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The classic VW bus got an all-electric update — but that was just the beginning. Now there's an autonomous driving version (that's intended for commercial fleets, reports Jalopnik, "a level 4 vehicle that drives set routes" that's "going into full production" as the ID Buzz AD. (The AD stands for "autonomous driving") The AD version sports a longer wheelbase and a higher roofline than its mere human-driven sibling, which helps it to fit in the 13 cameras, nine LiDARs, and five radars that will (hopefully) allow the car to drive without crashing into anybody. These are intended for large-fleet customers providing taxi services, either ones run by local governments or private companies. [Volkswagen Group software subsidiary MOIA] has already lined up its first customer, the German city of Hamburg, which will provide the automated Buzz as a public transit option alongside traditional bus and subway services. If all goes well, after Hamburg MOIA "will bring sustainable, autonomous mobility to large-scale deployment in Europe and the U.S.," according to VW Group CEO Oliver Blume. Down the road, VW has also signed an agreement for rideshare juggernaut Uber to use the ID Buzz AD across America, starting with Los Angeles in 2026. The ID Buzz AD is the first vehicle in Germany to reach SAE International's threshold for Level 4 autonomous driving, meaning that the car can drive itself, with no need for a driver behind the wheel, within designated areas. It comes with "a full suite of tools for public and private transit providers," notes the EV news site Electrek. "That includes everything from the self-driving tech to fleet management software, passenger support, and operator training. That will allow cities and companies to launch driverless fleets quickly, safely, and at scale." And Christian Senger, a member of the board of management of VW Commercial Vehicles, tells DW the vans will be manufactured in very large numbers. The Hannover VW factory is set to produce more than 10,000 commercial vehicles. "We believe we can be the leading supplier in Europe," Senger says.... [Senger] does not expect the top dog of Germany's beleaguered auto industry to make any money, at least at first. In the long term, though, he explains that autonomous driving is the lucrative field of the future, one that promises to be much more profitable than the traditional automotive industry... The exact price has not yet been announced but the ID. Buzz AD is unlikely to come cheap. According to Senger, buyers will have to pay a low six-figure sum (in euros) per vehicle. That means it's going to be expensive for transport companies. The Association of German Transport Companies or VDV, is calling for a nationally coordinated strategy of long-term financing, and a market launch supported by public funding, to establish the country's supremacy in this market.

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The Python Software Foundation ("made up of, governed, and led by the community") does more than just host Python and its documnation, the Python Package Repository, and the development workflows of core CPython developers. This week the PSF released its 28-page Annual Impact Report this week, noting that 2024 was their first year with three CPython developers-in-residence — and "Between Lukasz, Petr, and Serhiy, over 750 pull requests were authored, and another 1,500 pull requests by other authors were reviewed and merged." Lukasz Langa co-implemented the new colorful shell included in Python 3.13, along with Pablo Galindo Salgado, Emily Morehouse-Valcarcel, and Lysandros Nikolaou.... Code-wise, some of the most interesting contributions by Petr Viktorin were around the ctypes module that allows interaction between Python and C.... These are just a few of Serhiy Storchaka's many contributions in 2024: improving error messages for strings, bytes, and bytearrays; reworking support for var-arguments in the C argument handling generator called "Argument Clinic"; fixing memory leaks in regular expressions; raising the limits for Python integers on 64-bit platforms; adding support for arbitrary code page encodings on Windows; improving complex and fraction number support... Thanks to the investment of [the OpenSSF's security project] Alpha-Omega in 2024, our Security Developer-in-Residence, Seth Larson, continued his work improving the security posture of CPython and the ecosystem of Python packages. Python continues to be an open source security leader, evident by the Linux kernel becoming a CVE Numbering Authority using our guide as well as our publication of a new implementers guide for Trusted Publishers used by Ruby, Crates.io, and Nuget. Python was also recommended as a memory-safe programming language in early 2024 by the White House and CISA following our response to the Office of the National Cyber Directory Request for Information on open source security in 2023... Due to the increasing demand for SBOMs, Seth has taken the initiative to generate SBOM documents for the CPython runtime and all its dependencies, which are now available on python.org/downloads. Seth has also started work on standardizing SBOM documents for Python packages with PEP 770, aiming to solve the "Phantom Dependency" problem and accurately represent non-Python software included in Python packages. With the continued investment in 2024 by Amazon Web Services Open Source and Georgetown CSET for this critical role, our PyPI Safety & Security Engineer, Mike Fiedler, completed his first full calendar year at the PSF... In March 2024, Mike added a "Report project as malware" button on the website, creating more structure to inbound reports and decreasing remediation time. This new button has been used over 2,000 times! The large spike in June led to prohibiting Outlook email domains, and the spike in November was driven by a persistent attack. Mike developed the ability to place projects in quarantine pending further investigation. Thanks to a grant from Alpha-Omega, Mike will continue his work for a second year. We plan to do more work on minimizing time-on-PyPI for malware in 2025... In 2024, PyPI saw an 84% growth in download counts and 48% growth in bandwidth, serving 526,072,569,160 downloads for the 610,131 projects hosted there, requiring 1.11 Exabytes of data transfer, or 281.6 Gbps of bandwidth 24x7x365. In 2024, 97k new projects, 1.2 million new releases, and 3.1 million new files were uploaded to the index.

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U.S. consumers "rank problems with public electric vehicle charging and the time it takes to recharge as their top two reasons for rejecting electric vehicles," writes the New York Times, citing figures from data analytics firm J.D. Power. But are things getting better? Automakers and charging companies are building new stations and updating their cars to allow drivers to more easily and quickly recharge their vehicles. They're also outfitting charging stations with items such as food and bathrooms, and making the devices more reliable. Because chargers are only as fast as the cars they connect with, automakers are designing new cars to absorb electricity at higher speeds. In addition, many automakers have cut deals with Tesla to allow owners of other cars to use the company's fast-charging network, the largest in the country and widely considered the most reliable. Early evidence suggests efforts to improve electric vehicle charging are paying off. In recent years, J.D. Power surveys showed about 20% of attempts to charge electric vehicles at all public stations ended in failure because of faulty chargers, long lines or payment glitches. But in the first three months of 2025, overall failure rates fell to 16%, the biggest improvement since the surveys began in 2021. "The industry is finally elevating as a whole," said Brent Gruber, an executive director at J.D. Power. The number of chargers has also increased. There were about 55,200 fast chargers in the United States in May, up from 42,200 a year earlier, according to federal data. In February, a former Phillips 66 gas station in Apex, N.C., near Raleigh, became the first "Rechargery" from Ionna, a company created by eight automakers, including General Motors, Hyundai Motors, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Their chargers can deliver up to 400 kilowatts of juice, much more than Tesla's 250-kilowatt Superchargers. Some cars can replenish a battery in 30 minutes or less at the higher charging speeds. When connected to chargers of 350 kilowatts or more, including those at Ionna and Electrify America, another fast-charging network, a Hyundai Ioniq 5 can fill its electric "tank" from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes... Some models from BMW, Hyundai and Kia have also enabled a national "Plug and Charge" standard that lets car owners begin charging their vehicles at Ionna stalls without first having to use a smartphone app or swipe a credit card, eliminating a step that sometimes results in errors. Tesla's chargers have long worked this way for Tesla cars and now work with some other vehicles, including Rivian's SUVs and pickups. More cars and charging stations are expected to have plug-and-charge capability in the coming months... Nearly every major automaker is redesigning their cars with plug outlets and software that are compatible with Tesla chargers. Infrastructure upgrades are happening elsewhere too, according to the article.Texas-based gas chain Buc-ee's is offering "premium" charging using renewable power (working with Mercedes), while Waffle House plans to install BP Pulse fast chargers next year. J.D. Power's Gruber says that while America's federal charger program only helped construct a tiny fraction of new chargers, it did also published guidelines which helped automakers and charging companies work together and address technical problems.

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The developer-focused analyst firm RedMonk releases twice-a-year rankings of programming language popularity. This week they also released a handy graph showing the movement of top 20 languages since 2012. Their current rankings for programming language popularity... 1. JavaScript 2. Python 3. Java 4. PHP 5. C# 6. TypeScript 7. CSS 8. C++ 9. Ruby 10. C The chart shows that over the years the rankings really haven't changed much (other than a surge for TypeScript and Python, plus a drop for Ruby). JavaScript has consistently been #1 (except in two early rankings, where it came in behind Java). And in 2020 Java finally slipped from #2 down to #3, falling behind... Python. Python had already overtaken PHP for the #3 spot in 2017, pushing PHP to a steady #4. C# has maintained the #5 spot since 2014 (though with close competition from both C++ and CSS). And since 2021 the next four spots have been held by Ruby, C, Swift, and R. The only change in the current top 20 since the last ranking "is Dart dropping from a tie with Rust at 19 into sole possession of 20," writes RedMonk co-founder Stephen O'Grady. "In the decade and a half that we have been ranking these languages, this is by far the least movement within the top 20 that we have seen. While this is to some degree attributable to a general stasis that has settled over the rankings in recent years, the extraordinary lack of movement is likely also in part a manifestation of Stack Overflow's decline in query volume..." The arrival of AI has had a significant and accelerating impact on Stack Overflow, which comprises one half of the data used to both plot and rank languages twice a year... Stack Overflow's value from an observational standpoint is not what it once was, and that has a tangible impact, as we'll see.... As that long time developer site sees fewer questions, it becomes less impactful in terms of driving volatility on its half of the rankings axis, and potentially less suggestive of trends moving forward... [W]e're not yet at a point where Stack Overflow's role in our rankings has been deprecated, but the conversations at least are happening behind the scenes. "The veracity of the Stack Overflow data is increasingly questionable," writes RedMonk's research director: When we use Stack Overflow for programming language rankings we measure how many questions are asked using specific programming language tags... While other pieces, like Matt Asay's AI didn't kill Stack Overflow are right to point out that the decline existed before the advent of AI coding assistants, it is clear that the usage dramatically decreased post 2023 when ChatGPT became widely available. The number of questions asked are now about 10% what they were at Stack Overflow's peak. "RedMonk is continuing to evaluate the quality of this analysis," the research director concludes, arguing "there is value in long-lived data, and seeing trends move over a decade is interesting and worthwhile. On the other hand, at this point half of the data feeding the programming language rankings is increasingly stale and of questionable value on a going-forward basis, and there is as of now no replacement public data set available. "We'll continue to watch and advise you all on what we see with Stack Overflow's data."

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OpenAI appears to have pulled a much-discussed video promoting the friendship between CEO Sam Altman and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive (plus, incidentally, OpenAI's $6.5 billion deal to acquire Ive and Altman's device startup io) from its website and YouTube page. [Though you can still see the original on Archive.org.] Does that suggest something is amiss with the acquisition, or with plans for Ive to lead design work at OpenAI? Not exactly, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who reports [on X.com] that the "deal is on track and has NOT dissolved or anything of the sort." Instead, he said a judge has issued a restraining order over the io name, forcing the company to pull all materials that used it. Gurman elaborates on the disappearance of the video (and other related marketing materials) in a new article at Bloomberg: Bloomberg reported last week that a judge was considering barring OpenAI from using the IO name due to a lawsuit recently filed by the similarly named IYO Inc., which is also building AI devices. "This is an utterly baseless complaint and we'll fight it vigorously," a spokesperson for Ive said on Sunday. The video is still viewable on X.com, notes TechCrunch. But visiting the "Sam and Jony" page on OpenAI now pulls up a 404 error message — written in the form of a haiku: Ghost of code lingers Blank space now invites wonder Thoughts begin to soar by o4-mini-high

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"The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life..." writes The Verge: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich... "No major kernel decisions were made," jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn. More from the Linux news blog Linuxiac: The man on the left is Mark Russinovich, a software engineer, author, and co-founder of Sysinternals, now CTO of Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform. He has become synonymous with deep Windows diagnostics and cloud-scale management. In the late 1990s, his suite of tools (Process Explorer, Autoruns, Procmon) revolutionized the way administrators and security professionals understood Windows internals. The man on the far right is another living legend: Dave Cutler. Let me put it this way — he's one of the key people behind OpenVMS and the brilliant lead architect who designed Windows NT's kernel and hardware-abstraction layer — technologies that remain at the heart of every current Windows release, from server farms to laptops. So, it's no surprise that people often call him the "father of Windows NT."

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With no one behind the steering wheel, a Tesla robotaxi passes Guero's Taco Bar in Austin Texas, making a right turn onto Congress Avenue. Today is the day Austin became the first city in the world to see Tesla's self-driving robotaxi service, reports The Guardian: Some analysts believe that the robotaxis will only be available to employees and invitees initially. For the CEO, Tesla's rollout is slow. "We could start with 1,000 or 10,000 [robotaxis] on day one, but I don't think that would be prudent," he told CNBC in May. "So, we will start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40." The billionaire has said the driverless cars will be monitored remotely... [Posting on X.com] Musk said the date was "tentatively" 22 June but that this launch date would be "not real self-driving", which would have to wait nearly another week... Musk said he planned to have one thousand Tesla robotaxis on Austin roads "within a few months" and then he would expand to other cities in Texas and California. Musk posted on X that riders on launch day would be charged a flat fee of $4.20, according to Reuters. And "In recent days, Tesla has sent invites to a select group of Tesla online influencers for a small and carefully monitored robotaxi trial..." As the date of the planned robotaxi launch approached, Texas lawmakers moved to enact rules on autonomous vehicles in the state. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, on Friday signed legislation requiring a state permit to operate self-driving vehicles. The law does not take effect until September 1, but the governor's approval of it on Friday signals state officials from both parties want the driverless-vehicle industry to proceed cautiously... The law softens the state's previous anti-regulation stance on autonomous vehicles. A 2017 Texas law specifically prohibited cities from regulating self-driving cars... The law requires autonomous-vehicle operators to get approval from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles before operating on public streets without a human driver. It also gives state authorities the power to revoke permits if they deem a driverless vehicle "endangers the public," and requires firms to provide information on how police and first responders can deal with their driverless vehicles in emergency situations. The law's requirements for getting a state permit to operate an "automated motor vehicle" are not particularly onerous but require a firm to attest it can safely operate within the law... Compliance remains far easier than in some states, most notably California, which requires extensive submission of vehicle-testing data under state oversight. Tesla "planned to operate only in areas it considered the safest," according to the article, and "plans to avoid bad weather, difficult intersections, and will not carry anyone below the age of 18." More details from UPI: To get started using the robotaxis, users must download the Robotaxi app and use their Tesla account to log in, where it then functions like most ridesharing apps... "Riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi," the company wrote in a disclaimer in its terms of service. "Tesla may modify or cancel rides in its discretion, including for example due to weather conditions." The terms of service include a clause that Tesla will not be liable for "any indirect, consequential, incidental, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits or revenues, lost data, lost time, the costs of procuring substitute transportation services, or other intangible losses" from the use of the robotaxis. Their article includes a link to the robotaxi's complete Terms of Service: To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Robotaxi, Robotaxi app, and any ride are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied... The Robotaxi is not intended to provide transportation services in connection with emergencies, for example emergency transportation to a hospital... Tesla's total liability for any claim arising from or relating to Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app is limited to the greater of the amount paid by you to Tesla for the Robotaxi ride giving rise to the claim, and $100... Tesla may modify these Terms in our discretion, effective upon posting an updated version on Tesla's website. By using a Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app after Tesla posts such modifications, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

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How AI will reshape the future of work? The Washington Post looks at India's $280 billion call-center and "business process outsourcing" industry, which employs over 3 million people. 2023 saw the arrival of a real-time "accent-altering software" — now used by at least 42,000 call center agents: Those who use the software are engaging in "digital whitewashing," critics say, which helps explain why the industry prefers the term "accent translation" over "accent neutralization." But companies say it's delivering results: happier customers, satisfied agents, faster calls. Many are not convinced. Whatever short-term gains automation may offer to workers, they say, it will ultimately eliminate far more jobs than it creates. They point to the quality assurance process: When callers hear, "this call may be monitored," that now usually refers to an AI system, not a human [which now can review all calls for compliance and tone]... "AI is going to crush entry-level white-collar hiring over the next 24 to 36 months," said Mark Serdar, who has spent his career helping Fortune 500 companies expand their global workforce. "And it's happening faster than most people realize...." Already, chatbots, or "virtual agents," are handling basic tasks like password resets or balance updates. AI systems are writing code, translating emails, onboarding patients, and analyzing applications for credit cards, mortgages and insurance. The human jobs are changing, too. AI "co-pilots" are providing call center agents with instant answers and suggested scripts. At some companies, bots have started handling the calls. There is no shortage of ominous predictions about the implications for India's labor force. Within a year, there will only be a "minimal" need for call centers, K Krithivasan, CEO of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services, recently told the Financial Times. The Brookings Institution found 86 percent of customer service tasks have "high automation potential." More than a quarter of jobs in India have "high exposure" to AI, the International Monetary Fund has warned. "There is a rapid wave coming," said Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam, a leading Indian AI firm, which recently helped a major insurance provider make 40 million automated phone calls informing enrollees that their insurance program was expiring. He said corporate clients are all asking him to help reduce headcount... While AI may be phasing out certain jobs, its defenders say it is also creating different kinds of opportunities. Teleperformance, along with hundreds of other companies, has hired thousands of data annotators in India — many of them women in small towns and rural areas — to label training images and videos for AI systems. Prompt engineers, data scientists, AI trainers and speech scientists are all newly in demand... At some firms, those who previously worked in quality assurance have transitioned to performance coaching, said [Sharath Narayana, co-founder of AI speech tools company Sanas], whose previous firm, Observe.ai, also built QA software. Still, he admits, 10 to 20 percent of workers he observed "could not upskill at all" and were probably let go. Even the most hopeful admit that workers who can't adapt will fall behind. "It's like the industrial revolution," said Prithvijit Roy, Accenture's former lead for its Global AI Hub. "Some will suffer." The article also notes that while Indian universities produce over a million engineering graduates each year, "placement rates are falling at leading IT firms; salaries have stagnated."

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The goal isn't to stop generative music, but to make it traceable, reports the Verge — "to identify it early, tag it with metadata, and govern how it moves through the system...." "Detection systems are being embedded across the entire music pipeline: in the tools used to train models, the platforms where songs are uploaded, the databases that license rights, and the algorithms that shape discovery." Platforms like YouTube and [French music streaming service] Deezer have developed internal systems to flag synthetic audio as it's uploaded and shape how it surfaces in search and recommendations. Other music companies — including Audible Magic, Pex, Rightsify, and SoundCloud — are expanding detection, moderation, and attribution features across everything from training datasets to distribution... Vermillio and Musical AI are developing systems to scan finished tracks for synthetic elements and automatically tag them in the metadata. Vermillio's TraceID framework goes deeper by breaking songs into stems — like vocal tone, melodic phrasing, and lyrical patterns — and flagging the specific AI-generated segments, allowing rights holders to detect mimicry at the stem level, even if a new track only borrows parts of an original. The company says its focus isn't takedowns, but proactive licensing and authenticated release... A rights holder or platform can run a finished track through [Vermillo's] TraceID to see if it contains protected elements — and if it does, have the system flag it for licensing before release. Some companies are going even further upstream to the training data itself. By analyzing what goes into a model, their aim is to estimate how much a generated track borrows from specific artists or songs. That kind of attribution could enable more precise licensing, with royalties based on creative influence instead of post-release disputes... Deezer has developed internal tools to flag fully AI-generated tracks at upload and reduce their visibility in both algorithmic and editorial recommendations, especially when the content appears spammy. Chief Innovation Officer Aurélien Hérault says that, as of April, those tools were detecting roughly 20 percent of new uploads each day as fully AI-generated — more than double what they saw in January. Tracks identified by the system remain accessible on the platform but are not promoted... Spawning AI's DNTP (Do Not Train Protocol) is pushing detection even earlier — at the dataset level. The opt-out protocol lets artists and rights holders label their work as off-limits for model training. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the article.

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"When Apollo astronauts stumbled across shimmering orange beads on the moon, they had no idea they were gazing at ancient relics of violent volcanic activity," writes ScienceDaily. These glass spheres, tiny yet mesmerizing, formed billions of years ago during fiery eruptions that launched molten droplets skyward, instantly freezing in space. Now, using advanced instruments that didn't exist in the 1970s, scientists have examined the beads in unprecedented detail. The result is a remarkable window into the moon's dynamic geological history, revealing how eruption styles evolved and how lunar conditions once mirrored explosive events we see on Earth today... Analyses of orange and black lunar beads have shown that the style of volcanic eruptions changed over time. "It's like reading the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist," said Ryan Ogliore [an associate professor of physics at Missouri's Washington University, which has a large repository of lunar samples that were returned to Earth]. "The beads are tiny, pristine capsules of the lunar interior..." says Ogliore. "We've had these samples for 50 years, but we now have the technology to fully understand them..." "The very existence of these beads tells us the moon had explosive eruptions, something like the fire fountains you can see in Hawaii today." Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news.

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As recently as 2021, GM "all but eliminated" hybrids from its future product plans, reports the New York Times. "But then a funny thing happened." Car shoppers balked at the high prices of fully electric models and the challenges of charging them. In the last few years, sales of electric vehicles have grown at a much slower rate than automakers once expected. And hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap, accounting for a large and growing share of new car sales... In the first three months of this year, hybrids — including cars that can and cannot be plugged in — made up about 14 percent of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles in that period... Several automakers are slowing the introduction of new electric vehicles, and have accelerated development of new hybrids. Robb Report looks at the current status of hybrids — and a possible future: "The charging infrastructure in most countries is not yet mature enough to support convenient mass adoption of battery-electric vehicles, and in some territories never will be," says Jonathan Hall, head of research and advanced engineering at U.K.-based consulting group Mahle Powertrain.... Porsche, active in this space since 2010, just hybridized its iconic 911 for this model year. Lamborghini also joined the trend with the debut of its 1,000 hp Revuelto hybrid in 2023. "The company doesn't plan to give up the internal-combustion engine anytime soon," says CTO Rouven Mohr. "We are also considering synthetic fuels to keep ICE vehicles running after 2030." Hall concurs: "With the emergence of bio-based and even fully synthetic fuels, the link between the ICE and climate change can be broken." Combined with the development of better batteries, this progressive hybrid model could offer the best of both worlds for years to come.

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alternative_right writes: We certainly weren't looking for it. What we have confirmed is that metals have their own intrinsic, natural ability to heal themselves, at least in the case of fatigue damage at the nanoscale.' While the observation is unprecedented, it's not wholly unexpected. In 2013, Texas A&M University materials scientist Michael Demkowicz worked on a study predicting that this kind of nanocrack healing could happen, driven by the tiny crystalline grains inside metals essentially shifting their boundaries in response to stress... That the automatic mending process happened at room temperature is another promising aspect of the research. Metal usually requires lots of heat to shift its form, but the experiment was carried out in a vacuum; it remains to be seen whether the same process will happen in conventional metals in a typical environment. A possible explanation involves a process known as cold welding, which occurs under ambient temperatures whenever metal surfaces come close enough together for their respective atoms to tangle together. Typically, thin layers of air or contaminants interfere with the process; in environments like the vacuum of space, pure metals can be forced close enough together to literally stick.

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An artist cancelled their Duolingo and Audible subscriptions to protest the companies' decisions to use more AI. "If enough people leave, hopefully they kind of rethink this," the artist tells the Washington Post. And apparently, many more people feel the same way... In thousands of comments and posts about Audible and Duolingo that The Post reviewed across social media — including on Reddit, YouTube, Threads and TikTok — people threatened to cancel subscriptions, voiced concern for human translators and narrators, and said AI creates inferior experiences. "It destroys the purpose of humanity. We have so many amazing abilities to create art and music and just appreciate what's around us," said Kayla Ellsworth, a 21-year-old college student. "Some of the things that are the most important to us are being replaced by things that are not real...." People in creative jobs are already on edge about the role AI is playing in their fields. On sites such as Etsy, clearly AI-generated art and other products are pushing out some original crafters who make a living on their creations. AI is being used to write romance novels and coloring books, design logos and make presentations... "I was promised tech would make everything easier so I could enjoy life," author Brittany Moone said. "Now it's leaving me all the dishes and the laundry so AI can make the art." But will this turn into a consumer movement? The article also cites an assistant marketing professor at Washington State University, who found customers are now reacting negatively to the term "AI" in product descriptions — out of fear for losing their jobs (as well as concerns about quality and privacy). And he does predict this can change the way companies use AI. "There will be some companies that are going to differentiate themselves by saying no to AI." And while it could be a niche market, "The people will be willing to pay more for things just made by humans."

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The education-news site EdSurge published "sponsored content" from Minecraft Education this month. "Students light up when they create something meaningful," the article begins. "Self-expression fuels learning, and creativity lies at the heart of the human experience." But they also argue that "As AI rapidly reshapes software development, computer science education must move beyond syntax drills and algorithmic repetition." Students "must also learn to think systemically..." As AI automates many of the mechanical aspects of programming, the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic and designing ethical, human-centered solutions... [I]t's critical to offer computer science experiences that foster invention, expression and design. This isn't just an education issue — it's a workforce one. Creativity now ranks among the top skills employers seek, alongside analytical thinking and AI literacy. As automation reshapes the job market, McKinsey estimates up to 375 million workers may need to change occupations by 2030. The takeaway? We need more adaptable, creative thinkers. Creative coding, where programming becomes a medium for self-expression and innovation, offers a promising solution to this disconnect. By positioning code as a creative tool, educators can tap into students' intrinsic motivation while simultaneously building computational thinking skills. This approach helps students see themselves as creators, not just consumers, of technology. It aligns with digital literacy frameworks that emphasize critical evaluation, meaningful contribution and not just technical skills. One example of creative coding comes from a curriculum that introduces computer science through game design and storytelling in Minecraft... Developed by Urban Arts in collaboration with Minecraft Education, the program offers middle school teachers professional development, ongoing coaching and a 72-session curriculum built around game-based instruction. Designed for grades 6-8, the project-based program is beginner-friendly; no prior programming experience is required for teachers or students. It blends storytelling, collaborative design and foundational programming skills with a focus on creativity and equity.... Students use Minecraft to build interactive narratives and simulations, developing computational thinking and creative design... Early results are promising: 93 percent of surveyed teachers found the Creative Coders program engaging and effective, noting gains in problem-solving, storytelling and coding, as well as growth in critical thinking, creativity and resilience. As AI tools like GitHub Copilot become standard in development workflows, the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance, precisely what creative coding develops... As AI continues to automate routine tasks, students must be able to guide systems, understand logic and collaborate with intelligent tools. Creative coding introduces these capabilities in ways that are accessible, culturally relevant and engaging for today's learners. Some background from long-time Slashdot reader theodp: The Urban Arts and Microsoft Creative Coders program touted by EdSurge in its advertorial was funded by a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant that was awarded to Urban Arts in 2023 by the U.S. Education Department "to create an engaging, game-based, middle school CS course using Minecraft tools" for 3,450 middle schoolers (6th-8th grades)" in New York and California (Urban Arts credited Minecraft for helping craft the winning proposal)... New York City is a Minecraft Education believer — the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment recently kicked off summer with the inaugural NYC Video Game Festival, which included the annual citywide Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs Esports Competition in partnership with NYC Public Schools.

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"A single infusion of a stem cell-based treatment may have cured 10 out of 12 people with the most severe form of Type 1 diabetes," reports the New York Times. "One year later, these 10 patients no longer need insulin. The other two patients need much lower doses." The experimental treatment, called zimislecel and made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Boston, involves stem cells that scientists prodded to turn into pancreatic islet cells, which regulate blood glucose levels. The new islet cells were infused and reached the pancreas, where they took up residence. The study was presented Friday evening at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association and published online by The New England Journal of Medicine... Patients in the study began to need less insulin within a few months of being infused with new islet cells, and most stopped needing the hormone altogether at about six months [said Dr. Trevor Reichman, director of the pancreas and islet transplant program at University Health Network, a hospital in Toronto, and first author of the study]. He added that patients' episodes of hypoglycemia went away within the first 90 days of treatment. If the study continues to show positive results, the company expects to submit an application to the FDA next year. "For the short term, this looks promising" for severely affected patients like those in the study," said Dr. Irl B. Hirsch, a diabetes expert at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study. But patients in the trial had to stay on drugs to prevent the immune system from destroying the new cells. Suppressing the immune system, he said, increases the risk of infections and, over the long term, can increase the risk of cancer... Patients may have to take the immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives, the Vertex spokesperson said.

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"Modern vehicles have quietly become rolling monuments to terrible user experience, trading intuitive physical controls for flashy but dangerous touchscreen interfaces," argues the site Cars & Horsepower, decrying "an industry-wide plague of poorly designed digital dashboards that demand more attention from drivers than the road itself." The consequences are measurable and severe: studies now show touchscreen vehicles require up to four times longer to perform basic functions than their button-equipped counterparts, creating a distracted driving crisis that automakers refuse to acknowledge. A Swedish car magazine, Vi Bilägare, conducted a study [in 2022] comparing how long it takes drivers to perform basic tasks like adjusting climate controls or changing the radio station using touchscreens versus traditional physical buttons. The results showed that in the worst-performing modern car, it took drivers up to four times longer to complete these tasks compared to an older vehicle with physical controls... Even after allowing drivers time to familiarize themselves with each system, touchscreen-equipped cars consistently required more time and attention, which could translate into increased distraction and reduced safety on the road.... A seminal 2019 study from the University of Utah found drivers using touchscreens exhibited: - 30% longer reaction times to road hazards - Significantly higher cognitive workload (as measured by pupil dilation) - More frequent and longer glances away from the road The reason lies in proprioception — our body's ability to sense its position in space. Physical controls allow for muscle memory development; drivers can locate and manipulate buttons without looking. Touchscreens destroy this capability, forcing visual confirmation for every interaction. Even haptic feedback (those little vibrations mimicking physical buttons) fails to solve the problem, as demonstrated by a 2022 AAA study showing haptic systems offered no safety improvement over standard touchscreens... A study from Drexel University introduced a system called [Distract-R](), which uses cognitive modeling to simulate how drivers interact with in-vehicle interfaces. It found that multi-step touchscreen tasks increase cognitive load, diverting attention from the road more than physical buttons.... Furthermore, a systematic review on driver distraction in the context of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Automated Driving Systems (ADS) highlights that even with automation, drivers remain vulnerable to distraction, especially when interacting with complex interfaces... There's also software reliability issues (even before the issue of "feature paywalls"). But some manufacturers are going back, according to the article. "After receiving widespread criticism, Porsche added physical climate controls back to the Taycan's center console. Nissan's latest concepts feature prominent physical buttons for common functions..." And Mazda eliminated touch capability entirely while moving, "forcing use of a physical control knob... The system reduces glance time by 15% compared to touch interfaces while maintaining all modern infotainment functionality." The article recommends consumers prioritize physical controls when vehicle shopping, seeking out models with buttons. But there's also "aftermarket solutions," with companies like Analog Automotive "developing physical control panels that interface with popular infotainment systems, bringing back tactile operation." Another option: voice commands (like on GM's latest systems). "Ultimately, the solution requires consumer pushback against dangerous interface trends.... The road deserves our full attention, not divided focus between driving and debugging a poorly designed tablet on wheels." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

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It's not just Amazon's CEO predicting AI will lower their headcount. "Top executives at some of the largest American companies have a warning for their workers: Artificial intelligence is a threat to your job," reports the Washington Post — including IBM, Salesforce, and JPMorgan Chase. But are they really just trying to impress their shareholders? Economists say there aren't yet strong signs that AI is driving widespread layoffs across industries.... CEOs are under pressure to show they are embracing new technology and getting results — incentivizing attention-grabbing predictions that can create additional uncertainty for workers. "It's a message to shareholders and board members as much as it is to employees," Molly Kinder, a Brookings Institution fellow who studies the impact of AI, said of the CEO announcements, noting that when one company makes a bold AI statement, others typically follow. "You're projecting that you're out in the future, that you're embracing and adopting this so much that the footprint [of your company] will look different." Some CEOs fear they could be ousted from their job within two years if they don't deliver measurable AI-driven business gains, a Harris Poll survey conducted for software company Dataiku showed. Tech leaders have sounded some of the loudest warnings — in line with their interest in promoting AI's power... IBM, which recently announced job cuts, said it replaced a couple hundred human resource workers with AI "agents" for repetitive tasks such as onboarding and scheduling interviews. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested on Joe Rogan's podcast that the company is building AI that might be able to do what some human workers do by the end of the year.... Marianne Lake, JPMorgan's CEO of consumer and community banking, told an investor meeting last month that AI could help the bank cut headcount in operations and account services by 10 percent. The CEO of BT Group Allison Kirkby suggested that advances in AI would mean deeper cuts at the British telecom company... Despite corporate leaders' warnings, economists don't yet see broad signs that AI is driving humans out of work. "We have little evidence of layoffs so far," said Columbia Business School professor Laura Veldkamp, whose research explores how companies' use of AI affects the economy. "What I'd look for are new entrants with an AI-intensive business model, entering and putting the existing firms out of business." Some researchers suggest there is evidence AI is playing a role in the drop in openings for some specific jobs, like computer programming, where AI tools that generate code have become standard... It is still unclear what benefits companies are reaping from employees' use of AI, said Arvind Karunakaran, a faculty member of Stanford University's Center for Work, Technology, and Organization. "Usage does not necessarily translate into value," he said. "Is it just increasing productivity in terms of people doing the same task quicker or are people now doing more high value tasks as a result?" Lynda Gratton, a professor at London Business School, said predictions of huge productivity gains from AI remain unproven. "Right now, the technology companies are predicting there will be a 30% productivity gain. We haven't yet experienced that, and it's not clear if that gain would come from cost reduction ... or because humans are more productive." On an earnings call, Salesforce's chief operating and financial officer said AI agents helped them reduce hiring needs — and saved $50 million, according to the article. (And Ethan Mollick, co-director of Wharton School of Business' generative AI Labs, adds that if advanced tools like AI agents can prove their reliability and automate work — that could become a larger disruptor to jobs.) "A wave of disruption is going to happen," he's quoted as saying. But while the debate continues about whether AI will eliminate or create jobs, Mollick still hedges that "the truth is probably somewhere in between."

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ScienceAlert reports: Casino lighting could be nudging gamblers to be more reckless with their money, according to a new study, which found a link between blue-enriched light and riskier gambling behavior. The extra blue light emitted by casino decor and LED screens seems to trigger certain switches in our brains, making us less sensitive to financial losses compared to gains of equal magnitude, researchers from Flinders University and Monash University in Australia found... The researchers think circadian photoreception, which is our non-visual response to light, is playing a part here. The level of blue spectrum light may be activating specific eye cells connected to brain regions in charge of decision-making, emotional regulation, and processing risk versus reward scenarios. "Under conditions where the lighting emitted less blue, people tended to feel a $100 loss much more strongly than a $100 gain — the loss just feels worse," [says the study's lead author, a psychologist at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute]. "But under bright, blue-heavy light such as that seen in casino machines, the $100 loss didn't appear to feel as bad, so people were more willing to take the risk...." That raises some questions around ethics and responsibility, according to the researchers. While encouraging risk taking might be good for the gambling business, it's not good for the patrons spending their cash. One professor involved in the study reached this conclusion. "It is possible that simply dimming the blue in casino lights could help promote safer gambling behaviors." The research has been published in Scientific Reports. Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news.

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BlueSky has grown from roughly 10 million users in early November to 36.79 million today — and its last 30 days of traffic looks very level. But instead of calling BlueSky's traffic "level", right-leaning libertarian Megan McArdle argues instead that BlueSky's "decline shows no sign of leveling out" (comparing the stable figures from the last month to a one-time spike seven months ago so they can write "It's now down about 50 percent"). And Wednesday the conservative UK magazine Spectator also ignored the 30-day-leveling to write instead that BlueSky is somehow "sliding down a slope". But TechCrunch thinks the "up or down" conversation is entirely missing the point of "the wider network of apps built on the open protocol that Bluesky's team spearheaded" — and how BlueSky "is only meant to be one example of what's possible within the wider AT Proto ecosystem." If you don't like the tone of the topics trending on Bluesky, you can switch to other apps, change your default feeds, or even build your own social platform using the technology. Already, people are using the protocol that powers Bluesky to build social experiences for specific groups — like Blacksky is doing for the Black online community or like Gander Social is doing for social media users in Canada. There are also feed builders like Graze and those in Surf that let you create custom feeds where you can focus on specific content you care about — like video games or baseball — and exclude others, like politics. Built into Bluesky (and other third-party clients) are tools that let you pick your default feed and add others that interest you from a range of topics. If you want to follow a feed devoted to your favorite TV show or animal, for instance, you can. In other words, Bluesky is meant to be what you make it, and its content can be consumed in whatever format you prefer best. In addition to Bluesky itself, the wider network of apps built on the AT Protocol includes photo- and video-sharing apps, livestreaming tools, communication apps, blogging apps, music apps, movie and TV recommendation apps, and more. Other tools also let you combine feeds from Bluesky with other social networks. Openvibe, for instance, can mix together feeds from social networks like Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Nostr. Apps like Surf and Tapestry offer ways to track posts on open social platforms as well as those published with other open protocols like RSS. This lets the apps pull in content from blogs, news sites, YouTube, and podcasts. Even just considering BlueSky itself, three weeks ago Fast Company pointed out that BlueSky "grew from 11 million users to 25 million between late October and mid-December, but has added only about 10 million more since then." So how is a 10-million user increase "dying"? For a social network, being prematurely written off is a rite of passage. It's even a compliment of sorts — a sign that people are paying attention and care... When I chatted with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber this week, I wasn't surprised that she didn't seem fazed by the debate on her platform and saw the parallels with early-days Twitter. "Reports of our death are greatly exaggerated," she told me. "It's a similar thing, because with social sites, it's not straight up all the time. [Growth] comes in waves, and at each stage, there's a new era of communities being established and formed. We're still seeing a lot of community formation, and one of the most exciting things is how structurally different this is. It's not just another social site that has to be a singular winner-take-all in an ecosystem with existing incumbents...." One other challenge that Bluesky has not yet fully confronted is monetizing itself. Onstage at Web Summit, Graber emphasized that it's working on subscription services, a healthier revenue source than stuffing feeds with ads, though potentially a tougher one to scale up to sustainability. The company announced a $15 million Series A funding round last October. But again, the point isn't BlueSky's increasing user count or its stablizing levels of Daily Unique "Likers" — but its underlying open source protocol: [S]he was at her most passionate when discussing the company's aspiration to decentralize social networking via its open AT Protocol. It powers Bluesky — and variants such as the Pinksky photo-sharing app, which she praised onstage — but could also provide the infrastructure for further-flung social experiences. Maybe even ones catering to folks who have zero interest in participating in the Bluesky community. "The goal is to really get through that this is a Choose Your Own Adventure and Bluesky's just the beginning," she says. "The sky's the limit." Whether she'll fulfill her grandest ambitions, I'm not sure. But I already like this era of social networking better than the one when a handful of winners really did take all.

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"The carbon cost of asking an artificial intelligence model a single text question can be measured in grams of CO2..." writes the Washington Post. And while an individual's impact may be low, what about the collective impact of all users? "A Google search takes about 10 times less energy than a ChatGPT query, according to a 2024 analysis from Goldman Sachs — although that may change as Google makes AI responses a bigger part of search." For now, a determined user can avoid prompting Google's default AI-generated summaries by switching over to the "web" search tab, which is one of the options alongside images and news. Adding "-ai" to the end of a search query also seems to work. Other search engines, including DuckDuckGo, give you the option to turn off AI summaries.... Using AI doesn't just mean going to a chatbot and typing in a question. You're also using AI every time an algorithm organizes your social media feed, recommends a song or filters your spam email... [T]here's not much you can do about it other than using the internet less. It's up to the companies that are integrating AI into every aspect of our digital lives to find ways to do it with less energy and damage to the planet. More points from the article: Two researchers tested the performance of 14 AI language models, and found larger models gave more accurate answers, "but used several times more energy than smaller models." The data centers hosting AI models "can devour more electricity than entire cities." "Keeping those computers cool uses freshwater — about one bottle's worth for every 100 words of text ChatGPT generates."

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