Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. United Airlines Bans AI Agents From Booking Flights On Behalf of Travelers
  2. Jensen Huang Said to Have Had Relationship With Nvidia Executive Who Reports to Him
  3. Nvidia and Jensen Huang Face Shareholder Lawsuit Alleging Investors Were Misled About Spy Affair
  4. New York Forces T-Mobile to End Data Caps On Low-Income Plans
  5. Ukraine Strikes Cause Permanent Data Loss at Russia’s Yandex Cloud
  6. Court Says Trump Can’t Use Leaks To Justify Spying On Journalists’ LinkedIn DMs
  7. Logitech Giving All 7,000 Employees the Day Off to Play GTA 6
  8. Apple Is Killing Its Support Community Forum Next Week
  9. Amazon’s Ring Unveils Flying Drone and Robot To Patrol Homes and Businesses
  10. GTA VI Is Now Available For Preloading
  11. US and Rest of World Must Follow China’s Lead On Green Energy, Says John Kerry
  12. M John Harrison Becomes First Sci-Fi Author To Win Booker Prize
  13. Google Fi Brings Back Network Switching With ‘Secondary’ Partner
  14. Fireworks AI Confirms Wider Breach Affecting Notion AI Chats
  15. New York Launches Nation’s First State AI Testing Program

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.

United Airlines Bans AI Agents From Booking Flights On Behalf of Travelers

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
United Airlines is banning unauthorized third-party AI agents from booking flights, checking in passengers or making account changes on travelers’ behalf. CBS News reports:
To make an airline booking, an AI agent requires access to a customer’s personal information, including credentials like payment information. United has a problem with that, saying that “sharing account credentials with personal, third-party, AI assistants can expose sensitive information, and actions taken by these tools may result in unintended purchases, account changes, or use of MileagePlus miles.”

The carrier also said that using an AI agent to, for example, check in for a flight could violate federal regulations, including rules requiring travelers to verify in person that their luggage does not contain banned substances. “As a result, United is taking steps to restrict access — directly within our digital platforms and indirectly via travel agencies and aggregators — to prohibit use by unauthorized, third-party personal AI agents or assistants,” said the airline, which is updating its booking and ticketing policies to reflect the new rule.
“United is saying they don’t want to add yet another, and potentially even more powerful, intermediary than they already face in terms of Google search, price-comparison metasearch sites and online travel agencies,” said Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst at Atmosphere Research Group. “Flight searches cost airlines money, and undoubtedly United wants to avoid the expense associated with the surge of AI bot flight searches.”

Jensen Huang Said to Have Had Relationship With Nvidia Executive Who Reports to Him

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is facing scrutiny over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. Now, The New York Times reports that Mr. Huang also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care and a direct report, raising questions about conflicts of interest and compliance with the company’s policies governing personal relationships. From the report:
The relationship, which has not been previously reported, was with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, said the people, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information. Under Nvidia’s code of conduct, employees are told to “avoid situations where our actions create conflict” including “personal relationships,” and the company states that it “promptly investigates reports of misconduct.” Many corporations have policies against managers having relationships with subordinates.

Mr. Huang, 63, and Ms. Powell, 48, were captured on video being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during a Nvidia conference in March, according to two of the people who worked at the company. The New York Times has not seen the video. Both Mr. Huang and Ms. Powell are married to other people. […] One bystander captured the interaction on their phone, three people briefed on the incident said. Mr. Huang’s security witnessed the bystander with their phone and sequestered them, the people said. They made the person an offer to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Further reading: Nvidia and Jensen Huang Face Shareholder Lawsuit Alleging Investors Were Misled About Spy Affair

If true....

By CommunityMember • • Score: 3 • Thread
If the report is true (and it is just a report, but the NYTimes says it was corroborated by five people) that usually means that the executive will soon be “spending more time with their family”.

Re:If true....

By russotto • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

Huang’s not a peon who can be fired by HR; he can only be fired by the board, and only in accordance with his contract, which is no doubt quite favorable to him.

Executives sleeping with Chinese spies is news. Them sleeping with the help is pretty much Tuesday.

Raises questions for sure

By _dj6_ • • Score: 3, Interesting • Thread
This whole Jensen Huang thing raises some additional questions. Like why now? Who is really behind canceling him and why? Because it sure seems like this stuff was known about for quite some time and the powers that be left it sit on the shelf. So why did they decide it was time to cancel him? Was he too cozy with Elon? Is this maybe just one move in a bigger plan to constrain SpaceX? Or could they have someone waiting in the wings to take over NVIDIA? Or could it be just lawyers and investors that want a pay day via an investor lawsuit? I can’t help wondering what else might really be going on here. There are no doubt hundreds of Chinese sex spies operating around elite individuals at all times. Why bring down this particular target at this particular time? See what I mean?

At least Tesla and SpaceX are safe

By dskoll • • Score: 4, Funny • Thread

… because even spies have their standards.

Re:If true....

By thegarbz • • Score: 4, Insightful • Thread

Executives sleeping with Chinese spies is news. Them sleeping with the help is pretty much Tuesday.

Yes and on Wednesday most Executives sleeping with the help get fired by the board. Intel, bp, Nestle, McDonalds, and NBC just to name the first few to show up in a google search have all lost CEOs this past decade alone due to relationships with subordinates. Most CEO contracts offer precisely zero defence against conflict of interest violations.

Most companies have insanely strict rules about this and hold top management to them far more critically than lower level employees as the impact of a potential conflict of interest and the legal ramifications get worse the higher up the chain you get. The Chinese spy on the other hand is unfortunate but defensible given that it wasn’t an internal undisclosed company relationship and very much a case of being professionally played by an external nation state actor.

Nvidia and Jensen Huang Face Shareholder Lawsuit Alleging Investors Were Misled About Spy Affair

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Charlotte Web shares a report from the Associated Press:
A shareholder has sued Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, accusing them of deceiving investors in their responses to media reports about Huang’s affair with a purported Chinese spy that threatens national security. […] The news reports said that the Commerce Department was investigating Alice Huang’s company, Singapore-based Megaspeed, on suspicions that it was helping to sidestep U.S. export restrictions blocking Nvidia chips from being sold to China. But Nvidia said then that its compliance team checked and determined that Megaspeed wasn’t doing anything illegal.

But, according to the complaint, the statements were misleading because they were made when Jensen Huang was having an affair with Alice Huang, who is “suspected of seeking to help smuggle Nvidia products into China.” It accuses Nvidia and Huang of failing to disclose the affair and issuing false statements about Nvidia’s relationship with Megaspeed, which posed a “material risk” to Nvidia’s reputation and business prospects.

[…] “As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” the complaint said. Had investors known the truth, they wouldn’t have purchased Nvidia’s shares “at the artificially inflated prices that they did, or at all,” the complaint said.
“Fun fact: Nvidia donated $25 million to Trump’s White House ballroom fund,” notes Slashdot reader Charlotte Web.

UPDATE: The New York Times reports that Huang also also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care and a direct report.

But, the Video Cards…

By groebke • • Score: 3 • Thread

Here is to seeing pricing and scarcity both dropping…

LOL, I know, I made myself laugh.

Investors: We love this manipulative, lying shit!

By locater16 • • Score: 3 • Thread
*Manipulative lying shit does something bad for the investors. Investors “wait, not like that!”

New York Forces T-Mobile to End Data Caps On Low-Income Plans

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
New York has forced T-Mobile to remove a 50GB monthly data cap from its $15 low-income broadband plan after regulators found customers who exceeded the limit had their speeds cut by more than 97%, to just 650 Kbps. “Additionally, the [Office of the Attorney General (OAG)] found T-Mobile restricted [New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA)] plans to areas with 5G coverage, despite offering standard-rate 25 Mbps plans in 4G areas, and intentionally coded its website to hide affordable plans from search engines,” reports RochestFirst. From the report:
Under the terms of the settlement, T-Mobile must:

- Eliminate data caps on its ABA plans and deliver guaranteed 25 Mbps download speeds.
- Expand ABA plan availability to all geographic areas where it offers fixed-wireless home internet service.
- Make its ABA webpage indexed and easily discoverable via standard web searches.

Re:Seems like a good way to…

By Rujiel • • Score: 4, Insightful • Thread
Holy illusion of scarcity, batman!

Re:Seems like a good way to…

By bill_mcgonigle • • Score: 4, Interesting • Thread

They could have set the QoS tag to the lowest level for capped welfare accounts but it sounds like they just wanted to be dicks about it.

Had they behaved decently it’s unlikely NY would have taken notice. Maybe other providers will take notice?

I dunno, patronize a better company if you can find one. Higher prices will likely nudge customers to switch even if they don’t know the cause.

Data caps are the worst.

By outsider007 • • Score: 4, Funny • Thread

Imagine being too poor to jerk off.

Ukraine Strikes Cause Permanent Data Loss at Russia’s Yandex Cloud

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Russia’s Yandex says 2.84% of customer data has been permanently lost following Ukrainian strikes on data centers in the country. “According to the company, recovery is impossible because of critical damage to equipment and the lack of backup copies on the platform,” reports UNITED24 Media. From the report:
Yandex clarified that customers who had previously enabled the platform’s backup tools did not experience any data loss, as their information remained fully preserved. The incident has prompted the company to revise its approach to data protection and disaster recovery, particularly the default settings for cloud infrastructure. Under the updated policy, automatic backups will be enabled by default whenever customers create new virtual machines on Yandex Cloud. Users will retain the option to disable the feature manually through the management console. In addition to changing its backup policy, Yandex Cloud announced the launch of a new availability zone, designated ru-central1-f. The new availability zone operates from a separate location, improving the resilience and reliability of the services.
The report says Ukrainian drones targeted three Yandex data centers in Russia over four days, beginning October 8 with a strike on a facility in the Ryazan region that houses two of the company’s three supercomputers. A second attack hit Yandex’s largest data center in the Kaluga region on October 9, followed by a third strike on October 11 targeting a facility in the Vladimir region that houses the company’s remaining supercomputer.

Not terrible, which is too bad

By abulafia • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread
I expected this to be worse.

DR scenarios that we rehearse do not (yet?) include drone attacks; at a bare minimum we’d need to physically relocate backup machines, which would also require adding rather large pipes we could dedicate to backup traffic. After that we’d probably need think about redundancy - drones can attack multiple sites at once. And after that, we’d need to think about multiregion setups for resiliency against flying bombs, not just overworked engineers.

That all starts getting expensive very quickly; I doubt Yandex did any of that. So maybe they just got lucky, or maybe they were clever, hard to tell.

Too bad it weren’t worse. But drones are cheap and Ukraine is very competent and getting more so, so there’s hope for a round II.

Re: Not terrible, which is too bad

By newcastlejon • • Score: 4, Insightful • Thread
There are only two ways that Putin will leave The Kremlin: in a coffin or a body bag. Either way it will be feet first.

When can we force Putin to end this awful war ?

By greytree • • Score: 3, Interesting • Thread
It is unbelievable that Putin is STILL sending his men in their hundreds of thousands to die in the meat grinder.

Is there anything the democrats can do to force an end to it, or will Trump be able to let it continue, either because he hates Zelensky so much or because he has been compromised by Putin ?

Court Says Trump Can’t Use Leaks To Justify Spying On Journalists’ LinkedIn DMs

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
The Trump administration’s fight to stop suspected leaks of top-secret military information on LinkedIn can’t sweep in “a vast number of confidential sources” of random journalists “who have no conceivable relationship” to the Department of Justice’s investigation, an appeals court ruled (PDF) Tuesday. The order came after the DOJ asked LinkedIn to turn over 18 months of communications from targeted journalists who collectively published more than 1,000 articles on many different topics over that time period. The request was not limited to journalists involved in a controversial report from a news outlet that Trump said exposed confidential military information in a foreign country. (The outlet is not being named to protect national security secrets.) Instead, the DOJ cast a wide net, requesting extensive LinkedIn data on journalists who had any possible link to the journalists around the time the report was drafted.

The majority of journalists have LinkedIn accounts and publish their contact information to encourage sources to connect on the platform, LinkedIn argued. So allowing that government overreach went beyond harming targeted journalists and threatened to undermine a critical platform where journalists frequently connect with confidential sources, judges ruled. Even more concerning, the Trump administration secured a secrecy order barring LinkedIn from telling anyone about the sweeping request for a year. That left journalists unaware for far too long that their First Amendment rights had been compromised, judges ruled.
“A request by the government to scoop up reporters’ records wholesale and ascertain the identity of their sources would tip the balance against informed discourse in a manner inimical to democratic health,” Wilkinson wrote. He criticized the lower court for approving the request simply because the records were technically feasible to collect, emphasizing that “serious security and speech claims are in tension in this case. There is space under law for both.”
While declining to quash the order entirely, Wilkinson also directed the lower court to reconsider a limited exception to the government’s secrecy order that would allow LinkedIn to notify an attorney representing the news outlet under investigation.

Bruce D. Brown, President of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), celebrated the ruling, saying: “This ruling is a big deal and will quickly become one of the leading opinions in the area — one we will be quoting from it for a long time. The court recognized that confidential sources are the ‘lifeblood’ of investigative reporting and that dragnet demands from technology companies to reveal those sources violate the law.”

The outlet is not being named

By pla • • Score: 3 • Thread

The outlet is not being named to protect national security secrets

Can we please not do that shit?

It was almost certainly Dave Philipps and Matthew Cole’s 20250905 NYT article about a failed 2019 attempt by SEAL Team 6 to bug Best Leader when they unwisely chose to blow a random fishing vessel out of the water. Unsurprisingly, that wasn’t a great way to stay hidden during what was supposed to be the most covert of ops.

The calls

By ArchieBunker • • Score: 3 • Thread

are coming from inside the house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Logitech Giving All 7,000 Employees the Day Off to Play GTA 6

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Under a new "Logi Game Day” initiative, Logitech is giving all 7,000 of its employees an extra paid day off to play GTA 6 when it launches on November 19. Employees and interns can use the day off anytime over the next year. Tom’s Hardware reports:
As for Logitech, the company believes that it’s time for people to move away from the belief that playing games is a waste of time, hence its new initiative. It makes sense for a company that makes gaming accessories to say that, of course, but CEO Hanneke Faber argues that the company sees “how engagement in one sphere supports performance in the other.” The hope will be that, by allowing employees to play games, a productivity boost will follow.

Happens in Japan

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • • Score: 3 • Thread
Often when a highly anticipated video game is released, the schools close down for the day.

They *all* have accounts?

By fahrbot-bot • • Score: 3 • Thread

giving all 7,000 of its employees an extra paid day off to play GTA 6

Made me think if this exchange from South Park, “Make Love, Not Warcraft” (S10E08) between Randy, the president of Blizzard Entertainment and their Board members:

President (Blizzard Entertainment): We’re too late. Without the sword the players will fail.

Board Member 1: I-if we could get to a computer, we could sign on to the World of Warcraft and give the boys the sword online.

President: I don’t have a World of Warcraft account. Do you?

Member 1: No, I have a life. [other board members fall silent]

Randy: Give me the sword.

Bejesus - Beer and Circuses

By butt0nm4n • • Score: 3 • Thread

Really? It’s just a game ffs.

I’ve worked with people who took a weeks holiday to play the latest GTA.

As cultural event’s go, what does this one tell us? We all want to be criminals and get away with it?

If society is so fucked, you fantasise about dropping out and breaking it, here’s an idea, spend that time trying to change yourself and society, the real world is so much more fun, you can live and feel it.

That’s what the rich folks do.

All the freedom to pick up the chains of your choice.

Re:Happens in Japan

By tlhIngan • • Score: 4, Informative • Thread

Often when a highly anticipated video game is released, the schools close down for the day.

Sony very famously scheduled the PS2 launch in Japan to happen right after exams - so schools would finish for the year and exams are over and a shiny new PS2 for you the next day.

Re:Bejesus - Beer and Circuses

By Gilgaron • • Score: 4, Insightful • Thread
A floating holiday designated for video gaming in a company that sells gaming peripherals is pretty easy marketing. It may not even be an additional floating holiday to the pool that regular office staff have anyhow at many employers.

Apple Is Killing Its Support Community Forum Next Week

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Apple is shutting down its Apple Support Community forum on November 20, ending a user-to-user support platform whose history stretches back to the 1998 launch as the Apple Tech Exchange. The forum is already read-only, and Apple has not said whether the nearly three decades of community posts will be preserved or disappear when the site closes. Here’s the full banner notice that’s currently displayed on the website:
“The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state. You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site. We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.”
Apple told MacRumors that it decided to sunset the forum after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs.

Evaluation

By drinkypoo • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

Apple told MacRumors that it decided to sunset the forum after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs.

What customers need is information, so Apple has decided to bury some, because customer needs run contrary to Apple greed.

I had a B&W G3 with the Rev.1 logic board defect which caused data corruption on UDMA transfers. Apple elected not to include their page on remedies when they brought the old TechInfo Library into their new Knowledge Base, because instead of replacing the defective hardware, they told you to buy an expansion card and use up one of your four slots for it, at a time when literally the same card was $20 for PC or $100 for Macintosh.

Hiding information is what Apple does. That’s how people can think their hardware is high quality.

Coded messaging

By KiltedKnight • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

“Apple … decided to sunset the forum after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs.”

In other words, “we don’t like our user community telling everyone how to fix things we can’t or won’t fix.”

It’s easier to ignore customers…

By Crudely_Indecent • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

if they have no method to communicate.

Ya, that Apple…

By ddtmm • • Score: 5, Interesting • Thread
I’m not surprised. As far as I am concerned, that was the entirety of Apple Support. In over 25 years I never got anywhere with Apple support directly. Anything I was able to figure out was through online research, and occasionally on this forum. Apple basically said, hey people, you figure it out yourselves. While Apple remains pretty lame on the support side, this at least was better than nothing.

Did they actually ever help with anything?

By shess • • Score: 5, Interesting • Thread

If you got good utility out of those forums, that’s great, but all I don’t think I ever found a solution there. I’d often end up there because it was a top hit on Google searches for whatever problem I was experiencing, but once I recognized the page layout I pretty much knew I was going to have to keep looking.

Amazon’s Ring Unveils Flying Drone and Robot To Patrol Homes and Businesses

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC:
Amazon’s Ring is going deeper into surveillance with an indoor drone for home monitoring and an autonomous robot designed to patrol businesses. The company on Tuesday unveiled the $250 Ring Drone Cam, a security camera that can fly from room to room, including upstairs, as well as capture footage during the day or at night. When an alarm or sensor on windows, doors and home security devices is triggered, the textbook-sized drone travels a preset path to investigate suspicious activity. Users can also deploy the drone at any time, the company said.

[…] The company on Tuesday also debuted the $1,000 Ring Rover Cam. The device repurposes Amazon’s Astro home robot, which had a short life as a business device and has seen few upgrades since its 2021 debut, for companies to use to patrol offices, warehouses and other workspaces. Ring said it “leveraged the best of Astro” to build the Ring Rover Cam, which it describes as a “purpose-built security robot.” Similar to the Astro, the device is a display mounted on a two-wheeled base with an extendable periscope camera. It also features a “built-in siren,” two-way audio and a “light tower” that shines onto the ceiling to help users keep track of its whereabouts.
The Ring Drone Cam ships in the U.S. on Jan. 27, while the Ring Rover Cam will begin shipping to users on Dec. 16.

Yes, sure!

By aglider • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

I an looking forward to fully trust these objects that can spy on my house with myself and my family in.

I am 110% sure there is no flaw, no backdoor and no CVE in the entire technology chain that will bring this marvel to my place!

Thanks!

Big Brother Drone

By brunes69 • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

Remember that Ring shares all of their data with law enforcement, without a warrant.

Do you really want the government to be able to fly a drone around your home taking pictures of whatever they want, when you are not around?

Talk about big brother creep factor. The only way I would ever allow a device like this into my home is if it was 100% locally controlled.

Re:Yes, sure!

By brunes69 • • Score: 5, Funny • Thread

Who needs a backdoor when it is Ring?

Ring allows law enforcement full access to their devices and data without a warrant.

What could go wrong?

By Crudely_Indecent • • Score: 4, Informative • Thread

With a arbitrary access to take video inside of my house, Amazon could:
target ads based on my actual lifestyle,
map layout for law enforcement,
map layout for anyone else who wants to pay for it,
identify contraband,
identify things Amazon overlords wish was contraband,
voyeurism

Yes, please map my home

By JustAnotherOldGuy • • Score: 4, Insightful • Thread

Yes, please map every detail my home and sell that data to whoever wants it so they can market to me or see if it’s worth burglarizing. Maybe capture some credit card numbers while you’re at it or scoop up some sensitive info that I foolishly left laying out in the open in my own home. Maybe the cops can use that info to stage a raid based on some bullshit claim that they think they saw a “dangerous device” or “possible drug paraphernalia” or “kiddie porn” or whatever they can come up with.

So yes, please video every inch of my home and send the data out to whoever wants to abuse it, yippee!!

GTA VI Is Now Available For Preloading

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Ancient Slashdot reader Lank writes:
GTA VI is now available for preloading. The download weighs in at a whopping 210+ gigabytes on the PS5! Start downloading now and remember to take Nov. 19th off from work.
“On Xbox, preloads for digital versions went live at 12 a.m. GMT on November 10 for Series X and Series S, which translates to 7 p.m. EST / 6 p.m. CST / 5 p.m. MST / 4 p.m. PT on Monday, November 9,” notes PCMag. “For PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro owners, preloading started on Tuesday, November 10 at midnight local time.”

“If you ordered a physical copy of GTA 6, games will begin arriving at retailers and shipping to buyers on November 12. You can use the code in your box to preload your copy of the game.”

Just started my download!

By dfarrow • • Score: 4, Funny • Thread
I can’t wait, I heard there is an awesome new ho-slapping mechanic in this one!

Re: Girl Boss game. BF == SIMP. GTA is GIRL BOSS S

By EldoranDark • • Score: 5, Funny • Thread
Wait till you hear about this fancy new game called Chess.

Re:Just started my download!

By pla • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread
There is, but we’re the hos.

“Quick, go burn a quarter terabyte preloading this… Then do it again when we issue a critical day-1 patch because you prebuying idiots just keep falling for the same trick over and over and over.”

“Physical Copy” is just a download

By tlhIngan • • Score: 4, Informative • Thread

There is no physical copy of the game. There is a box you can buy with game-related stuff, including a disc case that is empty.

The game is completely digital and requires a download - you get a code in the box that lets you get that download. But it won’t let you play it until it’s officially unlocked.

Now granted, for the money you pay at least you get some bits of paper and plastic, but it’s not like you can give it to someone else if they want to play it. You might give it away to someone else if they want some of the lore stuff, but the game they have to buy for their own account.

Unless you’re a fan, there really isn’t a reason to pre-order this since nothing is really “limited” (other than paper the plastic, I suppose). I mean, the extra fancy editions are available for purchase since a digital store never really runs out of stock.

That is our digital future. And honestly, I’d probably wait for a sale. If I wanted to gift it to a friend, I might even wait to see if it goes on sale first before the holidays. After all, whether I buy it on release day or Dec 25 there’s no difference other than potentially saving a few bucks.

US and Rest of World Must Follow China’s Lead On Green Energy, Says John Kerry

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot • Skip
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian:
China is leading the world in moving away from fossil fuels, and the rest of the globe — including the US — must now follow, the former US secretary of state John Kerry has told the Guardian, as Cop watchers wonder exactly how China is going to approach this year’s climate summit. As Cop31 opens — this year the climate conference is in Turkey — there is plenty of speculation about whether China will finally step into the leadership role that it has long avoided. In its latest “five-year plan” adopted in March 2026, China for the first time pledged to “actively participate in and lead global climate governance”. Cop31 could provide the first indications Beijing is ready to put that rhetoric into action, something it has historically been reluctant to do.

In 2025, clean-tech exports surpassed $220 billion, and they should grow again this year; the world’s largest emitter is now the world’s leading supplier of clean energy technology. China accounts for about 85% of solar and 80% of lithium-ion battery supply chain production capacity, and in 2025, nearly 75% of electric cars were manufactured there. Smart moves now by China would position it as a linchpin in a future electrostate world order, persuade rivals to cooperate, and solidify its influence in the global south.
“The only country that has hugely accelerated is China,” said Kerry. “The rest of the world is stumbling along while Mother Nature is sending us more powerful signals every week, every day.”
"[China] realized suddenly they had way too much dependency on oil and gas from other places, and they decided they needed to be independent. Other countries, since the war in Iran, and since the strait of Hormuz has been interrupted, have made a similar decision, and they’re moving independently. There’s been a massive uptick in deployment of renewables. Thank you, Donald Trump.”

For autocratic states without free and fair elections, seeing the economic benefits reaped by China would be the spur to adopt low-carbon growth, he added. “They’ll see where the market is going, and they will recognize where the cheaper alternatives are. Even they can read a spreadsheet, and understand where costs are exorbitant [in fossil fuels], and where you have a better deal,” Kerry said. “Right now, renewables together with storage, together with some transitional gas, is cheaper and more effective, than just going with fossil fuels.”

He added: “The marketplace has made its decision and globally is moving to electrons, and electrostate status. People are going to electricity and they’re going to try to do that as clean as humanly possible. That’s the choice that I see being implemented in many different places. It is unstoppable.”

Re:Renewables are the way to go

By Quantum gravity • • Score: 5, Informative • Thread
China’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions amount to 8.77 tonnes in 2025, 8.745 tonnes in 2024, and 8.65 tonnes in 2023, they are therefore increasing, and in absolute terms, they are nearly (though not quite) three times the level of declining US emissions.

Re:Renewables are the way to go

By r1348 • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

The Russian gas lobby (Schroeder anyone?) rode an understandable emotional public reaction to shift power generation from nuclear to gas. That didn’t pan out well could be the biggest euphemism of the century.

Re:Renewables are the way to go

By shilly • • Score: 5, Informative • Thread

The number of coal power stations isn’t the crucial thing, what’s important is the quantity being burned. That has peaked and is going down, because of two effects:
1. the new power stations are often replacements for older, less efficient ones
2. the new power stations are being used as peakers, not for baseload

Re:Renewables are the way to go

By AmiMoJo • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

Because China’s population is 1.4 billion people.

What’s more important is the rate of change. Every country goes along a curve where emissions increase, peak, and then drop. China was on the up slope as it industrialized, and is now starting on the down slope. The peak was far, far below where the US and Europe peaked per capita, the only reasonable measure unless you think their One Child policy was a good idea.

The rate at which China is installing renewables and storage is staggering. Just the newly installed renewable capacity from 2025 produced as much electrical energy as the whole of Germany consumed that year. Just the new stuff, and this year they are on track for it to be even more. They are adding more than a Germany sized amount of renewable generation to the grid, PER YEAR, and accelerating.

If Europe and the US were doing that too we would be in a much better position regarding climate change. It would doubtless be a huge boon for those economies as well.

Re:Renewables are the way to go

By AmiMoJo • • Score: 5, Insightful • Thread

What other fair measure is there? Unless you expect China to somehow reduce its population to US levels, per-capital is the only way to do it.

And let’s not forget that a lot of those emissions are things made for American companies and sold to Americans.

M John Harrison Becomes First Sci-Fi Author To Win Booker Prize

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
Eighty-one-year-old M John Harrison has won the Booker prize for The End of Everything, a postapocalyptic novel set on a near-future Kent coast, becoming the oldest winner in the award’s history. Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said that while plenty of previous winners had dabbled in science fiction, Harrison’s was “the first Booker winner to have emerged from the bona fide SF world.” She called it “a historic win, for a writer whose decades of work are lightly worn on every page”.

Harrison, who has been publishing for six decades, overtakes Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she shared the prize in 2019 for The Testaments. He received the 50,000-pound award and trophy at a ceremony in London on Monday evening. The End of Everything, Harrison’s first Booker nomination, is set a few decades from now, years after a disaster nobody can properly account for. Set on the Kent coast, the novel sees Phillip Tennent and his ageing aunt Marnie attempting to survive alongside the looming threat of the mysterious iGhetti: vast, shape-changing beings whose origins and intentions are never explained. At 198 pages, it was the shortest book on the shortlist.

Mary Beard, chair of the judges, said the decision was unanimous, reached after a full day of discussion. “It’s a book that turns you upside down, raises a wry smile — and surprisingly, given the subject matter, leaves you with a twinge of optimism,” she said. “One main point of the book is that if, or when, such an apocalypse comes it will be incomprehensible. And the old rules won’t matter either This is the politics of now seen through the lens of the future.”

Great writer, can’t recommend enough

By john83 • • Score: 5, Interesting • Thread
I found his The Centauri Device under the Gollantz SF Masterworks label. It’s a good read, and showcases his talents in describing visceral action and an urban landscape in decay without being nearly as challenging a read as his Kefahuchi Tract novels. The first of those, Light, was mindblowing for a younger me, maybe the first time I’d read something that well crafted in genre fiction. His Viriconium novels are worth a look too, if you prefer fantasy. The first one is almost normal, but they quickly get odd.

Don’t bother

By locater16 • • Score: 3 • Thread
The Booker Prize is solely for the pretentious, just like basically all these prizes. EG Pirenasi, the recent noted novel, accomplishes the same thing this book tries desperately hard for of presenting normalcy in a strange and unclear world, but does so in a way people love and rave about, it’s a best seller. This book is not a best seller, most reviewers are disappointed to hate it, and not in an interesting way like “oh this book is about someone that’s bad and I don’t like that” or “this book is too complicated I didn’t understand it” but in a “this book is pretentious ass”.

And that’s the Booker Prize, they nominate interesting books, then find the book no one will remember and most everyone dislikes, and give the prize to that, year after year, because that’s literary critics for you. If they didn’t pretend they were better than you they’d be nothing more than anyone else that reads a lot. The hugo and nebula awards have never gone to almost any truly famous and longstanding sci-fi or fantasy book you love. the Nobel Prize (yes there is one in literature) goes to some sob story about war or similar no one will remember by next year; and the books that people love and influence the world and go down in history win none of these. Literary prizes are for pretentious dipshits.

Ten Questions with M. John Harrison

By Mirnotoriety • • Score: 3 • Thread
Ten Questions with M. John Harrison

“M. John Harrison’s latest novel, The End of Everything (Serpent’s Tail), is set on the Kent coast in a future Britain in permanent crisis. Government barely functions, the sea is full of new creatures, Europe has been mislaid. A man makes his living collecting artefacts that wash up on the beach. When he fishes out an object he can’t keep – a creature that keeps changing – he must take it inland before it destroys everything he thinks he knows.”

Great to hear this

By hughbar • • Score: 3 • Thread
I’m old so I’ve been a fan since The Committed Men (1971) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… his first book. He’s varied his scope throughout a long career, last one I read was The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmi… , sort of British magical realism or a ghost story. Plenty to enjoy and some, but not all, is SF.

Re:Don’t bother

By Whibla • • Score: 5, Informative • Thread

The hugo and nebula awards have never gone to almost any truly famous and longstanding sci-fi or fantasy book you love.

Stranger in a Strange Land
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Dune
Ringworld
The Left Hand of Darkness
Rendezvous with Rama
Foundation’s Edge
Neuromancer
Foundation’s Edge
The Uplift War
Hyperion
Green Mars (and Blue Mars; and Red Mars if we include the Nebula awards)
American Gods
The Wind-up Girl
Redshirts
Ancillary Justice

I could go on…

Sure, your personal taste might not include all of the above, but to suggest that none, or practically none, of them are famous or have ‘longevity’ is laughable. I’d suggest that your own pretension has somewhat blinkered your vision and, as a result, rendered your opinion rather suspect.

Google Fi Brings Back Network Switching With ‘Secondary’ Partner

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Google Fi is bringing back network switching through an unnamed “secondary” 5G carrier. “Most users will be on the ‘Primary network,’ but Google Fi will automatically switch users to the ‘Secondary network’ if it meaningfully improves performance with so-called ‘smart thresholds’ for doing so,” reports 9to5Google. “At launch, there is no manual switching.” When Project Fi first launched the service included support with both Sprint and T-Mobile. That went away when T-Mobile acquired Sprint in 2020. 9to5Google reports:
Google is not naming the second network today, but did share that Ultra Wideband is supported. Officially, you are switching between “two of America’s fastest 5G networks.”

Fi Wireless does note that users have top priority, so data is never deprioritized on the Primary network. Meanwhile, there’s “highest QCI priority” on the backup network that means subscribers are among the last to be slowed down when there’s congestion. This is also available internationally when local partner networks are available with the Flexible and Unlimited Premium plans.

Network switching will first be supported on Pixel 9 and newer devices that have a Google Fi eSIM (and no other SIM active). It makes use of Android’s Multiple Enabled Profiles (MEP) eSIM technology that allows for two carrier profiles on a single chip. […] These Google Fi updates start rolling out today, with network switching seeing gradual availability.

It’s Verizon

By Powercntrl • • Score: 5, Informative • Thread

In case you don’t want to read TFA where they didn’t even bother to do the minimal amount of research required to determine if it’s AT&T or Verizon, according to Reddit, the new partner network is Verizon.

Die in a fire

By spaceman375 • • Score: 3 • Thread

I had a phone number for over ten years that I brought with me to a google Fi account. They cancelled my account when an email bounced. When I tried to recover my number, the helpful tech was about to get it back when he heard the word “husband” from my male partner. He hung up and lied in his comments that we were abusive. I got 5 months of deflection before I gave up. I loved that number: it was a prime number too.
Moral of the story: Don’t do business with GoogleFi specifically, but doing any business with google is risky at best and not a good idea.

Fireworks AI Confirms Wider Breach Affecting Notion AI Chats

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Fireworks AI says its October breach was broader than initially disclosed, with attackers gaining access to customer account and billing information as well as some datasets, incomplete model weights and secrets. Notion, the popular productivity and note-taking app, disclosed that it was impacted in the breach but “fewer than 1% of Notion workspaces” were involved. “Upon analysis of the new data, we discovered that it included Notion AI chat transcripts used for the Insights feature, which for the vast majority of impacted workspaces were unattributable,” it said. "‘Unattributable’ means the chats weren’t labeled with who wrote them or which workspace they came from, and the transcripts did not contain tool call results.” The Hacker News reports:
In a notice published on October 10, 2026, [Fireworks AI] said it detected unauthorized use of internal Fireworks credentials that allowed an unauthorized third-party to access environment variables used in evaluation jobs in a limited number of customer accounts. The activity was detected on October 6, 2026, at 9 a.m. PDT. […] The latest bulletin from the company reveals that the scope of the breach may have been broader than previously thought. The company said attackers reached its development environment via an unnamed third-party cloud provider that hosted Fireworks research and development (R&D) machines on October 23, 2026.

“On October 24, the unauthorized third party used it to reach Fireworks development machines and then run an unauthorized workload that led to additional customer data impact,” it added. “As of October 25, we have not detected further evidence of successful unauthorized access by the threat actor on the Fireworks platform customers use.” The breach is said to have provided access to the following types of information: [Resource metadata; Billing information; and Model weights and datasets]. Fireworks AI said payment card numbers are not stored by the company and were not impacted by the security incident. It also said it’s alerting customers whose data was impacted.

New York Launches Nation’s First State AI Testing Program

Posted by BeauHD • • View on SlashDot
New York is launching a state-backed AI safety research center at Binghamton University that will independently study and test AI systems, develop safety and security techniques, and train researchers in responsible AI. “While the federal government fails to act, New York is leading the way on AI safety and holding big tech accountable,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said. “The stakes are too high to simply take AI companies at their word.” Politico reports:
The center — which is funded by a $30 million gift from Bloomberg co-founder Tom Secunda and a $25 million research investment from SUNY and New York state — is set to launch before New York’s major AI safety law, the RAISE Act, comes into effect on Jan. 1. That will require submissions of detailed safety frameworks from AI companies operating in New York State, which Hochul’s office hopes will be scrutinized by researchers at the new center.

“AI is opening up questions that scientists could not tackle before,” said Secunda, who also serves as the board chair of Empire AI, a $500 million public-private partnership. “With Empire AI and researchers across New York, the Center can test systems independently and give public officials evidence they can use.”

Over 80 leading scientists and researchers on AI systems from across New York state will contribute to the effort, which will be run by the New York Center for AI Responsibility and Research at Binghamton University, according to details shared by Hochul’s office. The initiative will be led by Jeannette Wing, the executive vice president for research at Columbia University, and Greg Morrisett, the vice provost of Cornell Tech.

“We need new techniques that can be applied to this new kind of system with swarms of autonomous agents acting independently and without control. How can you first detect that they’re going to do harm, and how can you prevent them from doing harm?” said Wing. “The beauty of what’s being proposed is that this state is committing resources to really light this up.”

Rent seeking

By gillbates • • Score: 4, Interesting • Thread

We need new techniques that can be applied to this new kind of system with swarms of autonomous agents acting independently and without control. How can you first detect that they’re going to do harm, and how can you prevent them from doing harm?” said Wing. “The beauty of what’s being proposed is that this state is committing resources to really light this up.”

I know it’s old hat to talk about traditional software engineering techniques, especially when there’s the taxpayer’s purse to loot, but there already exist solutions to these problems. I get it - these folks would rather have someone else pay for their ignorance, but the beauty of AI is that it can be counted on to break in new and novel ways. It’s funny when AI swears when autocorrecting texts, but if you should find yourself blown to bits because you let AI control your air defense network, it’s hard to blame anyone except yourself.

AI is not some novel type of technology outside the realm of traditional formal proofs and testing regimes. The problem is that even testing conventional systems is expensive, and AI systems even moreso. So, the solution - in the case of New York - is to get the taxpayer to foot the bill (thereby socializing the losses) so that the profits can be privatized. The canard of “public safety” is hung like a sword of Damocles over the public at large so that those who would loot the public purse can do so without arousing the suspicions that they are doing just that.

It is remarkable how much harm can be prevented by autonomous systems when the politically-well connected are held responsible for their failures. Should Black Rock executives find themselves in prison because one of their companies’ AI systems accidentally microwaves a kitten (hypothetical example), the necessary corrections will be made post haste. But until that day, we can safely predict that the rich will never miss an opportunity to transfer responsibility from themselves to the public at large, and money from the public at large to themselves.

Who does New York think it is?

By outsider007 • • Score: 3 • Thread

California?