Slashdot reader Bruce66423 shared this report from the Guardian: Staff have resigned at Starling Bank after its new chief executive demanded thousands of workers attend its offices more frequently, despite lacking enough space to host them.

In his first major policy change since taking over from the UK digital bank's founder, Anne Boden, in March, Raman Bhatia has ordered all hybrid staff — many of whom were in the office only one or two days a week, or on an ad-hoc basis — to travel to work for a minimum of 10 days each month. But the bank, which operates online only, admitted that some of its offices would not be equipped to handle the influx... "We are considering ways in which we can create more space," an email sent by Starling's human resources team and seen by the Guardian said.

Starling has 3,231 staff, the vast majority of whom are in the UK with some also in Dublin. However, the Guardian understands that the bank has only about 900 desks, including 260 at its Cardiff site, 320 in its London headquarters and 155 in Southampton. The bank has a further 160 desks in its newest site in Manchester, where it has signed a 10-year lease to occupy the fifth floor of the Landmark building, which also houses Santander UK and HSBC staff... Some staff have already resigned over the "rushed" announcement, while others have threatened to do so...

The return to office announcement came a month after the Financial Conduct Authority hit Starling with a £29m fine after discovering "shockingly lax" controls that it said left the financial system "wide open to criminals". That included failures in its automated screening system for individuals facing government sanctions.
Starling Bank issued this statement to explain its reasoning. "By bringing colleagues together in person, our aim is to achieve greater collaboration that will benefit our customers as we enter Starling's next phase of growth."

The article also notes that the U.K. supermarket chain Asda "has also toughened its stance, making it compulsory for thousands of workers at its offices in Leeds and Leicester to spend at least three days a week at their desks from the new year."

June, 2023: "Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings."

November, 2024: "The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger." A senior editor at the Atlantic raises the possibility of systemic dishonesty-rewarding incentives where "a study must be even flashier than all the other flashy findings if its authors want to stand out," writing that "More than a year since all of this began, the evidence of fraud has only multiplied."

And the suspect isn't just Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor. One person deeply affected by all this is Gino's co-author, a business school professor from the University of California at Berkeley — Juliana Schroeder — who launched an audit of all 138 studies conducted by Francesca Gino (called "The Many Coauthors Project"): Gino was accused of faking numbers in four published papers. Just days into her digging, Schroeder uncovered another paper that appeared to be affected — and it was one that she herself had helped write... The other main contributor was Alison Wood Brooks, a young professor and colleague of Gino's at Harvard Business School.... If Brooks did conduct this work and oversee its data, then Schroeder's audit had produced a dire twist. The Many Co-Authors Project was meant to suss out Gino's suspect work, and quarantine it from the rest... But now, to all appearances, Schroeder had uncovered crooked data that apparently weren't linked to Gino.... Like so many other scientific scandals, the one Schroeder had identified quickly sank into a swamp of closed-door reviews and taciturn committees. Schroeder says that Harvard Business School declined to investigate her evidence of data-tampering, citing a policy of not responding to allegations made more than six years after the misconduct is said to have occurred...

In the course of scouting out the edges of the cheating scandal in her field, Schroeder had uncovered yet another case of seeming science fraud. And this time, she'd blown the whistle on herself. That stunning revelation, unaccompanied by any posts on social media, had arrived in a muffled update to the Many Co-Authors Project website. Schroeder announced that she'd found "an issue" with one more paper that she'd produced with Gino... [Schroeder] said that the source of the error wasn't her. Her research assistants on the project may have caused the problem; Schroeder wonders if they got confused...

What feels out of reach is not so much the truth of any set of allegations, but their consequences. Gino has been placed on administrative leave, but in many other instances of suspected fraud, nothing happens. Both Brooks and Schroeder appear to be untouched. "The problem is that journal editors and institutions can be more concerned with their own prestige and reputation than finding out the truth," Dennis Tourish, at the University of Sussex Business School, told me. "It can be easier to hope that this all just goes away and blows over and that somebody else will deal with it...." [Tourish also published a 2019 book decrying "Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research," which the article notes "cites a study finding that more than a third of surveyed editors at management journals say they've encountered fabricated or falsified data."] Maybe the situation in her field would eventually improve, [Schroeder] said. "The optimistic point is, in the long arc of things, we'll self-correct, even if we have no incentive to retract or take responsibility."

"Do you believe that?" I asked.

"On my optimistic days, I believe it."

"Is today an optimistic day?"

"Not really."

"The past 15 years were unique in ways that might be a bad predictor of our future," writes the Washington Post, with a surge in the number of internet users since 2010, and everyone spending more time online.

But today, "lots of smart people believe that artificial intelligence will upend how you find information. Googling is so yesterday." Sam Altman, the top executive overseeing ChatGPT, has said that AI has a good shot at shoving aside Google search. Bill Gates predicted that emerging AI will do tasks like researching your ideal running shoes and automatically placing an order so you'll "never go to a search site again." In defending itself from a judge's decision that it runs an illegal monopoly, Google says the company might be roadkill as AI and other new technologies change how you find information. (On Wednesday, the U.S. government asked the judge to overhaul Google to undo its monopoly.)

But predictions of Google's looming obsolescence have been wrong before, which calls for humility in fortune-telling our collective technology habits. We're devilishly unpredictable.... Maybe it's right to extrapolate from how people are starting to use AI today. Or maybe that's the mistake that Jobs made when he said no one was searching on iPhones. It wasn't wrong in 2010, but it was within a few years. Or what if AI upends how billions of us find information and we still keep on Googling? "The notion that we can predict how these new technologies are going to evolve is silly," said David B. Yoffie, a Harvard Business School professor who has spent decades studying the technology industry.

Amit Mehta, the judge overseeing the Google monopoly case, formed his own view on AI moving us away from searching Google. "AI may someday fundamentally alter search, but not anytime soon," he said.

Neuralink, the brain chip startup founded by Elon Musk, says it has received approval to launch its first clinical trial in Canada for a device designed to give paralysed individuals the ability to use digital devices simply by thinking. Reuters reports: [T]he Canadian study aims to assess the safety and initial functionality of its implant which enables people with quadriplegia, or paralysis of all four limbs, to control external devices with their thoughts. Canada's University Health Network hospital said in a separate statement that its Toronto facility had been selected to perform the complex neurosurgical procedure. Neuralink has successfully implanted the device in two patients in the United States. One of the patients has been using it to play video games and learn how to design 3D objects.

Baidu's new Apollo Go robotaxi brings significant advances in affordability and scalability that should make U.S. competitors like Waymo a bit nervous, according to The Verge's Andrew J. Hawkins. From the report: The RT6 is the sixth generation of Apollo Go's driverless vehicle, which made its official debut in May 2024. It's a purpose-built, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, meaning it's built without the need for a human driver. And here's the thing that should make US competitors nervous: adopting a battery-swapping solution, the price for one individual RT6 is "under $30,000," Baidu CEO Robin Li said in an earnings call. "All the strengths just mentioned above are driving us forward, paving the way to validate our business model," Li added. [...]

We still don't know the net effect of Baidu's cost improvements. But bringing down the upfront cost of each individual vehicle to below $30,000 will go a long way toward improving the company's unit economics, in which each vehicle brings in more money than it costs. There are still a lot of outstanding costs to consider, such as hardware depreciation and fleet maintenance, but from what Baidu is signaling, things are on the right track. From the looks of it, the company is passing those savings along to its customers. Base fares start as low as 4 yuan (around 55 cents), compared with 18 yuan (around $2.48) for a taxi driven by a human, according to state media outlet Global Times. Apollo Go said it has provided 988,000 rides across all of China in Q3 2024 -- a year-over-year growth of 20 percent. And cumulative public rides reached 8 million in October.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: DirecTV is pulling out of an agreement to buy its satellite rival Dish after bondholders objected to terms of the deal. DirecTV issued an announcement last night saying "it has notified EchoStar of its election to terminate, effective as of 11:59 p.m., ET on Friday, November 22nd, 2024, the Equity Purchase Agreement (EPA) pursuant to which it had agreed to acquire EchoStar's video distribution business, Dish DBS."

In the deal announced on September 30, DirecTV was going to buy the Dish satellite TV and Sling TV streaming business from EchoStar for a nominal fee of $1. DirecTV would have taken on $9.75 billion of Dish debt if the transaction moved ahead. The deal did not include the Dish Network cellular business. Dish bondholders quickly objected to terms requiring them to take a loss on the value of their debt. DirecTV had said Dish notes would be exchanged with "a reduced principal amount of DirecTV debt which will have terms and collateral that mirror DirecTV's existing secured debt." The principal amount would have been reduced by at least $1.568 billion.

DirecTV last night said it is now exercising its right to terminate the acquisition because noteholders did not accept the exchange offer. "The termination of the Agreement follows Dish DBS noteholders' failure to agree to the proposed Exchange Debt Offer Terms issued by EchoStar, which was a condition of DirecTV's obligations to acquire Dish under the EPA," the press release said. DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow indicated his company wasn't willing to change the deal to satisfy Dish bondholders. "We have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms were necessary to protect DirecTV's balance sheet and our operational flexibility," Morrow said.

Weeks after federal regulators announced a "click-to-cancel" rule for subscription businesses, a New York judge has ruled that SiriusXM made it too difficult for customers to end their service. Deadline: New York State Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank's ruling, issued Thursday, upheld elements of a lawsuit filed against the satellite audio firm in 2023 by New York Attorney General Letitia James. In a post on X after Frank's ruling, she wrote that the company "illegally forced people to go through a long and burdensome process to simply cancel their subscriptions. We sued SiriusXM to protect people's wallets, and now, SiriusXM must simplify its cancellation process and stop taking advantage of New Yorkers."

An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI is preparing to launch a frontal assault on Google. The ChatGPT owner recently considered developing a web browser that it would combine with its chatbot, and it has separately discussed or struck deals to power search features for travel, food, real estate and retail websites, according to people who have seen prototypes or designs of the products.

OpenAI has spoken about the search product with website and app developers such as Conde Nast, Redfin, Eventbrite and Priceline, these people said. OpenAI also has discussed powering artificial intelligence features on devices made by Samsung, a key Google business partner, similar to a deal OpenAI recently struck with Apple, according to people who were briefed about the situation at OpenAI.

According to Business Insider (paywalled), Microsoft's Copilot tool inadvertently let customers access sensitive information, such as CEO emails and HR documents. Now, Microsoft is working to fix the situation, deploying new tools and a guide to address the privacy concerns. The story was highlighted by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. From the report: These updates are designed "to identify and mitigate oversharing and ongoing governance concerns," the company said in a blueprint for Microsoft's 365 productivity software suite. [...] Copilot's magic -- its ability to create a 10-slide road-mapping presentation, or to summon a list of your company's most profitable products -- works by browsing and indexing all your company's internal information, like the web crawlers used by search engines. IT departments at some companies have set up lax permissions for who can access internal documents -- selecting "allow all" for the company's HR software, say, rather than going through the trouble of selecting specific users.

That didn't create much of a problem because there wasn't a tool that an average employee could use to identify and retrieve sensitive company documents -- until Copilot. As a result, some customers have deployed Copilot only to discover that it can let employees read an executive's inbox or access sensitive HR documents. "Now when Joe Blow logs into an account and kicks off Copilot, they can see everything," a Microsoft employee familiar with customer complaints said. "All of a sudden Joe Blow can see the CEO's emails."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The financial technology firm Finastra is investigating the alleged large-scale theft of information from its internal file transfer platform, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Finastra, which provides software and services to 45 of the world's top 50 banks, notified customers of the security incident after a cybercriminal began selling more than 400 gigabytes of data purportedly stolen from the company. London-based Finastra has offices in 42 countries and reported $1.9 billion in revenues last year. The company employs more than 7,000 people and serves approximately 8,100 financial institutions around the world. A major part of Finastra's day-to-day business involves processing huge volumes of digital files containing instructions for wire and bank transfers on behalf of its clients.

On November 8, 2024, Finastra notified financial institution customers that on Nov. 7 its security team detected suspicious activity on Finastra's internally hosted file transfer platform. Finastra also told customers that someone had begun selling large volumes of files allegedly stolen from its systems. "On November 8, a threat actor communicated on the dark web claiming to have data exfiltrated from this platform," reads Finastra's disclosure, a copy of which was shared by a source at one of the customer firms. "There is no direct impact on customer operations, our customers' systems, or Finastra's ability to serve our customers currently," the notice continued. "We have implemented an alternative secure file sharing platform to ensure continuity, and investigations are ongoing." But its notice to customers does indicate the intruder managed to extract or "exfiltrate" an unspecified volume of customer data.

The Trade Desk, one of the largest publicly traded advertising technology companies in the world, is building a connected television operating system. Axios reports: Existing OS providers, like Roku, Amazon's Fire TV and Google's Android TV, have a conflict of interest because they own content, [CEO and founder Jeff Green] said. Green believes that conflict of interest has muddled the advertising ecosystem for everyone. "We're looking at a concentration around a handful of players that lack objectivity," Green said. "We think we're in a unique position to make the ecosystem better." [...]

Ventura, a nod to the company's headquarters in Ventura, California, will be rolled out to the market in the second half of 2025, Green said. The company has been working to build the system quietly for three years. While some OS developers, such as Google, Amazon and Roku, have also developed their own hardware devices to service their operating systems, Green said The Trade Desk has "no intention of getting into the hardware business." Rather, it will partner with other hardware companies, such as smart TV manufacturers, as well as various television distributors, such as airlines, hotel chains, and gaming companies, to bring its OS to their devices.

Green believes hardware companies will be excited about the opportunity to partner because, in a competitive streaming environment, more hardware companies will need to build advertising businesses to scale. [...] Because The Trade Desk's goal is ultimately to improve a murky marketplace, Green said he isn't looking to make money from the OS directly. Ventura will be successful if it drives more pricing transparency and stronger measurement for the CTV advertising ecosystem writ large, he said. "Ultimately, the measure of success will be, do we have an ad auction that is so transparent that we can predict outcomes?" The Trade Desk will benefit financially from a more transparent ecosystem because it lacks a conflict of interest, Green said.

Longtime Slashdot reader Zarhan writes: On Sunday and Monday, two undersea cables in Baltic sea were cut. There is talk of a hybrid operation by Russia against Europe, and a Chinese ship has been detained by Danish Navy. However, the interesting part is did the cuts really have any effect, or does the internet actually route around damage? RIPE Atlas tests seem to indicate so. RIPE Atlas probes did not observe any noticeable increase of packet loss and only a minimal and perfectly expected increase of latency as traffic automatically switched itself to other available paths. While 20-30% of paths experienced latency increases, the effects were modest and no packet loss was detected. That said, questions remain about the consequences of further cable disruptions. "We are blind on what would happen if another link would be severed, or worse, if many are severed," reports RIPE Labs.

Pakistan's IT Industry Association (P@SHA) -- the nation's sole tech biz lobby group -- has warned that government policy could lead to business closures and financial losses among its constituents, and damage the nation's IT exports. From a report: P@SHA's main beef is with a slowing of internet access speeds, and government-imposed service outages. Pakistan went offline in May 2022 around the time of mass political protests and blackouts have since persisted -- prompting services like freelance gig platform Fiverr to warn clients that hiring members from Pakistan could mean potential disruptions.

Fiverr matters in Pakistan, because the nation has a policy of encouraging freelancers to sell their services online as part of a plan to grow tech services exports. The nation even floated the idea of providing its freelance workers with a tax holiday, subsidized broadband and health insurance as a way of supporting the online labor force.

But freelancers have had a hard time of it since the August 2024 introduction of what appears to be a new national firewall. Pakistan has long tried to limit access to what it feels is inappropriate content, and the firewall was aimed at helping that effort. But it greatly slowed internet access speeds -- making life hard for freelancers and other online businesses.

In a 23-page document (PDF) filed late Wednesday, U.S. regulators asked a federal judge to break up Google after a court found the tech giant of maintaining an abusive monopoly through its dominant search engine. As punishment, the DOJ calls for a sale of Google's Chrome browser and restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine. The Associated Press reports: Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct. [...] The Washington, D.C. court hearings on Google's punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before Labor Day. If [U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta] embraces the government's recommendations, Google would be forced to sell its 16-year-old Chrome browser within six months of the final ruling. But the company certainly would appeal any punishment, potentially prolonging a legal tussle that has dragged on for more than four years.

Besides seeking a Chrome spinoff and a corralling of the Android software, the Justice Department wants the judge to ban Google from forging multibillion-dollar deals to lock in its dominant search engine as the default option on Apple's iPhone and other devices. It would also ban Google from favoring its own services, such as YouTube or its recently-launched artificial intelligence platform, Gemini. Regulators also want Google to license the search index data it collects from people's queries to its rivals, giving them a better chance at competing with the tech giant. On the commercial side of its search engine, Google would be required to provide more transparency into how it sets the prices that advertisers pay to be listed near the top of some targeted search results. The measures, if they are ordered, threaten to upend a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year. "The playing field is not level because of Google's conduct, and Google's quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired," the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. "The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages."

Comcast plans to spin off several of its cable TV networks into a standalone company as it shifts focus to streaming and other profitable ventures like Peacock, theme parks, and broadband services. The Associated Press reports: Those one-time stars for Comcast's NBCUniversal cable television networks include USA, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel, as well as CNBC and MSNBC. Movie ticketing platform Fandango and the Rotten Tomatoes movie rating site would also become part of the new company. Peacock will remain with Comcast, as will Bravo, which provides significant content for the Peacock streaming service.

Comcast telegraphed the potential shift last month as it released quarterly earnings before confirming Wednesday that it will spin off assets that generated about $7 billion in revenue over he past 12 months ending September 30. That's about 5.5% of Comcast's total revenue during that period, according to the company. But there is a shrinking pool of cable subscribers as millions cut the cord and rely increasingly on streaming platforms for entertainment.

Mark Lazarus, current chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, will serve as the new entity's chief executive officer. Anand Kini, the current chief financial officer of NBCUniversal, will take on the same title with the new company as well as the chief operating officer role. [...] Comcast expects the new company to have the financial flexibility to be "a potential partner and acquirer of other complementary media businesses." The spin-off is targeted for completion in about a year, the entertainment giant said, pending financing and approval from its board and government regulators. "Like millions of US consumers, Comcast finally cut the cord by divesting itself of most of its cable TV channels," said Paul Verna, principal analyst at market research company eMarketer. "The benefits are clear to Comcast. It's dropping money-losing assets from a technology and media empire that will retain its lucrative (internet service provider) business, theme parks, broadcast networks, and Peacock streaming service."

The Verge's Richard Lawler reports: Strava recently informed its users and partners that new terms for its API restrict the data that third-party apps can show, refrain from replicating Strava's look, and place a ban on using data "for any model training related to artificial intelligence, machine learning or similar applications." The policy is effective as of November 11th, even though Strava's own post about the change is dated November 15th.

There are plenty of posts on social media complaining about the sudden shift, but one place where dissent won't be tolerated is Strava's own forums. The company says, "...posts requesting or attempting to have Strava revert business decisions will not be permitted." Brian Bell, Strava's VP of Communications and Social Impact, said in a statement: "We anticipate that these changes will affect only a small fraction (less than .1 percent) of the applications on the Strava platform -- the overwhelming majority of existing use cases are still allowed, including coaching platforms focused on providing feedback to users and tools that help users understand their data and performance."

Workers in the U.S. are running in place -- feeling stuck in jobs with dimmed prospects of advancement and seeing fewer opportunities to jump ship for something better. From a report: It's a sharp contrast to the heady days of 2022 -- when employees were quitting their jobs at record high rates, open roles proliferated and the possibility of a higher paycheck always seemed just around the corner.

Employers are sitting tight, says Daniel Zhao, lead economist at job site Glassdoor. Companies aren't making big changes to hiring strategy. That means "fewer opportunities for workers to climb the career ladder," he says. They're still plugging away at the same role they've had for years without the opportunity to move up internally or at a new company. 65% of the 3,400 professionals surveyed by Glassdoor last month said they feel stuck in their current role. "As workers feel stuck, pent-up resentment boils under the surface," Zhao writes in a report out yesterday.

AI tools remain prediction engines despite new capabilities, requiring both quality data and human judgment for successful deployment, according to new analysis. While generative AI can now handle complex tasks like writing and coding, its fundamental nature as a prediction machine means organizations must understand its limitations and provide appropriate oversight, argue Ajay Agrawal (Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management), Joshua Gans (Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School, and the chief economist at the Creative Destruction Lab), and Avi Goldfarb (Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare at the Rotman School) in a piece published on Harvard Business Review. Poor data can lead to errors, while lack of human judgment in deployment can result in strategic failures, particularly in high-stakes situations. An excerpt from the story: Thinking of computers as arithmetic machines is more important than most people intuitively grasp because that understanding is fundamental to using computers effectively, whether for work or entertainment. While video game players and photographers may not think about their computer as an arithmetic machine, successfully using a (pre-AI) computer requires an understanding that it strictly follows instructions. Imprecise instructions lead to incorrect results. Playing and winning at early computer games required an understanding of the underlying logic of the game.

[...] AI's evolution has mirrored this trajectory, with many early applications directly related to well-established prediction tasks and, more recently, AI reframing a wide number of applications as predictions. Thus, the higher value AI applications have moved from predicting loan defaults and machine breakdowns to a reframing of writing, drawing, and other tasks as prediction.

Google has warned websites they will be penalized for hosting marketing content designed to exploit search rankings, regardless of whether they created or outsourced the material. The crackdown on so-called "parasite SEO" targets websites that leverage their search rankings to promote unrelated content, such as news sites hiding shopping coupon codes or educational platforms publishing affiliate marketing material.

Chris Nelson from Google's search quality team said the policy applies even when content involves "white label services, licensing agreements, partial ownership agreements, and other complex business arrangements." The move follows Google's March announcement targeting site reputation abuse, which gained attention after Sports Illustrated was found publishing AI-generated product reviews through third-party marketing firm AdVon Commerce.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple plans to license some of its Apple TV+ content to competing services in an effort to save money and spread its reach. From the report: Apple has hired an executive to license its original productions to other companies, a strategy designed to increase sales from its film business and improve the visibility of its content. [...] Apple is focused on licensing its movies to other companies, such as foreign TV networks and stores, where viewers can rent or buy them, according to a person familiar with the plans. The company isn't planning to license its original TV shows to third parties. (At least not yet.)"

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and services boss Eddy Cue have pushed the team overseeing Apple TV+ to lower costs, improve the financial performance of the service and deliver more hits. The company has spent billions of dollars on original films and TV shows and has received strong reviews and praise from critics. Yet few of its titles have attracted a large audience and its streaming service doesn't make money. Apple has already started selling TV+ via Amazon in a bid to increase the audience for the service. Licensing to third parties will generate additional revenue and introduce Apple movies to people who don't yet pay for TV+. Since Apple TV+ launched in 2019, Apple has spent over $20 billion to build a library of original content. Yet, the streaming service only garnered 0.3 percent of U.S. screen viewing time in June 2024, according to Nielsen. "Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day," wrote Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw in July.

Ars Technica notes that Apple is estimated to have 25 million subscribers, making it "one of the smallest mainstream streaming services."