Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian: They went viral, amassing more than 1m streams on Spotify in a matter of weeks, but it later emerged that hot new band the Velvet Sundown were AI-generated -- right down to their music, promotional images and backstory. The episode has triggered a debate about authenticity, with music industry insiders saying streaming sites should be legally obliged to tag music created by AI-generated acts so consumers can make informed decisions about what they are listening to. [...]

Several figures told the Guardian that the present situation, where streaming sites, including Spotify, are under no legal obligation to identify AI-generated music, left consumers unaware of the origins of the songs they're listening to. Roberto Neri, the chief executive of the Ivors Academy, said: "AI-generated bands like Velvet Sundown that are reaching big audiences without involving human creators raise serious concerns around transparency, authorship and consent." Neri added that if "used ethically," AI has the potential to enhance songwriting, but said at present his organization was concerned with what he called "deeply troubling issues" with the use of AI in music.

Sophie Jones, the chief strategy officer at the music trade body the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), backed calls for clear labelling. "We believe that AI should be used to serve human creativity, not supplant it," said Jones. "That's why we're calling on the UK government to protect copyright and introduce new transparency obligations for AI companies so that music rights can be licensed and enforced, as well as calling for the clear labelling of content solely generated by AI."

Liz Pelly, the author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, said independent artists could be exploited by people behind AI bands who might create tracks that are trained using their music. She referred to the 2023 case of a song that was uploaded to TikTok, Spotify and YouTube, which used AI-generated vocals claiming to be the Weeknd and Drake. Universal Music Group said the song was "infringing content created with generative AI" and it was removed shortly after it was uploaded.

Aurelien Herault, the chief innovation officer at the music streaming service Deezer, said the company uses detection software that identifies AI-generated tracks and tags them. He said: "For the moment, I think platforms need to be transparent and try to inform users. For a period of time, what I call the "naturalization of AI', we need to inform users when it's used or not." Herault did not rule out removing tagging in future if AI-generated music becomes more popular and musicians begin to use it like an "instrument." At present, Spotify does not label music as AI-generated and has previously been criticized for populating some playlists with music by "ghost artists" -- fake acts that create stock music. Bruce66423 comments: "Artists demand 'a warning' on such material. Why? If it is what the people want..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phoronix: Merged yesterday to the latest development code for the LibreOffice open-source office suite is now recognizing Bitcoin "BTC" as a supported currency for use within the Calc spreadsheet program and elsewhere within this cross-platform free software office suite. Stemming from a recent bug report requesting Bitcoin as an official currency option within LibreOffice Calc, the necessary additions are now in place so it's a built-in preset like USD and EUR. Thus easier managing of Bitcoin transactions and the like from within LibreOffice Calc.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Blender 4.5 has arrived and it's a long-term support release. That means users get two full years of updates and bug fixes, making it a smart choice for anyone looking for stability in serious projects. Whether you're a solo artist or part of a studio pipeline, this version is built to last. Here's a list of key features and changes in this release:

- Vulkan backend replaces OpenGL (faster, smoother UI)
- Adaptive subdivision up to 14x faster with multithreading
- New Geometry Nodes: Camera Info, Instance Bounds
- GPU-accelerated compositor nodes with standardized inputs
- New Boolean solver: Manifold (cleaner, faster mesh operations)
- UV maps visible in Object Mode + improved selection behavior
- Grease Pencil render pass and Geometry Nodes integration
- Improved file import support: PLY, OBJ, STL, CSV, VDB
- Deprecations: Collada, Big Endian, legacy .blend, Intel Mac support
- Cycles OptiX now requires NVIDIA driver v535+
- New shader variants for add-on developers (POLYLINES_*, POINT_*)
~500 bug fixes across all major systems

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: California's statewide power grid operator is poised to become the first in North America to deploy artificial intelligence to manage outages, MIT Technology Review has learned. "We wanted to modernize our grid operations. This fits in perfectly with that," says Gopakumar Gopinathan, a senior advisor on power system technologies at the California Independent System Operator -- known as the CAISO and pronounced KAI-so. "AI is already transforming different industries. But we haven't seen many examples of it being used in our industry."

At the DTECH Midwest utility industry summit in Minneapolis on July 15, CAISO is set to announce a deal to run a pilot program using new AI software called Genie, from the energy-services giant OATI. The software uses generative AI to analyze and carry out real-time analyses for grid operators and comes with the potential to autonomously make decisions about key functions on the grid, a switch that might resemble going from uniformed traffic officers to sensor-equipped stoplights. But while CAISO may deliver electrons to cutting-edge Silicon Valley companies and laboratories, the actual task of managing the state's electrical system is surprisingly analog.

Today, CAISO engineers scan outage reports for keywords about maintenance that's planned or in the works, read through the notes, and then load each item into the grid software system to run calculations on how a downed line or transformer might affect power supply. "Even if it takes you less than a minute to scan one on average, when you amplify that over 200 or 300 outages, it adds up," says Abhimanyu Thakur, OATI's vice president of platforms, visualization, and analytics. "Then different departments are doing it for their own respective keywords. Now we consolidate all of that into a single dictionary of keywords and AI can do this scan and generate a report proactively." If CAISO finds that Genie produces reliable, more efficient data analyses for managing outages, Gopinathan says, the operator may consider automating more functions on the grid. "After a few rounds of testing, I think we'll have an idea about what is the right time to call it successful or not," he says.

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI has released Kimi K2, a trillion-parameter open-source language model that outperforms GPT-4 in key benchmarks with particularly strong performance on coding and autonomous agent tasks. VentureBeat reports: The new model, called Kimi K2, features 1 trillion total parameters with 32 billion activated parameters in a mixture-of-experts architecture. The company is releasing two versions: a foundation model for researchers and developers, and an instruction-tuned variant optimized for chat and autonomous agent applications. "Kimi K2 does not just answer; it acts," the company stated in its announcement blog. "With Kimi K2, advanced agentic intelligence is more open and accessible than ever. We can't wait to see what you build."

The model's standout feature is its optimization for "agentic" capabilities -- the ability to autonomously use tools, write and execute code, and complete complex multi-step tasks without human intervention. In benchmark tests, Kimi K2 achieved 65.8% accuracy on SWE-bench Verified, a challenging software engineering benchmark, outperforming most open-source alternatives and matching some proprietary models. [...] On LiveCodeBench, arguably the most realistic coding benchmark available, Kimi K2 achieved 53.7% accuracy, decisively beating DeepSeek-V3's 46.9% and GPT-4.1's 44.7%. More striking still: it scored 97.4% on MATH-500 compared to GPT-4.1's 92.4%, suggesting Moonshot has cracked something fundamental about mathematical reasoning that has eluded larger, better-funded competitors.

But here's what the benchmarks don't capture: Moonshot is achieving these results with a model that costs a fraction of what incumbents spend on training and inference. While OpenAI burns through hundreds of millions on compute for incremental improvements, Moonshot appears to have found a more efficient path to the same destination. It's a classic innovator's dilemma playing out in real time -- the scrappy outsider isn't just matching the incumbent's performance, they're doing it better, faster, and cheaper.

Cognition AI, an artificial intelligence startup that offers a software coding assistant, said on Monday that it had bought rival Windsurf as part of an escalating battle to lead in the technology. From a report: The move follows a $2.4 billion deal by Google to acquire some of Windsurf's top executives and license the start-up's technology, which was revealed on Friday.

Google's deal appeared to leave Windsurf in a difficult position as a stand-alone start-up. OpenAI, the maker of the ChatGPT chatbot, had also been in talks to buy Windsurf before the Google deal. "We've long admired the Windsurf team and what they've built," said Scott Wu, a co-founder of Cognition, in an email to employees viewed by The New York Times. "Within our lifetime, engineers will go from bricklayers to architects, focusing on the creativity of designing systems rather than the manual labor of putting them together."

Brian Witten, VP/CSO of automotive technology supplier Aptiv, warns that "While seven to 10 years may sound like a long way off, preparation for quantum threats must begin now, not once they have already materialized." Organizations need time to implement post-quantum cryptography (PQC) transition plans methodically — and that applies both to anyone with an IT infrastructure and to anyone building software-defined systems. "Current encryption, such as RSA and ECC [elliptic curve cryptography], will become obsolete once quantum computing matures," said Cigent cofounder John Benkert. "Management often assumes cybersecurity threats are only present-day problems. But this is a future-proofing issue — especially relevant for industries dealing with sensitive, long-lifespan data, like healthcare, finance or government." Remediation requires long-term planning. Organizations that wait until quantum computers have broken encryption to address the threat will find that it is too late.
Start by building an inventory of what needs to change, Witten recommends. (Fortunately, "It's a matter of using newer and different chips and algorithms, not necessarily more expensive components," he writes, also suggesting requests for proposals "should ask vendors to include a PQC update plan.")

Firmware will also need quantum-resistant digital signatures. ("Broken authentication lets bad things happen. Someone could remotely take over a vehicle, for instance, or send malicious code for autonomous execution later, even after the vehicle has gone offline.") And remember that post-quantum key sizes are larger, requiring more storage space. "In some cases, digitally signed messages with security information could triple in size, which could impact storage and bandwidth."

Thanks to Esther Schindler (Slashdot reader #16,185) for sharing the article.

Electrek reports on the new Omo X, a scooter planned for release in 2026 that's "full of premium tech features that blur the lines between e-scooter and self-driving EV." At its recent launch in Jakarta, the Omo X didn't just sit pretty center stage, it actually drove itself onto the stage using its "Halo Pilot" system, which apparently comes complete with adaptive cruise control, remote summon, self-parking, and even automatic reversing and self-balancing at low speeds. This is legit autonomous behavior previously reserved for cars, now shrunk down and smoothed out for a two-wheeler. Under the hood — or rather, behind the sleek bodywork — Omoway's Halo architecture delivers collision warning, emergency-brake assist, blind spot monitoring, and V2V [vehicle-to-vehicle] communication.

The frame is modular, too. It can be reconfigured in step-through, straddle, or touring posture to suit casual riders, commuters, and motorcycle wannabes alike. That kind of flexibility isn't just a marketing gimmick, but rather it looks purpose-built to capture diverse motorcycle-heavy markets like Indonesia, which counts over 120 million two-wheelers and is quickly transitioning to electric models... It's tech-rich, head-turning, and seems built to evolve with software updates. The remote summon and AI-assisted features could genuinely simplify urban mobility, and tricks like automatically driving itself to a charging station sound legitimately useful...

[But] Omoway's vision here will have to carry extra sensors, actuators, and redundant systems to support those smart functions. With added costs and complexity, will riders in developing markets pay a premium, carry extra maintenance risk, or worry about obsolescence? Much hinges on Omoway's software support and local service networks.
The article reports a projected price around €3,500 (roughly $3,800). "And while Indonesia may have been the launchpad, global markets aren't off the table..."

"Microsoft's Outlook email service malfunctioned for over 21 hours Wednesday and Thursday," reports CNBC, "prompting some people to post on social media about the inability to reach their virtual mailboxes." The issue began at 6:20 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, according to a dashboard the software company maintains. It affected Outlook.com as well as Outlook mobile apps and desktop programs. At 12:21 ET on Thursday, the Microsoft 365 Status account posted that it was rolling out a fix.
Although earlier on Thursday Microsoft posted on X that "We identified an issue with the initial fix, and we've corrected it..."

More details from the Associated Press: Disruptions appeared to peak just before noon ET on Thursday, when more than 2,700 users worldwide reported issues with Outlook, formerly also Hotmail, to outage tracker Downdetector. Some said they encountered problems like loading their inboxes or signing in. By later in the afternoon, reports had fallen to just over a couple hundred...

Microsoft did not immediately provide more information about what had caused the hourslong outage. A spokesperson for Microsoft had no further comment when reached by The Associated Press on Thursday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Contrary to popular belief, using cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools slowed down experienced software developers when they were working in codebases familiar to them, rather than supercharging their work, a new study found. AI research nonprofit METR conducted the in-depth study on a group of seasoned developers earlier this year while they used Cursor, a popular AI coding assistant, to help them complete tasks in open-source projects they were familiar with. Before the study, the open-source developers believed using AI would speed them up, estimating it would decrease task completion time by 24%. Even after completing the tasks with AI, the developers believed that they had decreased task times by 20%. But the study found that using AI did the opposite: it increased task completion time by 19%. The study's lead authors, Joel Becker and Nate Rush, said they were shocked by the results: prior to the study, Rush had written down that he expected "a 2x speed up, somewhat obviously." [...]

The slowdown stemmed from developers needing to spend time going over and correcting what the AI models suggested. "When we watched the videos, we found that the AIs made some suggestions about their work, and the suggestions were often directionally correct, but not exactly what's needed," Becker said. The authors cautioned that they do not expect the slowdown to apply in other scenarios, such as for junior engineers or engineers working in codebases they aren't familiar with. Still, the majority of the study's participants, as well as the study's authors, continue to use Cursor today. The authors believe it is because AI makes the development experience easier, and in turn, more pleasant, akin to editing an essay instead of staring at a blank page. "Developers have goals other than completing the task as soon as possible," Becker said. "So they're going with this less effortful route."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For the second time in a year, Google has announced that it will render some of its past phones almost unusable with a software update, and users don't have any choice in the matter. After nerfing the Pixel 4a's battery capacity earlier this year, Google has now confirmed a similar update is rolling out to the Pixel 6a. The new July Android update adds "battery management features" that will make the phone unusable. Given the risks involved, Google had no choice but to act, but it could choose to take better care of its customers and use better components in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot more phones are about to end up in the trash. [...]

Pixel 4a units contained one of two different batteries, and only the one manufactured by a company called Lishen was downgraded. For the Pixel 6a, Google has decreed that the battery limits will be imposed when the cells hit 400 charge cycles. Beyond that, the risk of fire becomes too great -- there have been reports of Pixel 6a phones bursting into flames. Clearly, Google had to do something, but the remedies it settled on feel unnecessarily hostile to customers. It had a chance to do better the second time, but the solution for the Pixel 6a is more of the same. [...]

When Google killed the Pixel 4a's battery life, it offered a few options. You could have the battery replaced for free, get $50 cash, or accept a $100 credit in the Google Store. However, claiming the money or free battery was a frustrating experience that was rife with fees and caveats. The store credit is also only good on phones and can't be used with other promotions or discounts. And the battery swap? You'd better hope there's nothing else wrong with the device. If it has any damage, like cracked glass, it may not qualify for a free battery replacement.

Now we have the Pixel 6a Battery Performance Program with all the same problems. Pixel 6a owners can get $100 in cash or $150 in store credit. Alternatively, Google offers a free battery replacement with the same limits on phone condition. This is all particularly galling because the Pixel 6a is still an officially supported phone, with its final guaranteed update coming in 2027. Google also pulled previous software packages for this phone to prevent rollbacks. [...] If you have a Pixel 6a, the battery-killing update is rolling out now. You'll have no choice but to install it if you want to remain on the official software. Google has a support site where you can try to get a free battery swap or some cash.

The University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering is overhauling its approach to computer science education as AI reshapes the tech industry. Director Magdalena Balazinska has declared that "coding, or the translation of a precise design into software instructions, is dead" because AI can now handle that work.

The Pacific Northwest's premier tech program now allows students to use GPT tools in assignments, requiring them to cite AI as a collaborator just as they would credit input from a fellow student. The school is considering "coordinated changes to our curriculum" after encouraging professors to experiment with AI integration.

The city of Centerville, Ohio has deployed AI-enabled garbage trucks that scan residents' trash and send personalized postcards scolding them for improper recycling. Dayton Daily News reports: "Reducing contamination in our recycling system lowers processing costs and improves the overall efficiency of our collection," City Manager Wayne Davis said in a statement regarding the AI pilot program. "This technology allows us to target problem areas, educate residents and make better use of city resources." Residents whose items don't meet the guidelines will be notified via a personalized postcard, one that tells them which items are not accepted and provides tips on proper recycling.

The total contract amount for the project is $74,945, which is entirely funded through a Montgomery County Solid Waste District grant, Centerville spokeswoman Kate Bostdorff told this news outlet. The project launched Monday, Bostdorff said. "A couple of the trucks have been collecting baseline recycling data, and we have been working through software training for a few weeks now," she said. [...] Centerville said it will continually evaluate how well the AI system works and use what it learns during the pilot project to "guide future program enhancements."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: A German court has ruled that Meta must pay $5,900 to a German Facebook user who sued the platform for embedding tracking technology in third-party websites -- a ruling that could open the door to large fines down the road over data privacy violations relating to pixels and similar tools. The Regional Court of Leipzig in Germany ruled Friday that Meta tracking pixels and software development kits embedded in countless websites and apps collect users' data without their consent and violate the continent's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The ruling in favor of the plaintiff sets a precedent which the court acknowledged will allow countless other users to sue without "explicitly demonstrating individual damages," according to a Leipzig Regional Court press release. "Every user is individually identifiable to Meta at all times as soon as they visit the third-party websites or use an app, even if they have not logged in via the Instagram and Facebook account," the press release said. "This may very well be one of the most substantial rulings coming out of Europe this year," said Ronni K. Gothard Christiansen, the CEO of AesirX, a consultancy which helps businesses comply with data privacy laws. "$5,900 in damages for one visitor adds up quickly if you have tens of thousands of visitors, or even millions."

Russia's State Duma rejected legislation that would have legalized ethical hacking, citing national security concerns. Politicians worried that discovering vulnerabilities in software from hostile countries would require sharing those security flaws with foreign companies, potentially enabling strategic exploitation.

The bill also failed to explain how existing laws would accommodate white-hat hacking provisions. Russia's Ministry of Digital Development introduced the proposal in 2022, with a first draft in 2023. Individual security researchers currently face prosecution under Russian Criminal Code for unauthorized computer access, while established cybersecurity companies can conduct limited vulnerability research.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: On Sunday, Block CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey launched an open source chat app called Bitchat, promising to deliver "secure" and "private" messaging without a centralized infrastructure. The app relies on Bluetooth and end-to-end encryption, unlike traditional messaging apps that rely on the internet. By being decentralized, Bitchat has potential for being a secure app in high-risk environments where the internet is monitored or inaccessible. According to Dorsey's white paper detailing the app's protocols and privacy mechanisms, Bitchat's system design "prioritizes" security.

But the claims that the app is secure, however, are already facing scrutiny by security researchers, given that the app and its code have not been reviewed or tested for security issues at all -- by Dorsey's own admission. Since launching, Dorsey has added a warning to Bitchat's GitHub page: "This software has not received external security review and may contain vulnerabilities and does not necessarily meet its stated security goals. Do not use it for production use, and do not rely on its security whatsoever until it has been reviewed." This warning now also appears on Bitchat's main GitHub project page but was not there at the time the app debuted.

As of Wednesday, Dorsey added: "Work in progress," next to the warning on GitHub. This latest disclaimer came after security researcher Alex Radocea found that it's possible to impersonate someone else and trick a person's contacts into thinking they are talking to the legitimate contact, as the researcher explained in a blog post. Radocea wrote that Bitchat has a "broken identity authentication/verification" system that allows an attacker to intercept someone's "identity key" and "peer id pair" -- essentially a digital handshake that is supposed to establish a trusted connection between two people using the app. Bitchat calls these "Favorite" contacts and marks them with a star icon. The goal of this feature is to allow two Bitchat users to interact, knowing that they are talking to the same person they talked to before.

Amazon's Prime Day sales plunged 41% on the first day compared to last year's kickoff, with experts attributing the drop to shoppers delaying purchases in anticipation of better deals during the extended four-day event. From a report: Momentum Commerce reported that figure for Tuesday (July 8), with Momentum's Founder and CEO John Shea saying that the sales numbers for this year's longer event could still surpass those of last year's shorter one, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 9). Shea attributed the drop in first-day sales to consumers putting items in their shopping carts but holding off on completing the purchase in case better deals come along, according to the report. Last year's shorter event encouraged shoppers to head to checkout to ensure they wouldn't miss out on the discounts, Shea said, per the report. Amazon Prime Vice President Jamil Ghani remains optimistic, telling Bloomberg Television the company was "pleased by the engagement" with shoppers during the event and that it is "very early." He said the company extended the duration of Prime Day because shoppers wanted more time to discover the deals.

According to numbers provided by Adobe, Prime Day's kickoff surpassed Thanksgiving 2024's $6.1 billion in eCommerce spend. The software company also found that 50.2% of sales came through a mobile device and that buy now, pay later orders for Amazon's Prime Day were up 13.6% year over year.

After discovering that ChatGPT was falsely telling users that Soundslice could convert ASCII tablature into playable music, founder Adrian Holovaty decided to actually build the feature -- even though the app was never designed to support that format. TechCrunch reports: Soundslice is an app for teaching music, used by students and teachers. It's known for its video player synchronized to the music notations that guide users on how the notes should be played. It also offers a feature called "sheet music scanner" that allows users to upload an image of paper sheet music and, using AI, will automatically turn that into an interactive sheet, complete with notations. [Adrian Holovaty, founder of music-teaching platform Soundslice] carefully watches this feature's error logs to see what problems occur, where to add improvements, he said. That's where he started seeing the uploaded ChatGPT sessions.

They were creating a bunch of error logs. Instead of images of sheet music, these were images of words and a box of symbols known as ASCII tablature. That's a basic text-based system used for guitar notations that uses a regular keyboard. (There's no treble key, for instance, on your standard QWERTY keyboard.) The volume of these ChatGPT session images was not so onerous that it was costing his company money to store them and crushing his app's bandwidth, Holovaty said. He was baffled, he wrote in a blog post about the situation.

"Our scanning system wasn't intended to support this style of notation. Why, then, were we being bombarded with so many ASCII tab ChatGPT screenshots? I was mystified for weeks -- until I messed around with ChatGPT myself." That's how he saw ChatGPT telling people they could hear this music by opening a Soundslice account and uploading the image of the chat session. Only, they couldn't. Uploading those images wouldn't translate the ASCII tab into audio notes. He was struck with a new problem. "The main cost was reputational: New Soundslice users were going in with a false expectation. They'd been confidently told we would do something that we don't actually do," he described to TechCrunch.

He and his team discussed their options: Slap disclaimers all over the site about it -- "No, we can't turn a ChatGPT session into hearable music" -- or build that feature into the scanner, even though he had never before considered supporting that offbeat musical notation system. He opted to build the feature. "My feelings on this are conflicted. I'm happy to add a tool that helps people. But I feel like our hand was forced in a weird way. Should we really be developing features in response to misinformation?" he wrote.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Hugging Face, the $4.5 billion artificial intelligence platform that has become the GitHub of machine learning, announced Tuesday the launch of Reachy Mini, a $299 desktop robot designed to bring AI-powered robotics to millions of developers worldwide. The 11-inch humanoid companion represents the company's boldest move yet to democratize robotics development and challenge the industry's traditional closed-source, high-cost model.

The announcement comes as Hugging Face crosses a significant milestone of 10 million AI builders using its platform, with CEO Clement Delangue revealing in an exclusive interview that "more and more of them are building in relation to robotics." The compact robot, which can sit on any desk next to a laptop, addresses what Delangue calls a fundamental barrier in robotics development: accessibility. "One of the challenges with robotics is that you know you can't just build on your laptop. You need to have some sort of robotics partner to help in your building, and most people won't be able to buy $70,000 robots," Delangue explained, referring to traditional industrial robotics systems and even newer humanoid robots like Tesla's Optimus, which is expected to cost $20,000-$30,000.

Reachy Mini emerges from Hugging Face's April acquisition of French robotics startup Pollen Robotics, marking the company's most significant hardware expansion since its founding. The robot represents the first consumer product to integrate natively with the Hugging Face Hub, allowing developers to access thousands of pre-built AI models and share robotics applications through the platform's "Spaces" feature. [...] Reachy Mini packs sophisticated capabilities into its compact form factor. The robot features six degrees of freedom in its moving head, full body rotation, animated antennas, a wide-angle camera, multiple microphones, and a 5-watt speaker. The wireless version includes a Raspberry Pi 5 computer and battery, making it fully autonomous. The robot ships as a DIY kit and can be programmed in Python, with JavaScript and Scratch support planned. Pre-installed demonstration applications include face and hand tracking, smart companion features, and dancing moves. Developers can create and share new applications through Hugging Face's Spaces platform, potentially creating what Delangue envisions as "thousands, tens of thousands, millions of apps." Reachy Mini's $299 price point could significantly transform robotics education and research. "Universities, coding bootcamps, and individual learners could use the platform to explore robotics concepts without requiring expensive laboratory equipment," reports VentureBeat. "The open-source nature enables educational institutions to modify hardware and software to suit specific curricula. Students could progress from basic programming exercises to sophisticated AI applications using the same platform, potentially accelerating robotics education and workforce development."

"... For the first time, a major AI platform is betting that the future of robotics belongs not in corporate research labs, but in the hands of millions of individual developers armed with affordable, open-source tools."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: If you want a job at McDonald's today, there's a good chance you'll have to talk to Olivia. Olivia is not, in fact, a human being, but instead an AI chatbot that screens applicants, asks for their contact information and resume, directs them to a personality test, and occasionally makes them "go insane" by repeatedly misunderstanding their most basic questions. Until last week, the platform that runs the Olivia chatbot, built by artificial intelligence software firm Paradox.ai, also suffered from absurdly basic security flaws. As a result, virtually any hacker could have accessed the records of every chat Olivia had ever had with McDonald's applicants -- including all the personal information they shared in those conversations -- with tricks as straightforward as guessing the username and password "123456."

On Wednesday, security researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curryrevealedthat they found simple methods to hack into the backend of the AI chatbot platform on McHire.com, McDonald's website that many of its franchisees use to handle job applications. Carroll and Curry, hackers with along track record of independent security testing, discovered that simple web-based vulnerabilities -- including guessing one laughably weak password -- allowed them to access a Paradox.ai account and query the company's databases that held every McHire user's chats with Olivia. The data appears to include as many as 64 million records, including applicants' names, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Carroll says he only discovered that appalling lack of security around applicants' information because he was intrigued by McDonald's decision to subject potential new hires to an AI chatbot screener and personality test. "I just thought it was pretty uniquely dystopian compared to a normal hiring process, right? And that's what made me want to look into it more," says Carroll. "So I started applying for a job, and then after 30 minutes, we had full access to virtually every application that's ever been made to McDonald's going back years." Paradox.ai confirmed the security findings, acknowledging that only a small portion of the accessed records contained personal data. The company stated that the weak-password account ("123456") was only accessed by the researchers and no one else. To prevent future issues, Paradox is launching a bug bounty program. "We do not take this matter lightly, even though it was resolved swiftly and effectively," Paradox.ai's chief legal officer, Stephanie King, told WIRED in an interview. "We own this."

In a statement to WIRED, McDonald's agreed that Paradox.ai was to blame. "We're disappointed by this unacceptable vulnerability from a third-party provider, Paradox.ai. As soon as we learned of the issue, we mandated Paradox.ai to remediate the issue immediately, and it was resolved on the same day it was reported to us," the statement reads. "We take our commitment to cyber security seriously and will continue to hold our third-party providers accountable to meeting our standards of data protection."