news aggregator

White House touts massive savings, agencies brace for shake-up

President Trump's latest executive order takes aim at federal IT procurement, moving to centralize how Uncle Sam buys tech across agencies.…

Meta is testing an AI feature that generates comment suggestions for Instagram posts. Users with access to the test see a pencil icon beside the comment field that activates "Write with Meta AI." The system analyzes photos before offering three comment suggestions, which users can refresh for alternatives. For a photo showing someone smiling with a thumbs-up in their living room, suggested comments include "Cute living room setup" and "Love the cozy atmosphere."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

'Flawless' team boss claims she was axed after raising alarm over shrinking female leadership ranks

A former senior product manager at Amazon Web Services has sued the cloud colossus in the US, claiming she faced retaliation from bosses and was ultimately laid off due to her gender and age.…

Higher use of chatbots like ChatGPT may correspond with increased loneliness and less time spent socializing with other people, according to new research from OpenAI in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From a report: Those who spent more time typing or speaking with ChatGPT each day tended to report higher levels of emotional dependence on, and problematic use of, the chatbot, as well as heightened levels of loneliness, according to research released Friday. The findings were part of a pair of studies conducted by researchers at the two organizations and have not been peer reviewed. San Francisco-based OpenAI sees the new studies as a way to get a better sense of how people interact with, and are affected by, its popular chatbot. "Some of our goals here have really been to empower people to understand what their usage can mean and do this work to inform responsible design," said Sandhini Agarwal, who heads OpenAI's trustworthy AI team and co-authored the research. To conduct the studies, the researchers followed nearly 1,000 people for a month.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions watchdog removed cryptocurrency mixing tool Tornado Cash from its global blacklist on Friday, following a federal appeals court ruling last November that the Office of Foreign Asset Control couldn't sanction its smart contracts. Despite the delisting of over 100 Ethereum addresses from the Specially Designated Nationals list, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasized continuing concerns about North Korea's digital asset theft operations. "We remain deeply concerned about the significant state-sponsored hacking and money laundering campaign aimed at stealing, acquiring, and deploying digital assets for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Treasury stated. Roman Storm, Tornado Cash co-founder, still faces a July criminal trial for his alleged development role. A Treasury court filing Monday had warned that completely lifting sanctions could have "significantly disruptive consequences for national security."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Measuring all the dirty work of the supply chain and other indirect influences? Ugh, just give us the fine

Half of European businesses fear they'll lose customers if they come clean about their greenhouse gas emissions, a third lack confidence in the accuracy of their carbon data, and and 40 percent will just take a fine as they can't be bothered with it.…

Microsoft has begun urging Windows 10 users to upgrade their systems ahead of the October 14, 2025 support deadline, but with a solution many find impractical: just buy a new computer. According to StatCounter data, 58.7% of Windows users remain on Windows 10 despite the impending end of security updates and technical assistance. In emails to Windows 10 users, Microsoft's primary recommendation is to trade in old devices for newer Windows 11-compatible hardware, rather than focusing on alternative solutions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Consumer price hikes come amid interrogation of why customers have to opt out of added AI features

The UK's Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee is pressing Microsoft for answers about the recent Microsoft 365 price hikes and why customers are forced to opt out of the more expensive Copilot version.…

Yahoo on Friday said it has struck a deal to sell TechCrunch, the 20-year-old tech journalism site, to Regent, a media investment firm. Axios: Yahoo's business centers mostly on aggregation. Journalism isn't its core focus. Regent is trying to pull together a portfolio of tech news sites and is eager to invest in news. Earlier this week, it acquired Foundry, which houses a slew of online tech publications, such as PCWorld, Macworld and TechAdvisor. In a statement, Regent said it is "thrilled to expand its reach as it provides breaking technology news, opinions, and analysis on tech companies worldwide to our audience." Financial deal terms were not disclosed. The deal will not require regulatory review, which is normally needed for deals valued at roughly more than $100 million.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has filed a lawsuit against alleged scammers who created and sold fake business profiles on Google Maps, the company said. The legal action follows an investigation that uncovered and eliminated more than 10,000 illegitimate listings. The investigation began after a Texas business reported an unlicensed locksmith impersonating them on the platform. Google discovered the scams primarily targeted "duress verticals" -- services needed in urgent situations like locksmiths and towing companies. "Once we're alerted to the actual fraud, we take extreme efforts to identify similar fraudulent listings," said Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google's general counsel. The scammers used tactics including bait-and-switch schemes and intercepting calls to legitimate businesses through "lead generation services." They also sold fraudulent positive reviews to suppress negative feedback.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DaringFireball: Whole Reddit thread examining this simple question: "What month is it?" and Siri's "I'm sorry, I don't understand" response (which I just reproduced on my iPhone 16 Pro running iOS 18.4b4). One guy changed the question to "What month is it currently?" and got the answer "It is 2025." More comments from that thread:"I ask Siri to play a podcast and she literally says, "I'm trying to play from Apple Podcasts but it doesn't look like you have it installed." I didn't even know you could delete that app. I certainly haven't. So I have to manually do it every time now. It used to work." "I asked Siri last night to set a reminder for 3:50, so naturally she set it for 10:00." Further reading: Apple Shakes Up AI Executive Ranks in Bid to Turn Around Siri; 'Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino'.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share price list slides for top ten consultant to US government

Accenture says Federal procurement projects are continuing to slow since Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began reviewing ways to cut costs last month, and this is directly impacting its business.…

European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane warned that Europe must develop a digital euro to counter growing American influence over the continent's financial system [alternative source] amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Lane specifically cited Europe's "current dependence on US payment-card providers Visa and Mastercard, as well as technology companies including PayPal, Apple and Google" as a vulnerability requiring urgent action. His comments come as President Donald Trump's administration promotes dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide as part of a broader cryptocurrency strategy, alarming European officials. ECB Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau recently cautioned that "the US risks bringing about the next financial emergency through its support of cryptocurrencies." "The digital euro is not just about adapting to the digital age. It is about ensuring Europe controls its monetary and financial destiny," Lane told a conference in Ireland, noting that a digital currency would "limit the likelihood of foreign-currency stablecoins gaining a foothold" in Europe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A lone voice cries out from reply-all chaos: 'Someone tell DOGE to rehire whoever maintains this email list'

EXCLUSIVE Everybody loves a good email storm. But an insecure email distribution list accidental spamming space agencies across the planet is undoubtedly one for the record books.…

Attorney General warns people tempted to join 'wave of domestic terrorism'

Three individuals face federal arson charges labeled as domestic terrorism after a spate of Molotov cocktail attacks on Tesla properties in the US.…

Regulator reviews wholesale telecoms markets and decides healthy fiber is its biggest concern

Britain's telecoms watchdog is giving itself a pat on the back for overseeing the UK's fiber broadband rollout thus far, so doesn't want to rock the boat by making any drastic changes to the regulations at this point, despite admitting there is no effective competition for BT.…

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Thursday walked back comments he made in January, when he cast doubt on whether useful quantum computers would hit the market in the next 15 years. From a report: At Nvidia's "Quantum Day" event, part of the company's annual GTC Conference, Huang admitted that his comments came out wrong. "This is the first event in history where a company CEO invites all of the guests to explain why he was wrong," Huang said. In January, Huang sent quantum computing stocks reeling when he said 15 years was "on the early side" in considering how long it would be before the technology would be useful. He said at the time that 20 years was a timeframe that "a whole bunch of us would believe." In his opening comments on Thursday, Huang drew comparisons between pre-revenue quantum companies and Nvidia's early days. He said it took over 20 years for Nvidia to build out its software and hardware business. He also expressed surprise that his comments were able to move markets, and joked he didn't know that certain quantum computing companies were publicly traded. "How could a quantum computer company be public?" Huang said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With only BASIC knowledge to fall back on, and a typing pool in tears, the OFF switch looked very attractive

On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's Friday column that tells your stories of tech support jobs performed under stress, duress, and all sorts of mess.…

Made up revenue and pretended to use non-existent data

The former CEO of Kubient, an advertising tech company that developed a cloudy product capable of detecting fraudulent ads, has been jailed for fraud.…

Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI attempted to purchase hundreds of millions of arrest records including social security numbers, mugshots, and even email addresses to incorporate into its product, 404 Media reports. From the report: For years, Clearview AI has collected billions of photos from social media websites including Facebook, LinkedIn and others and sold access to its facial recognition tool to law enforcement. The collection and sale of user-generated photos by a private surveillance company to police without that person's knowledge or consent sparked international outcry when it was first revealed by the New York Times in 2020. New documents obtained by 404 Media reveal that Clearview AI spent nearly a million dollars in a bid to purchase "690 million arrest records and 390 million arrest photos" from all 50 states from an intelligence firm. The contract further describes the records as including current and former home addresses, dates of birth, arrest photos, social security and cell phone numbers, and email addresses. Clearview attempted to purchase this data from Investigative Consultant, Inc. (ICI) which billed itself as an intelligence company with access to tens of thousands of databases and the ability to create unique data streams for its clients. The contract was signed in mid-2019, at a time when Clearview AI was quietly collecting billions of photos off the internet and was relatively unknown at the time.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.