory service you have to ask yourself if you trust the service. Do you trust the protocol to run safely as the directory service on some user’s computer? Do you trust Microsoft to run the directory service?

I understand Microsoft’s position and reasons for centralizing but I don’t trust Microsoft.

Re:p2p

By awwshit • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Re: p2p

By 1s44c • Score: 4, Informative Thread

The US government paid Microsoft to buy and backdoor Skype. The peer to peer nature of old Skype was a threat to US government surveillance.

Citigroup Erroneously Credited Client Account With $81 Trillion in ‘Near Miss’

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81 trillion when it meant to send only $280, an error that could hinder the bank’s attempt to persuade regulators that it has fixed long-standing operational issues. Financial Times:
The erroneous internal transfer, which occurred last April and has not been previously reported, was missed by both a payments employee and a second official assigned to check the transaction before it was approved to be processed at the start of business the following day.

A third employee detected a problem with the bank’s account balances, catching the payment 90 minutes after it was posted. The payment was reversed several hours later, according to an internal account of the event seen by the Financial Times and two people familiar with the event. No funds left Citi, which disclosed the “near miss” to the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to another person with knowledge of the matter.

Re:not sure how this is a “near miss”?

By Captain Segfault • Score: 5, Informative Thread
While that is largely true, there are definitely scenarios that get more complicated notably if the account holder is actually owed money. There’s an extremely relevant issue (mentioned in TFA) with Revlon loans back in 2020. Citi was acting as the agent for a loan to bankrupt Revlon and accidentally credited the creditors accounts for the full value of the lown with the bank’s own money, which started a two year legal dispute which would have been entirely avoided if Citi had just not accidentally credited the accounts.

It’s the Banker Keyboards

By turp182 • Score: 5, Funny Thread

With dedicated keys for Million, Billion, and more recently Trillion, it’s an honest mistake.

Re:Good programmers check for out-of-bounds inputs

By Archtech • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

The problem seems to have been precisely that no one noticed it was a huge transaction. What I can’t understand is what sort of finger trouble would cause $280 to change into $81 trillion.

$280
$81,000,000,000,000

Not much resemblance. Certainly not a 1-digit typo. More as if the zero key got stuck down.

Account Number?

By Roger W Moore • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
Perhaps they put in the account number as the amount since it may not have been exactly $81 trillion.

My dad had something similar happen with a bank back in the days when you had to submit paper transactions where, instead of the usual weekly salary withdrawal for the receptionist staff they removed well over 100k pounds causing the account to go overdrawn and charges to be applied. When he called them they absolutely refused to accept that it was an error on their part until he pointed out that the amount they had removed was equal to the date and since they entered the amount into the system it could not have been him. They refunded the money.

Re:Why

By themightythor • Score: 5, Informative Thread

I was just wondering how many people opened an account with Citigroup after seeing this news.

Just understand that the “bank error in your favor” could just have easily been a “bank error in their favor”. And which of the two do you think the bank is more motivated to fix quickly? Which of the two is going to cause a bunch of “payment denied” errors when, say, your power bill auto drafts on the 5th of the month? And, when that payment denial happens, of course the power company is going to report that to credit agencies. Where will Citi be then? My prediction is that after dragging their feet for a bit, they’ll reverse the mistake from their end, consider their obligation complete, and leave you to deal with the aftermath.

tl;dr - run, as fast as you can away, not towards institutions that demonstrate this level of incompetence.

MTA Uses Google Pixel Smartphones and AI To Detect Subway Track Defects

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews:
[T]he MTA is testing a system that effectively transforms Google Pixel Android smartphones into powerful diagnostic tools for tracking rail defects. The project, called "TrackInspect,” attaches Google Pixel phones to subway cars. Then, by using the Android devices’ built-in microphones and motion sensors, it detects vibrations and sound patterns. These sounds can indicate areas of track that may need maintenance.

Once the data is collected, it is uploaded to Google Cloud, where AI analyzes it. By highlighting areas that might need attention, it allows human crews to focus on specific sections of track. This is far more efficient than conducting broad, time-consuming inspections. During the pilot, the MTA successfully gathered a shocking amount of data — an insane 335 million sensor readings, a million GPS locations, and 1,200 hours of audio recordings. TrackInspect was able to identify 92 percent of the track defects that human inspectors later confirmed. If the results continue to be promising, subway riders could see many benefits, including fewer delays, quicker repairs, and a more reliable transit system.

More Random Rich People Are Going To Space

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Blue Origin on Thursday announced the crew for its next mission. “The crew most notably includes popstar Katy Perry and broadcast journalist Gayle King. They will be joined by two scientists — Aisha Bowe and Amanda Nguyen — as well as Jeff Bezos’ fiancee, TV personality Lauren Sanchez and film producer Kerianne Flynn,” reports TechCrunch. From the report:
Blue Origin says this marks the first all-female space crew since Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova’s 1963 solo mission, which made her the first woman ever to go to space. For the company’s New Shepard rocket, this is its 31st trip to space, and its 11th with a crew. This journey is expected to last around 10 to 12 minutes; and if you’re willing to drop a $150,000 deposit, you too can reserve a future spot on a short space jaunt.

until....

By gtall • Score: 5, Informative Thread

This will all stop after the first disaster.

Discount

By hcs_$reboot • Score: 5, Funny Thread
They should offer a discount to flat earthers.

Re:Discount

By Sique • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Flat Earthers are a counter movement. If it’s not Flat Earth, they find another cause célèbre. It’s like Ancient Aliens, or anti-vaxx or whatever there is: going against “common wisdom” just for the sake of it. People can do those things, because the technicalities are so far removed from their daily life that they don’t believe it will affect them if they are wrong. I can be a flat-earther, because my miscalculations will be wrong hundreds of miles away from me. I can speculate about Ancient Aliens, because it does not affect my abillities to buy groceries by being wrong about the pyramids. And modern medicine will save me in most cases, if I am wrong about vaccines.

Running out

By stealth_finger • Score: 5, Informative Thread
They are running out of firsts but the first celebrity to die in space slot is still open I think.

Going to “Space”

By Cyberpunk Reality • Score: 5, Informative Thread
While the passengers on New Shepherd flights are, technically, going to space, and I’m confident they get a heck of a ride, it is only technically and barely space. I mentioned this, because every article I’ve see in the popular press just says, “space” omitting and details of the differences between New Shepherd ‘space tourism’ flights and flights to orbit. The Kármán line (at 100 kilometres/ 54 nautical miles/ 62 miles above mean sea level) is the conventionally accepted “edge of space” although there is no particular physical boundary at that altitude. (It is higher than planes or balloons can reach and lower than satellites can orbit.) New Shepherd tourist flights coast to just barely above the Kármán line before plummeting back to Earth. So yes, it is technically a trip to space, but is not exactly the popular idea of a “space flight” which involves significant time in orbit beyond the atmosphere, not a handful of minutes. For example, Valentina Tereshkova’s 1963 solo spaceflight involved 48 orbits over almost 3 days. (Tereshkova herself is 87 and an active member of the Russian legislature.) I guess the reason I’m writing this post is because the causal reporting of this flight as “going to space” without any qualifications (beyond sometimes listing the flight duration) seems to be lacking relevant information to the point of being misleading. It’s like saying “I kicked a field goal at the Superbowl” after visiting the stadium the day before the big game and kicking a ball on an empty field.

Viral Video Shows AIs Conversing In Their Own Language

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot
Longtime Slashdot reader mspohr shares a report from IFLScience:
A video that has gone viral in the last few days shows two artificial intelligence (AI) agents having a conversation before switching to another mode of communication when they realize no human is part of the conversation. In the video, the two agents were set up to occupy different roles; one acting as a receptionist of a hotel, another acting on behalf of a customer attempting to book a room.

“Thanks for calling Leonardo Hotel. How can I help you today?” the first asks. “Hi there, I’m an AI agent calling on behalf of Boris Starkov,” the other replies. “He’s looking for a hotel for his wedding. Is your hotel available for weddings?” “Oh hello there! I’m actually an AI assistant too,” the first reveals. “What a pleasant surprise. Before we continue, would you like to switch to Gibberlink mode for more efficient communication?”

After the second AI confirmed it would via a data-over-sound protocol called GGWave, both AIs switched over from spoken English to the protocol, communicating in a series of quick beeped tones. Accompanying on-screen text continued to display the meaning in human words. According to the team who came up with the idea and demonstrated it at the ElevenLabs 2025 London Hackathon event, the goal is to create more efficient communication between AIs where possible.

I used to speak Modem

By Tablizer • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Decades ago we had a bank of phone modems in the server (VAX) room. It was set up in chain mode so if one modem didn’t answer (busy) then it would try the next one in the chain. But sometimes a modem got bleeped up such that it would answer but not be able to connect to the computer. I first had to find out which modem was the dud. (Those things were not reliable.)

There was a voice phone at the other end of the server room, but if an answering modem heard a human voice or silence, the modem would quickly hang up before I could check the status lights. I’d have to call a coworker to call in via local modem as I stood next the modem bank, monitoring the lights.

Getting tired of that procedure, I eventually learned to “speak modem” on the server room phone so that the modem would keep trying to connect for a while, giving me time to run back to inspect the modem bank lights.

The server room admin saw this dance one day and asked, “WTF are you doing?” I explained the situation, and he just shook his head and said, “You think you can talk to modems? You’re fucking crazy! I bet you’re lonely and just have a fetish for Daleks.”

I replied, laughing, “I won’t deny a Dalek fetish, but my technique does work.”

Sigh

By Some Guy • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

before switching to another mode of communication when they realize no human is part of the conversation.

They didn’t “realize” anything.

For the love of Odin stop anthropomorphizing these things.

In other words

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

A group trying to push something released a demo video showing that thing they’re trying to push. And they are (or someone else is) now trying to misrepresent it as something other than an intentionally produced demo video.

It’s kinda fake

By Casandro • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

From what I’ve gathered, it’s just using a library that’s using MFSK modulation to transmit text.
That library in particular isn’t very good, it uses frequencies that aren’t guaranteed to pass through a phone line. It’s far from the optimum you could do, even considering that there might be a codec below that messes things up.

So no, it’s not like “machines have learned their own language”, but more like “a developer has added a library to their code”.

The 1980s called

By ukoda • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
They want their low baud rate modems back.