| Scientists Propose Lunar Biorepository As 'Backup' For Life On Earth Aug 1st 2024, 03:30, by BeauHD An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: With thousands of species at risk of extinction, scientists have devised a radical plan: a vault filled with preserved samples of our planet's most important and at-risk creatures located on the moon. An international team of experts says threats from climate change and habitat loss have outpaced our ability to protect species in their natural habitats, necessitating urgent action. A biorepository of preserved cells, and the crucial DNA within them, could be used to enhance genetic diversity in small populations of critically endangered species, or to clone and create new individuals in the worst-case scenario of extinction. The proposed lunar biorepository, as described in the journal BioScience, would be beyond the reach of climate breakdown, geopolitical events or other Earth-based disasters. The moon's naturally frigid environment means samples would remain frozen year-round without the need for human involvement or an energy source. By taking advantage of deep craters near the polar regions that are never exposed to sunlight, the moon is one of few places that can provide the ultra-low temperature of -196C necessary to preserve the samples in a way suitable for future cloning. [...] Besides those facing the imminent risk of extinction, the proposed repository would prioritize species with important functions in their environment and food webs. Through careful selection, those housed could be used to re-establish an extinct population on Earth or even to terraform another planet. Dr Mary Hagedorn of the Smithsonian's national zoo and conservation biology institute and the proposal's lead author believes the biorepository proposal will come to fruition, although perhaps not in our lifetime: "We know how to do this and can do this and will do this, but it may take decades to finally achieve," she said. The report says the next steps "will be to develop packaging for the cryopreserved samples that can withstand the conditions of space, and to work out the logistics of transporting samples to the moon."   Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | CrowdStrike Is Sued By Shareholders Over Huge Software Outage Aug 1st 2024, 01:00, by BeauHD Shareholders have sued CrowdStrike on Tuesday, claiming the cybersecurity company defrauded them by concealing how its inadequate software testing could cause the global software outage earlier this month that crashed millions of computers. Reuters reports: In a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night in the Austin, Texas federal court, shareholders said they learned that CrowdStrike's assurances about its technology were materially false and misleading when a flawed software update disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and emergency lines around the world. They said CrowdStrike's share price fell 32% over the next 12 days, wiping out $25 billion of market value, as the outage's effects became known, Chief Executive George Kurtz was called to testify to the U.S. Congress, and Delta Air Lines reportedly hired prominent lawyer David Boies to seek damages. The complaint cites statements including from a March 5 conference call where Kurtz characterized CrowdStrike's software as "validated, tested and certified." The lawsuit led by the Plymouth County Retirement Association of Plymouth, Massachusetts, seeks unspecified damages for holders of CrowdStrike Class A shares between Nov. 29, 2023 and July 29, 2024. Further reading: Delta CEO Says CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage Cost the Airline $500 Million Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Taco Bell Is Bringing AI To Hundreds of Drive-Thrus Nationwide Aug 1st 2024, 00:20, by BeauHD Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands, announced today that the fast-food chain will expand its Voice AI technology to "hundreds" of chains around the country by the end of the year. A global expansion of the service will follow. Fortune reports: Right now, more than 100 Taco Bell locations in 13 states rely on AI to take customer orders at the drive-thru. Company officials say that has resulted in improved order accuracy, shorter wait times, and higher profits. Human workers, the company says, will be freed up to focus on other tasks, ranging from interacting with guests who opt to order from the restaurant counter to preparing food. "Yum! Brands is integrating digital and technology into all aspects of our business with exciting new capabilities, and AI is a core piece of that strategy," said Lawrence Kim, chief innovation officer at Yum! Brands, in a statement. "With over two years of fine-tuning and testing the drive-thru Voice AI technology, we're confident in its effectiveness in optimizing operations and enhancing customer satisfaction." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Study Details 'Transformative' Results From LA Guaranteed Basic Income Program Jul 31st 2024, 23:40, by BeauHD The results of Los Angeles' 12-month guaranteed income pilot program show that it was "overwhelmingly beneficial (source may be paywalled; alternative source)," reports the Los Angeles Times. The program, which involved giving L.A.'s poorest families cash assistance of $1,000 a month with no strings attached, significantly improved participants' financial stability, job opportunities, and overall well-being. From the report: The Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot, or BIG:LEAP, disbursed $38.4 million in city funds to 3,200 residents who were pregnant or had at least one child, lived at or below the federal poverty level and experienced hardship related to COVID-19. Participants were randomly selected from about 50,000 applicants and received the payments for 12 months starting in 2022. The city paid researchers $3.9 million to help design the trial and survey participants throughout about their experiences. [Dr. Amy Castro, co-founder of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research] and her colleagues partnered with researchers at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health to compare the experiences of participants in L.A.'s randomized control trial -- the country's first large-scale guaranteed-income pilot using public funds -- with those of nearly 5,000 people who didn't receive the unconditional cash. Researchers found that participants reported a meaningful increase in savings and were more likely to be able to cover a $400 emergency during and after the program. Guaranteed-income recipients also were more likely to secure full-time or part-time employment, or to be looking for work, rather than being unemployed and not looking for work, the study found. In a city with sky-high rents, participants reported that the guaranteed income functioned as "a preventative measure against homelessness," according to the report, helping them offset rental costs and serving as a buffer while they waited for other housing support. It also prevented or reduced the incidence of intimate partner violence, the analysis found, by making it possible for people and their children to leave and find other housing. Intimate partner violence is an intractable social challenge, Castro said, so to see improvements with just 12 months of funding is a "pretty extraordinary change." People who had struggled to maintain their health because of inflexible or erratic work schedules and lack of child care reported that the guaranteed income provided the safety net they needed to maintain healthier behaviors, the report said. They reported sleeping better, exercising more, resuming necessary medications and seeking mental health therapy for themselves and their children. Compared with those who didn't receive cash, guaranteed income recipients were more likely to enroll their kids in sports and clubs during and after the pilot. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Bending Spoons Buys File Sharing Service WeTransfer Jul 31st 2024, 23:00, by msmash Italian app developer Bending Spoons has bought file-sharing platform WeTransfer, the companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday, as the Milan-based tech company presses ahead with a string of deals for software firms. From a report: The deal, for which financial details were not disclosed, is the fifth acquisition this year by Bending Spoons, which in February raised $155 million through a capital increase, taking the company's valuation to $2.55 billion. [...] The WeTransfer service enables its users to transfer large files online. It has 600,000 subscribers and 80 million monthly active users, according to data included in the statement. WeTransfer is the latest of several acquisitions by Bending Spoons. It bought note-taking service Evernote in November 2022. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Malaysia is Working on an Internet 'Kill Switch' Jul 31st 2024, 22:20, by msmash Malaysia plans to introduce an internet "kill switch" law in October, Law Minister Azalina Othman Said has said. The legislation aims to boost digital security by granting authorities power to block online content, though specifics remain unclear. Said emphasized the need for social media and messaging platforms to take greater responsibility for online crimes. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Bumble and Hinge Allowed Stalkers To Pinpoint Users' Locations Down To 2 Meters, Researchers Say Jul 31st 2024, 21:40, by BeauHD An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A group of researchers said they found that vulnerabilities in the design of some dating apps, including the popular Bumble and Hinge, allowed malicious users or stalkers to pinpoint the location of their victims down to two meters. In a new academic paper, researchers from the Belgian university KU Leuven detailed their findings (PDF) when they analyzed 15 popular dating apps. Of those, Badoo, Bumble, Grindr, happn, Hinge and Hily all had the same vulnerability that could have helped a malicious user to identify the near-exact location of another user, according to the researchers. While neither of those apps share exact locations when displaying the distance between users on their profiles, they did use exact locations for the "filters" feature of the apps. Generally speaking, by using filters, users can tailor their search for a partner based on criteria like age, height, what type of relationship they are looking for and, crucially, distance. To pinpoint the exact location of a target user, the researchers used a novel technique they call "oracle trilateration." In general, trilateration, which for example is used in GPS, works by using three points and measuring their distance relative to the target. This creates three circles, which intersect at the point where the target is located. Oracle trilateration works slightly differently. The researchers wrote in their paper that the first step for the person who wants to identify their target's location "roughly estimates the victim's location," for example, based on the location displayed in the target's profile. Then, the attacker moves in increments "until the oracle indicates that the victim is no longer within proximity, and this for three different directions. The attacker now has three positions with a known exact distance, i.e., the preselected proximity distance, and can trilaterate the victim," the researchers wrote. "It was somewhat surprising that known issues were still present in these popular apps," Karel Dhondt, one of the researchers, told TechCrunch. While this technique doesn't reveal the exact GPS coordinates of the victim, "I'd say 2 meters is close enough to pinpoint the user," Dhondt said. The good news is that all the apps that had these issues, and that the researchers reached out to, have now changed how distance filters work and are not vulnerable to the oracle trilateration technique. The fix, according to the researchers, was to round up the exact coordinates by three decimals, making them less precise and accurate. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Apple Arcade Developers Say Working With Apple Is Like Being In an 'Abusive Relationship' Jul 31st 2024, 21:00, by BeauHD Mobile game developers have voiced increasing frustration with Apple, citing reduced payments, delayed compensation, poor communication, and inadequate support, particularly with the Apple Vision Pro. Apple Insider reports: In February, game developers began expressing frustration over Apple Arcade. They pointed out that while the service was initially profitable, Apple had begun decreasing upfront payments and the per-play "bonus pool." Additionally, the tech giant began to axe projects with little to no warning. According to Mobilegamer.biz, developers continue to be unhappy with how Apple's running its "pay once, play all you want" game subscription service. Developers point out how Apple has delayed payments -- sometimes up to six months -- which has put smaller studios in precarious situations. Devs are also unhappy with Apple's communication -- or lack thereof. "We can go weeks without hearing from Apple at all and their general response time to emails is three weeks, if they reply at all," one developer told Mobilegamer.biz. Some have even called Apple's tech support "miserable" and the worst they'd seen anywhere. Even the QA and update process is frustrating, prompting some developers to avoid updating their games altogether. [...] One particularly frustrated developer spoke out against Apple Arcade, saying, "It's like an abusive relationship where the abused stays in the relationship hoping the other partner will change and become the person you know they could be." When it comes to the Apple Vision Pro, many game developers are increasingly frustrated with the headset's struggles to run demanding games. And, while Apple wants indie developers to create new games for their new headset, the company "does not provide compensation or make any promises to promote or market the game once it is finished," says Apple Insider. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Google Updates Its Search Algorithm To Tackle AI Deepfakes Jul 31st 2024, 20:20, by BeauHD Google is updating its search algorithm and removal request process to make it easier for victims to combat unwanted sexually explicit AI deepfakes. "When reported AI deepfakes are identified, Google Search will automatically filter out related search results that might pop up in the future so users won't have to repeatedly report similar images or duplicates of an image to Google," reports PCMag. Additionally, Google will demote sites repeatedly hosting non-consensual deepfakes and aims to differentiate between consensual and non-consensual explicit content. From the report: Google says its Search algorithm update will lower the chances of explicit deepfakes appearing in Search. The search engine will also attempt to differentiate between real sexually explicit content made consensually (such as adult film stars' work, for example) and AI-generated media made without the person's consent. But Google says doing this is a "technical challenge," so these efforts may not be entirely accurate or effective. Regardless, Google claims that the changes it's already made to Search have reduced the resurfacing of such deepfakes by more than 70%. "With these changes, people can read about the impact deepfakes are having on society, rather than see pages with actual non-consensual fake images," Google said. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Xbox Console Sales Continue To Crater With Massive 42% Revenue Drop Jul 31st 2024, 19:40, by BeauHD An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft's revenue from Xbox console sales was down a whopping 42 percent on a year-over-year basis for the quarter ending in June, the company announced in its latest earnings report. The massive drop continues a long, pronounced slide for sales of Microsoft's gaming hardware—the Xbox line has now shown year-over-year declines in hardware sales revenue in six of the last seven calendar quarters (and seven of the last nine). And Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told investors in a follow-up call (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz) to expect hardware sales to decline yet again in the coming fiscal quarter, which ends in September. The 42 percent drop for quarterly hardware revenue -- by far the largest such drop since the introduction of the Xbox Series X/S in 2020 -- follows an 11 percent year-over-year decline in the second calendar quarter of 2023. Microsoft no longer shares raw console shipment numbers like its competitors, so we don't know how many Xbox consoles are selling on an absolute basis. But industry analyst Daniel Ahmad estimates that Microsoft sold less than 900,000 Xbox units for the quarter ending in March, compared to 4.5 million PS5 units shipped in the same period. Overall, the reported revenue numbers suggest that sales of the Xbox Series X/S line peaked sometime in 2022, during the console's second full year on store shelves. That's extremely rare for a market where sales for successful console hardware usually see a peak in the fourth or fifth year on the market before a slow decline in the run-up to a successor. [...] Aside from hardware sales, Microsoft's gaming content and services revenue was up a healthy-sounding 61 percent year-over-year for the latest reported quarter. But a full 58 percent of that increase was the "net impact from the Activision acquisition," which you may remember cost the company $68.7 billion dollars. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Cyberattack Hits Blood-Donation Nonprofit OneBlood Jul 31st 2024, 19:00, by msmash A cyberattack has hit a blood-donation nonprofit that serves hundreds of hospitals in the southeastern US. From a report: The hack, which was first reported by CNN, has raised concerns about potential impacts on OneBlood's service to some hospitals, multiple sources familiar with the matter said, and the incident is being investigated as a potential ransomware attack. An "outage" of OneBlood's software system is impacting the nonprofit's ability to ship "blood products" to hospitals in Florida, according to an advisory sent to health care providers by the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a cyberthreat-sharing group, and reviewed by CNN. OneBlood has been manually labeling blood products as the nonprofit recovers from the incident, the advisory said. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Germany Says China Was Behind a 2021 Cyberattack on Government Agency Jul 31st 2024, 18:00, by msmash An investigation has determined that "Chinese state actors" were responsible for a 2021 cyberattack on Germany's national office for cartography, officials in Berlin said Wednesday. From a report: The Chinese ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a protest for the first time in decades. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sebastian Fischer said the German government has "reliable information from our intelligence services" about the source of the attack on the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, which he said was carried out "for the purpose of espionage." "This serious cyberattack on a federal agency shows how big the danger is from Chinese cyberattacks and spying," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement. "We call on China to refrain from and prevent such cyberattacks. These cyberattacks threaten the digital sovereignty of Germany and Europe." Fischer declined to elaborate on who exactly in China was responsible. He said a Chinese ambassador was last summoned to the German Foreign Ministry in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | AWS Quietly Scales Back Some DevOps Services Jul 31st 2024, 17:20, by msmash AWS has quietly halted new customer onboarding for several of its services, including the once-touted CodeCommit source code repository and Cloud9 cloud IDE, signaling a potential retreat from its comprehensive DevOps offering. The stealth deprecation, discovered by users encountering unexpected errors, has sent ripples through the AWS community, with many expressing frustration over the lack of formal announcements and the continued presence of outdated documentation. AWS VP Jeff Barr belatedly confirmed the decision on social media, listing affected services such as S3 Select, CloudSearch, SimpleDB, Forecast, and Data Pipeline. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Microsoft is Removing Ads From Skype Jul 31st 2024, 16:40, by msmash Microsoft is making Skype ad-free in an update that will rollout to users across all platforms soon. From a report: The update also includes improved AI image creation tools on Skype for Windows and macOS, and the ability to sign in automatically on iOS if you're already signed into another Microsoft app. "Our latest update removes all ads from Skype channels and the entire Skype platform, ensuring a smoother, decluttered and more enjoyable user experience," says Skype product manager Irene Namuganyi. The removal of ads in Skype means you'll no longer see ads in the main chat interface, or in the channels section. Microsoft says it has listened to feedback around ads in Skype, and decided to "focus on your chats without any ad distractions, making your Skype experience cleaner and more user-friendly." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Air New Zealand Is First Major Airline To Scrap 2030 Emissions Target Jul 31st 2024, 16:40, by msmash Air New Zealand has become the first major airline to drop its 2030 goal to cut carbon emissions. From a report: The company has blamed difficulties in procuring new planes and sustainable jet fuel. The airline's CEO, Greg Foran said: "In recent months, and more so in the last few weeks, it has also become apparent that potential delays to our fleet renewal plan pose an additional risk to the target's achievability. It is possible the airline may need to retain its existing fleet for longer than planned due to global manufacturing and supply chain issues that could potentially slow the introduction of newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft into the fleet." The industry as a whole has a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. But in 2022, Air New Zealand set itself the target of cutting its emissions by almost 29% by 2030. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | |
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