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MechaHitler? Garbage In, Garbage Out

Opinion So, on the 4th of July, a big deal to those on my side of the pond, Elon Musk announced, "We have improved @Grok significantly." On Tuesday, July 8th, the results of those changes appeared.…

A Japanese government survey found 26.7% of people in Japan used generative AI during fiscal 2024, which ended in March. The figure tripled from the previous year but remained far behind China's 81.2% and the United States' 68.8%. People in their 20s led Japanese adoption at 44.7%, followed by those in their 40s and 30s. Among companies, 49.7% of Japanese firms planned to use generative AI, compared to more than 80% of companies in China and the US.

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Just because a student reads a book doesn't mean Midjourney gets to eat Disney

A research paper commissioned by the European Parliament has called for an EU law to pay writers, musicians, and artists whose work has been used to train GenAI models.…

First US-Soviet joint mission showed détente in action, but astronauts had a close call on return home

It is 50 years since the last hurrah of the Apollo program, with a mission that saw the final launch of an Apollo vehicle, and a subsequent docking with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in orbit.…

Researchers have created the world's first mRNA-based vaccine against a deadly, antibiotic-resistant bacterium — and they did it using the platform developed for COVID-19 vaccines. Medical Express publishes their announcement: The vaccine developed by the team from the Institute for Biological Research and Tel Aviv University is an mRNA-based vaccine delivered via lipid nanoparticles, similar to the COVID-19 vaccine. However, mRNA vaccines are typically effective against viruses like COVID-19 — not against bacteria like the plague... In 2023, the researchers developed a unique method for producing the bacterial protein within a human cell in a way that prompts the immune system to recognize it as a genuine bacterial protein and thus learn to defend against it. The researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Institute for Biological Research proved, for the first time, that it is possible to develop an effective mRNA vaccine against bacteria. They chose Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes bubonic plague — a disease responsible for deadly pandemics throughout human history. In animal models, the researchers demonstrated that it is possible to effectively vaccinate against the disease with a single dose. The team of researchers was led by Professor Dan Peer at Tel Aviv University, a global pioneer in mRNA drug development, who says the success of the current study now "paves the way for a whole world of mRNA-based vaccines against other deadly bacteria."

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We need more paranoid Androids. And, well, everything else

Opinion The 21st century is turning out weirder than we thought. For the entire history of art, for example, tools could be used and abused and would work more or less well, but generally helped the wishes and skills of the user. They did not plot against us. Now they can – and do.…

Cross-Channel pact aims to bolster navigation and timing tech as satellite signals face growing jamming threats

Britain and France are to work more closely on technology to back up the familiar Global Positioning System (GPS), which is increasingly subject to interference in many regions around the world.…

Report on serious organized crime fails to account for differences, agency says

The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has hit back at a think tank after it assessed its US counterpart, the FBI, to be nearly three times more effective.…

"Steam quietly welcomed another indie game this week, but this one is distinctly different for a lot of reasons," writes Notebookcheck: Dogwalk, which debuted on July 11, is the kind of short, gentle experience that almost forces you to smile. Developed by Blender Studio, the game introduces players to a gorgeous winter landscape. You play as a cute, fluffy dog, with a small child in tow... What's particularly interesting here is that Dogwalk is more than just another charming indie project. It's Blender Studio's showcase for what's possible using fully open-source tools. The entire project — assets, animations, and code — is made with Blender and the popular Godot Game Engine. Unlike industry giants such as Unity or Unreal, Godot is completely open source, meaning it doesn't require developers to pay royalties or follow strict licensing agreements. This should make it great for small studios and independent creators, as it lowers the entry barrier to game creation. Dogwalk is 100% free, which fits neatly into its open-source philosophy

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For the lack of a little documentation, two techies did a lot of accidental damage

Who, Me? Alas, the weekend is over, but The Register tries to make your entry to the working week a little more enjoyable by bringing you a fresh installment of Who, Me? – the column in which you explain your worst slip-ups.…

Warned that ChatGPT and Copilot had already lost, it stopped boasting and packed up its pawns

Google’s Gemini chatbot declined to play Chess against the Atari 2600, after learning the vintage gaming console had already vanquished other AIs.…

Despite loathing the USA, Iran wants providers who match NIST’s definition of cloud computing

The Information Technology Organization of Iran (ITOI), the government body that develops and implements IT services for the country, is looking for suppliers of cloud computing.…

An anonymous reader shared this report from InfoWorld: Tiobe CEO Paul Jansen says Ada, a system programming language whose initial development dates back to the late 1970s, could outlast similarly aged languages like Visual Basic, Perl, and Fortran in the language popularity race. In comments on this month's Tiobe language popularity index, posted July 9, Jansen said the index has not seen much change among leading languages such as Python, C#, and Java over the past two years. But there is more movement among older languages such as Visual Basic, SQL, Fortran, Ada, Perl, and Delphi, said Jansen. Every time one of these languages is expected to stay in the top 10, it is replaced by another language, he said. Even more remarkably, newer languages have yet to rise above them. "Where are Rust, Kotlin, Dart, and Julia? Apparently, established languages are hot." "Which one will win? Honestly, this is very hard to tell," Jansen writes, "but I would put my bets on Ada. With the ever-stronger demands on security, Ada is, as a system programming language in the safety-critical domain, likely the best survivor." Perhaps proving his point, one year ago, Ada was ranked #24 — but on this month's index it ranks #9. (Whereas the eight languages above it all remain in the exact same positions they held a year ago...) PythonC++CJavaC#JavaScriptGoVisual BasicAdaDelphi/Object Pascal

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PLUS: China’s massive lithium find; Cisco’s new Asia boss; Japan and EU plan satcomms collab; and more

Asia In Brief Indonesia’s government is investigating possible corruption during a $600 million program that saw around a quarter of a million Chromebooks installed in schools.…

Can carbon-reducing projects "offset" a company's emissions? "The reality has been less encouraging," according to a Science magazine editorial by Cary Coglianese, a law/political science professor at University of Pennsylvania, and Cynthia Giles, a former senior advisor at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a new paper published Wednesday, they found that more than half of all currently-certified carbon auditors signed off on projects later found to be "overclaiming" carbon benefits. Their conclusion? "Criticism should be directed not at individual auditors as much as the structure of the system that fosters these outcomes." Most carbon offset projects that have been closely scrutinized — including projects for forest protection, renewable energy, and methane-reducing methods of rice cultivation — have greatly exaggerated their climate benefits. More than 80% of issued credits might not reflect real emission reductions. This has alarmed potential offset purchasers and stalled carbon offset markets. Efforts to resuscitate the beleaguered offset market tout third-party auditing as "essential" to ensuring credit integrity. That reliance is misplaced... [E]xtensive research from many contexts shows that auditors selected and paid by audited organizations often produce results skewed toward those entities' interests. A field experiment in India, for example, found that air and water pollution auditors who were randomly assigned and paid from a central fund reported emissions at levels 50 to 70% higher than auditors selected and paid by audited firms. Auditors — like all people — are subject to a well-established and largely unconscious cognitive phenomenon of self-serving bias, causing them to interpret evidence in favor of their clients... [A]uditors have been required all along and have failed to prevent substantial credit overclaiming. It is rarely acknowledged that all of the credit overclaiming projects that have stirred so much controversy were ratified by third-party auditors under the same auditor selection and payment system that offset advocates rely on today... Auditors are unlikely to stay in business if they disapprove credits at the high rates that research suggests would be appropriate today... Given the high planetary stakes in carbon policy choices being made now, it is past time to recognize that third-party auditors selected and paid by the audited organizations are not the bulwark for credit integrity they are claimed to be.

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At an Amazon warehouse that employs 3,700 people, hundreds of workers recently lost their job, reports the New York Times. "They are among thousands of foreign workers across the country who have been swept up in a quiet purge, pushed out of jobs in places where their labor was in high demand and at times won high praise." While raids to nab workers in the country without legal permission in fields and Home Depot parking lots have grabbed attention, the job dismissals at the Amazon warehouse are part of the Trump administration's effort to thin the ranks of immigrants who had legal authorization to work... Such dismissals are happening at many of Amazon's more than 1,000 facilities around the country, including in Massachusetts and the warehouse in Staten Island that fills orders for millions of New Yorkers. At one fulfillment center in Florida, hundreds were let go, a person familiar with the site said... "We're supporting employees impacted by the government's recent changes in immigration policy," Richard Rocha, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement. The company has pointed workers to various resources, including outside free or low-cost legal services... The dismissals came with remarkable speed. On May 30, the Supreme Court granted temporary approval for the Trump administration to revoke a program known as "humanitarian parole," which had allowed more than 500,000 migrants feeling political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to quickly get work permits if they had a fiscal sponsor... On June 12, the Department of Homeland Security said it had begun notifying enrollees that the program was ending, saying the immigrants had been poorly vetted and undercut American workers... On June 22, Amazon told managers around the country in an email, which was obtained by The New York Times, that it had "received the first list from D.H.S. identifying impacted Amazon employees" from the parole program, as well as "some employees outside of this specific program whose work authorization is similarly affected." Amazon let the managers know that the next day, the affected workers would receive push notifications in the employee app about the change. Unless the workers could provide alternate work authorization documents in the next five days, they would be suspended without pay and ultimately dismissed.

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PLUS: Bluetooth mess leaves cars exposed; Bitcoin ATMs attacked; Deepfakers imitate US secretary of state Marco Rubio; and more

Infosec In Brief Nvidia last week advised customers to ensure they employ mitigations against Rowhammer attacks, after researchers found one of its workstation-grade GPUs is susceptible to the exploit.…

Brian Witten, VP/CSO of automotive technology supplier Aptiv, warns that "While seven to 10 years may sound like a long way off, preparation for quantum threats must begin now, not once they have already materialized." Organizations need time to implement post-quantum cryptography (PQC) transition plans methodically — and that applies both to anyone with an IT infrastructure and to anyone building software-defined systems. "Current encryption, such as RSA and ECC [elliptic curve cryptography], will become obsolete once quantum computing matures," said Cigent cofounder John Benkert. "Management often assumes cybersecurity threats are only present-day problems. But this is a future-proofing issue — especially relevant for industries dealing with sensitive, long-lifespan data, like healthcare, finance or government." Remediation requires long-term planning. Organizations that wait until quantum computers have broken encryption to address the threat will find that it is too late. Start by building an inventory of what needs to change, Witten recommends. (Fortunately, "It's a matter of using newer and different chips and algorithms, not necessarily more expensive components," he writes, also suggesting requests for proposals "should ask vendors to include a PQC update plan.") Firmware will also need quantum-resistant digital signatures. ("Broken authentication lets bad things happen. Someone could remotely take over a vehicle, for instance, or send malicious code for autonomous execution later, even after the vehicle has gone offline.") And remember that post-quantum key sizes are larger, requiring more storage space. "In some cases, digitally signed messages with security information could triple in size, which could impact storage and bandwidth." Thanks to Esther Schindler (Slashdot reader #16,185) for sharing the article.

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"GParted Live is a Linux distro with a focused purpose," writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli. "It exists solely to give users a simple and effective way to manage disk partitions. Whether you're resizing drives, prepping for dual boot, or recovering data, this live operating system has you covered." But "The 1.7.0 release brings a few key changes, starting with the end of 32-bit support." If you're still using old hardware, you're officially out of luck. This decision follows Debian's move to drop i386 kernel packages from its Sid repository. Because GParted Live is built on Debian Sid, it now ships only in 64-bit (amd64) versions. This release also includes GParted 1.7.0 along with an updated Linux kernel, version 6.12.37. Another important tweak is the addition of a mechanism that helps avoid random ordering of block devices at boot. That change can prevent users from selecting the wrong disk by mistake, especially in systems with multiple drives.

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"In the battle for Ukraine, the front line is increasingly at a standstill" because of "rapid innovations in drone technology..." according to the Wall Street Journal. "Each side has hundreds of them constantly in the air across the 750-mile front line." And drones "now bring everything from food and water to ammunition, power banks — and, in at least one case, a fire extinguisher — to the front, sparing soldiers trips through the most dangerous part of the battlefield where enemy drones might pick them off." Drones can lay mines, deliver everything from ammunition to medication and even evacuate wounded or dead soldiers. Crucially, drones spot any movement along the front line and are dispatched to strike enemy troops and vehicles. When Russia sent tank columns into Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine needed to find out where they were headed — and fast. Enter the humble "wedding drone," available in stores for about $2,000 and repurposed to scan for enemy units rather than capture nuptial panoramas. Deployed by enthusiasts acting independently or attached to army units, the drones helped Ukrainian forces, which were vastly outnumbered and outgunned, to know exactly where to deploy to counter Russian arrowheads. Surveillance drones quickly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Often provided by charity funds, they were used to scan enemy positions for equipment, stores and headquarters.... A cheap and simple tweak made the so-called wedding drones deadly. Tech buffs realized that a simple claw-like contraption, created using a 3-D printer, could be activated from the radio controller by turning on the drone's light, causing it to release a grenade. The explosion could wound or kill a soldier or even detonate an armored vehicle if dropped through its hatch. Over time, soldiers experimented with ways to add more explosives, for example by melting down explosives garnered from Soviet-era munitions and pouring them into new, lighter plastic casings. No innovation has had a bigger impact on the war in Ukraine than first-person-view, or FPV, drones. With explosives strapped to them, FPVs fly directly into their targets, turning them into low-cost suicide bombers. Though FPVs don't deliver as much explosive punch as rockets, they are far more accurate — and the sheer volume that Ukraine has manufactured means they can be deployed to similar effect... Sitting in a bunker several miles behind the front, a drone pilot slips on FPV goggles to see the view from the drone's camera and fly it into an enemy position or asset. The Russians have since adopted FPVs en masse. Their abundance has played a central role in slowing down the movement of the front line. Anything within around 12 miles of the contact line can now become a target for FPVs. They are so cheap to make that both sides can expend them on any target — even a single infantryman. Because they are so small and fast, FPVs are difficult to shoot down. The main defense against them has been electronic jamming systems, which disrupt the communication between the drone and the pilot. Though most drone innovations in the war have come from the Ukrainian side, the Russians pioneered the most important adaptation for FPV drones — the addition of a fiber-optic cable connecting the drone to the pilot that can overcome jamming. Benjamin Franklin once predicted flying machines might "convince sovereigns of the folly of war... since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions..."

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