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DannyB writes:

Strange Discovery Suggests Children Trust Robots Over Humans

From The Iron Giant to Big Hero 6, many of us will be familiar with tales of kids befriending robots, which suggest generations of young children are more trusting of advice from machines than their own flesh and blood.

An international research team has now found it's not just in fiction. In a study involving 111 kids aged between 3 and 6 years old, the youngsters showed a preference for believing robots more and being more accepting when robots made mistakes.

[....] The kids were split up into different groups and shown videos of robots and humans labeling objects – some objects the children would already recognize, as well as new objects they wouldn't know the names of.

Human and robot reliability was demonstrated by giving familiar objects incorrect name, calling a plate a spoon for example. In this way the researchers could manipulate the children's sense of who to trust.

Where both humans and robots were shown to be equally reliable, the youngsters were more likely to want to ask robots the names of new objects and accept their labels as accurate. What's more, the children were more likely to favor robots when asked about who they would share secrets with, who they would want to be friends with, and who they would want to have as teachers.

"Children's conceptualizations of the agents making a mistake also differed, such that an unreliable human was selected as doing things on purpose, but not an unreliable robot," write the researchers.

"These findings suggest that children's perceptions of a robot's reliability are separate from their evaluation of its desirability as a social interaction partner and its perceived agency."

[....] One area where this research might be useful is in education, especially in a world where kids are increasingly surrounded by technology.

When I was a kid, I remember the Lost In Space robot saying "Machines are trustworthy". A bit of googling shows that I correctly remembered this important lesson.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

State media reported that an "autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system" assessed the "brightness and darkness of the lunar surface" and found a safe place for the probe to land.

The lander then "hovered about 100 meters above the safe landing area and used a laser 3D scanner to detect obstacles on the lunar surface to select the final landing site."

Chinese authorities have published the video below that shows Chang'e-6 touching down.

Youtube Video

The craft is the first to land in this region of the Moon, making its mission to retrieve samples of great interest and importance.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A new study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology demonstrates how the diversity and abundance of arthropods decrease when hedgerows and field margins covered by wild grass and flowers are removed.

Researchers from the UK, Netherlands and China studied 20 rice fields in China for six years to see how the changing agricultural landscape affects the diversity and abundance of rice pests and their natural enemies, as well as the effect on rice yield.

Traditional Chinese smallholder fields are irregularly shaped and separated by areas of hedgerows, wild grass, and flowers. Using large-scale machinery in these farmlands is difficult, so there is low agricultural operation efficiency. As a result, a growing proportion of China's traditional farmlands is rapidly changing as farmers consolidate land to improve efficiency.

However, the grassy margins and flowering vegetation between the traditional smallholder rice fields provide a habitat for the natural enemies of rice pests such as spiders and ground beetles.

Dr. Yi Zou, from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) and corresponding author of the study, says, "Hedgerows and field margins are frequently removed during the land consolidation procedure to create larger, rectangular fields and install concrete irrigation channels to facilitate the use of larger machinery.

"Our study suggests that removing these habitats negatively affects arthropod communities."

[...] The research group also sprayed half of each field with insecticide. They found that its application decreased the diversity and abundance of pests and natural enemies in both consolidated and traditional fields. However, where crops were not sprayed with insecticide, there was a 10.8% decrease in rice yield.

quietus writes:

Take Indonesia's President, Joko Widodo, for example. He sees the true plight of his people, and wants to do something about it.

The plight, in this case, is that Indonesia's Administration, in the name of public accessibility and user friendliness, has created an estimated 27,000 apps for hapless Indonesians to "navigate" their (supposedly public) services. One department -- probably the smallest -- has created 500 of the gleaming critters. It is only a guess how many of these are only (somewhat) accessible through smart phones, require a crap ton of captchas to solve, an electronic identity card, a special reader for that electronic identity card, a scan of your birth certificate, a digital signature on that scan, details of your last family status including the full and spelling correct names of all family members to the third degree separation, and the colour of your underwear, and all that just to enter and be notified that you need another application for what you want to do.

So, the Joko, [w]ants to reduce the thicket to something more manageable, say a few thousand.

"The presence of bureaucracy should serve, not complicate things and not slow them down ... There can be no more excuses for this and that because I feel that the data belongs to me, the data belongs to my ministry, the data belongs to my institution, the data belongs to my regional government – that's no longer allowed."

Oh, the naivete. Of course, of course, that statement was made on the occasion of the launch of a new platform,

... an integrated platform for government services expected to help contain the problematic platform proliferation when it commences in September.

Its ultimate goal is one observers of digital government services will find familiar: offering citizens a single login that accesses government services through a portal, while agencies all share access to a single set of personal data.

Heh.

Original Submission

hendrikboom writes:

The Globe and Mail reports:

Ottawa wants the power to create secret backdoors in our networks to allow for surveillance

A federal cybersecurity bill, slated to advance through Parliament soon, contains secretive, encryption-breaking powers that the government has been loath to talk about. And they threaten the online security of everyone in Canada.

Bill C-26 empowers government officials to secretly order telecommunications companies to install backdoors inside encrypted elements in Canada's networks. This could include requiring telcos to alter the 5G encryption standards that protect mobile communications to facilitate government surveillance.

The Canadian government seems unaware that there is no such thing as a safe backdoor.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In early February, dairy farmers in the Texas Panhandle began to notice sick cattle. The buzz soon reached Darren Turley, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen: "They said there is something moving from herd to herd."

Nearly 60 days passed before veterinarians identified the culprit: a highly pathogenic strain of the bird flu virus, H5N1. Had it been detected sooner, the outbreak might have been swiftly contained. Now it has spread to at least eight other states, and it will be hard to eliminate it.

At the moment, the bird flu hasn't adapted to spread from person to person through the air like the seasonal flu. That's what it would take to give liftoff to another pandemic. This lucky fact could change, however, as the virus mutates within each cow it infects. Those mutations are random, but more cows provide more chances of stumbling on ones that pose a grave risk to humans.

Why did it take so long to recognize the virus on high-tech farms in the world's richest country? Because even though H5N1 has circulated for nearly three decades, its arrival in dairy cattle was most unexpected. "People tend to think that an outbreak starts at Monday at 9 a.m. with a sign saying, 'Outbreak has started,'" said Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the World Health Organization. "It's rarely like that."

By investigating the origins of outbreaks, researchers garner clues about how they start and spread. That information can curb the toll of an epidemic and, ideally, stop the next one. On-the-ground observations and genomic analyses point to Texas as ground zero for this outbreak in cattle. To backtrack events in Texas, KFF Health News spoke with more than a dozen people, including veterinarians, farmers, and state officials.

An early indication that something had gone awry on farms in northwestern Texas came from devices hitched to collars on dairy cows. Turley describes them as "an advanced fitness tracker." They collect a stream of data, such as a cow's temperature, its milk quality, and the progress of its digestion—or, rather, rumination—within its four-chambered stomach.

What farmers saw when they downloaded the data in February stopped them in their tracks. One moment a cow seemed perfectly fine, and then four hours later, rumination had halted. "Shortly after the stomach stops, you'd see a huge falloff in milk," Turley said. "That is not normal."

Tests for contagious diseases known to whip through herds came up negative. Some farmers wondered if the illness was related to ash from wildfires devastating land to the east.

In hindsight, Turley wished he had made more of the migrating geese that congregate in the panhandle each winter and spring. Geese and other waterfowl have carried H5N1 around the globe. They withstand enormous loads of the virus without getting sick, passing it on to local species, like blackbirds, cowbirds, and grackles, that mix with migrating flocks.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given Amazon permission to fly its delivery drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). With that hurdle cleared, the company claims it can fly farther and expand drone service, providing customers faster delivery and a larger selection of items, Amazon announced in a blog post.

Until now, the FAA has only allowed Amazon to fly drones as far as someone could see them from the ground. That way, spotters or pilots could ensure that drones weren't interfering with aircraft. However, the constraint seriously limited how far the drones could travel.

To move beyond that, Amazon said it spent years developing "onboard detect-and-avoid technology." It submitted engineering information to the FAA including operation, maintenance and performance details. Flight tests were then conducted in the presence of FAA inspectors around airplanes, helicopters and a hot air balloon to "demonstrate how the drone safely navigated away from each one of them," Amazon said.

With BVLOS approval in hand, the company plans to expand its delivery area around its drone facility at College Station, Texas. Later in 2024, drone deliveries will be integrated into its broader delivery network.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In recent decades, canine cognitive tests which measure, for example, problem-solving ability, memory, logical reasoning and impulse control in various situations, have been extensively used in many studies.

Until now, it has remained unknown whether the traits measured by the tests can be seen in everyday life as well. Are dogs that fare well in these tests, for example, easier to train in everyday settings? Is coexistence perhaps easier with such dogs?

A study conducted at the University of Helsinki found that self-control and turning to humans in problem situations are valuable traits for pet dogs, while impulsiveness and an independent problem-solving style can lead to challenges in daily life.

"We found surprisingly many connections between everyday canine behavior and cognitive traits, even after taking into account, for example, the age, sex, background and training history of dogs," says Doctoral Researcher Saara Junttila from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

[...] A so-called impossible task was used to measure the dogs' primary problem-solving strategies. In problematic situations, dogs may attempt to solve the task independently, or they may turn to humans, as if asking for help. Dogs can also abandon the task and go elsewhere.

Dogs that spent the most time asking humans for help were, according to their owners, more obedient and easier to train in everyday life, and they also had fewer management issues, such as pulling on the leash, stealing food, running away and chewing on objects.

Everyday obedience was also associated with what is known as the cylinder test, which is assumed to measure self-control. In the test, the dog must go to the open end of a transparent cylinder to get a treat. The study confirmed this link, as the dogs that made the most mistakes in the cylinder test were more impulsive, and also more difficult to train in everyday life, according to the owners.

"It appears that good impulse control could make everyday co-existence with the owner easier, while impulsiveness can make it considerably more difficult," Junttila says.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/05/russia-and-china-are-using-openai-tools-to-spread-disinformation/

OpenAI has revealed operations linked to Russia, China, Iran and Israel have been using its artificial intelligence tools to create and spread disinformation, as technology becomes a powerful weapon in information warfare in an election-heavy year.

The San Francisco-based maker of the ChatGPT chatbot said in a report on Thursday that five covert influence operations had used its AI models to generate text and images at a high volume, with fewer language errors than previously, as well as to generate comments or replies to their own posts. OpenAI's policies prohibit the use of its models to deceive or mislead others.

[...] Microsoft-backed OpenAI said it was committed to uncovering such disinformation campaigns and was building its own AI-powered tools to make detection and analysis "more effective." It added its safety systems already made it difficult for the perpetrators to operate, with its models refusing in multiple instances to generate the text or images asked for.

See also:

• How Russia-, China-linked actors use OpenAI for disinformation
• In a first, OpenAI removes influence operations tied to Russia, China and Israel

• OpenAI Says Russia, China, and Israel Are Using Its Tools for Foreign Influence Campaigns

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Kaspersky releases free tool that scans Linux for known threats

[^{Editor's Note: This software is downloaded and run entirely at the user's risk. Soylentnews does not accept any responsibiity for any loss of data resulting from running this software}.]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/kaspersky-releases-free-tool-that-scans-linux-for-known-threats/

Kaspersky has released a new virus removal tool named KVRT for the Linux platform, allowing users to scan their systems and remove malware and other known threats for free.

The security firm notes that despite the common misconception that Linux systems are intrinsically secure from threats, there has been a constant supply of "in the wild" examples that prove otherwise, most recently, the XZ Utils backdoor.

Kaspersky's new tool isn't a real-time threat protection tool but a standalone scanner that can detect malware, adware, legitimate programs abused for malicious purposes, and other known threats and offers to clean them.

[...] "Our application can scan system memory, startup objects, boot sectors, and all files in the operating system for known malware. It scans files of all formats — including archived ones," says Kaspersky.

One thing to note is that KVRT only supports 64-bit systems and requires an active internet connection to work.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Six planets to appear in alignment next week in rare celestial parade:

Stargazers are in with a chance of a celestial treat on Monday with six planets appearing in alignment.

Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus will take part in the parade – which occurs when planets gather on the same side of the sun.

Prof Danny Steeghs, of the University of Warwick said the event, which should be visible around the world, was due to occur around sunrise and would be rather low in the east, meaning the alignment would need some equipment to see properly.

"Uranus and Neptune will be faint, so viewers will require good binoculars to see them," he said, adding that the proximity of Jupiter and Mercury to the sun would restrict their view.

See also:

• Planetary Alignment 2024: What Is It? When Is the Next Planetary Alignment?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Consider the sea urchin. Specifically, the painted urchin: Lytechinus pictus, a prickly Ping-Pong ball from the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The species is a smaller and shorter-spined cousin of the purple urchins devouring kelp forests. They produce massive numbers of sperm and eggs that fertilize outside of their bodies, allowing scientists to watch the process of urchin creation up close and at scale. One generation gives rise to the next in four to six months. They share more genetic material with humans than fruit flies do and can't fly away—in short, an ideal lab animal for the developmental biologist.

Scientists have been using sea urchins to study cell development for roughly 150 years. Despite urchins' status as super reproducers, practical concerns often compel scientists to focus their work on more easily accessible animals: mice, fruit flies, worms.

Scientists working with mice, for example, can order animals online with the specific genetic properties they are hoping to study—transgenic animals, whose genes have been artificially tinkered with to express or repress certain traits.

Researchers working with urchins typically have to spend part of their year collecting them from the ocean.

"Can you imagine if mouse researchers were setting a mousetrap every night, and whatever it is they caught is what they studied?" said Amro Hamdoun, a professor at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

[...] In March, Hamdoun's lab published a paper on the bioRxiv preprint server demonstrating the successful insertion of a piece of foreign DNA—specifically, a fluorescent protein from a jellyfish—into the genome of a painted urchin that passed the change down to its offspring.

The result is the first transgenic sea urchin, one that happens to glow like a Christmas bulb under a fluorescent light. (The paper has been submitted for peer review.)

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

According to the presentation from Sony's internal Game & Network Services business reports, the PS5 has raked in $106 billion in sales since launching in November 2020. That's quite the figure for a console that's 'only' been on the market for around three and a half years.

However, several aspects require clarification. That $106 billion doesn't just account for PS5 hardware and software sales – it covers Sony's entire gaming business during the current generation: PS4 sales, older game releases, subscriptions, the works. It's the total pie, not just the PS5 slice.

Still, the numbers are impressive when you consider the PS4 generation 'only' pulled in $107 billion across its entire seven-year run from 2013 to 2019. With the PS5 closing in on that total revenue after just four years, it's clearly on track to become Sony's biggest console cash cow ever.

The secret sauce seems to be players spending more cash on the PS5 ecosystem as a whole. While the PS4 outsold its successor by a massive 117 million to 56 million units, the higher PS5 price tag combined with increased spending on DLC, microtransactions, services, and accessories is giving Sony a bigger bang for its buck.

[...] There has been some less-welcome news, though. Sony's financial report for the fourth quarter of its financial year revealed that the PS5 missed the revised sales target for the quarter. And earlier this year, Sony's gaming division announced plans to trim its global workforce by roughly eight percent, or around 900 people, with the aim of streamlining resources.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

One day last October, subscribers to an ISP known as Windstream began flooding message boards with reports their routers had suddenly stopped working and remained unresponsive to reboots and all other attempts to revive them.

[...] In the messages—which appeared over a few days beginning on October 25—many Windstream users blamed the ISP for the mass bricking. They said it was the result of the company pushing updates that poisoned the devices. Windstream’s Kinetic broadband service has about 1.6 million subscribers in 18 states, including Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky. For many customers, Kinetic provides an essential link to the outside world.

[...] A report published Thursday by security firm Lumen Technologies’ Black Lotus Labs may shed new light on the incident, which Windstream has yet to explain. Black Lotus Labs researchers said that over a 72-hour period beginning on October 25, malware took out more than 600,000 routers connected to a single autonomous system number belonging to an unnamed ISP.

While the researchers aren’t identifying the ISP, the particulars they report match almost perfectly with those detailed in the October messages from Windstream subscribers. Specifically, the date the mass bricking started, the router models affected, the description of the ISP, and the displaying of a static red light by the out-of-commission ActionTec routers. Windstream representatives declined to answer questions sent by email.

According to Black Lotus, the routers—conservatively estimated at a minimum of 600,000—were taken out by an unknown threat actor with equally unknown motivations. The actor took deliberate steps to cover their tracks by using commodity malware known as Chalubo, rather than a custom-developed toolkit. A feature built into Chalubo allowed the actor to execute custom Lua scripts on the infected devices. The researchers believe the malware downloaded and ran code that permanently overwrote the router firmware.

“We assess with high confidence that the malicious firmware update was a deliberate act intended to cause an outage, and though we expected to see a number of router make and models affected across the internet, this event was confined to the single ASN,” Thursday’s report stated before going on to note the troubling implications of a single piece of malware suddenly severing the connections of 600,000 routers.

[...] A Black Lotus representative said in an interview that researchers can't rule out that a nation-state is behind the router-wiping incident affecting the ISP. But so far, the researchers say they aren't aware of any overlap between the attacks and any known nation-state groups they track.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The pigeon wins - but "the pigeon gets outpaced at distances over about 600 miles."

https://youtu.be/4pz2kMxCu8I

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/yes-a-pigeon-is-still-faster-than-gigabit-fiber-internet

Filed under Hardware, though it should be under Meatware.

Original Submission