Linux fréttir

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Australian SaaS-y graphic design service Canva now requires candidates for developer jobs to use AI coding assistants during the interview process. [...] Canva's hiring process previously included an interview focused on computer science fundamentals, during which it required candidates to write code using only their actual human brains. The company now expects candidates for frontend, backend, and machine learning engineering roles to demonstrate skill with tools like Copilot, Cursor, and Claude during technical interviews, Canva head of platforms Simon Newton wrote in a Tuesday blog post. His rationale for the change is that nearly half of Canva's frontend and backend engineers use AI coding assistants daily, that it's now expected behavior, and that the tools are "essential for staying productive and competitive in modern software development." Yet Canva's old interview process "asked candidates to solve coding problems without the very tools they'd use on the job," Newton admitted. "This dismissal of AI tools during the interview process meant we weren't truly evaluating how candidates would perform in their actual role," he added. Candidates were already starting to use AI assistants during interview tasks -- and sometimes used subterfuge to hide it. "Rather than fighting this reality and trying to police AI usage, we made the decision to embrace transparency and work with this new reality," Newton wrote. "This approach gives us a clearer signal about how they'll actually perform when they join our team." The initial reaction among engineers "was worry that we were simply replacing rigorous computer science fundamentals with what one engineer called 'vibe-coding sessions,'" Newton said. The company addressed these concerns with a recruitment process that sees candidates expected to use their preferred AI tools, to solve what Newton described as "the kind of challenges that require genuine engineering judgment even with AI assistance." Newton added: "These problems can't be solved with a single prompt; they require iterative thinking, requirement clarification, and good decision-making."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Big Red hails growth from ‘astronomical and ‘insatiable’ demand for cloud and huge IaaS growth

Oracle has surfed demand for cloud services to post revenues that beat its own forecast, fuelled by demand for non-AI cloud services.…

A coordinated spam operation has infiltrated abandoned subdomains belonging to major institutions including Nvidia, Stanford University, NPR, and the U.S. government's vaccines.gov site, flooding them with AI-generated content that subsequently appears in search results and Google's AI Overview feature. The scheme, reports 404 Media, posted over 62,000 articles on Nvidia's events.nsv.nvidia.com subdomain before the company took it offline within two hours of being contacted by reporters. The spam articles, which included explicit gaming content and local business recommendations, used identical layouts and a fake byline called "Ashley" across all compromised sites. Each targeted domain operates under different names -- "AceNet Hub" on Stanford's site, "Form Generation Hub" on NPR, and "Seymore Insights" on vaccines.gov -- but all redirect traffic to a marketing spam page. The operation exploits search engines' trust in institutional domains, with Google's AI Overview already serving the fabricated content as factual information to users searching for local businesses.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The abstract of a study featured on NBER: We examine the labor market effects of AI chatbots using two large-scale adoption surveys (late 2023 and 2024) covering 11 exposed occupations (25,000 workers, 7,000 workplaces), linked to matched employer-employee data in Denmark. AI chatbots are now widespread -- most employers encourage their use, many deploy in-house models, and training initiatives are common. These firm-led investments boost adoption, narrow demographic gaps in take-up, enhance workplace utility, and create new job tasks. Yet, despite substantial investments, economic impacts remain minimal. Using difference-in-differences and employer policies as quasi-experimental variation, we estimate precise zeros: AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation, with confidence intervals ruling out effects larger than 1%. Modest productivity gains (average time savings of 3%), combined with weak wage pass-through, help explain these limited labor market effects. Our findings challenge narratives of imminent labor market transformation due to Generative AI.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A dating site launched last week by Belgian artist Dries Depoorter matches potential partners based on their internet browsing histories rather than curated profiles or photos. Browser Dating requires users to download a Chrome or Firefox extension that exports and uploads their recent search data, creating matches based on shared online behaviors and interests rather than traditional dating app metrics. Less than 1,000 users have signed up since the platform's launch, paying a one-time fee of $10.3 for unlimited matches or using a free tier limited to five connections. Depoorter, known for digital art projects exploring surveillance and technology, says the concept emerged from a 2016 workshop where participants shared a year of search history data. The platform processes browsing data locally using Google's Firebase tools.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon Web Services has signed a long-term deal with Talen Energy to receive up to 1,920 megawatts of carbon-free electricity from the Susquehanna nuclear plant through 2042 to support AWS's AI and cloud operations. The partnership also includes plans to explore new Small Modular Reactors and expand nuclear capacity amid rising U.S. energy demand. Utility Drive reports: Under the PPA, Talen's existing 300-MW co-location arrangement with AWS will shift to a "front of the meter" framework that doesn't require Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval, according to Houston-based Talen. The company expects the transition will occur next spring after transmission upgrades are finished. FERC in November rejected an amended interconnection service agreement that would have facilitated expanded power sales to a co-located AWS data center at the Susquehanna plant. The agency is considering potential rules for co-located loads in PJM. Talen expects to earn about $18 billion in revenue over the life of the contract at its full quantity, according to an investor presentation. The contract, which runs through 2042, calls for delivering 840 MW to 1,200 MW in 2029 and 1,680 MW to 1,920 MW in 2032. Talen will act as the retail power supplier to AWS, and PPL Electric Utilities will be responsible for transmission and delivery, the company said. Amazon on Monday said it plans to spend about $20 billion building data centers in Pennsylvania. "We are making the largest private sector investment in state history -- $20 billion-- to bring 1,250 high-skilled jobs and economic benefits to the state, while also collaborating with Talen Energy to help power our infrastructure with carbon-free energy," Kevin Miller, AWS vice president of global data centers, said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

'BrowserVenom' is pure poison

Suspected cybercriminals have created a fake installer for Chinese AI model DeepSeek-R1 and loaded it with previously unknown malware called "BrowserVenom".…

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Apple has released a new developer tool on GitHub called Container, offering a fresh approach to running Linux containers directly on macOS. Unlike Docker or Podman, this tool is designed to feel at home in the Apple ecosystem and hooks into frameworks already built into the operating system. Container runs standard OCI images, but it doesn't use a single shared Linux VM. Instead, it creates a small Linux virtual machine for every container you spin up. That sounds heavy at first, but the VMs are lightweight and boot quickly. Each one is isolated, which Apple claims improves both security and privacy. Developers can run containerized workloads locally with native macOS support and without needing to install third-party container platforms.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since filing for bankruptcy in March, 23andMe has received data deletion requests from 1.9 million users -- around 15% of its customer base. That number was revealed by 23andMe's interim chief executive Joseph Selsavage during a House Oversight Committee hearing, during which lawmakers scrutinized the company's sale following an earlier bankruptcy auction. "The bankruptcy sparked concerns that the data of millions of Americans who used 23andMe could end up in the hands of an unscrupulous buyer, prompting customers to ask the company to delete their data," adds TechCrunch. From the report: Pharmaceutical giant Regeneron won the court-approved auction in May, offering $256 million for 23andMe and its banks of customers' DNA and genetic data. Regeneron said it would use the 23andMe data to aid the discovery of new drugs, and committed to maintain 23andMe's privacy practices. Truly deleting your personal genetic information from the DNA testing company is easier said than done. But if you were a 23andMe customer and are interested, MIT Technology Review outlines that steps you can take.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Design software slinger warns it won't hire devs who aren't good at modern tools

Australian SaaS-y graphic design service Canva now requires candidates for developer jobs to use AI coding assistants during the interview process.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: Nintendo Switch 2 is off to a roaring start. Early on Wednesday, Nintendo announced that it had sold 3.5 million units of its new console in just four days, making it Nintendo's fastest-selling console ever. In fact, this is likely the biggest console launch of all time -- by quite some margin. For comparison, PlayStation 5 shipped 4.5 million units in its first seven weeks, PlayStation 4 sold 2.1 million in a little over two weeks, and Nintendo Switch sold 2.74 million in its first month. [...] Nintendo has predicted it will sell 15 million Switch 2s during its current financial year. It's well on the way to that figure already, although Nintendo still faces the challenges of maintaining stock availability and extending this expensive console's reach past the first wave of early adopters. If Switch 2 hits its first-year target, it will join Nintendo's other fasters sellers over the first year on sale: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 3DS, and the original Switch. Over the weekend, the Switch 2 beat the record for the "most-sold console within 24 hours and is on track to shatter the two-month record," according to TweakTown.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Army joins in push to break vendor grip on military maintenance

US Navy Secretary John Phelan has told the Senate the service needs the right to repair its own gear, and will rethink how it writes contracts to keep control of intellectual property and ensure sailors can fix hardware, especially in a fight.…

Amazon has launched its AI-powered Video Generator tool in the U.S., allowing sellers to quickly create photorealistic, motion-enhanced video ads often with a single click. "We'll likely see Amazon retailers utilizing AI-generated video ads in the wild now that the tool is generally available in the U.S. and costs nothing to use -- unless the ads are so convincing that we don't notice anything at all," says The Verge. From the report: New capabilities include motion improvements to show items in action, which Amazon says is best for showcasing products like toys, tools, and worn accessories. For example, Video Generator can now create clips that show someone wearing a watch on their wrist and checking the time, instead of simply displaying the watch on a table. The tool generates six different videos to choose from, and allows brands to add their logos to the finished results. The Video Generator can now also make ads with multiple connected scenes that include humans, pets, text overlays, and background music. The editing timeline shown in Amazon's announcement video suggests the ads max out at 21 seconds.. The resulting ads edge closer to the traditional commercials we're used to seeing while watching TV or online content, compared to raw clips generated by video AI tools like OpenAI's Sora or Adobe Firefly. A new video summarization feature can create condensed video ads from existing footage, such as demos, tutorials, and social media content. Amazon says Video Generator will automatically identify and extract key clips to generate new videos formatted for ad campaigns. A one-click image-to-video feature is also available that creates shorter GIF-style clips to show products in action.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hong Kong authorities have invoked national security laws for the first time to ban the Taiwan-made video game Reversed Front: Bonfire, accusing it of promoting "secessionist agendas, such as 'Taiwan independence' and 'Hong Kong independence.'" Engadget reports: Reversed Front: Bonfire was developed by a group known as ESC Taiwan, who are outspoken critics of the China's Communist Party. The game disappeared from the Apple App Store in Hong Kong less than 24 hours after authorities issued the warning. Google already removed the game from the Play Store back in May, because players were using hate speech as part of their usernames. ESC Taiwan told The New York Times that that the game's removal shows that apps like theirs are subject to censorship in mainland China. The group also thanked authorities for the free publicity on Facebook, as the game experienced a surge in Google searches. The game uses anime-style illustrations and allows players to fight against China's Communist Party by taking on the role of "propagandists, patrons, spies or guerrillas" from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang, which is home to ethnic minorities like the Uyghur. That said, they can also choose to play as government soldiers. In its warning, Hong Kong Police said that anybody who shares or recommends the game on the internet may be committing several offenses, including "incitement to secession, "incitement to subversion" and "offenses in connection with seditious intention." Anybody who has downloaded the game will be considered in "possession of a publication that has a seditious intention," and anybody who provides financial assistance to it will be violating national security laws, as well. "Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law," the authorities wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Not that kind of edible - this one's electronic

DARPA has announced a research program to explore whether an "ingestible form factor" device can stimulate gut neurons to modulate stress responses, potentially improving decision-making and reducing the risk of PTSD.…

Everything is AWESOME!!!

OpenAI on Tuesday rolled out its o3-Pro model for ChatGPT Pro and Teams subscribers, slashed o3 pricing by 80 percent, and dropped a blog post from CEO Sam Altman teasing "intelligence too cheap to meter."…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The robot built by [Yuntao Ma and his team at ETH Zurich] was called ANYmal and resembled a miniature giraffe that plays badminton by holding a racket in its teeth. It was a quadruped platform developed by ANYbotics, an ETH Zurich spinoff company that mainly builds robots for the oil and gas industries. "It was an industry-grade robot," Ma said. The robot had elastic actuators in its legs, weighed roughly 50 kilograms, and was half a meter wide and under a meter long. On top of the robot, Ma's team fitted an arm with several degrees of freedom produced by another ETH Zurich spinoff called Duatic. This is what would hold and swing a badminton racket. Shuttlecock tracking and sensing the environment were done with a stereoscopic camera. "We've been working to integrate the hardware for five years," Ma said. Along with the hardware, his team was also working on the robot's brain. State-of-the-art robots usually use model-based control optimization, a time-consuming, sophisticated approach that relies on a mathematical model of the robot's dynamics and environment. "In recent years, though, the approach based on reinforcement learning algorithms became more popular," Ma told Ars. "Instead of building advanced models, we simulated the robot in a simulated world and let it learn to move on its own." In ANYmal's case, this simulated world was a badminton court where its digital alter ego was chasing after shuttlecocks with a racket. The training was divided into repeatable units, each of which required that the robot predict the shuttlecock's trajectory and hit it with a racket six times in a row. During this training, like a true sportsman, the robot also got to know its physical limits and to work around them. The idea behind training the control algorithms was to develop visuo-motor skills similar to human badminton players. The robot was supposed to move around the court, anticipating where the shuttlecock might go next and position its whole body, using all available degrees of freedom, for a swing that would mean a good return. This is why balancing perception and movement played such an important role. The training procedure included a perception model based on real camera data, which taught the robot to keep the shuttlecock in its field of view while accounting for the noise and resulting object-tracking errors. Once the training was done, the robot learned to position itself on the court. It figured out that the best strategy after a successful return is to move back to the center and toward the backline, which is something human players do. It even came with a trick where it stood on its hind legs to see the incoming shuttlecock better. It also learned fall avoidance and determined how much risk was reasonable to take given its limited speed. The robot did not attempt impossible plays that would create the potential for serious damage -- it was committed, but not suicidal. But when it finally played humans, it turned out ANYmal, as a badminton player, was amateur at best. The findings have been published in the journal Science Robotics. You can watch a video of the four-legged robot playing badminton on YouTube.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

His work set the direction of modern computer interfaces, and much more

Obit Bill Atkinson, widely acclaimed as perhaps the most brilliant computer programmer ever, has succumbed to pancreatic cancer at 74.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: A data broker owned by the country's major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected U.S. travellers' domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media. The data includes passenger names, their full flight itineraries, and financial details. CBP, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says it needs this data to support state and local police to track people of interest's air travel across the country, in a purchase that has alarmed civil liberties experts. The documents reveal for the first time in detail why at least one part of DHS purchased such information, and comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detailed its own purchase of the data. The documents also show for the first time that the data broker, called the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), tells government agencies not to mention where it sourced the flight data from. "The big airlines -- through a shady data broker that they own called ARC -- are selling the government bulk access to Americans' sensitive information, revealing where they fly and the credit card they used," Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. ARC is owned and operated by at least eight major U.S. airlines, other publicly released documents show. The company's board of directors include representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canada's Air Canada. More than 240 airlines depend on ARC for ticket settlement services.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FIN6 moves from point-of-sale compromise to phishing recruiters

In a scam that flips the script on fake IT worker schemes, cybercriminals posing as job seekers on LinkedIn and Indeed are targeting recruiters - a group hated only slightly less than digital crooks - with malware hosted on phony resume portfolio sites.…