Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Senator Calls Out Texas For Trying To Steal Shuttle From Smithsonian
  2. AI-Trained Surgical Robot Removes Pig Gallbladders Without Any Human Help
  3. Ohio City Using AI-Equipped Garbage Trucks To Scan Your Trash, Scold You For Not Recycling
  4. Google Replaces Android Developer Preview With Rolling Canary Channel
  5. YouTube Can’t Put Pandora’s AI Slop Back in the Box
  6. Video Game Actors End 11-Month Strike With New AI Protections
  7. Qantas Confirms Data Breach Impacts 5.7 Million Customers
  8. Emirates Airline Adding Crypto Payments With Crypto.com Partnership
  9. German Court Rules Meta Tracking Tech Violates EU Privacy Laws
  10. Russia Blocks Ethical Hacking Legislation Over Security Concerns
  11. Gemini Can Now Turn Your Photos Into Video With Veo 3
  12. Indeed, Glassdoor To Cut 1,300 Jobs in AI-Focused Consolidation
  13. Physical Buttons Make Comeback on Mazda Steering Wheels as Company Adopts First Touchscreen
  14. Judge Throws Out Lawsuit Accusing Apple of Taking Bribes To Avoid Competing With Visa and Mastercard
  15. China is Building 74% of All Current Solar and Wind Projects

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.

Senator Calls Out Texas For Trying To Steal Shuttle From Smithsonian

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Senator Dick Durbin questioned a Texas-led effort to move Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston, describing it as an expensive “heist” costing an estimated $305 million, not the $85 million initially budgeted. “This is not a transfer. It’s a heist,” said Durbin during a budget markup hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “A heist by Texas because they lost a competition 12 years ago.” In April, Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz introduced legislation to move the Space Shuttle Discovery from Virginia to Houston, which ultimately passed into law on July 4 as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Ars Technica reports:
“In the reconciliation bill, Texas entered $85 million to move the space shuttle from the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, to Texas. Eighty-five million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it is not nearly what’s necessary for this to be accomplished,” Durbin said. Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once in Houston.

Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian’s collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred “all rights, interest, title, and ownership” for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian. “This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don’t have the right in Texas to claim this,” said Durbin. […]

To be able to bring up his points at Thursday’s hearing, Durbin introduced the “Houston, We Have a Problem” amendment to “prohibit the use of funds to transfer a decommissioned space shuttle from one location to another location.” He then withdrew the amendment after having voiced his objections. “I think we’re dealing with something called waste. Eighty-five million dollars worth of waste. I know that this is a controversial issue, and I know that there are other agencies, Smithsonian, NASA, and others that are interested in this issue; I’m going to withdraw this amendment, but I’m going to ask my colleagues be honest about it,” said Durbin. “I hope that we think about this long and hard.”

“I am glad to see this pass as part of the Senate’s One Big Beautiful Bill and look forward to welcoming Discovery to Houston and righting this egregious wrong,” Cornyn said in a statement. “Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation’s human space exploration program, and it’s long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing Space Shuttle Discovery home.”

Re:This is what goverment waste looks like

By Alain Williams • Score: 4 Thread

Do not worry - DOGE will identify this as inefficiency and stop it. At least in a sane world this is what would happen, however …

Home?

By pjt33 • Score: 3 Thread

bringing Space Shuttle Discovery home

Home? Has Discovery ever been in Texas? It was built in California and operated in Florida.

AI-Trained Surgical Robot Removes Pig Gallbladders Without Any Human Help

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
Automated surgery could be trialled on humans within a decade, say researchers, after an AI-trained robot armed with tools to cut, clip and grab soft tissue successfully removed pig gall bladders without human help. The robot surgeons were schooled on video footage of human medics conducting operations using organs taken from dead pigs. In an apparent research breakthrough, eight operations were conducted on pig organs with a 100% success rate by a team led by experts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the US. […]

The technology allowing robots to handle complex soft tissues such as gallbladders, which release bile to aid digestion, is rooted in the same type of computerized neural networks that underpin widely used artificial intelligence tools such as Chat GPT or Google Gemini. The surgical robots were slightly slower than human doctors but they were less jerky and plotted shorter trajectories between tasks. The robots were also able to repeatedly correct mistakes as they went along, asked for different tools and adapted to anatomical variation, according to a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Science Robotics. The authors from Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Columbia universities called it “a milestone toward clinical deployment of autonomous surgical systems.” […]

In the Johns Hopkins trial, the robots took just over five minutes to carry out the operation, which required 17 steps including cutting the gallbladder away from its connection to the liver, applying six clips in a specific order and removing the organ. The robots on average corrected course without any human help six times in each operation. “We were able to perform a surgical procedure with a really high level of autonomy,” said Axel Krieger, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins. “In prior work, we were able to do some surgical tasks like suturing. What we’ve done here is really a full procedure. We have done this on eight gallbladders, where the robot was able to perform precisely the clipping and cutting step of gallbladder removal without any human intervention. “So I think it’s a really big landmark study that such a difficult soft tissue surgery is possible to do autonomously.”
Currently, nearly all of the NHS’s 70,000 annual robotic surgeries are human-controlled, but the UK plans to expand robot-assisted procedures to 90% within the next decade.

quite bold to attempt this

By backslashdot • Score: 3 Thread

They had some gall.

Ohio City Using AI-Equipped Garbage Trucks To Scan Your Trash, Scold You For Not Recycling

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The city of Centerville, Ohio has deployed AI-enabled garbage trucks that scan residents’ trash and send personalized postcards scolding them for improper recycling. Dayton Daily News reports:
“Reducing contamination in our recycling system lowers processing costs and improves the overall efficiency of our collection,” City Manager Wayne Davis said in a statement regarding the AI pilot program. “This technology allows us to target problem areas, educate residents and make better use of city resources.” Residents whose items don’t meet the guidelines will be notified via a personalized postcard, one that tells them which items are not accepted and provides tips on proper recycling.

The total contract amount for the project is $74,945, which is entirely funded through a Montgomery County Solid Waste District grant, Centerville spokeswoman Kate Bostdorff told this news outlet. The project launched Monday, Bostdorff said. “A couple of the trucks have been collecting baseline recycling data, and we have been working through software training for a few weeks now,” she said. […] Centerville said it will continually evaluate how well the AI system works and use what it learns during the pilot project to “guide future program enhancements.”

Living in a condo complex…

By skam240 • Score: 3 Thread

Living in a condo complex with shared dumpsters for garbage and recycling has left me with a pretty negative impression in regards to the general public being able to tell what goes where.

Bad title

By markdavis • Score: 3 Thread

>“Ohio City Using AI-Equipped Garbage Trucks To Scan Your Trash, Scold You For Not Recycling”

No, that is not what the article says and not what the summary says. There is ZERO in there about scolding people about NOT recycling. They are scolding people who put incorrect junk into their recycling bins. Big difference.

Re:Wow combining two useless things I hate

By RazorSharp • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

There are certainly problems with recycling (including the plastic industry using it as a greenwashing strategy), but it’s still much better than just throwing everything in the trash.

While most the plastic people recycle doesn’t actually get recycled (and products made from recycled plastic are almost never made from 100% recycled plastic), metals are actually very recyclable. Furthermore, extracting metals from the earth is extremely environmentally hazardous, poorly regulated, and sometimes wrecks an ecosystem for generations by poisoning drinking water.

Just because the benefits of recycling have been greatly exaggerated doesn’t mean that it’s not a much better alternative than sending everything straight to the landfill. The biggest problem with recycling is that we don’t subsidize it enough and we don’t tax manufacturers heavily for producing stuff that’s not renewable. The basic idea of recycling is a good one. The problem is that we have let industry take the lead rather than environmental regulators (not that we even have those right now).

Despite that, if you don’t recycle just because it’s not nearly as effective as it should be, that’s really a dick move. Recycling is better than the alternative (not recycling). You gotta do what little you can.

Google Replaces Android Developer Preview With Rolling Canary Channel

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz:
Android is changing how it gives developers access to early features. The company is replacing its old Developer Preview model with a new Canary channel that provides rolling updates all year long. This new approach is meant to give developers earlier and more consistent access to experimental tools and APIs.

Previously, Developer Previews had to be manually flashed onto devices. They only ran during the earliest stages of each release cycle and stopped once Android entered the beta phase. That meant promising features that were not quite ready for beta had nowhere to go and no way to collect feedback. The Canary channel solves that by running in parallel with the existing beta program and delivering over the air updates automatically.

YouTube Can’t Put Pandora’s AI Slop Back in the Box

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Longtime Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a report from Gizmodo:
YouTube is inundated with AI-generated slop, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. Instead of cutting down on the total number of slop channels, the platform is planning to update its policies to cut out some of the worst offenders making money off “spam.” At the same time, it’s still full steam ahead adding tools to make sure your feeds are full of mass-produced brainrot.

In an update to its support page posted last week, YouTube said it will modify guidelines for its Partner Program, which lets some creators with enough views make money off their videos. The video platform said it requires YouTubers to create “original” and “authentic” content, but now it will “better identify mass-produced and repetitious content.” The changes will take place on July 15. The company didn’t advertise whether this change is related to AI, but the timing can’t be overlooked considering how more people are noticing the rampant proliferation of slop content flowing onto the platform every day.

The AI “revolution” has resulted in a landslide of trash content that has mired most creative platforms. Alphabet-owned YouTube has been especially bad recently, with multiple channels dedicated exclusively to pumping out legions of fake and often misleading videos into the sludge-filled sewer that has become users’ YouTube feeds. AI slop has become so prolific it has infected most social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Last month, John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight” specifically highlighted several YouTube channels that crafted obviously fake stories made to show White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a good light. These channels and similar accounts across social media pump out these quick AI-generated videos to make a quick buck off YouTube’s Partner Program.

You don’t need to hold back

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 3, Funny Thread

Why don’t you tell us how you really feel about this?

YouTube cares about nothing but $$$$

By NewtonsLaw • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

YouTube’s only concern these days is revenue and profit.

They breach their own community guidelines each and every day by running scam ads that continue to run despite hundreds or even thousand viewer-reports. Those ads run until the advertiser’s spend is exhausted — however if a creator (the life-blood of the platform) is falsely accused of “scams or deceptive practices” by YT’s AI then they’re gone in the blink of an eye.

They also allow AI spambots to post endless comments linking to porn pages/sites and claim that their AI can’t automatically detect such things — although that same AI, when unleashed on creator’s videos, constantly demonetizes anything that is deemed to be unsuitable.

I hate the AI dross that is overwhelming YT as much as anyone but I really have doubts that YT intends to do anything effective to stem its flow. You see, so long as AI-generated videos are getting eyeballs on ads, YouTube will be happy because they’ll be generating revenue and profits.

Let’s face it, YouTube is actually *encouraging* the use of AI on its platform. AI suggests ideas for new videos and will create thumbnails for you. VEO3 will even create shorts or entire videos on demand. Google wants to sell its AI services and is pitching them at YouTube creators so they’re not going to shoot themselves in the foot are they?

This is why I’m moving to self-hosting my own videos on an instance of PeerTube and I encourage other creators to do the same. When you self-host you have *FULL* control and you no longer have to worry about censorship or losing your entire community just because one of YT’s AI bots has runamok and identifies your cute cat videos as CSAM.

Has anybody else?

By skam240 • Score: 3 Thread

Has anybody else (who uses YouTube a good bit) never knowingly seen an AI generated video on YouTube? I ask because I hear all these accounts of AI generated slop ruining YouTube, meanwhile I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single video that came off as being AI generated.

It’s probably just my usage patterns but I’m genuinely curious in regards to how big a problem this really is as if it really is a big enough one it will eventually show up for me too.

It’s almost like…

By Luckyo • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

It’s almost like your feed is what you like to watch. Mine has “AI slop” only in the specific music genre I enjoy. As in specific type of music from themed from a specific sci-fi universe. And this “AI slop” is mostly excellent quality stuff. Good enough to grab the audio and put it on my phone to play in my car.

Everything else is still the same as always - channels I enjoy watching and their popular videos.

Now if you’re a low memory persistence, medium IQ dopamine addict, you may actually get a lot of AI slop in your feed. As in actual slop, not the good stuff. Because that’s what you actually like watching in short term, and then your low memory persistence means you fail to recognize it in before enough of the next video is watched by you so that algorithm assumes you’ll click on the next one too. Which it is correct in assuming, as your low memory persistence will get you to click on it again and again.

And just because you hate yourself for liking AI slop, doesn’t mean that youtube has a problem with AI slop. It’s a “you” problem, not a “youTUBE” problem.

Re:Has anybody else?

By Whateverthisis • Score: 4, Informative Thread
I see it all the time. I watch a lot of videos on science fiction and fantasy, like Quinn’s Ideas (I won’t link it but great channel). Real creators who are passionate about their topic are getting drowned out by similar content videos that, if you know the content, are clearly incorrect and use an AI generated voiceover. Many of them are well optimized for YouTube’s algorithm, so they get pulled up quickly in your feed and drown out the content creators; several creators are begging for likes and subscirbes now because they’ve seen their videos get drowned out in a flood of copycat material.

Video Game Actors End 11-Month Strike With New AI Protections

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Straight Arrow News:
Hollywood video game performers ended their nearly year-long strike Wednesday with new protections against the use of digital replicas of their voices or appearances. If those replicas are used, actors must be paid at rates comparable to in-person work. The SAG-AFTRA union demanded stronger pay and better working conditions. Among their top concerns was the potential for artificial intelligence to replace human actors without compensation or consent.

Under a deal announced in a media release, studios such as Activision and Electronic Arts are now required to obtain written consent from performers before creating digital replicas of their work. Actors have the right to suspend their consent for AI-generated material if another strike occurs. “This deal delivers historic wage increases, industry-leading AI protections and enhanced health and safety measures for performers,” Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, said in the release. The full list of studios includes Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions and WB Games.

SAG-AFTRA members approved the contract by a vote of 95.04% to 4.96%, according to the announcement. The agreement includes a wage increase of more than 15%, with additional 3% raises in November 2025, 2026 and 2027. The contract expires in October 2028. […] The video game strike, which started in July 2024, did not shut down production like the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike in 2023. Hollywood actors went on strike for 118 days, from July 14 to November 9, 2023, halting nearly all scripted television and film work. That strike, which centered on streaming residuals and AI concerns, prevented actors from engaging in promotional work, such as attending premieres and posting on social media. In contrast, video game performers were allowed to work during their strike, but only with companies that had signed interim agreements addressing concerns related to AI. More than 160 companies signed on, according to The Associated Press. Still, the year took a toll.

My thoughts on this are....

By zurkeyon • Score: 3 Thread
That what happened to people like Prince and others where they had unknowingly sold their very name away to corporate interest, should NEVER be allowed to happen again. This is one of a set of steps that should be taken to insure that each and every person, regardless of nation or status, should forever retain the rights to their own likeness and self image. To take this from a person, is to take away their very being. And should never be allowed. Even WITH their permission. It should be deemed a “Step too far” and a level of permanence that no living person should accept when it comes to selling their very identity. Only a person with a sick soul, and nothing left to lose, or the willingness to “Sell their soul” would agree to such a thing. And such a thing should be considered as those persons “not being in their right mind” and that they should be prevented from taking this “Forever” step into nothingness… Just my 2 cents. No offence intended to anyone. Just an opinion. From one human to another.

Copying voices is lame

By Z80a • Score: 3 Thread

The best use for AI voice generation is to tailor the voices to sound exactly like you want, instead of picking from a handful of voice actors and asking em to try to fit the character somehow.
Add challenges like having to voice over hundreds of different characters, and i can see where AI voices would really help.

“enhanced health and safety measures”?

By MacMann • Score: 3 Thread

The fine article states the voice actors for video games asked for “enhanced health and safety measures” as part of the negotiations. I have little to base any assumptions on but from what I’ve seen in behind-the-scenes videos and photos the voice actors appear to be in a climate controlled recording studio of sorts. Sometimes its acting in a motion capture suit inside a room that’s painted in chroma key green or blue. Just how much was impacting their health and safety to begin with?

Maybe there’s elaborate props and sets built for some of the cut scenes in video games, elaborate enough to cause serious injury such as Harrison Ford breaking his leg when a large door closed on him. How often does that happen though? And was this something worthy of inclusion on a contract for voice acting, motion capture, or whatever else it is that actors do for video games?

Qantas Confirms Data Breach Impacts 5.7 Million Customers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Qantas has confirmed that 5.7 million customers have been impacted by a recent data breach through a third-party platform used by its contact center. The breach, attributed to the Scattered Spider threat group, exposed various personal details but did not include passwords, financial, or passport data. BleepingComputer reports:
In a new update today, Qantas has confirmed that the threat actors stole data for approximately 5.7 million customers, with varying types of data exposed in the breach:

4 million customer records are limited to name, email address and Qantas Frequent Flyer details. Of this:
- 1.2 million customer records contained name and email address.
- 2.8 million customer records contained name, email address and Qantas Frequent Flyer number. The majority of these also had tier included. A smaller subset of these had points balance and status credits included.

Of the remaining 1.7 million customers, their records included a combination of some of the data fields above and one or more of the following:
- Address - 1.3 million. This is a combination of residential addresses and business addresses including hotels for misplaced baggage delivery.
- Date of birth - 1.1 million
- Phone number (mobile, landline and/or business) - 900,000
- Gender - 400,000. This is separate to other gender identifiers like name and salutation.
- Meal preferences - 10,000

Emirates Airline Adding Crypto Payments With Crypto.com Partnership

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Dubai-based airline Emirates is partnering with Crypto.com to integrate Bitcoin payments into the airliner’s payment systems and add NFT collectibles on the company’s websites for trading. The airline is also hiring staff to support its blockchain, crypto, and metaverse ambitions, positioning itself at the forefront of digital transformation in aviation.

“NFTs and metaverse are two different applications and approaches,” explained Emirates Chief Operating Officer Adel Ahmed Al-Redha, adding that the airline will also seek to use the blockchain in tracing records of aircraft. “With the metaverse, you will be able to transform your whole processes — whether it is in operation, training, sales on the website, or complete experience — into a metaverse type application, but more importantly making it interactive.”

The official integration of crypto payments is expected to take place next year, according to the announcement.

I ask in all seriousness

By Zontar_Thing_From_Ve • Score: 3 Thread
So back in the days of the sub-prime mortgage bubble bursting, I read an online article from a guy who gets paid to write online articles about investing. He said that his dad told him “Son, when stupid money enters a market, it’s time to leave that market.” He said he realized that the property market and everything around it was going to burst when he went to a restaurant he liked to eat at and his favorite waitress gave him a card showing that she was now also a real estate agent on the side. Here’s my question.

Hasn’t even stupid money figured out that there’s no money to be made in NFTs? I get why Emirates may want to take Bitcoin payments because it is theoretically possible that by doing so, they’ll make more money over time if Bitcoin goes up in value. But I really don’t get why they think anybody is going to want to buy their NFTs. I thought they were supposed to be one of the smart airlines, but here they are arriving at the NFT party years after it closed down.

This is the Middle East trying to diversify

By MacMann • Score: 3 Thread

For many nations in the Middle East they don’t have much of an economy beyond what they get in exporting petroleum. With increasing demand for natural gas, primarily in Europe, they started to export LNG but that’s had some issues with attacks on shipping in the area.

Many of the Middle East nations are trying to diversify their economies to continue to attract foreign money. They are trying tourism, sports, and varied forms of entertainment. This can explain the desire to take payments by crypto-currency, there’s money to be had in alternative currency and they want some of it. Some of the other things they are trying are services like banking (there’s crypto there too), education, medical services (with medical tourism being a thing), and more I’m certainly missing.

There’s a cultural clash for much of this though. This is a region dominated by Islam, and that is a religion that is known for not getting along with other religions. Or even getting along with sects within its own religion. The opportunity for cultural clashes were minimal so long as it is petroleum flowing out and commodities like food and building materials flowing in. That changes if they plan to offer their nation as a tourist destination. How do they expect this to work out when their guests ask for a beer and a bacon cheeseburger? If they don’t provide this kind of food and drink then that’s going to cut into who is willing to show up. If they do provide this then how do they make that fit their own cultural beliefs and customs?

Doing more to attract tourists, such as with differing payment options, is a sign that the region is opening up to greater tolerance of differing cultures. These cultural clashes have been going on for centuries though, are people from around the world to expect a vacation in the UAE to be safe and enjoyable?

German Court Rules Meta Tracking Tech Violates EU Privacy Laws

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record:
A German court has ruled that Meta must pay $5,900 to a German Facebook user who sued the platform for embedding tracking technology in third-party websites — a ruling that could open the door to large fines down the road over data privacy violations relating to pixels and similar tools. The Regional Court of Leipzig in Germany ruled Friday that Meta tracking pixels and software development kits embedded in countless websites and apps collect users’ data without their consent and violate the continent’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The ruling in favor of the plaintiff sets a precedent which the court acknowledged will allow countless other users to sue without “explicitly demonstrating individual damages,” according to a Leipzig Regional Court press release. “Every user is individually identifiable to Meta at all times as soon as they visit the third-party websites or use an app, even if they have not logged in via the Instagram and Facebook account,” the press release said.
“This may very well be one of the most substantial rulings coming out of Europe this year,” said Ronni K. Gothard Christiansen, the CEO of AesirX, a consultancy which helps businesses comply with data privacy laws. "$5,900 in damages for one visitor adds up quickly if you have tens of thousands of visitors, or even millions.”

you are the product

By Dr. Tom • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

there is a word for when you buy and sell people
‘s information

US Companies Are Illegal

By AncalagonTotof • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
According to the GDPR / RGPD, and as explained by Benjamin Bayart, the fact that US laws give the power to many US agencies to access data wherever they are stored on the planet makes US companies illegal. Period.

Russia Blocks Ethical Hacking Legislation Over Security Concerns

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Russia’s State Duma rejected legislation that would have legalized ethical hacking, citing national security concerns. Politicians worried that discovering vulnerabilities in software from hostile countries would require sharing those security flaws with foreign companies, potentially enabling strategic exploitation.

The bill also failed to explain how existing laws would accommodate white-hat hacking provisions. Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development introduced the proposal in 2022, with a first draft in 2023. Individual security researchers currently face prosecution under Russian Criminal Code for unauthorized computer access, while established cybersecurity companies can conduct limited vulnerability research.

Ethical Russians you say

By greytree • Score: 3 Thread
Any remaining Ethical Russians should be doing all they can to bring down their murderous government.

Not surprising…

By jonwil • Score: 3 Thread

Its not surprising Russia doesn’t want white hat hackers given that the white hat hackers would be doing things that would make life harder for all the black-hat cyber criminals operating out of that country.

Gemini Can Now Turn Your Photos Into Video With Veo 3

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Google is rolling out photo-to-video generation in its Gemini app today, allowing paid subscribers to upload images and transform them into short AI videos using the company’s Veo 3 model. The feature requires a subscription to Google’s AI Pro plan at $20 per month for three daily video generations, or the $250 AI Ultra plan for five daily videos.

Videos are limited to 720p resolution and eight seconds in length, taking several minutes to generate due to computational requirements.

Indeed, Glassdoor To Cut 1,300 Jobs in AI-Focused Consolidation

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Indeed and Glassdoor — both owned by the Japanese group Recruit Holdings — are cutting roughly 1,300 jobs as part of a broader move to combine operations and shift more focus toward AI. From a report:
The cuts will mostly affect people in the US, especially within teams including research and development and people and sustainability, Recruit Holdings Chief Executive Officer Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba said in a memo to employees. The company didn’t give a specific reason for the cuts, but Idekoba said in his email that “AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences.”

Eh, they just needed some new customers

By gurps_npc • Score: 5, Funny Thread

One way to get more people to look for a job is to fire them.

will they be using indeed.com to look for new jobs

By TerraFrost • Score: 3 Thread
Will they be using indeed.com to look for new jobs?

tremendous economic growth

By OrangeTide • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

We off shore all our manufacturing jobs. We turn over all our service jobs to automated computer systems (AI or simple phone trees). Luckily we chased all the immigrants out, so there is plenty of agricultural work for people to do.
6 am to 4 pm in the fields and under the sun for $7.25 an hour. Seasonal full-time agricultural work doesn’t get healthcare or dental benefits, so you’re on your own there.

I wonder at what point people stop making excuses for the bourgeoisie. We saw Occupy Wall Street fizzle out almost immediately, a combination of poor organization and a lack of appetite from mainstream America. Guess if you already have a job, you’re not interested in rocking the boat.

Bullshit

By rsilvergun • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
That is the median wage for workers who are not either prisoners or illegal immigrants.

I do think that the actual wages in the field are probably around 9 to $12 an hour. That’s because the median monthly income in Mexico is floating around 1700 a month so you literally have to compete with living in Mexico now.

But that’s $17 an hour median wage is definitely not the reality on the ground. Not with how much exploitation is going on. And especially not without using slave labor via the prison system.

Speaking of which the prison population in America has been going down every year since 2009. It’s going to get real scary real soon. Because private prisons are going to want to keep their cash cows going and they’re going to want to keep access to that sweet sweet slave labor.

Pretty soon jaywalking is going to have a 9 month sentence. Jokes aside if you’re paying attention online you can already see cops hassling people they didn’t use to, like regular white folk, because they’re just aren’t enough arrests to be made.

Physical Buttons Make Comeback on Mazda Steering Wheels as Company Adopts First Touchscreen

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Mazda is redesigning the steering wheel controls in its new CX-5 to address potential safety concerns from its shift to touchscreen-based infotainment systems. The Japanese automaker developed what it calls “an all new steering wheel layout with physical buttons” that allow drivers to control critical vehicle functions without taking their hands off the wheel. Stefan Meisterfeld, Mazda’s U.S. VP of operations, said the new steering wheel design goes beyond simple redundant shortcuts.

The company is pairing the enhanced steering wheel controls with Google Assistant voice commands and a 15.6-inch central touchscreen that now houses audio and climate controls previously operated by physical dashboard buttons. Mazda had been the sole mainstream holdout against touchscreen infotainment systems, relying instead on a console-mounted dial. The steering wheel redesign represents the company’s attempt to maintain its “hands on the wheel, eyes on the road” safety philosophy while adopting touchscreen technology that customer research indicated buyers wanted.

No touch screen, no purchase

By registrations_suck • Score: 3 Thread

Mazda was at the top of our list when we were buying a car in 2023.

Lack of touch screen for use with Apple CarPlay was why we bought a Honda instead.

TFA says they phasing it out

By sinij • Score: 3 Thread
I hate touchscreen control in cars, will never buy one unless HVAC temperature, defrost, and volume controls are all actual physical dials and/or buttons. If that means I have to drive mine into the ground, well mechanics bills are still less than a new car payment.

It’s a start, but …

By PPH • Score: 3 Thread

… I want my choke knob back.

Touch screens are dumb.

By gurps_npc • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

They save the company a ton of money - one touch screen can duplicate 10, 20 30 or more gauges.

But when the touch screen breaks, you lose everything rather than just the rpm.

They distract drivers, and create a ton of safety concerns, hence the ‘return’ to physical buttons.

TFS contradicts TFA?

By AnOnyxMouseCoward • Score: 5, Informative Thread
I read the Slashdot title / summary, and it sounded like Mazda redesigned the steering wheel to have more buttons and understand that touchscreens have safety concerns. Then I go to the article, which has this in the first paragraph: “But after a generation of development as the only major outlier in the industry, the company is now pivoting to a conventional, touchscreen-style experience—and axing most of its physical controls in the process.”

I will add this blurb: “But it’s not just the navigation and other digital features that are moving behind the touchscreen interface with this generation; Mazda swept the dashboard of most of its knobs and switches, including the controls for the audio and climate control systems. Both are now found in the central, 15.6-inch screen.”

TFS should have been entitled “Physical buttons disappearing from Mazda cars”.

Judge Throws Out Lawsuit Accusing Apple of Taking Bribes To Avoid Competing With Visa and Mastercard

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
A federal judge has dismissed an antitrust lawsuit that accused Apple, Visa and Mastercard of conspiring to suppress competition in the payments network market and inflate merchant transaction fees.

U.S. District Judge David Dugan in Illinois ruled that merchants failed to provide sufficient evidence supporting claims that Apple illegally declined to launch a competing payment network to rival Visa and Mastercard.

The lawsuit, filed by beverage retailer Mirage Wine & Spirits and other businesses representing thousands of merchants, alleged the payment networks paid Apple hundreds of millions of dollars annually to avoid competition. Dugan found the plaintiffs offered only “a slew of circumstantial allegations” but permitted them to amend their complaint.

Article is disingenuous

By rsilvergun • Score: 3 Thread
It starts out by saying that the lawsuit is because Apple didn’t start a competing payment network.

In the very next paragraph it clarifies that no that’s not the case, the lawsuit says that Apple was paid not to start a competing payment Network.

Those are very very different things.

The judge is allowing more evidence. The thing that would have to be proved and it would be tough to prove this is that apple was considering launching a full payment Network and stopped when they realized they can make more money taking bribes from the credit card companies.

To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. It’s also possible Apple didn’t want to get into the payments market and just used the threat of doing it has leverage to get free money. But if that is the case I’m not sure it’s legal.

Antitrust law is complicated as hell because it’s designed to stop all sorts of terrible anti-competitive behavior.

China is Building 74% of All Current Solar and Wind Projects

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot
Almost three-quarters of all solar and wind power projects being built globally are in China, says a new report that highlights the country’s rapid expansion of renewable energy sources. From a report:
China is building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind projects, according to data from the Global Energy Monitor, a non-governmental organisation based in San Francisco. That compares with about 689GW under construction globally, GEM said.

A rough rule of thumb is that a gigawatt can potentially supply electricity for about 1mn homes. “China is […] leading the world in global renewable energy build-out,” the report said. “It continues to add solar and wind power at a record pace.” China’s expansion of clean energy sources is important for efforts to fight climate change, given the country’s dominant role in global manufacturing.

Re:Why aren’t we doing that?

By Rinnon • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

We could easily do this solar shit if we tried.

China’s government doesn’t need to care very much about the political appeal of it’s choices. It doesn’t matter if the citizens like or dislike solar/wind/renewables. The US Government does need to care (at least to some extent, since they don’t want to get voted out [putting to the side any current claims about this point one way or the other]); so lots of energy gets spent on convincing the electorate that solar/wind/renewables are woke shit, which results in candidates who say that solar/wind/renewables are woke shit, which feeds back into reassuring the electorate that solar/wind/renewables are in fact woke shit. It doesn’t matter if the chicken or the egg came first, the feedback loop is currently impenetrable.

Re:I prefer solar

By Moryath • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

When we look back in 30 years time at what caused America to fall, energy prices, spending too much on nuclear, and failure to compete in renewable energy is my best guess.

“Being run by Inbred Klan Fuckwit Republicans” will be pretty high on the list too.

Re:Not enough

By ShanghaiBill • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Lots of toxic chemicals in those panels.

No, there isn’t.

Solar panels are made of silicon, oxygen, aluminum, copper, boron, and phosphorus.

None of those are toxic.

Some old panels used cadmium telluride, but that is not what China is installing.

Re:I prefer solar

By skam240 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Most human populations dont live so far from the equator. A solution that works for 95% of humanity is a pretty good one.

Re:Buuuut INDIA!

By AnOnyxMouseCoward • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
The problem is far from solved, but look at your chart (or the Wiki itself, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…)! They’ve moved from ~18% renewables to 32% in 16 years. The increase in absolute quantity of coal still sucks, but you can’t say they’re not trying. You can say it’s not fast enough, not good enough… but damn you’ve got to give some credits for trying, and not just trying, but likely leading the pack in terms of energy transition.