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• Meta Got Caught Gaming AI Benchmarks

  08-04-2025 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta released two new Llama 4 models over the weekend -- Scout and Maverick -- with claims that Maverick outperforms GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 Flash on benchmarks. Maverick quickly secured the number-two spot on LMArena, behind only Gemini 2.5 Pro.
  Researchers have since discovered that Meta used an "experimental chat version" of Maverick for LMArena testing that was "optimized for conversationality" rather than the publicly available version.
  In response, LMArena said "Meta's interpretation of our
  
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• Class Action Accuses Toyota of Illegally Sharing Drivers' Data

  05-05-2025 09:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "A federal class action lawsuit filed this week in Texas accused Toyota and an affiliated telematics aggregator of unlawfully collecting drivers' information and then selling that data to Progressive," reports Insurance Journal:
  The lawsuit alleges that Toyota and Connected Analytic Services (CAS) collected vast amounts of vehicle data, including location, speed, direction, braking and swerving/cornering events, and then shared that information with Progressive's Snapshot data sharing program. T
  
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• After Reddit Thread on 'ChatGPT-Induced Psychosis', OpenAI Rolls Back GPT4o Update

  05-05-2025 05:43 via slashdot.org
  
  Rolling Stone reports on a strange new phenomenon spotted this week in a Reddit thread titled "Chatgpt induced psychosis."
  The original post came from a 27-year-old teacher who explained that her partner was convinced that the popular OpenAI model "gives him the answers to the universe." Having read his chat logs, she only found that the AI was "talking to him as if he is the next messiah." The replies to her story were full of similar anecdotes about loved ones suddenly falling down rabbit hole
  
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• 'Star Wars Day' Celebrations Hit Fortnite, Disney+, X.com - and Retailers Everywhere

  05-05-2025 03:53 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  As May the 4th transforms into Star Wars Day, dozens of sites and games have found ways to celebrate. The official Star Wars channel on YouTube released a celebratory video. Disney+ released Tales of the Underworld , a six-part animated series about bounty hunters during the reign of the Empire. And Friday the first two episodes began streaming in Fortnite in a special early premiere on "Star Wars Watch Party island," according to IGN. (Disney acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic in March 2024,
  
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• The UN Ditches Google for Form Submissions, Opts for Open Source 'CryptPad' Instead

  05-05-2025 01:53 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Did you know there's an initiative to drive Open Source adoption both within the United Nations — and globally? Launched in March, it's the work of the Digital Technology Network (under the UN's chief executive board) which "works to advance open source technologies throughout UN agencies," promoting "collaboration and scalable solutions to support the UN's digital transformation." Fun fact: The first group to endorse the initiative's principles was the Open Source Initiative...
  "The Open
  
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• 'Harassed by Assasin's Creed Gamers, A Professor Fought Back With Kindness'

  04-05-2025 23:41 via games.slashdot.org
  
  A Dartmouth College associate professor of Japanese literature and culture became a narrative consultant for Ubisoft's game Assassin's Creed Shadow (which launched in March). Sachi Schmidt-Hori's job "involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters," writes the Associated Press.
  But when a trailer was released in May of 2024, some reacted to a game character named Yasuke who was a Black African samurai, according to the article, "with gamers criticizing his
  
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• Disneyland Imagineers Defend New Show Recreating Walt Disney as a Robot

  04-05-2025 22:41 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "When Disneyland turns 70 this July, Main Street's Opera House will play host to the return of Walt Disney, who will sit down with audiences to tell his story in robot form," writes Gizmodo.
  But they point out Walt's granddaughter Johanna Miller wrote a Facebook post opposing the idea in November. ("They are Dehumanizing him. People are not replaceable...")The idea of a Robotic Grampa to give the public a feeling of who the living man was just makes no sense. It would be an imposter... You could
  
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• 'KDE Plasma LTS Releases Are Dead'

  04-05-2025 21:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  With its Start menu-style application launcher and its bottom-of-the-screen taskbar, KDE Plasma is a "nice" and "traditional" desktop environment that's "also highly customizable," notes It's FOSS News.
  But there's a change coming...
  In contrast to other desktop environments, KDE offers a long-term support release (LTS) of Plasma, where bug fixes and security updates are provided for an extended period, with no new major changes being introduced. However, that is no longer the case now. Shared b
  
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• Tech Leaders Launch Campaign To Make CS and AI a Graduation Requirement

  04-05-2025 20:20 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "Our future won't be handed to us," says the young narrator in a new ad from the nonprofit Code.org. "We will build it."
  "But how can we when the education we need is still just an elective?" says another young voice...
  The ad goes on to tout the power "to create with computer science and AI — the skills transforming every industry..." and ends by saying "This isn't radical. It's what education is supposed to do. Make computer science and AI a graduation requirement."
  There's also a hard-h
  
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• FSF Announces Free Software Hackathon Honoring Its 40th Anniversary

  04-05-2025 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Thursday the Free Software Foundation announced plans for a celebratory hackathon in November to improve free/libre software "in honor of its fortieth anniversary.The FSF has been campaigning for software freedom for over forty years. As part of its celebrations, the organization is inviting the wider free software community (both projects and individual contributors) to participate in a global, online hackathon to help improve important libre software projects.
  All free software projects, regar
  
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• We May Be In a 'Post-Herd Immunity World', says Immunology Expert

  04-05-2025 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Dr. Paul Offit, an expert on infectious disease and immunology, told the Guardian that "We're living in a post-herd-immunity world. I think the measles outbreak proves that. Measles — because it is the most contagious of the vaccine-preventable diseases, the most contagious human disease really — it is the first to come back."Three large outbreaks in Canada, Mexico and the US now account for the overwhelming majority of roughly 2,300 measles cases across the World Health Organization
  
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• Security Researchers Create Proof-of-Concept Program that Evades Linux Syscall-Watching Antivirus

  04-05-2025 16:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader Mirnotoriety shared this report from the Register:A proof-of-concept program has been released to demonstrate a so-called monitoring "blind spot" in how some Linux antivirus and other endpoint protection tools use the kernel's io_uring interface.
  That interface allows applications to make IO requests without using traditional system calls [to enhance performance by enabling asynchronous I/O operations between user space and the Linux kernel through shared ring buffers]. That's a
  
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• Firefox Could Be Doomed Without Google Search Deal, Executive Says

  04-05-2025 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from The Verge:
  Firefox could be put out of business should a court implement all the [U.S.] Justice Department's proposals to restrict Google's search monopoly, an executive for the browser owner Mozilla testified Friday. "It's very frightening," Mozilla CFO Eric Muhlheim said.The Department of Justice wants to bar Google from paying to be the default search engine in third-party browsers including Firefox, among a long list of other proposals including a
  
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• Did Peking U. Just Make the World's Fastest Transistor - Without Using Silicon?

  04-05-2025 09:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "It is the fastest, most efficient transistor ever," proclaims an announcment from Peking University. "And most important of all, there's no trace of silicon involved," adds ZME Science.
  From the South China Morning Post:
  A team of researchers at Peking University claims to have shattered chip performance limits and proven that China can use new materials to "change lanes" in the semiconductor race by circumventing silicon-based roadblocks entirely.The researchers, led by physical chemistry prof
  
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• How Badly Did ChatGPT and Copilot Fail to Predict the Winners of the Kentucky Derby?

  04-05-2025 06:34 via slashdot.org
  
  In 2016, an online "swarm intelligence" platform stunned horse-racing fans by making a correct prediction for the Kentucky Derby — naming all four top finishers in order. (But the next year its predictions weren't even close, with TechRepublic suggesting 2016's race just had an unusual cluster of obvious picks.)
  Since then it's become almost a tradition — asking AI to predict the winning horses each year, then see how close it came. So before today's race, a horse named "Journalism"
  
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• Dying Satellites Can Drive Climate Change and Ozone Depletion, Study Finds

  04-05-2025 03:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  There's 9,000 satellites circling the earth, the Guardian points out, with projections over over 60,000 by 2040.But "A new study shows that the emissions from expired satellites, as they fall to Earth and burn up, will be significant in future years, with implications for ozone hole recovery and climate."
  Most old satellites are disposed of by reducing their altitude and letting them burn up as they fall, releasing pollution into Earth's atmosphere such as aerosolised aluminium. To understand th
  
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• AI-Driven Robot Installs Nearly 10,000 Solar Modules in Australia

  04-05-2025 00:43 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares an article from Renewables Now: Chinese tech company Leapting has successfully completed its first commercial deployment of photovoltaic (PV) modules with an AI-driven solar module mounting robot in Australia. The Chinese company was tasked with supporting the installation of French Neoen's (EPA:NEOEN) 350-MW/440-MWp Culcairn Solar Farm in New South Wales' Riverina region. Shanghai-based Leapting said this week that its intelligent robot has installed alm
  
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• Scientists Simulate First-Ever 'Black Hole Bomb' Laboratory Analog

  03-05-2025 23:43 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "Researchers have created the first laboratory analog of the 'black hole bomb'," reports ScienceAlert, "a theoretical concept developed by physicists in the 1970s..."
  There's no black hole involved; their experiment just simulates the "electromagnetic analogue" of the theoretical concept — the "exponential runaway amplification of spontaneously generated electromagnetic modes."
  Or, as ScienceAlert puts it, "It doesn't, just to set your mind at ease, pose any danger. It consists of a rotati
  
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• 'Unparalleled' Snake Antivenom Made With Antibodies From a Man Bitten 200 Times

  03-05-2025 22:43 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader piojo writes: Tim Friede, Wisconsin man, has been injecting himself with snake venom for 18 years to gain protection from his pet snakes. The antibodies he developed have formed two components of a three-part antivenom, which gives partial or total protection against 18 of 19 species of venomous snakes that were tested. Notably, the antivenom is ineffective against vipers.
  From Australia's public broadcaster ABC:The team's results have been published today in the journa
  
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• The Atlantic Warns Combining US Government Databases Could Create a 'Panopticon'

  03-05-2025 21:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  America's federal government "is a veritable cosmos of information, made up of constellations of databases," warns the Atlantic. The FBI "has a facial-recognition apparatus capable of matching people against more than 640 million photos — a database made up of driver's license and passport photos, as well as mug shots. The Homeland Security department holds data "about the movements of every person who travels by air commercially". America's Drug Enforcement Administration "tracks license
  
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• Threads Jumps to 350 Million, Adding 30 Million Users in Three Months

  03-05-2025 20:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Threads has now grown to over 350 million monthly active users, reports TechCrunch, citing Mark Zuckerberg's comments on a company earnings call. That means Threads grew by 9.4% in roughly 90 days:
  That's an increase of 30 million users since the prior quarter, where Meta reported that Threads had 320 million users. The new figure represents increased growth, as Threads added 30 million in the first quarter of this year, compared with 20 million in Q4 2024.
  It's also worth noting that in a singl
  
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• May is 'Maintainer Month'. Open Source Initiative Joins GitHub to Celebrate Open Source Security

  03-05-2025 19:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  May is Maintainer Month: Celebrating those who secure Open Source@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
  The Open Source Initiative is joining "a global community of contributors" for GitHub's annual event "honoring the individuals who steward and sustain Open Source projects."And the theme of the 4th Annual "Maintainer Month" will be: securing Open Source:Throughout the month, OSI and our affiliates will be highlighting maintainers who prioritize security in their projects, sharing their stories, and prov
  
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• Facebook's Content Takedowns Take So Long They 'Don't Matter Much', Researchers Find

  03-05-2025 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:Facebook's loosening of its content moderation standards early this year got lots of attention and criticism. But a new study suggests that it might matter less what is taken down than when. The research finds that Facebook posts removed for violating standards or other reasons have already been seen by at least three-quarters of the people who would be predicted to ever see them.
  "Content takedowns on Facebook just don't matter all
  
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• New Gold-Creating Phenomenon Confirmed in Space Using 2004 Neutron Star Flare Readings

  03-05-2025 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader sciencehabit shares this excerpt from a new article in Science magazine:
  At first, astronomers knew of only one cosmic scenario that fit the bill for the violent formation of "jewelry shop" elements [gold and sliver]: the collision of two ultra-dense stellar corpses called neutron stars.
  Now, a second has stepped onto the scene.
  As they report this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers have discovered signatures of this heavy element formation — called the
  
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• US National Security Official Caught Using 'Less-Secure Signal App Knockoff'

  03-05-2025 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Remember when U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz mistakenly included a journalist in an encrypted chatroom to discuss looming U.S. military action against Yemen's Houthis?
  A recent photo of a high-level cabinet meeting caught Waltz using a "less-secure Signal app knockoff," reports the Guardian:The chat app Waltz was using appears to be a modified version of Signal called TM SGNL, made by a company that copies messaging apps but adds an ability to retain messages and archive them. The Whi
  
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• Google Plans To Roll Out Its AI Chatbot To Children Under 13

  03-05-2025 15:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Google plans to roll out its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot next week for children under 13 (source paywalled; alternative source) who have parent-managed Google accounts, as tech companies vie to attract young users with A.I. products. "Gemini Apps will soon be available for your child," the company said in an email this week to the parent of an 8-year-old. "That means your child will be able to use Gemini" to ask questions, g
  
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• Man Pleads Guilty To Stealing 1.1 Terabytes of Disney's Slack Data

  03-05-2025 12:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A 25-year-old from Santa Clarita has pleaded guilty to hacking a Disney employee's computer using malware disguised as an AI art tool, stealing over 1 terabyte of confidential Disney data and threatening to leak it under the guise of a fake Russian hacktivist group. Variety reports: Santa Clarita resident Ryan Mitchell Kramer, 25, pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including one count of accessing a computer and obtaining information and one count of threatening to damage a protected computer
  
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• Evidence of Controversial Planet 9 Uncovered In Sky Surveys Taken 23 Years Apart

  03-05-2025 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Astronomers may have found the best candidate yet for the elusive Planet Nine: a mysterious object in infrared sky surveys taken 23 years apart that appears to be more massive than Neptune and about 700 times farther from the sun than Earth. Space.com reports: [A] team led by astronomer Terry Long Phan of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan has delved into the archives of two far-infrared all-sky surveys in search of Planet Nine -- and incredibly, they have found something that could pos
  
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• First Driverless Semis Have Started Running Regular Longhaul Routes

  03-05-2025 05:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston. On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technolog
  
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• Microsoft Appoints Deputy CISO For Europe To Reassure European IT leaders

  03-05-2025 02:45 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has appointed a Deputy CISO for Europe to address growing regulatory pressure and reassure EU leaders about its cybersecurity commitment. "The move also highlights strong fears from European IT execs and government officials that the Trump administration may exert significant influence on cybersecurity companies," reports CSO Online. From the report: Who that Deputy CISO will ultimately be is unclear. Wednesday's statement simply said that Microsoft CISO Igor Tsyganskiy is "appointing
  
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