Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. South Korea’s SK Hynix Launching $28 Billion US Listing To Ride Global AI Wave
  2. Zombie ‘Who Owns Unix?’ Lawsuit Comes Alive Again
  3. Secret Claude Tracker Shocks Users After Anthropic’s Anti-Surveillance Stance
  4. Microsoft Lays Off Nearly 5,000 Employees Across Xbox, Commercial Sales
  5. Nintendo Switch 2 Is Getting a Replaceable Battery in Europe
  6. Americans of All Ages Are Spending Less Time Socializing
  7. Fines Doubled As Teens Outsmart Australia’s Social Media Ban
  8. Google Ordered to Pay $2 Billion For Anti-Competitive Practices By Swedish Court
  9. Is Big Tech Now Backpedaling on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario?
  10. How Tech Scammers Conned Four People Out of $673,000 in Three Days
  11. Hundreds Support Legal Defense for Engineer Charged with Destroying Flock Surveillance Cameras
  12. Go-based TypeScript 7.0 Finally Reaches Release Candidate Stage
  13. Meta is Quietly Launching Pocket, an App for Vibe-coding and Scrolling Small ‘Gizmos’
  14. Big Companies That Invest Heavily in AI Also Hire More People, Report Suggests
  15. Microsoft and Amazon Commit Billions to New AI Implementation Units for Businesses

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.

South Korea’s SK Hynix Launching $28 Billion US Listing To Ride Global AI Wave

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
SK Hynix is launching a Nasdaq listing expected to raise about $28 billion, giving US investors easier access to one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI memory-chip boom. Reuters reports:
The company will sell 17.79 million new shares in the depository receipt listing on the Nasdaq. Ten ADRs will represent one common share and the stock will be sold in a price range that is due to be revealed on Monday, based on SK Hynix’s Seoul trading price. SK Hynix’s share price was down 4% at 2,327,000 won each on Monday, but the stock is up about 273% this year, as it rides surging global investor demand for AI stocks. Korea’s KOSPI was down 2.2% on Monday. […]

SK Hynix has been among the world’s largest beneficiaries of the AI boom as it outperformed its major rivals Samsung and Micron. “This is more than a liquidity event,” said Dave Mazza, the chief executive officer of Roundhill Investments in New York, which manages an exchange-traded fund tracking DRAM manufacturers, which is one of the most popular ways for U.S. investors to trade SK Hynix’s stock. “SK Hynix has been one of the most important companies in the world that most U.S. institutions could not easily own.” “The listing removes an accessibility discount, not a quality discount.”

[…] SK Hynix said the proceeds from the listing of the American Depositary Receipts will be used to build chip factories in South Korea and buy chipmaking equipment including an extreme ultraviolet scanner made by Dutch equipment maker ASML. The final price of the New York listing is due to be set on Thursday, ahead of the stock starting trade on Friday, regulatory filings showed. The company’s management will meet global investors on a roadshow this week. The deal is expected to be the second-biggest share sale after a record $85.7 billion initial public offering by SpaceX last month, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s $25.6 billion IPO in 2019 and Alibaba’s similar-sized offering in 2014.

Zombie ‘Who Owns Unix?’ Lawsuit Comes Alive Again

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The long-running SCO/IBM Unix and Linux ownership dispute has resurfaced yet again, this time through SCO successor Xinuos, which is trying to pursue old license and copyright claims tied to Project Monterey. “The core issue seems to be whether Xinuos even has the right to litigate the matter, or if some ancient legalese in the original agreements means the window for legal argument has long since expired,” reports The Register. From the report:
[T]he roots of the case are the 1998 alliance between IBM and a company called the Santa Cruz Operation which sold a version of UNIX for x86 CPUs. Those two companies, plus Intel and Sequent, created “Project Monterey” — an effort to create a unified version of UNIX that could run on multiple processors. By 2001, Project Monterey was close to delivering a unified UNIX, an achievement made possible by blending code from IBM and SCO.

By then, a little project called “Linux” already ran on multiple processors. Big Blue decided Linux was the future and bailed from Project Monterey — then allegedly contributed some Monterey code to the open-source project and to its own AIX and Z operating systems. SCO felt it owned some of that code, so sued IBM.

SCO and its successors struggled to survive, but interested parties kept the lawsuit alive because the chance to emerge as owner of parts of the Linux codebase, and IBM’s code, had the potential to turn into a colossal payday. The case and its successors ended in 2021, with a settlement that saw litigants agree to end the matter without IBM admitting fault. But by then, SCO had sold its software to a biz called Xinuos that decided to fight on.

The Xinuos case has burbled along quietly since, and on June 22nd reached the milestone of a hearing. The matter has become a little more modern, if only because this hearing was held online and the presiding judge appeared to unwittingly be on mute at one point. But the arguments otherwise seemed to revisit Project Monterey, debated the relevance of past litigation, contested who owned what, when they owned it, and how they could prove it. Xinuos argued IBM never had a license for SCO code. Big Blue argued that it did nothing wrong.

Wayback Time!

By Spackler • Score: 3 Thread

I remember this being covered extensively on Slashdot and Groklaw (Groklaw is gone, and replaced with some crypto scam site). Pamela Jones was the writer (probably a pseudonym) giving insights into the trials for years. Eventually burning out on it as she tried to remain relevant after the case went away. I’m shocked it is back… but I probably shouldn’t be.

Fun times.

Secret Claude Tracker Shocks Users After Anthropic’s Anti-Surveillance Stance

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Anthropic quickly removed a tracker secretly monitoring Claude Code users in China after a security researcher exposed the hidden code and condemned the spyware-like tracking as a “serious breach of user trust.” Last week, a web developer known as “Thereallo” was researching privacy issues in Claude Code and was shocked to find that the AI firm was using “prompt steganography” to hide code that tracks Chinese users “in plain sight.” This code wasn’t malicious, but it was sending information to Anthropic that most users wouldn’t detect, relying on shorthand markers to quietly flag users’ timezone, proxy, and potential connection to Chinese AI labs that Anthropic has accused of distillation attacks.

On X, Anthropic engineer Thariq Shihipar confirmed that the tracker was added to Claude Code as an “experiment” in March. According to Shihipar, the code “was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation.” Regarding the former, The Washington Post found unauthorized retailers have sold access to free models for $1 a month, and pro subscriptions that can cost $100 monthly sell for “as little as $12.” Supposedly, Anthropic has “actually been meaning to take this down for a while,” Shihipar said of the hidden code, because engineers have “landed stronger mitigations since then.”

Privacy advocates were not happy with the explanation, though, warning that the code is evidence that Anthropic is willing to cross lines to surveil users. That’s perhaps especially surprising, considering that Anthropic riled the Trump administration by refusing to allow the US government to use Claude to surveil US users. The AI firm has since sued the White House over the clash. The Post suggested that the tracker incident is a sign that US firms like Anthropic are taking “increasingly aggressive measures” to block Chinese AI firms from copying their models. A more defensive stance has apparently become critical. In the past year, Chinese firms have “consistently matched” US firms’ model capabilities “within months,” the Post reported. Most recently, “a new, free AI model from Chinese company Zhipu AI was better at finding computer vulnerabilities than Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 model, which was released in May,” the Post reported.

lol

By Bahbus • Score: 3 Thread

No user should be trusting any AI company and, likewise, users of AI (specifically the company’s own web based version) should not expect any kind of real privacy.

Place your bets

By nehumanuscrede • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

The odds of Anthropic only using this for Chinese users is quite low.

I would be more surprised if the public " AI " systems like Claude aren’t tracking everything and everyone.
Regardless of what country they are in.

But, like usual, anytime they get caught, they will simply blame some junior engineer or claim this was developer
code that accidentally made it into production.

Privacy Policy

By DarkOx • Score: 3 Thread

Woha! a tech firm overstated their position on privacy and spied on users! I guess it is a day ending in ‘y’

Microsoft Lays Off Nearly 5,000 Employees Across Xbox, Commercial Sales

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Microsoft is laying off about 4,800 employees, including 1,600 from Xbox, as it restructures around AI investments and tries to reset its struggling gaming business. “Our business is changing because the world around it is changing. The way technology is built, deployed, and used is transforming faster than at any point in my time here,” said Amy Coleman, EVP and chief people officer at Microsoft. “Our customers’ needs are shifting, the business models that serve them are shifting, and that means the work itself — what we do, where we focus, and how we’re organized — has to transform too.” She continued: “Companies don’t get to choose whether their industry changes; they only get to choose whether they change with it. That means we will need to adjust resources and roles and shift how we operate so we can have the greatest impact for our customers.” TechCrunch reports:
Coleman stressed that the roles being eliminated today “are not being replaced by AI,” but noted, “what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.” “Some of the tasks we do every day can now be automated, and that means we all need to keep learning, keep building new skills, and keep adapting as the work evolves,” Coleman wrote. […] Speaking about the Xbox layoffs, Coleman said little: “We are restructuring to position the business for long-term success. Engineering teams across the company will also evolve their structure and priorities to meet customer needs and innovate for the future.”

Of today’s 4,800 layoffs at Microsoft, 1,600 will hit Xbox, with about 3,200 cuts in total expected through fiscal year 2027, according to Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox. In an email she sent to employees on Monday, Sharma called this “the most significant restructure in Xbox history.” “Our business today is not healthy,” Sharma wrote. “We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.” She added that Xbox made bets like its monthly subscription service Game Pass, alongside moves to grow its portfolio of content and invest in multi-platform, among other attempts to breathe life into the business. None of those strategies grew at the expected pace, leading to the core business weakening even as Xbox added more teams and investment. “And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history,” Sharma said. “We must reset Xbox.”

As part of the shift, Microsoft will transition four of its gaming studios to operate under new management, ensuring preservation of intellectual property and ongoing projects. Specifically Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to independent studios, according to Sharma. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are coming under new ownership with funding to complete and grow some of their more popular games. According to Sharma’s memo, Xbox is also flattening management hard, cutting the current 14 management layers to no more than five, but ideally three. As part of this major organization redesign, Xbox is making longtime executive Helen Chiang chief operating officer with end-to-end profit and loss authority across content, hardware, platform, and services. Xbox’s restructuring plan centers around narrowing focus by dropping sprawling creative bets that don’t produce platform-scale returns, and instead homing in on core strategic pillars like Mojang and King, the businesses behind Minecraft and Candy Crush.

First to admit it is not AI

By OrangeTide • Score: 3 Thread

Operating at lower margins smells like trouble with tariffs to me. But cutting executive salaries could shore up profits and make those revenues stretch further for real business growth, such as development, expansion, marketing, and hiring.

How Wonderfully Myopic

By Spinlock_1977 • Score: 3 Thread

“Our business is changing because the world around it is changing.”

More like you tried to push products on people (Windows 11) and companies (CoPilot) that they didn’t want. Worse, you did it as a money-grab, and smacked xbox down for good measure.

I guess the Microsoft of old has returned; this time, with myopic vision.

“Our business is changing”…

By wakeboarder • Score: 3 Thread

The business sucks. At the advent of computer games, they were primarily designed to be fun by creative types. Then the businessmen came in an went full commercial. Games are now designed to serve up ads, generate revenue through loot boxes and any other psychological trick they can come up with to manipulate gamers through games. Now they are trying to completely control the industry and turn it into a monopoly so they can control everything, but I guess it didn’t work like they planned.

Nintendo Switch 2 Is Getting a Replaceable Battery in Europe

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Nintendo will stop selling the original Switch in Europe in mid-February 2027, nearly 10 years after the console’s launch. In its place, the company will release updated versions of the Switch 2 and several controllers with user-replaceable batteries to comply with new EU regulations. The Verge reports:
The news comes as Nintendo is making a bunch of changes to the rest of its lineup due to EU regulations requiring user-replaceable batteries. Starting this summer, the company says it will start introducing updated versions of various devices on “a rolling basis,” ahead of the regulations coming into effect on February 18th, 2027. “There is no difference in functionality between current products and revised products containing user-replaceable batteries,” Nintendo says.

The Switch 2 is the most notable product being updated — the new version is expected to start rolling out in the fall — but there will also be versions of the Joy-Con controllers, Joy-Con 2, Switch 2 Pro Controller, and N64 and GameCube Switch controllers with user-replaceable batteries. “Due to a variety of factors, revised products may not become available in all European countries simultaneously,” Nintendo notes.

It must be quite a redesign

By necro81 • Score: 4, Informative Thread
Here is iFixit’s guide for replacing the Switch 2 battery (last updated 9 May 2026). It is not a simple procedure - harder even than most smartphones I’ve had to deal with. JIS 00 screwdriver, head and prying to remove stickers, more screws, snap features to pry open - all just to get the case open. Then more screws, unplugging and removing components, some solvent to (hopefully) loosen the battery glue, so that by Step 36 you’ve removed the old one. A few more steps to install the new one, re-apply thermal paste (?!), reinstall and reconnect the internals, snap the case back together, reinstall fasteners, reapply stickers (if they hold!). Only 63 steps - piece of cake!

Changing this to make for an easy user replacement will be a substantial redesign. And this is all to the good.

Americans of All Ages Are Spending Less Time Socializing

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Americans now spend an average of 35 minutes a day socializing, down from 45 minutes two decades ago, according to American Time Use Survey data. The decline spans all age groups but is sharpest among 15- to 24-year-olds, whose daily socializing has fallen from about an hour to 35 minutes. Axios reports:
Sociologists and psychologists point to several trends driving this phenomenon, which Substack writer Derek Thompson dubbed “The Anti-Social Century” in the Atlantic last year. We’re all on our smartphones, often interacting through screens instead of face to face — even though social media is no substitute for spending time together in person.

Teens, in particular, spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to Gallup. The shift to remote work — and life — during the pandemic has persisted, keeping more of us homebound. Longer-term trends are reshaping daily life in ways that make isolation easier. Homes are bigger and more comfortable, with larger TVs. Virtually every restaurant is on a food delivery app, making it easier than ever to stay in.

Also contributing to the trend is the decline of gathering spaces, Axios’ Avery Lotz writes. A 2025 report from CU Boulder researchers uncovered widespread closures of all kinds of hangout spots — from libraries to coffee shops to museums — in the last decade or so. Churches are also shuttering at unprecedented rates, Axios’ Russell Contreras reports.

Looking at it the other way.

By alvinrod • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
Look at this from the opposite direction. How much excess socializing was done in the past because people didn’t have anything else or didn’t own a personal time-occupying device that didn’t require sharing?

All this shows is that when given the choice, people choose their own interests over shared socialization. If previous generations had phones and tablets they wouldn’t have talked to their uncle about mundane shit on Thanksgiving either. I don’t think people have changed all that much, we just have more options now and this is identifying our actual preferences.

Did we miss something?

By mitchy • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

How is *cost* not a major line item in this discussion? Concerts are unaffordable. Sporting events are unaffordable. Amusement parks are unaffordable. And those are the easy big-ticket items.

Part of the reason all the “hangout-y” places are going out of business is because nobody is going, but is that due to lack of interest or unsustainable costs?

Talking

By TwistedGreen • Score: 3 Thread

I don’t know about this. Remember when you would stay up late on AIM or ICQ or MSN or whatever and chat with people? It doesn’t matter that it was remote, it was one-on-one personal interaction… often more personal than you would get from “socializing.” Is it materially different now that those chats happen over text or Whatsapp or Discord? Social media sucks, but people still talk, right? This doom-and-gloom narrative is getting tiring…

Re:Looking at it the other way.

By DarkOx • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Maybe…

However the previous generation certainly could have a novel in their back pocket, a magazine, a comic book, flipped the radio on, etc. It is not like Apple invented personal entertainment in 2007.

Something IS different about they way interact with smart phone and related technologies. Centuries, of anthropological study says humans are social animals. It is hard just go whoops they must have all been wrong, turns out we just did not have good enough portable video games and mobiles, and people just spent time together because they hadn’t anything better to do!

Obviously the only answer is we will have to do the science somehow ultimately. Still I find a hypothesis that we just did not have something more stimulating than talking to uncle Marty about old dodge pickup grandad “forced” him to drive in high-school is the reason we did not previously tend to all retire to our own corner as readily.

It sure seems like we are getting ‘something’ out of these connected devices that meeting or making us feel our needs are being meet.

Cost

By JBMcB • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
I can go over to my friend’s house for free. Our neighbors come over to our patio for free, too. Sometimes we make pies. If you want to get really technical, though:

Nominal cost for a nice pie on the patio:
Tub of raspberries on sale (in season) at Costco: $6
Sugar, flour, salt: I’d estimate $1, but I’ll be generous and say $2
Coffee - 2lbs bag from Costco usually costs around $16 and makes about 15 big pots of coffee, so $1
So that’s, rounding up, $10 to entertain about 8 people, or about $1.25 a person. I’d say that’s doable for most people, it just takes some time.

Fines Doubled As Teens Outsmart Australia’s Social Media Ban

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Australia plans to double fines for social media platforms that fail to keep under-16s off restricted services, after regulators found 70% of children with accounts remained active three months after the ban took effect. The government says the changes will also give the eSafety Commissioner more power to demand information from platforms and age-assurance providers as teens continue finding ways around the law. Euronews reports:
The government said Sunday it would introduce draft legislation this week doubling the maximum penalty to 99 million Australian dollars (63 million euros) for platforms — including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok — that do not take reasonable steps to comply with the ban, which became law on 10 December. Communications Minister Anika Wells blamed the platforms directly. “We can all agree we would like the scheme to work better than it is currently, but that is on Big Tech taking the Mickey,” she said, speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Monday. Wells added that she had received monthly updates from the online safety regulator since March and “we are not seeing improvements.”

The amendments would also expand the powers of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to demand information and documents from platforms — and from third parties such as age assurance technology providers — to test claims made by companies about how under-16s continued to circumvent the ban. The government had initially reported more than 5 million children had accounts removed, deactivated or restricted after the legislation passed. But eSafety found in March that 70% of children who held accounts on restricted platforms on the day the ban took effect remained active on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

Inman Grant said in April she was considering court action against those platforms and YouTube, alleging they were not taking reasonable steps to exclude children. She said she was satisfied with progress made by the remaining restricted platforms: X, Kick, Reddit, Threads and Twitch. Senior opposition lawmaker Jane Hume said her party would consider supporting the reforms, but pinned blame on the original legislation. “The legislation was clearly undercooked in the first place. The eSafety Commissioner wasn’t given the powers to be able to pursue these Big Tech companies,” she said.

Predictable

By gurps_npc • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Surprise surprise.

The foolish attempt to save the children by taking away everyone’s privacy and the children’s freedom is thwarted by the children subverting their laws.

If you want to save the children, do not try to save them, instead protect us ALL by changing the algorithms to push people toward truth rather than the shocking.

This just further isolates kids

By flink • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

My experience is the US, mind, not AU, so things are probably somewhat different there. But with that caveat in mind: At least on school days, the ONLY social interaction my 10 year old son gets with his peers is online through “social media”. I’ve sent him outside to “bike around the neighborhood and find someone to play with” and he reported that there wasn’t anyone. I walked around with him and sure enough, the streets were deserted @ 3:00 on a weekday afternoon. All the kids are kept inside or at some structured after school activity. If I want him to go to a friend’s house that is not in walking distance my wife or I have to take time off to drive him there and pick him up. In my day you could just hop on your friend’s bus and get off at his stop with him, but they don’t allow that anymore (even with a not from the parents: I checked with the school).

Now that it is summer, everyone is in “camp”, so again, no playmates if you don’t also send your kid to “camp”. I guess no one fucks around in each other’s yard, plays pickup baseball, or goes fishing anymore. I’ve tried to raise my kids to have active independent childhoods, but without the network effect of other parents giving their kids the same freedoms, it just ain’t happening.

So his friend group mostly coordinates through discord on their iPads to play minecraft and other online activities together as their main form of play. I understand that a lot of these social media platforms are not healthy for kids, but for many it is their ONLY outlet. To the extent social media gets regulated, it should be to curb predatory practices by the platform. That plus good parenting and supervision should be sufficient. But an outright ban is overkill.

Re:Surely

By DarkOx • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Have you tried it?

Parenting in a world where kids face unlimited temptation to consume things that you believe are harmful to them paired with near instance access all over the damn place is pretty hard.

In ever previous era, with every previous vice society has agreed to put at least some barriers in front of children and to do so in a mostly if not perfect way. Most 8 year olds cannot simply go get a case a beer anytime they want, and if they do there is ample opportunity for parents to find out about. You know if your two young child is running with inappropriate people and you either do something or don’t.

Same thing with other things like smoking, hazardous materials, etc. The book shop won’t let your kid into the adults only section…
but here is the important but, you CAN still let your child take their bicycle and pocket money and go to the c-store, bookstore, etc and get some candy and comics/pokemon cards etc. They can go an interface with the world in a safe way.

Now try this online… At best you get parental controls on the platform, which may or may not reflect what YOU the parent feels is or is not fit for your child, but rather what someone at Meta decided was fine. Things like youtube-kids, ok but nothing stops them from just watching as a guest. Sure you can lock down their phone, but you have control over the library PC, their friend bobby’s tablet, etc. Thanks to ‘privacy and security’ which we all know is really just about DRM you can’t implement your own parental controls without entirely breaking the web and apps, and smart devices.

You are left with accepting mega corps get to put whatever they want in front of your kids eyes, infantalizing them entirely and/or never letting them touch anything electronic without your shoulder surfing.

The status quo is an should be treated as unacceptable. The privacy and expression concerns should be the problems to solve rather than reasons to toss our hands up. Anyone just saying ‘parent harder’ should should get busted in the teeth!

This felony screams for hard punishment

By yanestra • Score: 4, Funny Thread
Hard and harsh punishment was always the solution - without it, Australia wouldn’t even be populated.

Re: Surely

By Kernel Kurtz • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Kids are learning how the internet works.

They are also learning government is something that frequently needs to be worked around. A lesson that will serve them well their entire lives.

Google Ordered to Pay $2 Billion For Anti-Competitive Practices By Swedish Court

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
Google was ordered to pay almost $2 billion this week to Pricerunner, reports Bloomberg:
The Patent and Market Court in Stockholm, which issued the judgment on Wednesday, dismissed most parts of the claim in which Pricerunner sought 80 billion Swedish kronor, or roughly $8.2 billion, in the wake of a European Union antitrust crackdown… The Swedish price-comparison website argued that Google has been abusing its dominant position as a search engine by favoring its own comparison shopping service over competing portals for more than a decade. Wednesday’s award compensates for lost revenue caused by Google’s preferential treatment of its own comparison-shopping service over independent price-comparison services, conduct that also drives up costs for consumers, [Pricerunner owner] Klarna said in a statement after the judgment…

A Google spokesperson said the company doesn’t agree with the court’s decision and will consider its legal options. [The ruling can be appealed.] Changes implemented in 2017 to Google’s platform are working and generating growth and jobs for hundreds of comparison shopping services operating more than 1500 websites across Europe, according to the statement.

The litigation is linked to a 2017 decision by the European Commission to fine Google €2.4 billion for illegally leveraging its search dominance to give its own shopping service an edge. The EU decision unleashed a wave of so-called follow-on suits, which were delayed for years as Google appealed the EU fine. Two years ago the EU’s top tribunal confirmed that the company did violate antitrust laws — meaning EU-based plaintiffs no longer have to prove that in court. A Berlin court last year ordered the tech giant to pay €573 million in damages to two German price-comparison websites, a ruling Google appealed. Similar cases are pending across Europe.

Re:Joke’s on them

By GuB-42 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

It is. They have offices all over the world, including in Sweden. It gives them access to local businesses, but it also means that they are bound by local laws.

Kinda Funny

By Ol Olsoc • Score: 3, Insightful Thread
These countries appear to have the pecuniary extraction model. Go after the deepest pockets, and come up with some way to take some of their money, because reasons.

Here in the US, we see something like that in the class action suits, where a million or two who “suffered” from some indignity might sign up for a class action suit.

The lawyers get almost all the awards, and upon winning, the people “wronged” get checks for 5 dollars.

I suppose the difference is that in Sweden, the 2 billion will go elsewhere. Or will the Swedish citizens get checks?

Re:Kinda Funny

By r1348 • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

No, we simply still enforce laws, including competition ones.
On the other side, it looks like in the US you just decided to hand them over the control of your country.

Re:Kinda Funny

By _merlin • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

It isn’t a fine. They’re being sued for damages. The money goes to the litigant, not to “Sweden”. If Google want to avoid constantly paying damages, they should consider not constantly doing illegal things. It’s ironic that you’re accusing Europeans of wanting to be anti-competitive when this whole thing is about (American) Google’s anti-competitive practices.

Re:Joke’s on them

By AmiMoJo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

This is actually a very important point, because an argument that local Google subsidiaries frequently use to try to get out of lawsuits is that they aren’t the ones providing the service, and the litigant must instead sue their US parent company (not the Irish one for some strange reason). It is of course much harder and much more expensive to sue a US company, and to enforce any judgements.

EU courts don’t fall for it. Structuring their international corporation to make suing them harder doesn’t fly. Their local subsidiaries are substantial and considered to be representatives of the parent corporation, for the purposes of legal challenge.

Is Big Tech Now Backpedaling on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario?

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“A year ago, the message from many business leaders was that AI was going to wipe out jobs,” remembers the Wall Street Journal.But “For the past month or so, tech CEOs have been striking a more optimistic tone.”
In late May, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman — who has long predicted that AI will lead to seismic shifts in the workforce — said during a conference, “We’ve been roughly right on technological predictions and pretty wrong on the social and economic implications.” Soon after, he told CNBC, “Our industry underestimated how much we’re going to be able to keep people at the center of everything.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who warned in May 2025 that artificial intelligence could eliminate half of entry-level jobs, a year later highlighted more positive scenarios for AI-adopting businesses: “They can do the same thing with less resources, and that leads to things like layoffs, or they can do more with the same amount of resources. But that requires creativity....”

Is the sunnier outlook a move to win back customers and the public who are souring on AI’s world-upending promise? Or is the role of AI in the workplace now just better understood…?

Collectively, the narrative has shifted from worker-light doomsday scenarios caused by AI to a future in which workers keep their jobs — and get a productivity boost. The sentiment change isn’t limited to tech leaders: A survey by EY-Parthenon found that the percentage of CEOs who believe AI investments will result in significant reductions in head count fell from around 46% in January 2025 to just 20% this May. “They may have noticed that the labor market is genuinely not changing (i.e., imploding) as rapidly as they expected,” said David Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They may have realized it was simply bad business to say that your great new product will destroy the economy.”
The article notes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos “has a history of predicting that AI will create new jobs,” and in June said AI could even lead to a labor shortage. “When asked on CNBC in May about people being afraid of AI taking jobs, he said the reason they’re afraid is because ‘all these smart people keep saying that.’"

The article then adds that “Fewer people are saying it now.”

Making Money Fixing AI Code

By BinBoy • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

I’ve been paid to fix AI code. Saving time having AI generate code for me? Meh. It saves a few minutes handing off tedious stuff like writing SQL queries and helper functions but for anything major it needs a lot of review and it can waste time taking you in circles.

“Our industry overestimated how much of”

By Growlley • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
our own bullshit we believed.

Not In My Industry

By DewDude • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Our clients are losing customers because they’re ditching humans for AI. There’s still plenty of people who are anxious to eliminate as many human positions as possible.

Big Tech can say whatever it wants…when every other business is sitting there saying “we’re going to go to the company with AI that’s 80% cheaper”....well…big tech doesn’t control those jobs. Those jobs are getting wiped out.

Re:Bull Hockey

By DarkOx • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

I don’t think it is really about the backlash so much as the value of the AI is going to replace soooo many people narrative has played out.

Amodei, Altman, et al needed massive amount of capital to buy a compute hardware by the ton as well as the facilities to house it and the power to run it. Jensen Huang can only funnel so much of NVIDIAs own money to its customers to buy its own products without the markets crying foul, turned out they could push that much further than I would have initially expected but still limits exist (at least in theory). So to make it possible for everyone to keep doubling down, they needed a story growth story like never before to keep soaking up all those investment dollars.

The reality is starting to overcome the rumor, with Ford bringing back engineers, Microsoft having to back pedal on CoPilot features, the PC market not exploding because of people wanting by new machines that are AI ready.

Now that the idea every business is going to be able to drip 30% of work force and/or the compute resources can be rented or capitalized cheaper even if they could is getting harder push, they have been pivoting to AI is so dangerous… Defense contractors, the DOD directly, and F500 financial engineering space have stupid amounts of money and can be relied upon to spend it out fear the other guy might show up the party with fancier toys. Those guys actually have more concrete applications for this tech any way. - At least something better than hey lets provide an agent to help you navigate our product offerings but rather than deliver a consistent experience with Dialog Flow or similar for 15 years ago, we use and LLM that will cost 10x to run and occasionally fail in spectacularly embarrassing ways..

Re:The only reason?

By butt0nm4n • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Nope, the explanation is simpler than that.

Marketing. Stock pumping.

My tech is so good it can replace humans. My tech is so good its dangerous, you better get it before someone else does.

High noise to signal ratio. AI offers some advantages in cognitive support in some roles, would have been a more honest assessment.

Apart from AI companies I haven’t heard one commercial success story of applying the AI that is being punted at the moment.

It’s great at making content, but that wasn’t a problem. It’s great at search and summary, maybe better than search, but it is too convincing when it gets it wrong, so its not reliable. It’s a weak product.

On the upside in a few years there is going to be buckets of spare compute power around. Maybe science can use that to solve some real problems rather than these bullshit ones AI pundits are trying to find and solve.

How Tech Scammers Conned Four People Out of $673,000 in Three Days

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
USA Today reports on a Facebook post from a Washington state sheriff’s office:
Four residents of Clallam County, a coastal region west of Seattle along northern Washington’s peninsula, lost more than $673,000 in just three days, according to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office… The smallest amount lost was $3,500, which someone purchased in Apple gift cards for a scammer posing as an employee with Microsoft technical support, the sheriff’s office wrote. Another person lost $50,000 after they clicked on a malicious email and unwittingly granted the scammers access to their financial accounts.
The local Peninsula Daily News reports another scam involved a 64-year-old resident who attempted to contact Coinbase after seeing their account displayed shown as closed:
“Believing they were speaking with a legitimate Coinbase representative, the victim was told there was fraudulent activity on the account and was instructed to download a ‘rescue’ application,” the [sheriff’s] release states. “The application allowed the scammer to remotely access the victim’s phone.” They then convinced the victim to transfer approximately $200,000 worth of cryptocurrency to what was described as a secure wallet. The funds were instead transferred to the scammer and could not be recovered…

In one scam, reported Monday, an 84-year-old Clallam County resident believed they had received an email from their daughter with a photo. After opening the email, a fake Microsoft security alert appeared on the computer directing the victim to call a support number, according to the release. “The victim was transferred to someone claiming to represent the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and was falsely told they were under investigation in a child pornography and money laundering case,” the release states. “The scammers instructed the victim not to contact local law enforcement and claimed local banks were also under investigation. The victim was told their bank accounts were in danger of being seized and was instructed to purchase gold to protect their assets.” In three separate transactions, the victim purchased approximately $420,000 worth of gold and gave it to an unknown man waiting at the end of their driveway.

“Only after speaking with bank officials did the victim realize they had been defrauded,” the release states.
USA Today offers this advice from the sheriff’s press release. “These criminals are professional manipulators who prey on fear, trust and urgency. We encourage everyone to pause before sending money, purchasing gold or gift cards, or transferring cryptocurrency. A simple phone call to a trusted family member, your bank or local law enforcement can prevent a life-changing financial loss.”

hard to relate

By phantomfive • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

In three separate transactions, the victim purchased approximately $420,000 worth of gold and gave it to an unknown man waiting at the end of their driveway.

I don’t understand the confusion that can result in someone doing this three separate times.

Re:hard to relate

By pjt33 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I think it’s three separate purchases of gold and one handover to the scammer.

Booking.com

By pjt33 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I got a phishing message in the last week from a WhatsApp business account claiming to be the hotel company that I’m going to be staying with in a couple of days. They wanted me to do some kind of confirmation process and warned that if I didn’t do it within 24 hours I might lose the reservation. There were a couple of things that were odd, but it’s not the first time that a hotel company has made me jump through hoops to do a pre-check-in. It was only when I saw that the link they sent me (which I opened in a private browsing session, of course) was to a page which had a booking.com header but wasn’t a booking.com URL that I got suspicious, and they had a UI for card details with no clear explanation of what they wanted them for. At that point I opened the actual booking.com and sent a message to the hotel to double-check, and after sending that message I remembered reading a few months ago that booking.com had a data leak, but I bet the phishers who wrote to me have had some successes.

Don’t blame the victims

By EldoranDark • Score: 3 Thread
As hard as it might be to relate to someone carrying six digits in cash, crypto or gold… Or as easy it is to point and laugh at someone losing money in crypto… I think we should celebrate these guys coming forward and reporting it. Most scam victims feel too ashamed to confess to being fooled, and it makes it easier for scammers to get away with it and target us.

Re:Booking.com

By thegarbz • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Not just Booking.com. There have been 4 high profile backend providers of booking systems in hospitality that were hacked in recent memory.

I got a similar WhatsApp message. Few interesting bits of information that helped spur an interesting discussion about checking validity:
1. They had my full name and correct reservation dates.
2. They had a Whatsapp business account.
3. They were using automated API features (such as the click to cancel reservation button), which is frequently used by businesses.

That’s where the good ended. There were a LOT of red flags that meant I didn’t get near clicking the link and good to share with others:
1. Source of number: +420 (Czechia) for a number from a Hotel in Belgium.
2. Source of account: (less legit, but still a warning) A brand new WhatsApp business account for a family run hotel that has existed for an eternity.
3. Accuracy of data: They got the dates right and quoted a reservation number, but the number was nothing like the actual reservation number I had in my confirmation email (presumably it was an internal reference they used from the booking service provider).
4. Urgency: This is the big one. I made a reservation in January for the hotel at festival in mid August. Why do I now have 11 hours and 13 minutes to confirm? Why did they wait so late? Why not give one week’s notice? Urgency is *ALWAYS* a red flag. Especially in an industry like this, you don’t send WhatsApp messages asking for confirmation of something that needs to be done in 12 hours, you call.
5. URL rubbish: https://roomverif-stayes17409.... Yep looks tooooootally legit. Don’t even need to see what logo is on their website to spot that one.

I informed the hotel and to their credit they sent out an email to everyone in multiple languages telling their customers that their reservation details may have been leaked by their provider and that their reservations are safe and to contact them directly if they have any questions.

Hundreds Support Legal Defense for Engineer Charged with Destroying Flock Surveillance Cameras

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Hundreds of freedom lovers are rallying behind a US Air Force engineer” who’s been accused of damaging over a dozen AI-integrated surveillance cameras last year and even knocking down their poles. Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this article from Futurism:
According to local channel WAVY, Virginia-based Air Force engineer and mechanic Jeffrey Sovern is facing 13 counts of destruction of property, as well as six counts of both petit larceny and possession of burglary tools related to the destruction of Flock license plate cameras… [Wavy reports the cameras were sometimes pointed in the wrong direction or thrown to the street.]

Armed with garbage bags, spray paint, and even chainsaws, a not insignificant number of privacy vigilantes have taken the fight to Flock, using any means to free their neighborhoods of the ominous surveillance poles. On a GoFundMe page to raise money for his legal defense, the 41-year-old Sovern explained that this kind of privacy-minded vandalism has far more support than would outwardly appear…

Sovern kicked off the campaign late in December of 2025, where he encouraged his supporters to “reach out to the local governments and demand that these systems are taken down.” The Virginia resident initially set his funding goal to $8,500. As news of his case has spread across the web, the amount of support has far outpaced those already-hopeful aspirations. [Two hours ago the legal fund stood at $23,326 from over 680 donors].

Re:I agree, but do it legally

By oic0 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Generally speaking, the city councils don’t care what you have to say. They approve data centers and flock cameras by default for some reason.

Re:I agree, but do it legally

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Funny Thread

If you raise the issue with the city, then the objection becomes a matter of public record.

Oh thank god for the public record.

Re:I agree, but do it legally

By Fly Swatter • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
The would work, 40 or 50 years ago - our government has outgrown the need for citizens. We don’t need vigilantes, we don’t need crying at the circus (council meetings), we need to change the fundamental way our government responds to citizen concerns by making corporations legally powerless to interfere with all aspects of government.

Re:I agree, but do it legally

By tlhIngan • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You can do what one guy did in Washington - do a FOIA request. The photos and data are public records after all.

Don’t make it a big FOIA request, just make it something targeted like an intersection on a date between two times, an hour apart. You travelled through it and want to see what information the camera got about you.

And maybe do more FOIA requests for other intersections as well.

The reason for the targeting is highly focused FOIA requests are less likely to be rejected as over broad requests and thus you are more likely going to get your images and data you requested.

What happened in Washington was the city councils got worried because the courts have started saying the FOIA request was perfectly valid and they have no reason to withhold the information requested. Councils were worried that the requests could contain information that stalkers might want. The courts kept saying to release the information, council kept pushing back, and then council cancelled the agreements because they saw they were going to have to release the information and they could not restrict who got a hold of it.

In other words, having the information available turned it into a liability for council because they had to release it as public records and there would be plenty of people like stalkers who would just love to get their hands on the information. So the only solution was to not collect the data in the first place.

Re:I agree, but do it legally

By froggyjojodaddy • Score: 4, Informative Thread
Agree 100%. I said the same thing a few comments down but I wish more people just understood this basic fact.

It’s the same thing as people cutting down speed cameras and then proclaiming some kind of victory and all the other low-IQ people cheer alongside them. Except the city just puts them back up again because people driving 140km/h in a 40km/h is nothing to cheer for.

Go-based TypeScript 7.0 Finally Reaches Release Candidate Stage

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
It was more than two years ago that TypeScript’s creator Anders Hejlsberg announced plans to rewrite its compiler in Go. This week Microsoft announced its first Go-based release candidate for TypeScript 7.0, reports InfoWorld:
TypeScript 7.0 is often about 10 times faster than TypeScript 6.0, Microsoft said, thanks to native code speed and shared memory parallelism… Unlike TypeScript 6.0, TypeScript 7.0 performs many steps in parallel, including parsing, type checking, and emitting, Microsoft said. Some of these steps, such as parsing and emitting, can mostly be done independently across files. For that reason, parallelization automatically scales well with larger codebases with relatively little overhead. However, not every step in a TypeScript build is easily parallelizable, Microsoft said.
Microsoft plans to release TypeScript 7.0 within the next month, the article points out, but developers can try the new compiler by installing it from the typescript package on npm: npm install -D typescript@rc

Emitting?

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 3 Thread

Is that anything like squirting? I ask because Microsoft used to be really big on that…

Re:But why?

By malice • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Because TypeScript is just JavaScript once the types are stripped out… and JavaScript has the superpower of running on the largest platform in the world: the web browser.

WebAssembly cannot directly access the browser DOM, cannot directly handle network requests, and requires JavaScript to act as a bridge for almost all web interactions

Meta is Quietly Launching Pocket, an App for Vibe-coding and Scrolling Small ‘Gizmos’

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Mozilla shut down the well-loved read-it-later Pocket app last year, and now Meta is launching an app called Pocket with an entirely different, AI-focused pitch,” writes The Verge.

While it’s not available for downloads in most locations, Meta’s Pocket will allow people “to generate small, interactive apps and games using AI prompts,” writes TechCrunch. They’re called “gizmos”, and Pocket “also offers a scrollable feed where you can play with gizmos others have made.”

Some context from The Verge:
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is all in on AI as the new social media, and he’s previously described a vision of how users could use AI to make interactive experiences and share them with people. The launch of Pocket appears to be one manifestation of that idea… It follows Meta hiring engineers from a company called Atma Sciences Inc., which made an app called Gizmo, as Business Insider reported in March.

On a help center page, Meta also describes a gizmo as a “playable AI-generated experience,” and when you post one, Meta says you can choose to let other people remix them.
“Based on the app’s screenshots in Google Play, there are many similarities to Gizmo’s original app, which is still listed,” notes TechCrunch.

“Pocket is another example of Meta’s push to make AI creation tools more mainstream, extending its earlier efforts, which included AI-generated images created via its Meta AI app and AI videos created with its app called Vibes. It has also added AI features across its social platforms… "
Given that Meta has not officially announced Pocket’s debut, it’s likely that Pocket is still in its initial experimentation phase. Its counterpart Gizmo, however, had generated 635,000 lifetime installs across both iOS and Google Play, according to Appfigures, which noted it had a 98% positive sentiment.

Admiral Ackbar says “It’s a trap!”

By SeaFox • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I don’t have much faith in the safety of the apps being vetted by Meta before they get posted. Can’t wait for the malware Gizmos to start appearing and getting shared in the social like some new STD getting passed around at parties.

Of course, this is effectively theft

By jenningsthecat • Score: 3 Thread

I’m sure the TOS will give Meta the rights to everything its suc… er, customers develop. And the name Pocket must be tongue-in-cheek. A couple of things come immediately to mind:
— When somebody hands you money, you take the money and you put it in your (Meta) Pocket. Expect never to retrieve it though
— If you have a valuable idea that you develop using Meta’s tools, Meta will be happy to pick your Pocket
— Data breach? Obviously you must have a hole in your Pocket
— Playing Pocket pool? There’s an app for that, and Meta will be happy to Zuck you off when you’re done
Gah, the jokes just write themselves!

I wonder if this will get big enough that some FOSS devs will write Pocket Protector software…

FB is farming intent, not monetizing vibe code

By rocket rancher • Score: 3 Thread

What Meta is almost certainly farming is user intent.

Prompts. Edits. Remixes. Likes. Abandonment. Which tiny games get played, which ones get shared, which mechanics make people tilt the phone, which ones ask for camera/mic access, which ones train the next interaction model, and which ones can be shoved into a feed until the dopamine lever squeaks. Pocket looks less like vibe coding in the programmer sense and more like TikTok plus Roblox plus a telemetry tap directly into Meta’s AI stack.

So yes, be suspicious of Meta. That part is just good hygiene. But “AI bad” is the lazy Slashdot version of thinking. The real critique is more specific: Meta is trying to turn user creativity, user attention, and user interaction traces into training data and engagement inventory. The gizmo is the bait. The behavioral graph is Meta’s real target.

Big Companies That Invest Heavily in AI Also Hire More People, Report Suggests

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Companies spending heavily on AI are growing headcount faster, even in the entry-level roles that many fear are doomed,” writes TechCrunch. That’s the conclusion of new report tracking AI spending from Ramp’s corporate card/bill pay data as well as Revelio Labs’ workforce records from 21,599 U.S. firms:
According to the report, “high-intensity adopters” — firms that spend on average $30 per employee per month on AI in the first three months — saw headcount increase 10.2%. Headcount also rose across functions, including engineering, sales, administration, customer service, finance, marketing, and scientist roles. The strongest job growth among high-intensity adopters was in the information sector, which includes software, internet, media, and tech-adjacent firms.

Despite these positive signals, the data isn’t as rosy as it seems. It skews heavily toward tech-forward, knowledge-work firms — ones that might have VC-backing and are growing fast anyway, making it difficult to say whether AI is contributing to the hiring or just showing up at companies that are expanding anyway. “This paper does not show that AI universally creates jobs,” the paper’s authors admit, “but it does counter claims that AI will lead to broad job losses.”

It also counters claims that AI is killing all junior jobs. Recent research from Goldman Sachs found that AI has already erased about 16,000 net jobs per month over the past year, with Gen Z and entry-level workers taking the brunt of the burden. But in tech-forward firms, the report finds that entry-level headcount actually rose by 12%… “For software and technology firms, AI can make core output cheaper or faster to produce: writing code, debugging, building internal tools, producing technical documentation, and supporting product development,” the report reads. “Lower production costs in these workflows can raise the return to expanding the whole firm, not just the engineering team.”

But companies that buy subscriptions and run pilots, yet did not go on to make sustained investments, don’t tend to see any gains in headcount, per the report. That sets up the potential for a widening gap between firms that have the resources — like capital, technical staff, founder networks, and management bandwidth — to turn AI adoption into actual business gains and those that are stuck experimenting with subscriptions. In other words, this report suggests that firms that already have the resources are the ones that will see the largest gains.
CNBC argues another AI “narrative” was challenged this week: that open source can’t make money. “The assumption was that giving your model away for free meant no business. That’s breaking too, as open-model companies start posting real revenue and enterprises move from renting AI to running their own.”

That leaves the problem that LLM may not stay…

By gweihir • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

First, this is good, because it means companies have realized (well, some of them), that the “review” and “prompt with actual insight” parts of LLM use are non-optional for reasonable (not clear yet whether they will be “good”, that will take some time) outcomes.

But it still does not look like LLMs will be a long-term thing, because it seems they will not be able to get the cost down. There are now several findings that LLMs with current token prices (which are still too low to cover cost) are not cost-effective compared to humans doing the full job. This does not (!) take into account external costs, like having to feed people that are unemployed because of LLM use. TCO is a thing for societies, because they, unlike individual enterprises, cannot escape it.

Sure, much simpler LLMs and, in particular, specialist LLMs will probably remain a thing, but the general ones? Does not look like it. Hence, as all previous AI hypes, 95% hot air, 5% actual substance. No surprise. Sure, that 5% substance has value, but why always the 95% crap?

Re:That leaves the problem that LLM may not stay..

By ShanghaiBill • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Or this could be an example of Jevons Paradox .

As AI makes employees more productive, and thus more profitable, would you fire them or hire more?

Let me point out…

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 4, Informative Thread

This report is being touted on "PR Newswire” (emphasis mine). And the “study” was done by Ramp, whose primary business is selling AI-supported tools to businesses.

Microsoft and Amazon Commit Billions to New AI Implementation Units for Businesses

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot
Microsoft is investing $2.5 billion in a new group “assisting clients with AI implementations,” reports CNBC:
[Microsoft] said Thursday that 6,000 employees will be embedded with clients, in a practice that’s become known as forward deployed engineering [or FDE]… The announcement comes two days after cloud rival Amazon said it was putting $1 billion behind an FDE initiative to support fast-paced AI engagements. Leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI both established FDE groups in May, partnering with private equity firms, banks and consulting firms.

Alongside its technology peers, Microsoft has sunk tens of billions of dollars into building data centers that run generative AI models. Microsoft has also released a variety of AI services, with mixed results. The Microsoft 365 Copilot AI assistant has yet to gain anything approaching ubiquity in the business world, and the GitHub Copilot coding agent has ceded market share to newer players. Microsoft’s stock has slumped 21% this year, by far the worst performance among the mega-cap tech companies. One concern on Wall Street is that AI models that quickly compose code might threaten mature software companies…

Microsoft has for years provided support and implementation services to customers. The company generated about $2.1 billion in revenue from enterprise and partner services in the March quarter, up 2.5% from a year earlier.

“6,000 employees will be embedded”

By oldgraybeard • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
might be just me but this looks more like infestation than implementation assistance. Something tells me these employees will choose the tools in their approved tool box and not the best tools for the customers job.

Microsoft wants eyes into your business.

By Mirnotoriety • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
They’re embedding thousands of engineers inside client organizations not just to “help” with AI implementations, but to hoover up proprietary data, workflows, and problems then repackage those insights as shiny new “MICROS~1 innovations.”

It’s the same game Google played with search: results ranked by how many links pointed to a site. Now with AI, the answers you get are mostly remixed from other people’s conversations and data, creating a convincing illusion of intelligence on the other end.

Forward-deployed engineering? More like forward-deployed surveillance with a consulting invoice attached.