SlashdotNews for nerds, stuff that matters
Apr 29th 2026, 03:30 by BeauHD
Elon Musk testified on day two of his trial against OpenAI, saying he helped create the company as a nonprofit counterweight to Google and would not have backed it if the goal had been private profit. CNBC reports: Musk on Tuesday was the first witness called to testify in the trial. He spoke about his upbringing, his many companies, his role in founding OpenAI and his understanding of its structure. Musk said in his testimony that he was not opposed to the creation of a small for-profit subsidiary, "as long as the tail didn't wag the dog." Musk said he was motivated to start OpenAI to serve as a counterweight to Google. He got the idea after an argument he had with Google co-founder Larry Page, who called Musk a "speciesist for being pro-human," he testified. "I could have started it as a for profit and I chose not to," Musk said on the stand. Earlier, attorneys for Musk and OpenAI presented their opening arguments to the jury. Musk's lead trial lawyer, Steven Molo, delivered the opening statement for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. OpenAI lawyer William Savitt gave the opening statement for the AI company, Altman and Brockman. OpenAI has characterized Musk's lawsuit as a baseless "harassment campaign." The company said Monday in a post on X that it "can't wait to make our case in court where both the truth and the law are on our side." During his testimony on Tuesday, Musk repeatedly emphasized that he founded OpenAI to serve as a counterweight to Google. He said he got the idea after an argument about AI safety with Google co-founder Larry Page, who Musk said called him "a speciesist for being pro-human." Musk said he was concerned Page was not taking AI safety seriously, so he wanted there to be an nonprofit, open source alternative to Google. "I could have started it as a for profit and I chose not to," Musk said on the stand. Further reading: Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court
 
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Apr 28th 2026, 23:00 by BeauHD
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: University of Oregon chemist Christopher Hendon loves his coffee -- so much so that studying all the factors that go into creating the perfect cuppa constitutes a significant area of research for him. His latest project: discovering a novel means of measuring the flavor profile of coffee simply by sending an electrical current through a sample beverage. The results appear in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications. [...] The coffee industry typically uses a method for measuring the refractive index of coffee -- i.e., how light bends as it travels through the liquid -- to determine strength, but it doesn't capture the contribution of roast color to the overall flavor profile. So for this latest study, Hendon decided to focus on roast color and beverage strength, the two variables most likely to affect the sensory profile of the final cuppa. His solution turned out to be quite simple. Hendon repurposed an electrochemical tool called a potentiostat, typically used to test battery and fuel cell performance. Hendon used the tool to measure how electricity interacted with the liquid. He found that this provided a better measurement of the flavor profile. He even tested it on four different samples of coffee beans and successfully identified the distinctive signature of a batch that had failed the roaster's quality-control process. Granted, one's taste in coffee is fairly subjective, so Hendon's goal was not to achieve a "perfect" cup but to give baristas a simple tool to consistently reproduce flavor profiles more tailored to a given customer's taste. "It's an objective way to make a statement about what people like in a cup of coffee," said Hendon. "The reason you have an enjoyable cup of coffee is almost certainly that you have selected a coffee of a particular roast color and extracted it to a desired strength. Until now, we haven't been able to separate those variables. Now we can diagnose what gives rise to that delicious cup." Outside of his latest electrical-current experiment, Christopher Hendon's coffee research has shown that espresso can be made more consistently by modeling extraction yield -- how much coffee dissolves into the final drink -- and controlling water flow and pressure. He also found that static electricity from grinding causes fine coffee particles to clump, which disrupts brewing. The solution: adding a small squirt of water to beans before grinding (known as the Ross droplet technique) to reduce that static, cut clumping and waste, and lead to a stronger, more consistent espresso.
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Apr 28th 2026, 22:00 by BeauHD
Apple's Vision Pro has been used in what's described as the world's first cataract surgery performed with the headset. MacRumors reports: [New York opthalmologist] Dr. Eric Rosenberg of SightMD completed the initial procedure in October 2025 and has since performed hundreds of additional cases using ScopeXR, a surgical platform he co-developed for Apple's mixed reality device. ScopeXR streams live feeds from 3D digital surgical microscopes directly into the Vision Pro, which lets the surgeon view the operative field in stereoscopic 3D while overlaying preoperative diagnostic data. The platform also supports real-time remote collaboration, allowing surgeons to virtually join procedures and see exactly what the operating surgeon sees. "We are now able to bring the world's best surgeon into any operating room, at any hour, from anywhere on the planet," said Dr. Rosenberg in a company press release. "From residents performing their first cases to surgeons facing unexpected complications, this technology democratizes access to expertise and that will save vision."
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Apr 28th 2026, 21:00 by BeauHD
Sony is reportedly rolling out a 30-day online check-in requirement for some digital PS4 and PS5 games, meaning players could temporarily lose access if their console does not reconnect to renew the license. Tom's Hardware reports: In the info page of an affected game, you'd see a new validity period and a "remaining time" deadline. At first, this seemed like a software bug, but now PlayStation Support has confirmed its authenticity to multiple users. PlayStation owners are furious about the change. From what we've seen, this DRM is intended for digital game copies. It works by instating a mandatory online check-in where you have to connect to the internet within a rolling 30-day window or risk losing access to the game. Afterward, you can still restore access, but you'll need an internet connection to renew the game's license first. So far, it seems like only games installed after the recent March firmware update are affected. Affected customers report that setting your PS4 or PS5 as the primary console doesn't alleviate this check-in policy either. No matter what, any game you download from now on will feature this new requirement, effectively eliminating the concept of offline play for even single-player titles.
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Apr 28th 2026, 20:00 by BeauHD
Apple is adding a new App Store subscription option that lets developers offer lower monthly prices in exchange for a 12-month commitment. "This model will allow developers to offer discounted rates to customers in exchange for more predictable long-term revenue," reports TechCrunch. "This also caters to how many developers have already been marketing their annual subscriptions in their apps." From the report: Often, app developers will display the lower monthly price to highlight the discount the customer would receive if they purchase the annual subscription instead of the monthly option. If the user is on the fence about a longer-term commitment, the notion that they're getting a better deal can help to push them toward the annual option. Now, Apple is essentially formalizing what these developers were already doing, which allows it to also craft a set of policies around how these subscription offers are to be displayed so as not to mislead customers about the true cost of the deals. However, the option will not be available to developers in the United States or Singapore at launch. While Apple didn't offer an explanation for this, it's still in App Store litigation in the U.S. around the specifics of the court's ruling in its case with Epic Games around how Apple can charge for subscriptions. Apple likely doesn't want to complicate the matter further until that matter is finalized. Singapore, meanwhile, also has a sophisticated payments market with strong consumer rules, which is why it may have been left out of the initial release.
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Apr 28th 2026, 19:00 by BeauHD
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: For its famous intractability, the Bloomberg Terminal has long inspired devotion, bordering on obsession. Among traders, the ability to chart a path through the software's dizzying scrolls of numbers and text to isolate far-flung information is the mark of a seasoned professional. But as a greater mass of data is fed into the Terminal -- not only earnings and asset prices, but weather forecasts, shipping logs, factory locations, consumer spending patterns, private loans, and so on -- valuable information is being lost. "It has become more and more untenable," says Shawn Edwards, chief technology officer at Bloomberg. "You miss things, or it takes too long." To try to remedy the problem, Bloomberg is testing a chatbot-style interface for the Terminal, ASKB (pronounced ask-bee), built atop a basket of different language models. The broad idea is to help finance professionals to condense labor-intensive tasks, and make it possible to test abstract investment theses against the data through natural language prompts. As of publication, the ASKB beta is open to roughly a third of the software's 375,000 users; Bloomberg has not specified a date for a full release. Wired spoke with Edwards at Bloomberg's palatial London headquarters in early April, where he shared several examples of what ASKB can do. "With ASKB, I can create workflow templates. I can write a long query, and say, 'Hey, here's all the data I'm going to need. Give me a synopsis of the bull and bear cases, what the Street is saying, what the guidance is.' Now, I want to schedule [the workflows] or trigger them when I see this or that condition in the world." As for what separates mediocre traders from the best, assuming both have access to the same data, Edwards said: "These tools are not magical. They don't make an average [employee] all of a sudden great. The difference will be your ideas. In the hands of experts, it allows them to do better analysis, deeper research -- to sift through 10 great ideas when they might have only had time for one. If you're a mediocre analyst, they'll be 10 mediocre ideas."
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Apr 28th 2026, 18:00 by BeauHD
Google has reportedly signed a classified agreement allowing the Pentagon to use its AI models for "any lawful government purpose." While the deal is said to discourage domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight, it apparently does not give Google the power to block how the government actually uses its models. The Verge reports: The agreement was reported less than a day after Google employees demanded CEO Sundar Pichai block the Pentagon from using its AI amid concerns that it would be used in "inhumane or extremely harmful ways." If the agreement is confirmed, it would place Google alongside OpenAI and xAI, which have also made classified AI deals with the US government. Anthropic was also among that list until it was blacklisted by the Pentagon for refusing the Department of Defense's demands to remove weapon and surveillance-related guardrails from its AI models. Citing a single anonymous source "with knowledge of the situation," The Information reports that the deal states that both parties have agreed that the search giant's AI systems shouldn't be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons "without appropriate human oversight and control." But the contract also says it doesn't give Google "any right to control or veto lawful government operational decision-making," which would suggest the agreed restrictions are more of a pinky promise than legally binding obligations.
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Apr 28th 2026, 17:00 by BeauHD
fjo3 writes: The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (source paywalled; alternative source), or OPEC, along with the wider group of partners known as OPEC+, effective May 1, in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long led in practice by Saudi Arabia. The move "reflects the UAE's long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile" read an official statement carried by a UAE state news agency, as disruptions "in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect supply dynamics." [...] The UAE is the second Persian Gulf country to leave the group after Qatar terminated its membership in 2019. The UAE has been a member of OPEC since 1971. The latest departure leaves in place 11 core members: Algeria, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
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