It was "a catastrophic IT failure," writes Computer Weekly. It was nearly two years ago that Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, "declared itself in financial distress" — effectively declaring bankruptcy — after the costs on an Oracle project costs ballooned from $25 million to around $125.5 million.

But Computer Weekly's investigation finds signs that the program board and its manager wanted to go live in April of 2022 "regardless of the state of the build, the level of testing undertaken and challenges faced by those working on the programme." One manager's notes "reveal concerns that the program manager and steering committee could not be swayed, which meant the system went live despite having known flaws." Computer Weekly has seen notes from a manager at BCC highlighting a number of discrepancies in the Birmingham City Council report to cabinet published in June 2023, 14 months after the Oracle system went into production. The report stated that some critical elements of the Oracle system were not functioning adequately, impacting day-to-day operations. The manager's comments reveal that this flaw in the implementation of the Oracle software was known before the system went live in April 2022... An insider at Birmingham City Council who has been closely involved in the project told Computer Weekly it went live "despite all the warnings telling them it wouldn't work"....

Since going live, the Oracle system effectively scrambled financial data, which meant the council had no clear picture of its overall finances. The insider said that by January 2023, Birmingham City Council could not produce an accurate account of its spending and budget for the next financial year: "There's no way that we could do our year-end accounts because the system didn't work."
A June 2023 report to cabinet "stated that due to issues with the council's bank reconciliation system, a significant number of transactions had to be manually allocated to accounts rather than automatically via the Oracle system," according to the article. But Computer Weekly has seen a 2019 presentation slide deck showing the council was already aware that Oracle's out-of-the-box bank reconciliation system "did not handle mixed debtor/non-debtor bank files. The workaround suggested was either a lot of manual intervention or a platform as a service (PaaS) offering from Evosys, the Oracle implementation partner contracted by BCC to build the new IT system."

The article ultimately concludes that "project management failures over a number of years contributed to the IT failure."

Michael Geist Pig Hogger (Slashdot reader #10,379) reminds us that in Canadian law, "fair use" is called "fair dealing" — and that Canadian digital media users just enjoyed a huge win. Canadian user rights champion Michael Geist writes: The Federal Court has issued a landmark decision on copyright's anti-circumvention rules which concludes that digital locks should not trump fair dealing. Rather, the two must co-exist in harmony, leading to an interpretation that users can still rely on fair dealing even in cases involving those digital locks.

The decision could have enormous implications for libraries, education, and users more broadly as it seeks to restore the copyright balance in the digital world. The decision also importantly concludes that merely requiring a password does not meet the standard needed to qualify for copyright rules involving technological protection measures.
Canada's 2012 "Copyright Modernization Act" protected anti-copying technology from circumvention, Geist writes — and Blacklock's Reports had then "argued that allowing anyone other than original subscriber to access articles constituted copyright infringement." The court found that the Blacklock's legal language associated with its licensing was confusing and that fair dealing applied here as well...

Blacklock's position on this issue was straightforward: it argued that its content was protected by a password, that passwords constituted a form of technological protection measure, and that fair dealing does not apply in the context of circumvention. In other words, it argued that the act of circumvention (in this case of a password) was itself infringing and it could not be saved by fair dealing. The Federal Court disagreed on all points...

For years, many have argued for a specific exception to clarify that circumvention was permitted for fair dealing purposes, essentially making the case that users should not lose their fair dealing rights the moment a rights holder places a digital lock on their work. The Federal Court has concluded that the fair dealing rights have remained there all along and that the Copyright Act's anti-circumvention rules must be interpreted in a manner consistent with those rights.
"The case could still be appealed, but for now the court has restored a critical aspect of the copyright balance after more than a decade of uncertainty and concern."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: If you devoured the Childhood of Famous Americans book series as a kid and are ready for a longer read, Bill Gates has a book for you.

"I'm excited to announce my new book, Source Code, which will be published next February," Gates wrote Tuesday in a GatesNotes blog post. "It's a memoir about my early years, from childhood through my decision to leave college and start Microsoft with Paul Allen. I write about the relationships, lessons, and experiences that laid the foundation for everything in my life that followed." GeekWire explains the timing of the book release is notable: January 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the Popular Electronics magazine issue that featured the early Altair 8800 personal computer, which inspired Gates and Allen to start the company.

Proceeds from book sales will be donated to the nonprofit United Way Worldwide, in recognition of Gates' late mother Mary's longtime work as a volunteer and board member with the organization.
"Hey, this thing is happening without us," Allen famously said to Bill Gates (who had just turned 19).

When Gates finished reading the Popular Electronics article, "he realized that Allen was right," according to one biographer. "For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business."

In November Google agreed to pay Canadian news publishers $100 million annually "in order to be exempt from the Online News Act, which compels tech companies to enter into agreements with news publishers," writes the Canadian Press.

On Friday Google "named the organization it has selected to distribute the $100 million..." The Canadian Journalism Collective will be responsible for ensuring eligible news organizations get their share of the money. The collective is a federally incorporated non-profit organization that was created for this purpose. It was founded in May by a group of independent publishers and broadcasters... "We hope these next steps will be completed as quickly as possible, so Canadian publishers and journalists can soon begin to receive the proceeds of this new contribution model," Google said in a blog entry posted on their website Friday...

The money will be distributed proportionately based on how many full time-journalists the companies employ. Small print and digital outlets can expect to receive about $17,000 per journalist that they employ, an official with the Canadian Heritage Department has said.
Google's money will go to 1,520 news organizations, according to Google's blog post — which describes the arrangement as "addressing our concerns with the Online News Act" and "a viable path to an exemption at a clear and commercially acceptable commitment level..." As part of this transition, we have advised partners in our Google News Showcase program (our online news experience and licensing program for news organizations) will cease to operate in Canada later this year as we transition to this new contribution model. We will be maintaining some Google News Initiative programming in Canada. This includes a range of collaborative tools and resources that can support the advancement of quality journalism. However, with our monetary contribution in Canada now streamlined into the new single collective model, these investments will be non-monetary in nature.

Last week America's energy secretary cheered the startup of a fourth nuclear reactor at a Georgia power plant, calling it "the largest producer of clean energy, and the largest producer of electricity in the United States" after a third reactor was started up there in December.

From the U.S. Energy Department's transcript of the speech: Each year, Units 3 and 4 are going to produce enough clean power to power 1 million homes and businesses, enough energy to power roughly 1 in 4 homes in Georgia. Preventing 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution annually. That, by the way, is like planting more than 165 million trees every year!

And that's not to mention the historic investments that [electric utility] Southern has made on the safety front, to ensure this facility meets — and exceeds — the highest operating standards in the world....

To reach our goal of net zero by 2050, we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country. That means we've got to add 200 more gigawatts by 2050. Okay, two down, 198 to go! In building [Unit] 4, we've solved our greatest design challenges. We've stood up entire supply chains.... And so it's time to cash in on our investments by building more. More of these facilities. The Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office stands ready to help, with hundreds of billions of dollars in what we call Title 17 loans... Since the President signed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, companies across the nation have announced 29 new or expanded nuclear facilities — across 16 states — representing about 1,600 potential new jobs. And the majority of those projects will expand the domestic uranium production and fuel fabrication, strengthening these critical supply chains...

Bottom line is, in short, we are determined to build a world-class nuclear industry in the United States, and we're putting our money where our mouth is.
America's Energy Secretary told the Washington Post that "Whether it happens through small modular reactors, or AP1000s, or maybe another design out there worthy of consideration, we want to see nuclear built." The Post notes the Energy department gave a $1.5 billion loan to restart a Michigan power plant which was decommissioned in 2022. "It would mark the first time a shuttered U.S. nuclear plant has been reactivated."

"But in this country with 54 nuclear plants across 28 states, restarting existing reactors and delaying their closure is a lot less complicated than building new ones." When the final [Georgia] reactor went online at the end of April, the expansion was seven years behind schedule and nearly $20 billion over budget. It ultimately cost more than twice as much as promised, with ratepayers footing much of the bill through surcharges and rate hikes...

Administration officials say the country has no choice but to make nuclear power a workable option again. The country is fast running short on electricity, demand for power is surging amid a boom in construction of data centers and manufacturing plants, and a neglected power grid is struggling to accommodate enough new wind and solar power to meet the nation's needs...

As the administration frames the narrative of the plant as one of perseverance and innovation that clears a path for restoring U.S. nuclear energy dominance, even some longtime boosters of the industry question whether this country will ever again have a vibrant nuclear energy sector. "It is hard for me to envision state energy regulators signing off on another one of these, given how badly the last ones went," said Matt Bowen, a nuclear scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who was an adviser on nuclear energy issues in the Obama administration.
The article notes there are 19 AP1000 reactors (the design used at the Georgia plant) in development around the world. "None of them are being built in the United States."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "Great news, Louisiana!" tech-backed Code.org exclaimed Wednesday in celebratory LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter posts. Louisiana is "officially the 10th state to make computer science a [high school] graduation requirement. Huge thanks to Governor Jeff Landry for signing the bill and to our legislative champions, Rep. Jason Hughes and Sen. Thomas Pressly, for making it happen! This means every Louisiana student gets a chance to learn coding and other tech skills that are super important these days. These skills can help them solve problems, think critically, and open doors to awesome careers!"

Representative Hughes, the sponsor of HB264 — which calls for each public high school student to successfully complete a one credit CS course as a requirement for graduation and also permits students to take two units of CS instead of studying a Foreign Language — tweeted back: "HUGE thanks @codeorg for their partnership in this effort every step of the way! Couldn't have done it without [Code.org Senior Director of State Government Affairs] Anthony [Owen] and the Code.org team!"

Code.org also on Wednesday announced the release of its 2023 Impact Report, which touted its efforts "to include a requirement for every student to take computer science to receive a high school diploma." Since its 2013 launch, Code.org reports it's spent $219.8 million to push coding into K-12 classrooms, including $19 million on Government Affairs (Achievements: "Policies changed in 50 states. More than $343M in state budgets allocated to computer science.").

In Code.org by the Numbers, the nonprofit boasts that 254,683 students started Code.org's AP CS Principles course in the academic year (2025 Goal: 400K), while 21,425 have started Code.org's new Amazon-bankrolled AP CS A course. Estimates peg U.S. public high school enrollment at 15.5M students, annual K-12 public school spending at $16,080 per pupil, and an annual high school student course load at 6-8 credits...

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: A YouTuber who posted a Fourth of July video in which passengers on a low-flying helicopter shot fireworks at a speeding Lamborghini is facing a federal charge tied to the stunt.

Suk Min Choi, 24, who runs a YouTube channel under the name Alex Choi, was charged Thursday with causing the placement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft, the Justice Department announced. He arranged to have the helicopter fly over the El Mirage Dry Lakebed near Los Angeles in June 2023 for a video titled "Destroying a Lamborghini With Fireworks," according to a complaint filed in the Central District Court of California. The video, released on July 4, shows scenes akin to an action film as Choi laughs while driving the Lamborghini and helicopter-launched fireworks ricochet off the car, enveloping it in sparks...

Choi faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, according to the Justice Department.
More details from NBC Los Angeles: Federal authorities said radar data from the day of the video shoot showed that the helicopter left an airport in Pacoima, California, around 1:53 p.m. and turned toward El Mirage Lake, a dry lake in California, where the video was filmed. The helicopter's transponder was then turned off, according to the affidavit. The helicopter reappeared on the radar and flew back to the airport just before 9 p.m., the document says.

The pilot initially told an FAA inspector that he did not know anything about the El Mirage video, according to the affidavit. In a follow-up call, he told inspectors that he did not want Choi to know he was speaking with them and said "Choi was doing unsafe activities involving cars and aircraft." In January, the FAA issued an emergency order revoking the pilot's private pilot certification, the affidavit says.

America "is now adding less wind capacity each year" than it was before the passage of a climate-protecting bill in 2022, according to the New York Times.

Since then "solar panel installations are indeed soaring to record highs in the U.S., as are batteries that can store energy for later. But wind power has struggled, both on land and in the ocean." Some factors behind the wind industry's recent slowdown may be temporary, such as snarled supply chains. But wind power is also more vulnerable than solar power to many of the biggest logistical hurdles that hinder energy projects today: a lack of transmission lines, a lengthy permitting process and a growing backlash against new projects in many communities... [M]any areas are now crowded with turbines and existing electric grids are clogged, making it difficult to add more projects. Energy companies want to expand the grid's capacity to transport even more wind power to population centers, but getting permits for transmission lines and building them has become a brutal slog that can take more than a decade... Because they can reach the height of skyscrapers, wind turbines are more noticeable than solar farms and often attract more intense opposition from local communities.

The wind industry has also been hampered by soaring equipment costs after the pandemic wrecked supply chains and inflation spiked. While those factors initially hurt solar, too, the solar industry has adjusted much faster, with China nearly doubling its manufacturing capacity for panels over the past two years. Wind supply chains, which are dominated by a few manufacturers in China, Europe and the United States, have yet to fully recover. The cost increases have been devastating for offshore wind projects in the Northeast, where developers have canceled more than half the projects they planned to build this decade. Wind isn't languishing only in the United States. While a record 117 gigawatts of new wind capacity came online last year globally, virtually all of that growth was in China. In the rest of the world, developers weren't installing wind turbines any faster than they were in 2020...

It's still possible that wind power could rebound. In fact, some experts argue that the recent slowdown is only a temporary artifact of tax policy... [John Hensley, vice president for markets and policy analysis at the American Clean Power Association, a renewable industry trade group] said that U.S. wind manufacturing was beginning to ramp up thanks to new tax incentives, while costs were starting to come down. Last year, orders for new turbines increased by 130%, although many of them won't be delivered until 2025 or later. Some states are now trying to make it easier to build renewable energy: Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota have all passed laws making it harder for local governments to restrict wind and solar. The federal government has issued new rules to accelerate the planning of transmission lines.

Demand for wind could also rise as a growing number of states, tech companies and hydrogen producers are trying to secure clean electricity around the clock, rather than just a burst of solar power in the daytime.
Many plans for moving America off fossil fuels "envision a large expansion of both solar and wind," the article points out, "because the two sources generate electricity at different hours and can complement each other. A boom in solar power alone, which runs only in daytime, isn't enough."

Carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere are accumulating "faster than ever" and have reached unprecedented levels, with a peak of 426.9 ppm recorded at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in May 2024, said scientists from NOAA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego. CBS News reports: "Over the past year, we've experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record, and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and storms," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release. "Now we are finding that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing faster than ever." The researchers measured carbon dioxide, or CO2, levels at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory. They found that atmospheric levels of the gas hit a seasonal peak of just under 427 parts per million in May -- an increase of 2.9 ppm since May 2023 and the fifth-largest annual growth in 50 years of data recording.

It also made official that the past two years saw the largest jump in the May peak -- when CO2 levels are at their highest in the Northern Hemisphere. John Miller, a NOAA carbon cycle scientist, said that the jump likely stems from the continuous rampant burning of fossil fuels as well as El Nino conditions making the planet's ability to absorb CO2 more difficult. The surge of carbon dioxide levels at the measuring station surpassed even the global average set last year, which was a record high of 419.3 ppm -- 50% higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution. However, NOAA noted that their observations were taken at the observatory specifically, and do not "capture the changes of CO2 across the globe," although global measurements have proven consistent without those at Mauna Loa. "Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever," Ralph Keeling, director of Scripps' CO2 program, said in the release. "Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill."

"We are living in unprecedented times. ... This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold," Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, added.

Yelp can pursue a lawsuit accusing a reputation management company of fraudulently advertising its ability to remove "bad" reviews from the business review website. From a report: In a decision late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Yelp can pursue trademark infringement and unfair competition claims against ReviewVio, which operates as Dandy. Yelp said ReviewVio's ads, which include the Yelp logo, harmed its reputation by suggesting that businesses could pay for artificially inflated star ratings.

This allegedly undercut honest businesses that will not pay to remove negative reviews, and undermined the usefulness of Yelp's website to consumers. Yelp also said it lost ad revenue from businesses that paid for "review gating," which the company prohibits, or incorrectly believed that Yelp endorsed the practice.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has released Ubuntu Core 24, a version of its operating system designed for edge devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). The new release comes with a 12-year Long Term Support commitment and features that enable secure, reliable, and efficient deployment of intelligent devices.

Ubuntu Core 24 introduces validation sets for custom image creation, offline remodelling for air-gapped environments, and new integrations for GPU operations and graphics support. It also offers device management integrations with Landscape and Microsoft Azure IoT Edge. The release is expected to benefit various industries, including automation, healthcare, and robotics, Canonical said.

A 27-year old Tamagotchi mystery was solved this week when a collector figured out how to unlock secret characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi, released in Japan in 1997. From a report: A Discord user named rhubarb_pie found out how to unlock the "Moll & Lora" twins as playable characters, which were previously seen in the handheld pet-raising-simulator as medical nurses who healed your character when it was sick. The Tamagotchi Wiki states they had previously been obtained through a "battery glitch," but rhubarb_pie figured out how to unlock them as playable characters through the normal course of gaming.

As a reminder, Tamagotchis are virtual pets made by Bandai and introduced in 1996 that were incredibly popular at the time and inspired a ton of clones. There have been many different versions of Tamagotchi since its original release, which included the Mothra Tamagotchi, which was tied to the Japanese release of the movie Rebirth of Mothra II. Mothra is a giant flying moth that exists in the Godzilla cinematic universe. There is an entire community of Tamagotchi collectors, enthusiasts, and reverse engineers, and for several decades players had wondered whether Moll & Lora could be unlocked as playable characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi. "After years of debate whether this was even possible, I have proven that, in fact, you can raise the Twin characters Moll & Lora on the Mothra," rhubarb_pie wrote in a lengthy guide to unlocking the characters posted on Discord Wednesday. "The ROM for the Mothra was dumped about a month ago and I figured out how everything worked by studying the code."

The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that the past year saw record-breaking heat, with global temperatures surpassing all historical measurements. According to Copernicus, May marked the 12th consecutive month of record-high global temperatures, and exceeded a key Paris Agreement temperature target. The Week reports: The stretch is a "stark warning." In a separate study published Wednesday, a group of 57 scientists found that human activity was responsible for 92% of 2023's warming, which increased at a rate "unprecedented in the instrumental record."

While averting catastrophe is "still just about possible," the decisions made by global leaders "especially in the next 18 months" will determine whether the planet can be saved, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a special address. "We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell."

Without serious efforts to reverse global warming, "this string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold," Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said. "The 11 months in a row that tied or broke the 1.5C barrier did not yet constitute a breaching of the Paris target, since the benchmark refers to a timescale of multiple decades," notes Axios. "Still, the fact that the climate is now exceeding the target with greater regularity, and is projected to continue doing so, is a sign of the matter's urgency."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: In a blow to publishers and authors, Costco plans to stop selling books regularly at stores around the United States, four publishing executives who had been informed of the warehouse retailer's plans said on Wednesday. Beginning in January 2025, the company will stop stocking books regularly, and will instead sell them only during the holiday shopping period, from September through December. During the rest of the year, some books may be sold at Costco stores from time to time, but not in a consistent manner, according to the executives, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a confidential business matter that has not yet been publicly announced.

Costco's shift away from books came largely because of the labor required to stock books, the executives said. Copies have to be laid out by hand, rather than just rolled out on a pallet as other products often are at Costco. The constant turnaround of books -- new ones come out every Tuesday and the ones that have not sold need to be returned -- also created more work. The decision could be a significant setback for publishers at a moment when the industry is facing stagnant print sales and publishing houses are struggling to find ways to reach customers who have migrated online. Costco had already stopped selling books in some markets, including Alaska and Hawaii. While Costco may not be as critical of an outlet as a bookstore like Barnes & Noble, its influence is also evident in the large quantities it orders. When Costco chose to carry a book, "it often went big, ordering tens of thousands of copies at a minimum," says the report. "For major blockbusters, they might stock hundreds of thousands of copies of a single title."

"The change may also impact Costco customers, particularly those who live in areas without a bookstore. And because many books at Costco were impulse buys, some of those sales may not shift over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Instead, they might not happen at all."

Online marketplace behemoth eBay said it plans to no longer accept American Express, citing what the company says are "unacceptably high fees." CNBC: It's a notable blow to American Express, whose customers are often the most attractive among merchants and spend the most money per month on their cards. But it's not the first time merchants have voiced opposition to AmEx's business practices by walking away, most notably the warehouse chain Costco nearly a decade ago.

[...] Overland said that eBay customers have become aware of new ways to pay for items, making payments more competitive than ever before, and AmEx was no longer a necessary partner for eBay. eBay has increasingly been offering customers buy now, pay later options on purchases through Apple Pay, PayPal and other companies like Klarna and Affirm as well.

Longtime Slashdot reader MattSparkes shares a report from NewScientist: Quantum computing experts are baffled by the UK government's new export restrictions on the exotic devices (source paywalled), saying they make little sense. [The UK government has set limits on the capabilities of quantum computers that can be exported -- starting with those above 34 qubits, and rising as long as error rates are also higher -- and has declined to explain these limits on the grounds of national security.] The legislation applies to both existing, small quantum computers that are of no practical use and larger computers that don't actually exist, so cannot be exported. Instead, there are fears the limits will restrict sales and add bureaucracy to a new and growing sector. For more context, here's an excerpt from an article published by The Telegraph in March: The technology has been added to a list of "dual use" items that could have military uses maintained by the Export Control Joint Unit, which scrutinizes sales of sensitive goods. A national quantum computer strategy published last year described the technology as being "critically important" for defense and national security and said the UK was in a "global race" to develop it. [...] The changes have been introduced as part of a broader update to export rules agreed by Western allies including the US and major European countries. Several nations with particular expertise on quantum computer technologies have added specific curbs, including France which introduced rules at the start of this month.

Last year, industry body Quantum UK said British companies were concerned about the prospect of further export controls, and that they could even put off US companies seeking to relocate to the UK. Quantum computer exports only previously required licenses in specific cases, such as when they were likely to lead to military use. Oxford Instruments, which makes cooling systems for quantum computers, said last year that sales in China had been hit by increasing curbs. James Lindop of law firm Eversheds Sutherland said: "Semiconductor and quantum technologies -- two areas in which the UK already holds a world-leading position -- are increasingly perceived to be highly strategic and critical to UK national security. This will undoubtedly create an additional compliance burden for businesses active in the development and production of the targeted technologies."

When buying a new smartphone, it's important to consider the duration of software updates, as it impacts security and longevity. In a rare public commitment on Monday, thanks to the UK's new Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regulations, Apple said it guarantees a minimum of five years of security updates for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. "In other words, the iPhone 15 is officially guaranteed to receive security updates until September 22, 2028," reports Android Authority. From the report: This, as VP of Engineering for Android Security & Privacy at Google Dave Kleidermacher points out, means that Apple is no longer offering the best security update policy in the industry. Both Samsung and Google guarantee seven years of not just security updates but also Android OS updates for their respective flagship devices, which is two years longer than what Apple guarantees.

To Apple's credit, though, it has long provided more than five years of security updates for its various iPhone devices. Some iPhones have received security updates six or more years after the initial release, which is far more support than the vast majority of Android devices receive. So, while Samsung and Google currently beat Apple in terms of how long they're guaranteeing software support, that doesn't mean iPhone users can't keep their phones for just as long, if not longer. They'll just need to hope Apple doesn't cut off support after the five-year minimum.

Fans have noticed that, over the last few months, Sony quietly removed any mention of 8K on the PlayStation 5 boxes. "I have been endlessly bitching since the PS5 released about that 8k Badge," writes X user @DeathlyPrice. "It is false Advertising and Sony should be sued for it." Others shared their grievances via PlayStation Lifestyle and a Reddit thread. GameSpot reports: A FAQ on Sony's official site in 2020 stated that "PS5 is compatible with 8K displays at launch, and after a future system software update will be able to output resolutions up to 8K when content is available, with supported software." But to date, the only game that offers 8K resolution on PS5 is The Touryst, which looks more like Minecraft than a game with advanced visuals.

The reality is that 8K has not been widely adopted by video game developers, or even by filmmakers at this point. There are 8K televisions on the market, but it may be quite some time, if ever, before it becomes the standard for either gaming or entertainment.

Japan's birth rate fell to a new low for the eighth straight year in 2023, according to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday. A government official described the situation as critical and urged authorities to do everything they can to reverse the trend. From a report: The data underscores Japan's long-standing issues of a rapidly aging and shrinking population, which has serious implications for the country's economy and national security -- especially against the backdrop of China's increasingly assertive presence in the region.

According to the latest statistics, Japan's fertility rate -- the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime -- stood at 1.2 last year. The 727,277 babies born in Japan in 2023 were down 5.6% from the previous year, the ministry said -- the lowest since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. Separately, the data shows that the number of marriages fell by 6% to 474,717 last year, something authorities say is a key reason for the declining birth rate. In the predominantly traditional Japanese society, out-of-wedlock births are rare as people prize family values.

The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a deal that allows them to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry, Reuters reported Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter. From the report: Under the deal, the U.S. Department of Justice will take the lead in investigating whether Nvidia violated antitrust laws, while the FTC will examine the conduct of OpenAI and Microsoft. While OpenAI's parent is a nonprofit, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary, for what would be a 49% stake. The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership is also under informal scrutiny in other regions.

The regulators struck the deal over the past week and it is expected to be completed in the coming days, the person said. The FTC is also looking into Microsoft's $650 million deal with AI startup Inflection AI, a person familiar with the matter said.

An anonymous reader shared a report: Amazon has agreed to acquire key assets of Indian video streaming service MX Player from the local media powerhouse Times Internet, the latest step by the e-commerce giant to make its services and brand popular in smaller cities and towns in the key overseas market.

[...] Times Internet acquired MX Player in 2018 for $140 million. The app, which originated in South Korea, gained immense popularity in India due to its unique local video playback feature. This functionality allows the app to support a wide range of video file formats, making it highly compatible with affordable Android smartphones that are prevalent in developing markets.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Google parent Alphabet must face a lawsuit worth up to $17.4 billion for allegedly abusing its dominance in the online advertising market, London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled on Wednesday. The lawsuit, which seeks damages on behalf of publishers of websites and apps based in the United Kingdom, is the latest case to focus on the search giant's business practices. Ad Tech Collective Action is bringing the claim on behalf of publishers who say they have suffered losses due to Google's allegedly anti-competitive behavior.

Google last month urged the CAT to block the case, which it argued was incoherent. The company "strongly rejects the underlying allegations", its lawyers said in court documents. The CAT said in a written ruling that it would certify the case to proceed towards a trial, which is unlikely to take place before the end of 2025. The tribunal also emphasized the test for certifying a case under the UK's collective proceedings regime -- which is roughly equivalent to the United States' class action regime -- is relatively low. "Google works constructively with publishers across the UK and Europe," Google legal director Oliver Bethell said in a statement. Bethell added: "This lawsuit is speculative and opportunistic. We'll oppose it vigorously and on the facts."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Last Christmas Eve, NewsBreak, a free app with roots in China that is the most downloaded news app in the United States, published an alarming piece about a small town shooting. It was headlined "Christmas Day Tragedy Strikes Bridgeton, New Jersey Amid Rising Gun Violence in Small Towns." The problem was, no such shooting took place. The Bridgeton, New Jersey police department posted a statement on Facebook on December 27 dismissing the article -- produced using AI technology -- as "entirely false." "Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described," the post said. "It seems this 'news' outlet's AI writes fiction they have no problem publishing to readers." NewsBreak, which is headquartered in Mountain View, California and has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, told Reuters it removed the article on December 28, four days after publication.

The company said "the inaccurate information originated from the content source," and provided a link to the website, adding: "When NewsBreak identifies any inaccurate content or any violation of our community standards, we take prompt action to remove that content." As local news outlets across America have shuttered in recent years, NewsBreak has filled the void. Billing itself as "the go-to source for all things local," Newsbreak says it has over 50 million monthly users. It publishes licensed content from major media outlets, including Reuters, Fox, AP and CNN as well as some information obtained by scraping the internet for local news or press releases which it rewrites with the help of AI. It is only available in the U.S. But in at least 40 instances since 2021, the app's use of AI tools affected the communities it strives to serve, with Newsbreak publishing erroneous stories; creating 10 stories from local news sites under fictitious bylines; and lifting content from its competitors, according to a Reuters review of previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, cease-and-desist emails and a 2022 company memo registering concerns about "AI-generated stories." Five of the seven former NewsBreak employees Reuters spoke to said most of the engineering work behind the app's algorithm is carried out in its China-based offices. "The company launched in the U.S. in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, a Chinese news aggregation app," notes Reuters. "Both companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, the CEO of Newsbreak, and the companies share a U.S. patent registered in 2015 for an 'Interest Engine' algorithm, which recommends news content based on a user's interests and location."

"NewsBreak is a privately held start-up, whose primary backers are private equity firms San Francisco-based Francisco Partners, and Beijing-based IDG Capital."

Cailey Gleeson reports via Forbes: A group backed by more than two dozen investors -- including Citadel Securities and BlackRock -- is planning to start its own stock exchange in Texas, it said Wednesday, in an attempt to compete with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) -- owned by TXSE Group Inc. and founded in 2023, per its LinkedIn -- will be a "fully electronic national securities exchange" that seeks to expand access to markets for all investors and those seeking access to public capital, according to Wednesday's press release.

The TXSE aims to have primary listings, dual listings and exchange-traded products, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. The stock exchange has raised $120 million in capital and plans to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission later this year, according to the press release, while it will also have a physical headquarters in Dallas, and the company will employ about 100 people, The Dallas Morning News reported. It plans to start facilitating trades in 2025 and host its first listing the following year, multiple outlets reported. The Wall Street Journal notes that past attempts at regional stock exchanges have failed, such as the Chicago Stock Exchange and Philadelphia Stock Exchange -- both of which combined with the NYSE and Nasdaq.

"The NYSE considered relocating its electronic trading systems to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in late 2020, amid a proposed financial transaction tax on stocks in New York," adds Forbes. "But the move did not go through, nor the proposed tax,."

Nvidia has reached a market cap of $3 trillion, surpassing Apple to become the second-largest public company behind Microsoft. CNBC reports: Nvidia's milestone is the latest stunning mark in a run that has seen the stock soar more than 3,224% over the past five years. The company will split its stock 100-for-1 later this month. Apple was the first U.S. company to reach a $3 trillion market cap during intraday trading in January 2022. Microsoft hit $3 trillion in market value in January 2024. Nvidia, which was founded in 1993, passed the $2 trillion valuation in February, and it only took roughly three months from there for it to pass $3 trillion.

Nvidia's surge in recent years has been powered by the tech industry's need for its chips, which are used to develop and deploy big AI models such as the one at the heart of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and OpenAI are buying billions of dollars worth of Nvidia's GPUs.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called Wednesday for a "windfall" tax on profits of fossil fuel companies to help pay for the fight against global warming, decrying them as the "godfathers of climate chaos." From a report: Guterres spoke from the American Museum of Natural History in New York in a bid to revive focus on climate change at a time when many national elections, and conflict in places like Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan this year have seized much of the international spotlight.

In a bare-knuckled speech timed for World Environment Day, Guterres drew on new data and projections to trumpet his case against Big Oil: The European Union's climate watching agency reported that last month was the hottest May ever, marking the 12th straight monthly record high. The EU's Copernicus climate change service, a global reference for tracking world temperatures, cited an average surface air temperature of 15.9 C (60.6 F) last month -- or 1.52 C higher than the estimated May average before industrial times. The burning of fossil fuels -- oil, gas and coal -- is the main contributor to global warming caused by human activity. Meanwhile, the U.N. weather agency predicted an 80% chance that average global temperatures will surpass the 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) target set in the landmark Paris climate accord of 2015. Further reading: UN Chief Says World is On 'Highway To Climate Hell' as Planet Endures 12 Straight Months of Unprecedented Heat.

US lawmakers accused Nigeria of taking a Binance executive "hostage" and urged President Joe Biden to help secure his release. From a report: Sixteen Republican congressman including Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul wrote to Biden to have the case of Tigran Gambaryan referred to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. A US citizen, Gambaryan is head of financial crime compliance at Binance and has been held at a prison in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, since April.

"The charges against Mr. Gambaryan are baseless and constitute a coercion tactic by the Nigerian government to extort his employer, Binance," the lawmakers wrote in the June 4 letter, a copy of which has been seen by Bloomberg. "Following these charges, Mr. Gambaryan qualifies as a 'U.S. Citizen wrongfully detained by a foreign government,'" they said. The faceoff between Africa's most-populous nation and the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange burst into view in February, when Nigerian authorities detained Gambaryan and a colleague -- who subsequently escaped -- during a visit to discuss the company's compliance issues with the country.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will warn that the use of AI in finance could lower transaction costs, but carries "significant risks," according to excerpts from a speech to be delivered on Thursday. From a report: In the remarks to a Financial Stability Oversight Council and Brookings Institution AI conference, Yellen says AI-related risks have moved towards the top of the regulatory council's agenda.

"Specific vulnerabilities may arise from the complexity and opacity of AI models, inadequate risk management frameworks to account for AI risks and interconnections that emerge as many market participants rely on the same data and models," Yellen says in the excerpts. She also notes that concentration among the vendors that develop AI models and that provide data and cloud services may also introduce risks that could amplify existing third-party service provider risks. "And insufficient or faulty data could also perpetuate or introduce new biases in financial decision-making," according to Yellen.

Google Maps has introduced a new layer to help individuals find public restrooms in New York City. The Verge reports: As part of a new program called "Ur in Luck," the city has introduced a Maps view dotted with 1,000 public restrooms across the five boroughs. Users can view the map on their phones and locate the closest restroom that's accessible to the public. "Everyone -- seniors, parents with kids, anyone enjoying the day outdoors, needs access to a public bathroom without having to buy anything or beg for a code," Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said in a press release. The city will also build 46 new restrooms and renovate 36 existing locations over the next five years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: Online streaming services operating in Canada will be required to contribute five percent of their Canadian revenues to support the domestic broadcasting system, the country's telecoms regulator said on Tuesday. The money will be used to boost funding for local and Indigenous broadcasting, officials from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said in a briefing. "Today's decision will help ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content," wrote CRTC chief executive and chair Vicky Eatrides in a statement.

The measure was introduced under the auspices of a law passed last year designed to make sure that companies like Netflix make a more significant contribution to Canadian culture. The government says the legislation will ensure that online streaming services promote Canadian music and stories, and support Canadian jobs. Funding will also be directed to French-language content and content created by official language minority communities, as well as content created by equity-deserving groups and Canadians of diverse backgrounds. The release also said that online streaming services will "have some flexibility" to send their revenues to support Canadian television directly. [...]

The measure, which will start in the 2024-2025 broadcasting year, would raise roughly $200 million annually, CRTC officials said. It will only apply to services that are not already affiliated with Canadian broadcasters. The CMPA was among 20 screen organizations from around the world that signed a statement in January asking governments to impose stronger regulations on streaming companies operating in local markets. One of the demands was a measure that would force companies profiting from their presence in those markets to contribute financially to the creation of new local content."We are disappointed by today's decision and concerned by the negative impact it will have on Canadian consumers. We are assessing the decision in full, but this onerous and inflexible financial levy will be harmful to consumer choice," a spokesperson for Prime Video wrote to CBC News in a statement.

AmiMoJo shares a report: The world is off track to meet the goal of tripling renewable electricity generation by 2030, a target viewed as vital to enable a swift global transition away from fossil fuels, but there are promising signs that the pace of progress may be picking up.

Countries agreed last December on a tripling of renewable power by the end of this decade. But few have yet taken concrete steps to meet this requirement and on current policies and trends global renewable generation capacity would only roughly double in developed countries, and slightly more than double globally by 2030, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency.

Governments should include targets and policies on renewables in their national action plans for the climate (called nationally determined contributions, or NDCs), which are a requirement under the Paris agreement, the IEA found. Many currently fail to do so, even though vast increases in renewable power are essential to meeting the treaty's aspiration of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The IEA, the gold standard for global energy research, analysed the domestic policies and targets of nearly 150 countries, and found they would result in about 8,000GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. That amount is about 70% of what is necessary to reach 11,000GW of capacity, the amount needed for the tripling goal agreed at the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai last year.

After growing concerned about potential stock manipulation, E*Trade is "considering telling meme-stock leader Keith Gill he can no longer use its platform," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. Gill, known online as "Roaring Kitty," gained notoriety for his role in the 2020 meme stock frenzy, where he encouraged amateur investors to buy GameStop shares, significantly driving up the stock price and challenging hedge funds. Just hours ago, Roaring Kitty announced he bought $116 million worth of GameStop options and stocks.

Developing...

CarbonBrief: China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 3% in March 2024, ending a 14-month surge that began when the economy reopened after the nation's "zero-Covid" controls were lifted in December 2022. The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, reinforces the view that China's emissions could have peaked in 2023.

The drivers of the CO2 drop in March 2024 were expanding solar and wind generation, which covered 90% of the growth in electricity demand, as well as declining construction activity. Oil demand growth also ground to a halt, indicating that the post-Covid rebound may have run its course. A 2023 peak in China's CO2 emissions is possible if the buildout of clean energy sources is kept at the record levels seen last year.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from Computer Weekly: A former student at the Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) says he was hauled over the coals by the college for having acted responsibly and "with integrity" in reporting a security blunder that left sensitive information about students exposed. Bartek Wytrzyszczewski faced misconduct proceedings after alerting the college to a data breach exposing sensitive information on hundreds of past and present ICCA students...

The ICCA, which offers training to future barristers, informed data protection regulator the Information Commissioner's Office of a breach "experienced" in August 2023 after Wytrzyszczewski alerted the college that sensitive files on nearly 800 students were accessible to other college users via the ICCA's web portal. The breach saw personal data such as email addresses, phone numbers and academic information — including exam marks and previous institutions attended — accessible to students at the college. Students using the ICCA's web portal were also able to access ID photos, as well as student ID numbers and sensitive data, such as health records, visa status and information as to whether they were pregnant or had children... After the college secured a written undertaking from Wytrzyszczewski not to disclose any of the information he had discovered, it launched misconduct proceedings against him. He had stumbled across the files in error, he said, and viewed a significant number to ensure he could report their contents with accuracy.
"The panel cleared Wytrzyszczewski and found it had no jurisdiction to hear the matter," according to the article.

But he "said the experience caused him to unenroll from the ICCA's course and restart his training at another provider."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "This is truly game-changing news!" exclaims Minecraft Education's Laylah Bulman in a LinkedIn post targeting high school CS educators. "We're thrilled to announce that the AP Computer Science Principles with Minecraft and MakeCode Curriculum has officially been approved by The College Board! And we are offering free professional learning for our inaugural cohort this summer...!

"Minecraft's highly engaging environment makes complex coding concepts relatable and fun, fostering a deeper understanding and encouraging broader participation. Ready to empower your students? Don't miss this opportunity!"

Recent Edsurge articles (sponsored by Minecraft Education) touted how Minecraft has found its way into computer science and other curricula in New York City and Broward County (Florida), two of the nation's largest school districts... Microsoft-backed nonprofit Code.org has also pushed Minecraft-themed CS tutorials into the nation's classrooms via its wildly-popular annual Hour of Code events since 2015, a year after Microsoft paid $2.5B to buy Minecraft. ("The best way to introduce anyone to STEM or get their curiosity going on, it's Minecraft," declared Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the time). Minecraft-related learning initiatives have also received millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.

"There is one big thing holding the United States back from a pollution-free electricity grid running on wind, solar and battery power," writes the Washington Post. "Not enough power lines... the nation's sagging, out-of-date power lines are being overwhelmed — slowing the transition to clean energy and the fight against climate change." But experts say that there is a remarkably simple fix: installing new wires on the high-voltage lines that already carry power hundreds of miles across the United States. Just upgrading those wires, new reports show, could double the amount of power that can flow through America's electricity grid...

Most of America's lines are wired with a technology that has been around since the early 1900s — a core steel wire surrounded by strands of aluminum. When those old wires heat up — whether from power passing through them or warm outdoor temperatures — they sag. Too much sag in a transmission line can be dangerous, causing fires or outages. As a result, grid operators have to be careful not to allow too much power through the lines. But a couple of decades ago, engineers designed a new type of wire: a core made of carbon fiber, surrounded by trapezoidal pieces of aluminum. Those new, carbon-fiber wires don't sag as much in the heat. That means that they can take up to double the amount of power as the old lines. According to the recent study from researchers at UC-Berkeley and GridLab, replacing these older steel wires could provide up to 80 percent of the new transmission needed on the electricity grid — without building anything new. It could also cost half as much as building an entirely new line and avoid the headaches of trying to get every state, city and even landowner along the route to agree to a new project...

If stringing new lines is so easy — and cheap — why hasn't it been done already? Part of the problem, experts say, is that utilities profit more from big infrastructure projects. Routine maintenance or larger-scale upgrades of the electricity grid don't help utilities make a lot of cash compared with building new transmission lines... Duncan Callaway, a professor of energy and resources at UC-Berkeley and one of the authors of the recent study, said that many transmission engineers are not used to thinking of rewiring as one of their tools. "But it's a much faster way," he said. Some changes are already underway to encourage this approach. For a long time, utilities had to undergo lengthy environmental reviews if they were rewiring a line longer than 20 miles. Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced that those would no longer be necessary if utilities are simply replacing wires.

The New York Times reports on a program to forgive U.S. student loans from private lenders — a kind of private parallel to a federal program which "allows those who were seriously misled by their schools to have their federal student loans eliminated."

The problem? Eight U.S. senators complain the loan discharge process remains "burdensome and confusing" — and most students don't even know it exists. Navient, a large owner of private student loan debt, has created, but not publicized, a program that allows borrowers to apply to have their loans forgiven.... A nonprofit group of lawyers has stepped in ease the process: On Thursday, the Project on Predatory Student Lending, an advocacy group in Boston, published Navient's application form and an instruction guide for borrowers with private loans who are seeking relief on the grounds that their school lied to them...

For nearly a decade, in the early 2000s, Navient — then known as Sallie Mae — struck deals with for-profit schools to issue private loans to their students. Lawsuits from state attorneys general later accused Navient of making those loans knowing that most would never be repaid. Many schools indemnified Navient for the private loans, agreeing to defray the company's loss if the loans defaulted. In 2022, Navient settled with 40 state attorneys general and canceled $1.7 billion in debt on those private loans — but only for borrowers who had already defaulted. Because those debts were unlikely to ever be repaid, the deal cost Navient only $50 million, the company said in regulatory filings. Borrowers who had kept paying their bills... remained stuck.

But a pressure campaign from lawmakers, federal regulators and lawyers representing borrowers prompted the company to create the "school misconduct discharge." Navient began sending a 12-page application form this year to some borrowers who complained about their private loans. The document lists dozens of types of impropriety by schools — such as inflating job placement rates and graduates' earnings, or misrepresenting their educational programs — and asks borrowers to choose which apply to their experience. Applicants are required to submit documentation for their claims...

[Navient's CEO, David Yowan] told investors on a conference call in January that Navient had put $35 million in reserve for losses on school misconduct claims. He cited "new regulatory expectations" as the reason. Navient has not disclosed how much of its $16.6 billion private student loan portfolio consists of loans that could be eligible for the debt cancellation program.

"Within less than a minute, I'm approached by a store worker who comes up to me and says, 'You're a thief, you need to leave the store'."

That's a quote from the BBC by a wrongly accused customer who was flagged by a facial-recognition system called Facewatch. "She says after her bag was searched she was led out of the shop, and told she was banned from all stores using the technology."

Facewatch later wrote to her and acknowledged it had made an error — but declined to comment on the incident in the BBC's report: [Facewatch] did say its technology helped to prevent crime and protect frontline workers. Home Bargains, too, declined to comment. It's not just retailers who are turning to the technology... [I]n east London, we joined the police as they positioned a modified white van on the high street. Cameras attached to its roof captured thousands of images of people's faces. If they matched people on a police watchlist, officers would speak to them and potentially arrest them...

On the day we were filming, the Metropolitan Police said they made six arrests with the assistance of the tech... The BBC spoke to several people approached by the police who confirmed that they had been correctly identified by the system — 192 arrests have been made so far this year as a result of it.
Lindsey Chiswick, director of intelligence for the Met, told the BBC that "It takes less than a second for the technology to create a biometric image of a person's face, assess it against the bespoke watchlist and automatically delete it when there is no match."

"That is the correct and acceptable way to do it," writes long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam, "without infringing unnecessarily on the freedoms of the average citizen. Just tell me they have appropriate rules, effective oversight, and a penalty system with teeth to catch and punish the inevitable violators."

But one critic of the tech complains to the BBC that everyone scanned automatically joins "a digital police line-up," while the article adds that others "liken the process to a supermarket checkout — where your face becomes a bar code." And "The error count is much higher once someone is actually flagged. One in 40 alerts so far this year has been a false positive..."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.

Journalist Steven Brill has written a new book called The Death of Truth. Its subtitle? "How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World-And What We Can Do."

An excerpt published by Wired points out that last year around the world, $300 billion was spent on "programmatic advertising", and $130 billion was spent in the United States alone in 2022. The problem? For over a decade there's been "brand safety" technology, the article points out — but "what artificial intelligence could not do was spot most forms of disinformation and misinformation..."

The end result... In 2019, other than the government of Vladimir Putin, Warren Buffett was the biggest funder of Sputnik News, the Russian disinformation website controlled by the Kremlin... Geico, the giant American insurance company and subsidiary of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, was the leading advertiser on the American version of Sputnik News' global website network... No one at Geico or its advertising agency had any idea its ads would appear on Sputnik, let alone what anti-American content would be displayed alongside the ads. How could they? Which person or army of people at Geico or its agency could have read 44,000 websites?

Geico's ads had been placed through a programmatic advertising system that was invented in the late 1990s as the internet developed. It exploded beginning in the mid 2000s and is now the overwhelmingly dominant advertising medium. Programmatic algorithms, not people, decide where to place most of the ads we now see on websites, social media platforms, mobile devices, streaming television, and increasingly hear on podcasts... If Geico's advertising campaign were typical of programmatic campaigns for broad-based consumer products and services, each of its ads would have been placed on an average of 44,000 websites, according to a study done for the leading trade association of big-brand advertisers.

Geico is hardly the only rock-solid American brand to be funding the Russians. During the same period that the insurance company's ads appeared on Sputnik News, 196 other programmatic advertisers bought ads on the website, including Best Buy, E-Trade, and Progressive insurance. Sputnik News' sister propaganda outlet, RT.com (it was once called Russia Today until someone in Moscow decided to camouflage its parentage), raked in ad revenue from Walmart, Amazon, PayPal, and Kroger, among others... Almost all advertising online — and even much of it on television (through streaming TV), or on podcasts, radio, mobile devices, and electronic billboards — is now done programmatically, which means the machine, not a planner, makes those placement decisions. Unless the advertiser uses special tools, such as what are called exclusion or inclusion lists, the publishers and content around which the ad appears, and which the ad is financing, are no longer part of the decision.
"What I kept hearing as the professionals explained it to me was that the process is like a stock exchange, except that the buyer doesn't know what stock he is buying... the advertiser and its ad agency have no idea where among thousands of websites its ad will appear."

This week the Washington Post reported that Americans "are more hesitant to buy EVs now than they were a year ago, according to a March Gallup poll, which found that just 44 percent of American adults say they'd consider buying an EV in the future, down from 55 percent last year. High prices and charging worries consistently rank as the biggest roadblocks for electric vehicles," they write, noting the concerns coincide with a slowdown in electric car and truck sales, while hybrids are increasing their market share.

But something else happened this week. The chair of California's Air Resource Board and the chair of the state's Energy Commission teamed up for an op-ed piece arguing that "despite negative hype," electric cars are their state's future: When California's electric vehicle sales dipped at the end of last year, critics predicted the start of a new downward trend that would doom the industry and the state's broader effort to clean up the transportation sector, the single largest source of greenhouse gases and air pollution. But the latest numbers show that's not the case. Californians purchased 108,372 new zero-emission vehicles in the first three months of 2024 — nearly 7,000 more than the same time last year and the highest-ever first-quarter sales.

Today, one in four new cars sold in the Golden State is electric, up from just 8% in 2020...

California is now home to 56 manufacturers of zero-emission vehicles and related products, making our state a hub for cutting-edge automotive technology. Soon even raw materials will be sourced in-state, paving the way for domestic battery production...

Challenges persist, and chief among them is the need for more widely available charging options. Many more charging stations need to be built as fast as possible to keep up with EV adoption. To address this, California is investing $4 billion over six years to rapidly build out the EV refueling network, on top of billions in investment by utilities. Equally essential is improved reliability of the EV charging network. Too many drivers today encounter faulty charging stations, which is why the California Energy Commission is developing the strongest charging reliability standards in the country and will require companies to be transparent with the public about their performance.
They also point out that California "now boasts more EV chargers in the state than gasoline nozzles."

And that it's become the first U.S. state whose best-selling car is electric.

Benj Edwards and Ashley Belanger reports via Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Axios broke the news that OpenAI had signed deals with The Atlantic and Vox Media that will allow the ChatGPT maker to license their editorial content to further train its language models. But some of the publications' writers -- and the unions that represent them -- were surprised by the announcements and aren't happy about it. Already, two unions have released statements expressing "alarm" and "concern." "The unionized members of The Atlantic Editorial and Business and Technology units are deeply troubled by the opaque agreement The Atlantic has made with OpenAI," reads a statement from the Atlantic union. "And especially by management's complete lack of transparency about what the agreement entails and how it will affect our work."

The Vox Union -- which represents The Verge, SB Nation, and Vulture, among other publications -- reacted in similar fashion, writing in a statement, "Today, members of the Vox Media Union ... were informed without warning that Vox Media entered into a 'strategic content and product partnership' with OpenAI. As both journalists and workers, we have serious concerns about this partnership, which we believe could adversely impact members of our union, not to mention the well-documented ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the use of generative AI." [...] News of the deals took both journalists and unions by surprise. On X, Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, who recently penned an expose about OpenAI's restrictive non-disclosure agreements that prompted a change in policy from the company, wrote, "I'm very frustrated they announced this without consulting their writers, but I have very strong assurances in writing from our editor in chief that they want more coverage like the last two weeks and will never interfere in it. If that's false I'll quit.."

Journalists also reacted to news of the deals through the publications themselves. On Wednesday, The Atlantic Senior Editor Damon Beres wrote a piece titled "A Devil's Bargain With OpenAI," in which he expressed skepticism about the partnership, likening it to making a deal with the devil that may backfire. He highlighted concerns about AI's use of copyrighted material without permission and its potential to spread disinformation at a time when publications have seen a recent string of layoffs. He drew parallels to the pursuit of audiences on social media leading to clickbait and SEO tactics that degraded media quality. While acknowledging the financial benefits and potential reach, Beres cautioned against relying on inaccurate, opaque AI models and questioned the implications of journalism companies being complicit in potentially destroying the internet as we know it, even as they try to be part of the solution by partnering with OpenAI.

Similarly, over at Vox, Editorial Director Bryan Walsh penned a piece titled, "This article is OpenAI training data," in which he expresses apprehension about the licensing deal, drawing parallels between the relentless pursuit of data by AI companies and the classic AI thought experiment of Bostrom's "paperclip maximizer," cautioning that the single-minded focus on market share and profits could ultimately destroy the ecosystem AI companies rely on for training data. He worries that the growth of AI chatbots and generative AI search products might lead to a significant decline in search engine traffic to publishers, potentially threatening the livelihoods of content creators and the richness of the Internet itself.

London's famed Evening Standard newspaper has announced plans to end its daily outlet, "bringing an end to almost 200 years of publication in the capital," reports The Guardian. Going forward, the company plans to launch "a brand new weekly newspaper later this year and consider options for retaining ES Magazine with reduced frequency," while also working to increase traffic to its website. "In its 197-year history the Evening Standard has altered its format, price, content and distribution models," notes The Guardian. "But giving up on producing a daily print newspaper is the biggest change yet." From the report: The newspaper said it has been hit hard by the introduction of wifi on the London Underground, a shortage of commuters owing to the growth of working from home and changing consumer habits. The Standard lost 84.5 million pounds in the past six years, according to its accounts, and is reliant on funding from its part-owner Evgeny Lebedev. Its other shareholders include a bank with close links to the Saudi government. Industry sources suggested Lebedev had been willing to consider selling the outlet in recent years but no buyer was found.

Paul Kanareck, the newspaper's chair, told staff on Wednesday morning: "The substantial losses accruing from the current operations are not sustainable. Therefore, we plan to consult with our staff and external stakeholders to reshape the business, return to profitability and secure the long-term future of the number one news brand in London." Kanareck said there would be an "impact on staffing," with journalists bracing themselves for further job losses on top of years of redundancies, while design staff on the print edition are expected to be hit hard. Distributors who hand out the newspaper across London are also likely to be out of work, and billboards outside railway stations advertising the day's headline will stand empty on most days.

He suggested there would be a change in focus for the weekly outlet: "A proposed new weekly newspaper would replace the daily publication, allowing for more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world's greatest city." Closing the Evening Standard will mean that for the first time in centuries, Londoners will have no general-interest daily print newspaper. The finance-focused City AM, which was recently saved by the billionaire Matthew Moulding, will continue to publish four days a week and has recently increased its distribution. Further reading: So it's goodbye to London's Standard, my old paper -- and to the heart of democracy, local news (Opinion; The Guardian)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: California expects to avoid rolling blackouts this summer as new solar plants and large batteries plug into the state's grid at a rapid clip. The state's electricity system has been strained by years of drought, wildfires that knock out transmission lines and record-setting heat waves. But officials forecast Wednesday new resources added to the grid in the last four years would give California ample supplies for typical summer weather.

Since 2020, California has added 18.5 gigawatts of new resources. Of that, 6.6 gigawatts were batteries, 6.3 gigawatts were solar and 1.4 gigawatts were a combination of solar and storage. One gigawatt can power about 750,000 homes. In addition, the state's hydropower plants will be a reliable source of electricity after two wet winters in a row ended California's most recent drought. Those supplies would hold even if California experiences another heat wave as severe as the one that triggered rolling blackouts across the state in August 2020, officials said in a briefing Wednesday. In the most dire circumstances, the state now has backup resources that can supply an extra 5 gigawatts of electricity, including gas-fired power plants that only run during emergencies.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided monthly internet bill credits for low-income Americans, will officially end on June 1 due to a lack of additional funding from Congress. This termination threatens nearly 60 million Americans with increased financial hardship, as the program's lapse leaves them without the subsidies that made internet access affordable. CNN reports: The 2.5-year-old ACP provided eligible low-income Americans with a monthly credit off their internet bills, worth up to $30 per month and as much as $75 per month for households on tribal lands. The pandemic-era program was a hit with members of both political parties and served tens of millions of seniors, veterans and rural and urban Americans alike. Program participants received only partial benefits in May ahead of the ACP's expected collapse. [...]

On Friday, Biden reiterated his calls for Congress to pass legislation extending the ACP. He also announced a series of voluntary commitments by a handful of internet providers to offer -- or continue offering -- their own proprietary low-income internet plans. The list includes AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter's Spectrum and Verizon, among others. Those providers will continue to offer qualifying ACP households a broadband plan for $30 or less, the White House said, and together the companies are expected to cover roughly 10 million of the 23 million households relying on the ACP. "The Affordable Connectivity Program filled an important gap that provider low-income programs, state and local affordability programs, and the Lifeline program cannot fully address," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement, referring to the name of another, similar FCC program that subsidizes wireless and home internet service. "The Commission is available to provide any assistance Congress may need to support funding the ACP in the future and stands ready to resume the program if additional funding is provided."

Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather. From a report: Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law without his signature late Thursday, saying he is very concerned about the costs and outcome of the small state taking on "Big Oil" alone in what will likely be a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged that he understands something has to be done to address the toll of climate change. "I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways," Scott, a moderate Republican in the largely blue state of Vermont, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

Scott, a popular governor who recently announced that he's running for reelection to a fifth two-year term, has been at odds with the Democrat-controlled Legislature, which he has called out of balance. He was expected by environmental advocates to veto the bill but then allowed it to be enacted. Scott wrote to lawmakers that he was comforted that the Agency of Natural Resources is required to report back to the Legislature on the feasibility of the effort. Last July's flooding from torrential rains inundated Vermont's capital city of Montpelier, the nearby city Barre, some southern Vermont communities and ripped through homes and washed away roads around the rural state. Some saw it as the state's worst natural disaster since a 1927 flood that killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction. It took months for businesses -- from restaurants to shops -- to rebuild, losing out on their summer and even fall seasons. Several have just recently reopened while scores of homeowners were left with flood-ravaged homes heading into the cold season.

Vista Equity Partners has written off the entire equity value of its investment in tech learning platform Pluralsight, three years after taking it private for $3.5 billion, Axios reported Friday. From the report: One source says that the Utah-based company's financials have improved, with around 26% EBITDA growth in 2023, but not enough to service nearly $1.3 billion of debt that was issued when interest rates were lower. It's also a company whose future could be dimmed by advances in artificial intelligence, since some of the developer skills it teaches are becoming automated. Vista agreed to buy the company in late 2020 for $20.26 per share, representing a 25% premium to its 30-day trading average, despite a lack of profits.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Best Buy is set to post its tenth consecutive quarter of sales decline on Thursday when the U.S. electronics retailer reports quarterly results, as spending on big-ticket electronics remains pressured despite easing inflation. Although results from big-box retailers Walmart and Target indicate that consumers have resumed spending on less-expensive discretionary items such as apparel and accessories, they are still hesitant to go for TVs and washing machines. UPDATE 5/30/24: Best Buy's quarterly profit exceeded Wall Street estimates due to improved demand in its computing category, cost-saving efforts, and a successful membership program, leading to a 10% rise in shares. "Demand for artificial intelligence-enabled laptops as well as higher-end televisions is helping Best Buy regain lost ground on sales in the country as consumers look to upgrade or replace their gadgets after more than two years of restraint on spending on electronics," reports Reuters. "The company is also banking on the launch of Microsoft's AI-powered Copilot+ PCs, which are expected to go on sale on June 18."

"Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said on a post-earnings call that the company expects to have more than 40% of the product assortment at launch exclusive to the company. The company has also benefited from people signing up for its two-tiered membership program, which it refreshed last year, helping the top electronics retailer in the United States retain shoppers and drive better margins."

David Snow reports via Cult of Mac: A new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) shows Apple News+ growing its subscription rate about four times as fast as major news sites are. CIRP showed Apple increased its News+ subscriptions in the United States from 15% to 24% between 2020 to 2024, a 9% increase. In that same period, The New York Times and The Washington Post managed a 2% bump apiece and The Wall Street Journal managed a 3% increase. The results come from data measuring how many Apple product buyers say they subscribe to the News+ service.

CIRP also cited a report indicating that the Apple News+ partnership program is increasingly becoming a lifeline for news websites losing revenue, according to major publishers. And as far as the growth of Apple News+ subscription growth is concerned, it may keep growing as long as the user install base for devices keeps growing. "One-quarter of the U.S. base of Apple customers represents tens of millions of users, an enormous audience relative to what individual media outlets can expect on their own," CIRP noted.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big "termination shock" that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research. Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%. The new analysis calculates that the subsequent drop in pollution particles has significantly increased the amount of heat being trapped at the Earth's surface that drives the climate crisis. The researchers said the sharp ending of decades of shipping pollution was an inadvertent geoengineering experiment, revealing new information about its effectiveness and risks.

Dr Tianle Yuan, at the University of Maryland, US, who led the study, said the estimated 0.2 watts per sq meter of additional heat trapped over the oceans after the pollution cut was "a big number, and it happened in one year, so it's a big shock to the system." "We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average" since 1880 as a result, he said. The heating effect of the pollution cut is expected to last about seven years. The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, combined satellite observations of sulphur pollution and computer modeling to calculate the impact of the cut. It found the short-term shock was equivalent to 80% of the total extra heating the planet has seen since 2020 from longer-term factors such as rising fossil-fuel emissions.

The scientists used relatively simple climate models to estimate how much this would drive up average global temperatures at the surface of the Earth, finding a rise of about 0.16C over seven years. This is a large rise and the same margin by which 2023 beat the temperature record compared with the previous hottest year. However, other scientists think the temperature impact of the pollution cut will be significantly lower due to feedbacks in the climate system, which are included in the most sophisticated climate models. The results of this type of analysis are expected later in 2024. [...] The new analysis indicates that this type of geoengineering would reduce temperatures, but would also bring serious risks. These include the sharp temperature rise when the pumping of aerosols stopped -- the termination shock -- and also potential changes to global precipitation patterns, which could disrupt the monsoon rains that billions of people depend on. "We should definitely do research on this, because it's a tool for situations where we really want to cool down the Earth temporarily," like an emergency brake, said Dr Gavin Schmidt, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "But this is not going to be a long-term solution, because it doesn't address the root cause of global warming," which is emissions from fossil fuel burning.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: TikTok is working on a clone of its recommendation algorithm for its 170 million U.S. users that may result in a version that operates independently of its Chinese parent and be more palatable to American lawmakers who want to ban it, according to sources with direct knowledge of the efforts. The work on splitting the source code ordered by TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance late last year predated a bill to force a sale of TikTok's U.S. operations that began gaining steam in Congress this year. The bill was signed into law in April. The sources, who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the short-form video sharing app, said that once the code is split, it could lay the groundwork for a divestiture of the U.S. assets, although there are no current plans to do so. The company has previously said it had no plans to sell the U.S. assets and such a move would be impossible. [...]

In the past few months, hundreds of ByteDance and TikTok engineers in both the U.S. and China were ordered to begin separating millions of lines of code, sifting through the company's algorithm that pairs users with videos to their liking. The engineers' mission is to create a separate code base that is independent of systems used by ByteDance's Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, while eliminating any information linking to Chinese users, two sources with direct knowledge of the project told Reuters. [...] The complexity of the task that the sources described to Reuters as tedious "dirty work" underscores the difficulty of splitting the underlying code that binds TikTok's U.S. operations to its Chinese parent. The work is expected to take over a year to complete, these sources said. [...] At one point, TikTok executives considered open sourcing some of TikTok's algorithm, or making it available to others to access and modify, to demonstrate technological transparency, the sources said.

Executives have communicated plans and provided updates on the code-splitting project during a team all-hands, in internal planning documents and on its internal communications system, called Lark, according to one of the sources who attended the meeting and another source who has viewed the messages. Compliance and legal issues involved with determining what parts of the code can be carried over to TikTok are complicating the work, according to one source. Each line of code has to be reviewed to determine if it can go into the separate code base, the sources added. The goal is to create a new source code repository for a recommendation algorithm serving only TikTok U.S. Once completed, TikTok U.S. will run and maintain its recommendation algorithm independent of TikTok apps in other regions and its Chinese version Douyin. That move would cut it off from the massive engineering development power of its parent company in Beijing, the sources said. If TikTok completes the work to split the recommendation engine from its Chinese counterpart, TikTok management is aware of the risk that TikTok U.S. may not be able to deliver the same level of performance as the existing TikTok because it is heavily reliant on ByteDance's engineers in China to update and maintain the code base to maximize user engagement, sources added.