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[32]Close binspamdupenotthebestofftopicslownewsdaystalestupid freshfunnyinsightfulinterestingmaybe offtopicflamebaittrollredundantoverrated insightfulinterestinginformativefunnyunderrated descriptive typodupeerror [33]Check out the new Slashdot job board to browse remote jobs or jobs in your area Do you develop on GitHub? You can keep using GitHub but automatically [34]sync your GitHub releases to SourceForge quickly and easily with [35]this tool so your projects have a backup location, and get your project in front of SourceForge's nearly 30 million monthly users. It takes less than a minute. Get new users downloading your project releases today! [36]× 174714530 story [37]AI [38]Cannibal AIs Could Risk Digital 'Mad Cow Disease' Without Fresh Data [39](sciencealert.com) [40]10 Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday August 10, 2024 @11:34AM from the I'm-sorry-Dave dept. A [41]new article in ScienceAlert describes new research into the dangers of "heavily processed sources of digital nourishment" for generative AI: A [42]new study by researchers from Rice University and Stanford University in the US offers evidence that when AI engines are trained on synthetic, machine-made input rather than text and images made by actual people, the quality of their output starts to suffer. The researchers are calling this effect Model Autophagy Disorder (MAD). The AI effectively consumes itself, which means there are parallels for mad cow disease — a neurological disorder in cows that are fed the infected remains of other cattle. Without fresh, real-world data, content produced by AI declines in its level of quality, in its level of diversity, or both, the study shows. It's a warning about a future of [43]AI slop from these models. "Our theoretical and empirical analyses have enabled us to extrapolate what might happen as generative models become ubiquitous and train future models in self-consuming loops," [44]says computer engineer Richard Baraniuk, from Rice University. "Some ramifications are clear: without enough fresh real data, future generative models are doomed to MADness." The article notes that "faces began to look more and more like each other when fresh, human-generated training data wasn't involved. In tests using handwritten numbers, the numbers gradually became indecipherable. "Where real data was used but in a fixed way without new data being added, the quality of the output was still degraded, merely taking a little longer to break down. It appears that freshness is crucial." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [45]schwit1 for sharing the news. apply tags__________ 174714476 story [46]Earth [47]Are Fake Plastic Lawns Environmentally Irresponsible? [48](yahoo.com) [49]33 Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday August 10, 2024 @10:34AM from the astroturfing dept. "The artificial turf industry has had a great deal of success convincing millions of people that its short-lived, nonrecyclable, fossil-fuel-derived product is somehow good for the environment," complains the head of Los Angeles' chapter of the advocacy nonprofit, the Climate Reality Project. In an [50]opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times, he argues that "In fact, it's clear that artificial turf is bad for our ecosystems as well as our health." The piece's title? "What's more environmentally irresponsible than a thirsty L.A. lawn? A fake plastic one." Artificial turf exacerbates the effects of climate change. On a 90-degree Los Angeles day, the temperature of artificial turf can reach 150 degrees or [51]higher — hot enough to burn skin. And artificial turf is disproportionately installed to replace private lawns and public landscaping in economically disadvantaged communities that already face the greatest consequences of the urban heat-island effect, in which hard surfaces raise local temperatures. Artificial turf consists of single-use plastics made from crude oil or methane. The extraction, refining and processing of these petrochemicals, along with the transporting and eventual removal of artificial turf, come with a significant carbon footprint. Artificial turf is [52]full of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, known as "forever chemicals" because they accumulate in the environment and living tissue. The Synthetic Turf Council has noted manufacturers' efforts to ensure that their products "[53]contain no intentionally-added PFAS constituents." So what? Tobacco companies don't intentionally add carcinogens to cigarettes; they're built into the product. PFAS have been linked to [54]serious health effects, and while artificial turf is by no means the only source of them, it is one we can avoid. Because artificial turf is a complex product made of multiple types of plastic, it will never be recycled. After its relatively short lifespan of about eight to 15 years, artificial turf ends up in indefinite storage, landfills and incinerators, creating a whole host of additional pollution problems... Remarkably, artificial turf doesn't even save water compared with grass... [A]rtificial turf must be regularly cleaned with water, and in warm climates such as Los Angeles', artificial fields get so hot that schools must water them down before children play on them. Astroturf also doesn't absorb rainwater, the piece poitns out. In fact, studies show the maintenance costs of artificial turf [55]often exceed those of natural grass. Thanks to Slashdot reader [56]Bruce66423 for sharing the article, apply tags__________ 174713754 story [57]Earth [58]Scientists Mount Cameras On Endangered Sea Lions To Map Australia's Ocean Floor [59]5 Posted by [60]BeauHD on Saturday August 10, 2024 @09:00AM from the better-than-TV dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The Australian sea lions glide and dart through underwater tunnels, over seagrass beds and rocky reefs, searching for a meal and dancing with dolphins around a giant bait ball of fish -- all the action captured by a camera stuck on their back. "I can watch this stuff for hours," says Prof Simon Goldsworthy. "It's like the best slow TV ever. You just don't know what you're going to see next." The Australian sea lion is in trouble. They were hunted until the early 20th century. Commercial fishing nets and pots have proved to be a more modern threat. Numbers have crashed by 60% in the past 40 years, leaving only about 10,000 of them mostly spread thinly across 80 breeding sites along Australia's south and west coastline. Goldsworthy's "slow TV" is the result of new efforts to [61]employ the sea lions to map the ocean floor -- and their own habitats -- by sticking cameras with satellite tracking to their backs. So far, eight females from two seal colonies have filmed almost 90 hours of footage across more than 500km, helping scientists to map 5,000 sq km of habitat. The sea lions have mapped rocky reefs and seagrass meadows along the continental shelf, and shown humans the places that are important to them. With that information, conservationists will have much clearer ideas on how to protect the country's only endemic seal. A study outlining the sea lions' camera work has been [62]published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. apply tags__________ 174713690 story [63]Space [64]China's Long March 6A Rocket Is Making a Mess In Low-Earth Orbit. [65](arstechnica.com) [66]19 Posted by [67]BeauHD on Saturday August 10, 2024 @06:00AM from the nice-going dept. Longtime Slashdot reader [68]schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: The upper stage from a Chinese rocket that launched a batch of Internet satellites Tuesday has broken apart in space, [69]creating a debris field of at least 700 objects in one of the most heavily-trafficked zones in low-Earth orbit. US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military's ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches). Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars [70]detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said. The culprit is the second stage of China's Long March 6A rocket, which lifted off Tuesday with the first batch of 18 satellites for a [71]planned Chinese megaconstellation that could eventually number thousands of spacecraft. The Long March 6A's second stage apparently disintegrated after placing its payload of 18 satellites into a polar orbit. Space Command said in a statement it has "observed no immediate threats" and "continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain." According to LeoLabs, radar data indicated the rocket broke apart at an altitude of 503 miles (810 kilometers) at approximately 4:10 pm EDT (20:10 UTC) on Tuesday, around 13-and-a-half hours after it lifted off from northern China. At this altitude, it will take decades or centuries for the wispy effect of aerodynamic drag to pull the debris back into the atmosphere. As the objects drift lower, their orbits will cross paths with SpaceX's Starlink Internet satellites, the International Space Station and other crew spacecraft, and thousands more pieces of orbital debris, putting commercial and government satellites at risk of collision. apply tags__________ 174713728 story [72]Power [73]DARPA Wants To Bypass the Thermal Middleman In Nuclear Power Systems [74](ans.org) [75]27 Posted by [76]BeauHD on Saturday August 10, 2024 @03:00AM from the there's-got-to-be-a-better-way dept. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is exploring the possibility of [77]directly converting radiation from nuclear reactors into electricity using radiovoltaics, a technology that could potentially revolutionize nuclear power generation by moving beyond traditional steam turbine methods. The agency is requesting information and suggestions on this topic in an RFI [78]released on August 1st. Nuclear News reports: There's got to be a better way": Methods to convert the energy of nuclear fission reactions and the decay of radioisotopes into electricity have not evolved since the invention of radioisotope power systems and fission reactors over 70 years ago and remain unoptimized," the RFI says. They rely on thermal heat transfer, and "in each step of this indirect conversion method neutrons, heat, and energy are lost to the shielding material, working fluid, and other system materials." Advanced reactor designs that use alternative coolants, including helium, sodium, and salts, would still use what DARPA calls "heritage nuclear power conversion technology" with water and steam as the working fluids, as would the fusion power plants being planned today. Why now? Tabitha Dodson, the program manager for DARPA DSO, which is launching the RFI, told Nuclear News that "two big things" are driving the interest. "One is the extreme surge of investment in small and advanced nuclear technologies, such as in fusion and space reactors, which do not have a concurrent pairing of advanced power generation methods that doesn't involve liquid-based heat transfer," she said. "Next, there has been an order of magnitude improvement in radiation tolerance and efficiency for voltaics in recent years with encouraging performance that indicates radiovoltaics could scale up as an array usable in nuclear reactors." [...] What is the ask?: The RFI asks: "Is it possible to achieve [a] direct energy conversion nuclear power system, ranging in power from 10s of watts electric (We) to 100s of kWe?" DARPA wants information "on the potential to improve specific power greater than 1 We/kg conversion from watts-thermal per radiation emission product," and information on the potential to improve damage tolerance of the voltaic to nuclear radiation to reach an operating lifetime comparable to the life of its nuclear source, on the scale of decades. "We will learn what our boundary conditions are when respondents tell us what technologies in the field of voltaics are possible, and we'll use that to see if there is sufficient scientific rationale make a case to present for further DARPA investment," Dodson said. "I also hope people are going to start thinking about nuclear systems that use electromagnetic versus thermal-kinetic methods to harvest nuclear energetic reactions." apply tags__________ 174713272 story [79]Power [80]Mayonnaise Could Help Improve Fusion Energy Yields [81](arstechnica.com) [82]32 Posted by [83]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @11:30PM from the what-will-they-think-of-next dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: [84]Inertial confinement fusion is one method for generating energy through nuclear fusion, albeit one plagued by all manner of scientific challenges (although progress [85]is being made). Researchers at LeHigh University are attempting to overcome one specific bugbear with this approach by [86]conducting experiments with mayonnaise placed in a rotating figure-eight contraption. They described their most recent findings in a new paper [87]published in the journal Physical Review E with an eye toward increasing energy yields from fusion. The work builds on prior research in the LeHigh laboratory of mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee, who focuses on investigating the dynamics of fluids and other materials in response to extremely high acceleration and centrifugal force. In this case, his team was exploring what's known as the "instability threshold" of elastic/plastic materials. Scientists have debated whether this comes about because of initial conditions, or whether it's the result of "more local catastrophic processes," according to Banerjee. The question is relevant to a variety of fields, including geophysics, astrophysics, explosive welding, and yes, inertial confinement fusion. [...] The problem is that hydrodynamic instabilities tend to form in the plasma state -- Banerjee likens it to "two materials [that] penetrate one another like fingers" in the presence of gravity or any accelerating field -- which in turn reduces energy yields. The technical term is a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which occurs between two materials of different densities, where the density and pressure gradients move in opposite directions. Mayonnaise turns out to be an excellent analog for investigating this instability in accelerated solids, with no need for a lab setup with high temperature and pressure conditions, because it's a non-Newtonian fluid. "We use mayonnaise because it behaves like a solid, but when subjected to a pressure gradient, it starts to flow," said Banerjee. "As with a traditional molten metal, if you put a stress on mayonnaise, it will start to deform, but if you remove the stress, it goes back to its original shape. So there's an elastic phase followed by a stable plastic phase. The next phase is when it starts flowing, and that's where the instability kicks in." In 2019, Banerjee's team conducted experiments that "involved pouring Hellman's Real Mayonnaise [...] into a Plexiglass container and then creating wavelike perturbations in the mayo," writes Ars' Jennifer Ouellette. "One experiment involved placing the container on a rotating wheel in the shape of a figure eight and tracking the material with a high-speed camera, using an image processing algorithm to analyze the footage. Their results supported the claim that the instability threshold is dependent on initial conditions, namely amplitude and wavelength." "This latest paper sheds more light on the structural integrity of fusion capsules used in inertial confinement fusion, taking a closer look at the material properties, the amplitude and wavelength conditions, and the acceleration rate of such materials as they hit the Rayleigh-Taylor instability threshold." apply tags__________ 174713172 story [88]Japan [89]Japan Issues First Ever 'Megaquake' Warning [90](phys.org) [91]9 Posted by [92]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @09:25PM from the risk-warnings dept. After a 7.1 tremor [93]struck southwestern Japan on Thursday, the country's meteorological agency issued its [94]first-ever alert for a possible "megaquake." It marks the first time the warning has been issued under new rules drawn up after a [95]2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster killed almost 20,000 people. Phys.org reports: The JMA's "megaquake advisory" warns that "if a major earthquake were to occur in the future, strong shaking and large tsunamis would be generated." "The likelihood of a new major earthquake is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a major earthquake will definitely occur during a specific period of time," it added. The advisory concerns the Nankai Trough "subduction zone" between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, where massive earthquakes have hit in the past. [...] Japan's government has previously said the next magnitude 8-9 megaquake along the Nankai Trough has a roughly 70 percent probability of striking within the next 30 years. In the worst-case scenario 300,000 lives could be lost, experts estimate, with some engineers saying the damage could reach $13 trillion with infrastructure wiped out. "The history of great earthquakes at Nankai is convincingly scary," geologists Kyle Bradley and Judith A Hubbard wrote in their Earthquake Insights newsletter. And "while earthquake prediction is impossible, the occurrence of one earthquake usually does raise the likelihood of another", they explained. "A future great Nankai earthquake is surely the most long-anticipated earthquake in history -- it is the original definition of the 'Big One'." apply tags__________ 174713110 story [96]Medicine [97]FDA Rejects MDMA-Assisted Therapy For PTSD [98]42 Posted by [99]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @08:45PM from the not-so-fast dept. The FDA has [100]rejected a first-of-its-kind proposal to use the psychedelic drug MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to drugmaker [101]Lykos Therapeutics. NBC News reports: There had been intense political pressure on the FDA to approve the drug. Friday's decision was the first time the agency had considered a Schedule 1 psychedelic for medical use. If approved, it would have been the first new treatment for PTSD in more than two decades. Lykos Therapeutics had asked the FDA to approve the drug as part of a treatment regimen, given alongside talk therapy. The agency's decision came after an independent advisory committee in June declined to recommend approval of the drug, saying there was not enough evidence that the therapy was safe and effective. The committee cited a myriad of concerns, including poorly designed studies, allegations of sexual misconduct during a midstage clinical trial and the potential for serious health risks after taking the drug, including heart problems and abuse. A review by [102]FDA scientists, published ahead of the June meeting, also raised concerns about how the trials were carried out, including that a number of patients and therapists likely were able to guess who was given the medication and who got the placebo. Despite the rejection, experts say they expect that psychedelic therapies are still on their way to FDA approval. There are around four dozen MDMA trials in various stages of clinical development, according to ClinicalTrials.gov. "I think it will be a temporary setback," said Holly Fernandez Lynch, an associate professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "The advisory committee and FDA gave very clear indications of what they're looking for in terms of study design and adverse event reporting, so Lykos and other companies should know pretty clearly how to proceed going forward if they want to get psychedelics approved." apply tags__________ 174713046 story [103]Censorship [104]Russia Blocks Signal Messaging App [105](apnews.com) [106]37 Posted by [107]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @08:02PM from the cease-and-desist dept. Russia has [108]blocked access to the encrypted Signal messaging app to "prevent the messenger's use of terrorist and extremist purposes." YouTube is also facing mass outages following repeated slowdowns in recent weeks. The Associated Press reports: Russian authorities expanded their crackdown on dissent and free media after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. They have blocked multiple independent Russian-language media outlets critical of the Kremlin, and cut access to Twitter, which later became X, as well as Meta's Facebook and Instagram. In the latest blow to the freedom of information, YouTube faced mass outages on Thursday following repeated slowdowns in recent weeks. Russian authorities have blamed the slowdowns on Google's failure to upgrade its equipment in Russia, but many experts have challenged the claim, arguing that the likely reason for the slowdowns and the latest outage was the Kremlin's desire to shut public access to a major platform that carries opposition views. apply tags__________ 174712142 story [109]Security [110]'Sinkclose' Flaw in Hundreds of Millions of AMD Chips Allows Deep, Virtually Unfixable Infections [111](wired.com) [112]41 Posted by [113]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @07:20PM from the lurking-in-the-background dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Security flaws in your computer's firmware, the deep-seated code that loads first when you turn the machine on and controls even how its operating system boots up, have long been a target for hackers looking for a stealthy foothold. But only rarely does that kind of vulnerability appear not in the firmware of any particular computer maker, but in the chips found across hundreds of millions of PCs and servers. Now security researchers have found one such flaw that has persisted in AMD processors for decades, and that [114]would allow malware to burrow deep enough into a computer's memory that, in many cases, it may be easier to discard a machine than to disinfect it. At the Defcon hacker conference tomorrow, Enrique Nissim and Krzysztof Okupski, researchers from the security firm IOActive, [115]plan to present a vulnerability in AMD chips they're calling Sinkclose. The flaw would allow hackers to run their own code in one of the most privileged modes of an AMD processor, known as System Management Mode, designed to be reserved only for a specific, protected portion of its firmware. IOActive's researchers warn that it affects virtually all AMD chips dating back to 2006, or possibly even earlier. Nissim and Okupski note that exploiting the bug would require hackers to already have obtained relatively deep access to an AMD-based PC or server, but that the Sinkclose flaw would then allow them to plant their malicious code far deeper still. In fact, for any machine with one of the vulnerable AMD chips, the IOActive researchers warn that an attacker could infect the computer with malware known as a "bootkit" that evades antivirus tools and is potentially invisible to the operating system, while offering a hacker full access to tamper with the machine and surveil its activity. For systems with certain faulty configurations in how a computer maker implemented AMD's security feature known as Platform Secure Boot -- which the researchers warn encompasses the large majority of the systems they tested -- a malware infection installed via Sinkclose could be harder yet to detect or remediate, they say, surviving even a reinstallation of the operating system. Only opening a computer's case, physically connecting directly to a certain portion of its memory chips with a hardware-based programming tool known as SPI Flash programmer and meticulously scouring the memory would allow the malware to be removed, Okupski says. Nissim sums up that worst-case scenario in more practical terms: "You basically have to throw your computer away." In a statement shared with WIRED, AMD said it "released mitigation options for its AMD EPYC datacenter products and AMD Ryzen PC products, with mitigations for AMD embedded products coming soon." The company also noted that it released patches for its EPYC processors earlier this year. It did not answer questions about how it intends to fix the Sinkclose vulnerability. apply tags__________ 174712074 story [116]Businesses [117]Cisco To Lay Off Thousands More in Second Job Cut This Year [118](reuters.com) [119]36 Posted by msmash on Friday August 09, 2024 @06:40PM from the up-next dept. Cisco will [120]cut thousands of jobs in a second round of layoffs this year as the U.S. networking equipment maker shifts focus to higher-growth areas, including cybersecurity and AI, Reuters reported Friday, citing sources. From the report: The number of people affected could be [121]similar to or slightly higher than the 4,000 employees Cisco laid off in February, and will likely be announced as early as Wednesday with the company's fourth-quarter results, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly. apply tags__________ 174712042 story [122]Security [123]Cow and Calf Die After Hackers Attack Farm's Milking Robot [124](agrarheute.com) [125]36 Posted by [126]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @06:00PM from the nobody-is-safe-from-cyber-attacks dept. According to Agrarheute, hackers launched a cyberattack on a Swiss farmer's computer system, disrupting the flow of vital data from a milking robot. Tragically, this [127]led to the death of a cow and her calf. From the report (translated from German into English): According to the CSO, hackers attacked the computers of a farmer from Hagendorn. The dairy farmer's milking robot was also connected to these computers. When the animal owner stopped receiving milking data, he initially suspected a dead zone. But then he learned from the manufacturer of his milking system that he had been hacked. Apparently it was a ransomware attack. The hackers demanded $10,000 to decrypt the data. The farmer considered whether he should give in to the cyber criminals' demands. At first he thought the data on the amount of milk produced was bearable. In addition, the milking robot also worked without a computer or network connection. The cows could therefore continue to be milked. For one cow , however, the cyberattack ended tragically. The farmer normally receives vital data from his cows via the system. This is particularly important and critical for pregnant animals. One cow's calf died in the womb. Because the computer was paralyzed, Bircher was unable to recognize the emergency in time. They tried everything to at least save the cow, but in the end it had to be put down. Overall, the attack caused monetary damages amounting to the equivalent of over 6,400 euros, mainly due to veterinary costs and the purchase of a new computer. However, the hackers came away empty-handed. apply tags__________ 174711948 story [128]Operating Systems [129]Linux Will Be Able To Boot 0.035 Seconds Faster With One Line Kernel Patch [130](phoronix.com) [131]38 Posted by [132]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @05:20PM from the time-is-money dept. Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Intel Linux engineer Colin Ian King discovered that if aligning the slab in the ACPI code via the "SLAB_HWCACHE_ALIGN" flag will offer a measurable improvement in memory performance and [133]reducing the kernel boot time. Colin explained with [134]this one line kernel patch: "Enabling SLAB_HWCACHE_ALIGN for the ACPI object caches improves boot speed in the ACPICA core for object allocation and free'ing especially in the AML parsing and execution phases in boot. Testing with 100 boots shows an average boot saving in acpi_init of ~35000 usecs compared to the unaligned version. Most of the ACPI objects being allocated and free'd are of very short life times in the critical paths for parsing and execution, so the extra memory used for alignment isn't too onerous." apply tags__________ 174711662 story [135]Android [136]Nova Launcher, Savior of Cruft-Filled Android Phones, Is On Life Support [137](arstechnica.com) [138]16 Posted by [139]BeauHD on Friday August 09, 2024 @04:40PM from the keep-on-keeping-on dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Back in July 2022, when mobile app metrics firm Branch acquired the popular and well-regarded Nova Launcher for Android, the app's site put up one of those [140]self-directed FAQ posts about it. Under the question heading "What does Branch want with Nova?," Nova founder and creator Kevin Barry started his response with, "Not to mess it up, don't worry!" [141]Branch (formerly/sometimes Branch Metrics) is a firm concerned with helping businesses track the links that lead into their apps, whether from SMS, email, marketing, or inside other apps. Nova, with [142]its Sesame Search tool that helped users find and access deeper links -- like heading straight to calling a car, rather than just opening a rideshare app -- seemed like a reasonable fit. Barry wrote that he had received a number of acquisition offers over the years, but he didn't want to be swallowed by a giant corporation, an OEM, or a volatile startup. "Branch is different," he wrote then, because they wanted to add staff to Nova, keep it available to the public, and mostly leave it alone. Two years later, Branch has left Nova Launcher a bit too alone. As documented [143]on Nova's official X (formerly Twitter) account, and [144]transcripts from its Discord, as of Thursday Nova had "gone from a team of around a dozen people" to just Barry, the founder, working alone. The Nova cuts were part of "a massive layoff" of purportedly [145]more than 100 people across all of Branch, according to now-former Nova workers. Barry wrote that he would keep working on Nova, "However I have less resources." He would need to "cut scope" on an upcoming Nova release, he wrote. Other employees noted that customer support, marketing, and even correspondence would likely be strained or disappear. "While Nova is not dead (despite mine and [146]others' eulogistic tones), it's certainly not positioned to launch bold new features or plot new futures," writes Ars' Kevin Purdy, in closing. "Here's hoping Barry can make a go of Nova Launcher for as long as it's viable for him." apply tags__________ 174709260 story [147]Communications [148]FCC Proposes New Rules For AI-Generated Robocalls and Robotexts [149](engadget.com) [150]8 Posted by msmash on Friday August 09, 2024 @04:00PM from the encouraging-signs dept. The FCC has proposed new rules governing the use of AI-generated phone calls and texts. Part of the proposal centers on [151]create a clear definition for AI-generated calls, with the rest focuses on consumer protection by making companies disclose when AI is being used in calls or texts. A report adds: "This provides consumers with an opportunity to identify and avoid those calls or texts that contain an enhanced risk of fraud and other scams," the FCC said. The agency is also looking ensure that legitimate uses of AI to assist people with disabilities to communicate remains protected. apply tags__________ [152]« Newer [153]Older » Slashdot Top Deals Slashdot Top Deals [154]Slashdot Deals Slashdot Poll Who do you predict will be elected as the next president of the United States? (*) Donald Trump ( ) Kamala Harris ( ) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ( ) Someone else (BUTTON) vote now [155]Read the 333 comments | 19134 votes Looks like someone has already voted from this IP. If you would like to vote please login and try again. 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