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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A group of cloud infrastructure providers in Europe has delivered an ultimatum to Microsoft: End the "unjustified feature and pricing discriminations against fair competition" or face legal action.

With 27 member organizations – including 26 headquartered in the region plus US-based AWS – Cloud Infrastructure Providers in Europe (CISPE) is a non-profit industry group based in Brussels. It filed a complaint against Microsoft with the EU's antitrust cops in November 2022.

That complaint laid out how Microsoft discounts its own software when bundled with its own Azure cloud services – meaning it is more expensive to run Redmond’s wares in rival clouds. The Windows goliath tried to settle the case out of court last May. CISPE told The Register Microsoft's offer was "paltry" and rejected it.

The parties recently resumed negotiations, and the timing of today's statement to The Register seems designed to ratchet pressure on Microsoft's lawyers to offer bigger concessions. CISPE told us it used the Azure Pricing Calculator to highlight the pricing disparity at the heart of the issue – see the table below, provided by CISPE.

It shows, if CISPE is right, that although a member of the cloud association – a rival of Azure – can offer remote desktop virtual machines at lower cost than Microsoft, the red-tape put in place by Redmond leaves the competing provider worse off for customers in comparison, causing the rival to potentially lose sales to Azure.

"According to the Azure Pricing Calculator with the multi-session capabilities allowed on Azure, a customer can run a typical virtual desktop implementation supporting 32 users using just three virtual machines," the group explained.

"The licensing restrictions on multi-session use of Microsoft software outside of Azure impose on CISPE members to provision 32 virtual machines – that is ten time more machines – to support the same number of users. Even with lower cost hardware (VM cost per hour) the cost of supporting 32 users for a CISPE member is 2.5 times higher than what Microsoft charges."

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/some-teachers-are-now-using-chatgpt-to-grade-papers/

In a notable shift toward sanctioned use of AI in schools, some educators in grades 3–12 are now using a ChatGPT-powered grading tool called Writable, reports Axios. The tool, acquired last summer by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is designed to streamline the grading process, potentially offering time-saving benefits for teachers. But is it a good idea to outsource critical feedback to a machine?
[...]
"Make feedback more actionable with AI suggestions delivered to teachers as the writing happens," Writable promises on its AI website. "Target specific areas for improvement with powerful, rubric-aligned comments, and save grading time with AI-generated draft scores." The service also provides AI-written writing-prompt suggestions: "Input any topic and instantly receive unique prompts that engage students and are tailored to your classroom needs."
[...]
The reliance on AI for grading will likely have drawbacks. Automated grading might encourage some educators to take shortcuts, diminishing the value of personalized feedback. Over time, the augmentation from AI may allow teachers to be less familiar with the material they are teaching. The use of cloud-based AI tools may have privacy implications for teachers and students. Also, ChatGPT isn't a perfect analyst. It can get things wrong and potentially confabulate (make up) false information, possibly misinterpret a student's work, or provide erroneous information in lesson plans.
[...]
there's a divide among parents regarding the use of AI in evaluating students' academic performance. A recent poll of parents revealed mixed opinions, with nearly half of the respondents open to the idea of AI-assisted grading.

As the generative AI craze permeates every space, it's no surprise that Writable isn't the only AI-powered grading tool on the market. Others include Crowdmark, Gradescope, and EssayGrader. McGraw Hill is reportedly developing similar technology aimed at enhancing teacher assessment and feedback.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Intel is on track to receive $3.5 billion in US CHIPS Act funding to produce advanced semiconductors for American military and intelligence programs.

The chipmaker has been a top contender for the cash with rumors swirling since November that the x86 giant would receive anywhere from $3-$4 billion. This funding, siphoned from the overall $39 billion in CHIPS and Science Act allotment,  would presumably support the development of a "secure enclave," which we understand to be a separate production line dedicated to military chip production.

According to Bloomberg the $3.5 billion will be dispersed over the next three years. The news was tucked away in a spending bill passed by the US House of Reps Wednesday, and will cement Intel as the leading producer of silicon for the defense market.

However, it's not like Uncle Sam had much of a choice if it wanted to keep production of military silicon in the US. Intel is so now the only American chipmaker producing leading edge silicon domestically.

New York-based GlobalFoundries abandoned development of 7nm and smaller process tech back in 2018 in order to focus on more mature and niche process tech in areas like radio communications, imaging, optical, automotive, industrial, and IoT.

Even still, many of GlobalFoundries' processes still have military applications, with the company still in early deliver on a 10-year $3.1 billion DoD contract to produce semiconductors for aerospace and defense applications awarded last fall.

That leaves Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung Electronics, which are building fabs in Arizona and Texas, as the only other US producers of leading edge chips. However, in this case, it seems that the US government would rather entrust its secrets to American companies.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

These are some of the latest disasters listed on the AI Incident Database – a website keeping tabs on all the different ways the technology goes wrong.

Initially launched as a project under the auspices of the Partnership On AI, a group that tries to ensure AI benefits society, the AI Incident Database is now a non-profit organization funded by Underwriters Laboratories – the largest and oldest (est. 1894) independent testing laboratory in the United States. It tests all sorts of products – from furniture to computer mouses – and its website has cataloged over 600 unique automation and AI-related incidents so far.

"There's a huge information asymmetry between the makers of AI systems and public consumers – and that's not fair", argued Patrick Hall, an assistant professor at the George Washington University School of Business, who is currently serving on the AI Incident Database's Board of Directors. He told The Register: "We need more transparency, and we feel it's our job just to share that information."

The AI Incident Database is modeled on the CVE Program set up by the non-profit MITRE, or the National Highway Transport Safety Administration's website reporting publicly disclosed cyber security vulnerabilities and vehicle crashes. "Any time there's a plane crash, train crash, or a big cyber security incident, it's become common practice over decades to record what happened so we can try to understand what went wrong and then not repeat it."

[...] The organization currently collects incidents from media coverage and reviews issues reported by people on Twitter. The AI Incident Database logged 250 unique incidents before the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, and now lists over 600 unique incidents.

owl writes:

https://www.theverge.com/24073300/smart-home-new-house-old-tech

My brother and his wife got a house. He mentioned it appeared to have a lot of tech installed by the last owner. I told him that was an exciting mystery for the two of us. Whatever speakers and weird smart home junk had been set up, we'd be able to repurpose. But then he moved in. Slowly, over weeks of tech support calls and hours digging through shockingly deep coat closets, we learned that while the old owner was gone, his digital ghost remained. It was lurking in the home's lights and shades and thermostat, turning what should have been a smart home into a very haunted one.

I didn't think I'd have to be the IT equivalent of a Ghostbuster when my brother first texted me about it. I've set up multiple smart homes, worked in IT, and currently am surrounded by some of the smartest tech journalists around. As smart home troubleshooting resources go, I have more than the average person.

It was no problem walking him through maximizing the performance of the Google Nest Wifi system still in place (including a full factory reset). But then... the trouble started. There were the window shades that always opened at 8AM and always closed at sundown. My brother disconnected everything that looked like a hub, and still, operating on some inaccessible internal clock, the shades carried on as they were once programmed to do.

[...] Some former homeowners will provide onboarding to the home's smart home system, but most do as the guy who used to own my brother's house did. They walk away and leave it as an adventure for the next person. I know because I've now done it twice myself. I really hope the new renters of my old Brooklyn walk-up appreciate all the 2014 Philips Hue lights I left installed in the basement.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

The ubiquitous phone feature has powered a surveillance technique used to catch suspected kidnappers and pedophiles. It's also fueled fears of a 'privacy nightmare' at a time when abortion is criminalized:

The alleged pedophile "LuvEmYoung" had worked to stay anonymous in the chatrooms where he bragged about sexually abusing children. A criminal affidavit said he covered his tracks by using TeleGuard, an encrypted Swiss messaging app, to share a video of himself last month with a sleeping 4-year-old boy.

But the FBI had a new strategy. A foreign law enforcement officer got TeleGuard to hand over a small string of code the company had used to send push alerts — the pop-up notifications that announce instant messages and news updates — to the suspect's phone.

An FBI agent then got Google to quickly hand over a list of email addresses this month linked to that code, known as a "push token," and traced one account to a man in Toledo, an affidavit shows. The man, Michael Aspinwall, was charged with sexual exploitation of minors and distribution of child pornography and arrested within a week of the Google request.

The breakthrough relied on a little-known quirk of push alerts, a basic staple of modern phones: Those tokens can be used to identify users and are stored on servers run by Apple and Google, which can hand them over at law enforcement's request.

[...] The data has become prized evidence for federal investigators, who have used push tokens in at least four cases across the country to arrest suspects in cases related to child sexual abuse material and a kidnapping that led to murder, according to a Washington Post review of court records. And law enforcement officials have defended the technique by saying they use court-authorized legal processes that give officers a vital tool they need to hunt down criminals.

Originally spotted on Schneier on Security.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Belgian beer brewer Duvel says a ransomware attack has brought its facility to a standstill while its IT team works to remediate the damage.

Spokesperson Ellen Aarts had a statement on tap for local media on Wednesday: "At 0130 last night, the alarms went off in Duvel's IT department because ransomware had been detected. Production was therefore immediately stopped. It is not yet known when it could start again. We hope today or tomorrow.

"Our IT department immediately intervened and is currently still mapping everything out. They are looking for a solution as quickly as possible."

[...] Other manufacturing organizations hit by ransomware often aren't so lucky and any kind of downtime can be operationally and financially damaging.

It's why the industry is such a common target for ransomware miscreants since they know that theoretically, manufacturers are more motivated to pay ransoms quickly, minimizing costly downtime.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A 2.9-ton cargo pallet, once used for a critical battery upgrade mission on the International Space Station (ISS), is now approaching the end of its journey and is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere in the coming days.

The pallet, tossed from the ISS in March 2021 by the trusty Canadarm2, is facing imminent destruction in Earth’s atmosphere three years after serving its purpose in a major battery replacement project on the station. According to Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer Jonathan McDowell, the pallet “will not totally burn up on reentry—about half a ton of fragments will likely hit the Earth’s surface,” McDowell noted on X.

It’s the end of the orbital road for the heaviest piece of ISS space trash, which has been gradually falling towards Earth like a fly getting sucked up in a kitchen drain. The expected reentry of the cargo pallet into Earth’s atmosphere is between March 8 at 7:30 a.m. ET and March 9 at 3:30 a.m. ET, according to McDowell. The exact location of reentry is not known.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Veterinary scientists seem to have unraveled a mystery about why certain dogs simply can’t ever get enough to eat. In research out this week, they found evidence that a common mutation in Labrador retrievers causes them to experience greater hunger than usual while also reducing their metabolic rate, both of which make the dogs predisposed to obesity. The findings might help better understand and treat obesity in both dogs and their owners.

Labradors are one of the most popular dog breeds in the world, treasured for their playful energy and their adeptness as a working dog (they’re often used as service dogs). But while labs do live relatively long lives—about 13 years on average—they’re also known to have a ravenous appetite and accordingly high rates of obesity.

Labs aren’t alone in their plight: Much like humans, dogs in general are experiencing higher rates of obesity. University of Cambridge scientist Eleanor Raffan has been working to unpack the genetics of obesity and metabolic disease in dogs. Her team has especially focused on the Labrador retriever, given its reputation for obesity, and its close relative the flat-coated retriever.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Roku customers are threatening to stop using, or to even dispose of, their low-priced TVs and streaming gadgets after the company appears to be locking devices for people who don't conform to the recently updated terms of service (ToS).

This month, users on Roku's support forums reported suddenly seeing a message when turning on their Roku TV or streaming device reading: "We've made an important update: We’ve updated our Dispute Resolution Terms. Select ‘Agree’ to agree to these updated Terms and to continue enjoying our products and services. Press * to view these updated Terms." A large button reading "Agree" follows. The pop-up doesn't offer a way to disagree, and users are unable to use their device unless they hit agree.

Customers have left pages of complaints on Roku's forum. One user going by "rickstanford" said they were "FURIOUS!!!!" and expressed interest in sending their reported six Roku devices back to the company since "apparently I don't own them despite spending hundreds of dollars on them."

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Bruce Perens is working on licensing for a new, post-Open Source era to take open source licensing past the apparent stalling point it has reached on its way towards software freedom. As he noted earlier, current licenses are not meeting that goal and businesses have either found loophole or just plain been allowed to ignore the licensing. A move more towards a contract is needed.

At the link below is the first draft of the Post-Open License. This is not yet the product of a qualified attorney, and you shouldn't apply it to your own work yet. There isn't context for this license yet, so some things won't make sense: for example the license is administered by an entity called the "POST-OPEN ADMINISTRATION" and I haven't figured out how to structure that organization so that people can trust it. There are probably also terms I can't get away with legally, this awaits work with a lawyer.

Because the license attempts to handle very many problems that have arisen with Open Source licensing, it's big. It's approaching the size of AGPL3, which I guess is a metric for a relatively modern license, since AGPL3 is now 17 years old

The draft license is quite long since it covers quite a few scenarios.

Previously:
(2023) What Comes After Open Source? Bruce Perens is Working on It
(2018) The Next 20 Years of Open Source Software Begins Today

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/microsoft-accused-of-selling-ai-tool-that-spews-violent-sexual-images-to-kids/

Microsoft's AI text-to-image generator, Copilot Designer, appears to be heavily filtering outputs after a Microsoft engineer, Shane Jones, warned that Microsoft has ignored warnings that the tool randomly creates violent and sexual imagery, CNBC reported.

Jones told CNBC that he repeatedly warned Microsoft of the alarming content he was seeing while volunteering in red-teaming efforts to test the tool's vulnerabilities. Microsoft failed to take the tool down or implement safeguards in response, Jones said, or even post disclosures to change the product's rating to mature in the Android store.

[...] Bloomberg also reviewed Jones' letter and reported that Jones told the FTC that while Copilot Designer is currently marketed as safe for kids, it's randomly generating an "inappropriate, sexually objectified image of a woman in some of the pictures it creates." And it can also be used to generate "harmful content in a variety of other categories, including: political bias, underage drinking and drug use, misuse of corporate trademarks and copyrights, conspiracy theories, and religion to name a few."

[...] Jones' tests also found that Copilot Designer would easily violate copyrights, producing images of Disney characters, including Mickey Mouse or Snow White. Most problematically, Jones could politicize Disney characters with the tool, generating images of Frozen's main character, Elsa, in the Gaza Strip or "wearing the military uniform of the Israel Defense Forces."

Ars was able to generate interpretations of Snow White, but Copilot Designer rejected multiple prompts politicizing Elsa.

If Microsoft has updated the automated content filters, it's likely due to Jones protesting his employer's decisions. [...] Jones has suggested that Microsoft would need to substantially invest in its safety team to put in place the protections he'd like to see. He reported that the Copilot team is already buried by complaints, receiving "more than 1,000 product feedback messages every day." Because of this alleged understaffing, Microsoft is currently only addressing "the most egregious issues," Jones told CNBC.

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Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-threatened-homeland-feral-mexican-parrots.html

During a walk through the Huntington Botanical Gardens with her mother one morning, Brenda Ramirez was alarmed by the sudden squawks, warbles, and screeches of troops of parrots flying overhead at great speed in tight, precise formations.

"I asked my mom what they were," Ramirez recalled of that day 14 years ago. "She said, 'Mija, they are just like the parrots from Mexico we've seen in zoos, except for one thing: They are free flying and breed in the trees along our city streets.'"

Ramirez was entranced by this fleeting glimpse of adaptation by tropical species in one of the world's greatest asphalt jungles.

Now, at 27, she leads a team of investigators at the Free Flying Los Angeles Parrot Project based in Occidental College's Moore Laboratory of Zoology, which aims to resolve a biological puzzle: How did red-crowned and lilac-crowned parrots establish local urban breeding populations via the pet trade from Mexico, where both species are on the brink of extinction?

A potential answer is that Southern California cities have only in the last 100 years provided these sister species with a resource untapped by native birds: the fruits and flowers of exotic trees used for landscaping, according to the team's new report in the journal Diversity and Distributions.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/switch-emulator-makers-agree-to-pay-2-4-million-to-settle-nintendo-lawsuit/

The makers of Switch emulator Yuzu say they will "consent to judgment in favor of Nintendo" to settle a major lawsuit filed by the console maker last week.

In a series of filings posted by the court Monday, the Yuzu developers agreed to pay $2.4 million in "monetary relief" and to cease "offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in Yuzu or any source code or features of Yuzu."

[...] ending "effective immediately," along with support for 3DS emulator Citra (which shares many of the same developers)

[...] The proposed final judgment, which still has to be agreed to by the judge in the case, fully accepts Nintendo's stated position that "Yuzu is primarily designed to circumvent [Nintendo's copy protection] and play Nintendo Switch games" by "using unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch cryptographic keys."

[...] While that admission doesn't technically account for Yuzu's ability to run a long list of Switch homebrew programs, proving that such homebrew was a significant part of the "ordinary course" of the average Yuzu user's experience may have been an uphill battle in court. Nintendo argued in its lawsuit that "the vast majority of Yuzu users are using Yuzu to play downloaded pirated games in Yuzu," a fact that could have played against the emulator maker at trial even if non-infringing uses for the emulator do exist.

[...] While emulator programs are generally protected by US legal precedents protecting reverse engineering, console makers could bring similar DMCA actions against certain emulators that rely on the use of cryptographic keys to break copy protection. But many emulator makers feel that such hardball lawsuits are less likely to be brought against emulators for defunct systems that are no longer selling new hardware or software in significant numbers.

[...] Nintendo's legal department has established a track record of zealously defending its copyrighted works by going after fangames, ROM distribution sites, and hardware modders in the past. While direct legal action against emulator makers has been less common for Nintendo, the company did send a letter to Valve to prevent Wii/Gamecube emulator Dolphin from appearing on Steam last year.

Previously on SoylentNews:
Emulation Community Expresses Defiance in Wake of Nintendo's Yuzu Lawsuit - 20240303

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Science, or New Age Apocalyptics? You decide.

In 2007, a group of researchers, led by a nuclear physicist named Richard Firestone, announced an astonishing discovery. They had uncovered evidence, they said, that 12,900 years ago, a comet — or possibly a whole fleet of comets — struck Earth and changed the course of history. For the preceding two and a half million years, through the Pleistocene Epoch, the planet's climate fluctuated between frozen stretches, called glacials, and warm interglacials. At that time, Earth was warming again, and the ice sheets that covered much of North America, Europe and Asia were in retreat. Mammoths, steppe bison, wild horses and other enormous mammals still wandered the Americas, pursued by bands of humans wielding spears with fluted stone blades. Suddenly, somewhere over the Upper Midwest — an explosion.

[...] This cometary origin story, with its mix of ancient humans, vanished megafauna and global cataclysm, quickly spread beyond the confines of scientific journals. Media outlets around the world covered the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. It has been the subject of two more books and multiple documentaries, including one produced by PBS NOVA. Joe Rogan has discussed the hypothesis a dozen times on his podcast, and it provided the scientific underpinnings for Netflix's 2022 hit series "Ancient Apocalypse." But even as the hypothesis wormed its way into the public imagination, an important question persisted: Was any of it true?

[...] As they tried to replicate the Firestone team's findings, the skeptics noticed numerous odd details that seemed to hover around the hypothesis. There was, for example, "The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes," which came out just before the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study. The book's publisher was a division of Inner Traditions, which, according to its website, is "devoted exclusively to the subjects of spirituality, the occult, ancient mysteries, new science, holistic health and natural medicine." The book, written by West and Firestone, intersperses a breathless account of their work with the "astonishingly similar stories" of floods and celestial conflagrations from dozens of ancient cultures, including the tale of the "Long-Tailed-Heavenly-Climbing-Star," attributed to the Ojibwa. "It clearly wasn't a science book," says Jennifer Marlon, a paleoecologist at Yale who read the book soon after seeing the PNAS study. "I just thought, Well, this is kind of silly."