Technology

Uber and General Motors' Cruise have partnered to offer driverless rides to Uber users as early as soon as next year. CNBC reports: Both Cruise CEO Marc Whitten and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi hailed the partnership in a press release, stressing that the companies believe autonomous vehicles can be deployed safely. "Cruise is on a mission to leverage driverless technology to create safer streets and redefine urban life," Whitten said in the release. "We are excited to partner with Uber to bring the benefits of safe, reliable, autonomous driving to even more people, unlocking a new era of urban mobility." Khosrowshahi said in the release that Uber is "thrilled to partner with Cruise and look forward to launching next year." On Uber's most recent earnings call, analysts asked the company how the emergence of robotaxis would likely impact the ridehailing giant's business long-term. Khosrowshahi said on the call that "AV players" experience much higher utilization with Uber than they do "without a network on a first-party basis." He also predicted there will be a "pretty long hybrid period as autonomous is developing and regulators are trying to figure out exactly how to regulate it." He added, "We don't think this will be a winner-take-all market."

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The Wow! signal, detected on August 15, 1977, was an intense radio transmission that appeared artificial and raised the possibility of extraterrestrial contact. However, recent research suggests it may have been caused by a natural astrophysical event involving a magnetar flare striking a hydrogen cloud. Universe Today reports: New research shows that the Wow! Signal has an entirely natural explanation. The research is "Arecibo Wow! I: An Astrophysical Explanation for the Wow! Signal." The lead author is Abel Mendez from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo. It's available at the pre-print server arxiv.org. Arecibo Wow! is a new effort based on an archival study of data from the now-defunct Arecibo Radio Telescope from 2017 to 2020. The observations from Arecibo are similar to those from Big Ear but "are more sensitive, have better temporal resolution, and include polarization measurements," according to the authors. "Our latest observations, made between February and May 2020, have revealed similar narrowband signals near the hydrogen line, though less intense than the original Wow! Signal," said Mendez. Arecibo detected signals similar to the Wow! signal but with some differences. They're far less intense and come from multiple locations. The authors say these signals are easily explained by an astrophysical phenomenon and that the original Wow! signal is, too. "We hypothesize that the Wow! Signal was caused by sudden brightening from stimulated emission of the hydrogen line due to a strong transient radiation source, such as a magnetar flare or a soft gamma repeater (SGR)," the researchers write. Those events are rare and rely on precise conditions and alignments. They can cause clouds of hydrogen to brighten considerably for seconds or even minutes. The researchers say that what Big Ear saw in 1977 was the transient brightening of one of several H1 (neutral hydrogen) clouds in the telescope's line of sight. The 1977 signal was similar to what Arecibo saw in many respects. "The only difference between the signals observed in Arecibo and the Wow! Signal is their brightness. It is precisely the similarity between these spectra that suggests a mechanism for the origin of the mysterious signal," the authors write. These signals are rare because the spatial alignment between source, cloud, and observer is rare. The rarity of alignment explains why detections are so rare. The researchers were able to identify the clouds responsible for the signal but not the source. Their results suggest that the source is much more distant than the clouds that produce the hydrogen signal. "Given the detectability of the clouds as demonstrated in our data, this insight could enable precise location of the signal's origin and permit continuous monitoring for subsequent events," the researchers explain.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: A U.S. government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children. The report, based on an analysis of previously published research, marks the first time a federal agency has determined -- "with moderate confidence" -- that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. While the report was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoride in drinking water alone, it is a striking acknowledgment of a potential neurological risk from high levels of fluoride. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century. The long-awaited report released Wednesday comes from the National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. It summarizes a review of studies, conducted in Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico, that concludes that drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter is consistently associated with lower IQs in kids. The report did not try to quantify exactly how many IQ points might be lost at different levels of fluoride exposure. But some of the studies reviewed in the report suggested IQ was 2 to 5 points lower in children who'd had higher exposures. Since 2015, federal health officials have recommended a fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter of water, and for five decades before the recommended upper range was 1.2. The World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5. The report said that about 0.6% of the U.S. population -- about 1.9 million people -- are on water systems with naturally occurring fluoride levels of 1.5 milligrams or higher. The 324-page report did not reach a conclusion about the risks of lower levels of fluoride, saying more study is needed. It also did not answer what high levels of fluoride might do to adults.

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Microsoft plans to phase out Windows Control Panel, a feature dating back to the 1980s, in favor of the modern Settings app, according to a recent support page. The tech giant has been gradually shifting functions to Settings since 2015, aiming for a more streamlined user experience. However, no specific timeline for Control Panel's complete removal has been announced. Microsoft writes in the support page: The Control Panel is a feature that's been part of Windows for a long time. It provides a centralized location to view and manipulate system settings and controls. Through a series of applets, you can adjust various options ranging from system time and date to hardware settings, network configurations, and more. The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

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New submitter ElimGarak000 shares a report from CyberScoop: The Texas-based voice service provider that sent AI-generated robocalls of President Joe Biden to New Hampshire voters ahead of its Democratic presidential primary has agreed to pay a $1 million fine and implement enhanced verification protocols designed to prevent robocalls and phone number spoofing in a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission. The fine represents half the amount the FCC was originally seeking in an enforcement action proposed against Lingo Telecom in May. Despite that, agency leaders characterized the settlement (PDF) as a successful effort to defend U.S. telecommunications networks and election infrastructure from nascent AI and deepfake technologies. [...] In addition to the fine, the settlement requires Lingo Telecom to follow regulatory protocols that were put in place in 2020 to ensure telecommunications carriers authenticate caller identities using their networks. The protocols, known as STIR/SHAKEN, require carriers like Lingo to digitally verify and formally attest to the FCC that callers are legitimate and own the phone number they display on Caller ID. In the New Hampshire robocall case, Kramer and Life Corporation spoofed the phone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic party official who was running a write-in campaign for Biden. The FCC cited Lingo's inability to properly implement and enforce STIR/SHAKEN as a key failure in a February cease-and-desist letter, and again in May when the agency proposed a $2 million enforcement action. The company was also named in a civil lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters and New Hampshire residents, seeking damages over the incident. Per terms of the settlement, Lingo Telecom must hire a senior manager knowledgeable in STIR/SHAKEN protocols and develop a compliance plan, new operating procedures and training programs. They must also report any incidents of non-compliance with STIR/SHAKEN within 15 days of discovery. "Every one of us deserves to know that the voice on the line is exactly who they claim to be," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. "If AI is being used, that should be made clear to any consumer, citizen, and voter who encounters it. The FCC will act when trust in our communications networks is on the line."

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Former President Donald Trump is about to launch a crypto platform called "The DeFiant Ones," according to a post of his on Truth Social. "For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites," Trump wrote. "It's time we take a stand -- together." From a report: The post marks the first time the Republican nominee for president has used his personal platform to promote the as yet unactivated digital bank. Within minutes, his son Donald Trump Jr., shared the post with his 12 million X followers. Trump's post includes a link to a Telegram channel called "The DeFiant Ones," which had approximately 29,000 followers as of Thursday morning, and climbing. An Aug. 15 post describes the group chat as "the only official Telegram channel for the Trump DeFi project" which is building "the future of finance." Two of Trump's sons, Eric Trump and and Donald Jr., have spent weeks teasing the forthcoming platform, which Eric recently described as "digital real estate." "It's equitable. It's collateral anyone can get access to and do so instantly," Eric told the New York Post earlier this month. "I don't know if people realize what a shake up that is for the world of banking and finance. I hope we can help change that." The Trump brothers have also promoted the project with posts declaring that "decentralized finance is the future" and asking people to "stay tuned for a big announcement." The mention of digital real estate could be a reference to selling digitized versions of assets in the metaverse, a concept which peaked in popularity in 2021 during the last bull market cycle in crypto. Digitized real estate could also mean that the project would tokenize real-world assets. [...] Trump's eldest son recently said that the family wasn't launching a memecoin and instead, was working to develop a crypto platform that would rival the traditional banking system. "What we want to do is take on a lot of the banking world," he said Aug. 8. "I think there has been a lot of inequality in that only certain people can get financing [...] so this notion of decentralized finance is obviously very appealing to guys like me who have been debanked," Donald Trump Jr. said in the interview on Locals.

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Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP. From a report: The Essentials app lets you "discover and install many of our best Google services," according to Google's announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google's announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers). HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.

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Wind and solar energy producers in Brazil have warned they are reconsidering future investments there after the national grid operator repeatedly capped how much energy they could deliver in the past year, which squeezed their profits. From a report: Brazil has made big strides encouraging companies to invest in wind, solar and other renewable power generation sources, offering generous financing and subsidies. But all the electricity they generate has taxed the grid. More than a dozen executives and industry representatives said renewable energy investments were less viable under the National Electric System Operator's (ONS) current "curtailments" policy, which temporarily caps how much power ONS accepts from wind and solar plants. The pressure has been most acute in northeast Brazil, a hot spot for renewable energy investment. There are bottlenecks in transmission lines carrying electricity to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere in the more populous southeast region. ONS has managed the grid more cautiously since August 2023, when a power outage in the northeast spread over most of the country. That has meant more curtailments when electricity generation exceeds consumption or there is a lack of transmission capacity. ONS has said curtailments were not excessive, and were necessary for safety. The operator said its data shows only 3% of electricity generated was lost to curtailments last month.Volt Robotics, a power sector consultancy, analyzed ONS numbers.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Pong will always hold a special place in the history of gaming as one of the earliest arcade video games. Introduced in 1972, it was a table tennis game featuring very simple graphics and gameplay. In fact, it's simple enough that even non-living materials known as hydrogels can "learn" to play the game by "remembering" previous patterns of electrical stimulation, according to a new paper published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science. "Our research shows that even very simple materials can exhibit complex, adaptive behaviors typically associated with living systems or sophisticated AI," said co-author Yoshikatsu Hayashi, a biomedical engineer at the University of Reading in the UK. "This opens up exciting possibilities for developing new types of 'smart' materials that can learn and adapt to their environment." [...] The experimental setup was fairly simple. The researchers hooked up electroactive hydrogels to a simulated virtual environment of a Pong game using a custom-built electrode array. The games would start with the ball traveling in a random direction. The hydrogels tracked the ball's position via electrical stimulation and tracked the paddle's position by measuring the distribution of ions in the hydrogels. As the games progressed, the researchers measured how often the hydrogel managed to hit the ball with the paddle. They found that, over time, the hydrogels' accuracy improved, hitting the ball more frequently for longer rallies. They reached their maximum potential for accuracy in about 20 minutes, compared to 10 minutes for the DishBrain. The authors attribute this to the ion movement essentially mapping out a "memory" of all motion over time, exhibiting what appears to be emergent memory functions within the material itself. Perhaps the next step will be to "teach" the hydrogels how to align the paddles in such a way that the rallies go on indefinitely.

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Instagram is adding a new feature today that will "allow users to add a song on their profile -- much like Myspace in the early 2000s," writes The Verge's Mia Sato. From the report: The music added to a user's profile shows up in the bio area, according to screenshots shared by Instagram. A song will be featured on a profile until the user removes or replaces it. But unlike Myspace, songs won't autoplay -- people viewing a profile with a song can play and pause the track. Users can add a song by going to the "edit profile" page, where they'll be able to search for and select a track from Instagram's library of licensed music that's also available for things like Reels or posts. From there, users will be able to select a 30-second-long portion of the song to add.

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Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman reports: Security vulnerabilities are lurking in most of the apps you use on a day-to-day basis; there's just no way for most companies to preemptively fix every possible security issue because of human error, deadlines, lack of resources, and a multitude of other factors. That's why many organizations run bug bounty programs to get external help with fixing these issues. The Google Play Security Reward Program (GPSRP) is an example of a bug bounty program that paid security researchers to find vulnerabilities in popular Android apps, but it's being shut down later this month. Google announced the Google Play Security Reward Program back in October 2017 as a way to incentivize security searchers to find and, most importantly, responsibly disclose vulnerabilities in popular Android apps distributed through the Google Play Store. [...] The purpose of the Google Play Security Reward Program was simple: Google wanted to make the Play Store a more secure destination for Android apps. According to the company, vulnerability data they collected from the program was used to help create automated checks that scanned all apps available in Google Play for similar vulnerabilities. In 2019, Google said these automated checks helped more than 300,000 developers fix more than 1,000,000 apps on Google Play. Thus, the downstream effect of the GPSRP is that fewer vulnerable apps are distributed to Android users. However, Google has now decided to wind down the Google Play Security Reward Program. In an email to participating developers, such as Sean Pesce, the company announced that the GPSRP will end on August 31st. The reason Google gave is that the program has seen a decrease in the number of actionable vulnerabilities reported. The company credits this success to the "overall increase in the Android OS security posture and feature hardening efforts."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The former CEO of a small Kansas bank was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for looting the bank of $47 million -- which he sent to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by scammers who had duped him in a "pig butchering" scheme that appealed to his greed, federal prosecutors said. The massive embezzlement by ex-CEO Shan Hanes in a series of wire transfers over just eight weeks last year led to the collapse and FDIC takeover of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, one of only five U.S. banks that failed in 2023. Hanes, 53, also swindled funds from a local church and investment club -- and a daughter's college savings account -- to transfer money, purportedly to buy cryptocurrency as the scammers insisted they needed more funds to unlock the supposed returns on his investments, according to records from U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kansas. But Hanes never realized any profit and lost all of the money he stole as a result of the scam. Judge John Broomes on Monday sentenced Hanes to 293 months in prison -- 29 months more than what prosecutors requested after he pleaded guilty in May to a single count of embezzlement by a bank officer. [...] [P]rosecutors and bank regulators said that Hanes, who has three daughters with his school teacher wife, began stealing after being targeted in a pig-butchering scheme in late 2022. That scheme was described in a court filing as "a scammer convincing a victim (a pig) to invest in supposedly legitimate virtual currency investment opportunities and then steals the victim's money -- butchering the pig." Hanes, who had served on the board of the American Bankers Association, and been chairman of the Kansas Bankers Association, in December 2022 began making transactions to buy cryptocurrency, which "appeared to be precipitated by communication with an unidentified co-conspirator on the electronic messaging app 'WhatsApp,'" prosecutors wrote in a court filing. "To date, the true identity of the co-conspirator, or conspirators, remain unknown," the filing notes. Hanes initially used personal funds to buy crypto, but in early 2023 he stole $40,000 from Elkhart Church of Christ and $10,000 from the Santa Fe Investment Club, according to prosecutors and a defense filing. He also used $60,000 taken from a daughter's college fund, and nearly $1 million in stock from the Elkhart Financial Corporation, his lawyer said in a filing. In May 2023, he began to make wire transfers from Heartland Tri-State Bank to accounts controlled by scammers, at first with a $5,000 transfer. Two weeks later, on May 30, Hanes wired $1.5 million and a day after that, he sent another transfer of the same amount the following day, filings show. Three days later he directed two wire transfers totaling $6.7 million to be sent by the bank to the crypto wallet, and a whopping $10 million less than two weeks later, and another $3.3 million days afterward. Hanes told bank employees to execute the wire transfers, and "made many misrepresentations to various people" to get access to the funds so they could be transferred, prosecutors wrote. Heartland Tri-State employees circumvented the bank's own wire policy and daily limits to approve Hanes' wire transfers, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

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A newly discovered bug causes iPhones and iPads to briefly crash. All you need to trigger the bug are just four characters. From a report: On Wednesday, a security researcher found that typing "":: can cause the Apple mobile user interface, called Springboard, to crash. TechCrunch verified those characters do crash Springboard when typed into the Search bar in the Settings app, as well as if you swipe all the way to the right on your home screen and type them into the App Library search bar. As others noted, all that's needed is actually "": and any other character. Triggering the bug briefly crashes Springboard, then reloads to your lock screen. In other tests, the bug flashed the screen black for a second. Researchers tell TechCrunch the bug does not appear to be a security issue. "It's not a security bug," said Ryan Stortz, an iOS security researcher who analyzed the bug. Patrick Wardle, who also researches iOS and founded security startup DoubleYou, agreed.

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Over the next 50 years, people will push further into wildlife habitats across more than half the land on Earth, scientists have found, threatening biodiversity and increasing the chance of future pandemics. From a report: Humans have already transformed or occupied between 70% and 75% of the world's land. Research published in Science Advances on Wednesday found the overlap between human and wildlife populations is expected to increase across 57% of the Earth's land by 2070, driven by human population growth. [...] As humans and animals share increasingly crowded landscapes, the bigger overlap could result in higher potential for disease transmission, biodiversity loss, animals being killed by people and wildlife eating livestock and crops, the researchers said. Biodiversity loss is the leading driver of infectious disease outbreaks. About 75% of emerging diseases in humans are zoonotic, meaning they can be passed from animals to humans, and many diseases concerning global health authorities -- including Covid-19, mpox, avian flu and swine flu -- likely originated in wildlife.

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Apple will change how users choose browser options in the European Union, add a dedicated section for changing default apps, and make more apps deletable, the company said on Thursday. From a report: The iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU's sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7, forcing it to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers on a "choice screen" the first time they open Safari. In an update later this year, Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options. A randomly ordered list of 12 browsers per EU country will be shown to the user with short descriptions, and the chosen one will be automatically downloaded, Apple said. The choice screen will also be available on iPads through an update later this year. Apple released a previous update in response to the new rules in March, but browser companies criticized the design of its choice screen, and the Commission opened an investigation on March 25 saying it suspected that the measures fell short of effective compliance. [...] Users will also be able to delete certain Apple-made apps such as App Store, Messages, Camera, Photos and Safari.

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Microsoft will begin sending a revised version of its controversial Recall feature to Windows Insider PCs beginning in October, according to an update published to the company's original blog post about the Recall controversy. From a report: The company didn't elaborate further on specific changes it's making to Recall beyond what it already announced in June. For those unfamiliar, Recall is a Windows service that runs in the background on compatible PCs, continuously taking screenshots of user activity, scanning those screenshots with optical character recognition (OCR), and saving the OCR text and the screenshots to a giant searchable database on your PC. The goal, according to Microsoft, is to help users retrace their steps and dig up information about things they had used their PCs to find or do in the past.

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Gartner is warning that any prospect of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is at least 10 years away and perhaps not certain to ever arrive. It might not even be a worthwhile pursuit, the analyst says. From a report: AGI has become a controversial topic in the last couple of years as builders of large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI, make bold claims that they've established a near-term path toward human-like intelligence. At the same time, others from the discipline of cognitive science have scorned the idea, arguing that the concept of AGI is poorly understood and the LLM approach is insufficient. In its Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2024, Gartner says it distills "key insights" from more than 2,000 technologies and, using its framework, produces a succinct set of "must-know" emerging technologies that have the potential to deliver benefits over the next two to ten years. The consultancy notes that GenAI -- the subject of volumes of industry hype and billions in investment -- is about to enter the dreaded "trough of disillusionment." Arun Chandrasekaran, Gartner distinguished VP analyst, told The Register: "The expectations and hype around GenAI are enormously high. So it's not that the technology, per se, is bad, but it's unable to keep up with the high expectations that I think enterprises have because of the enormous hype that's been created in the market in the last 12 to 18 months." However, GenAI is likely to have a significant impact on investment in the longer term, Chandrasekaran said. "I truly still believe that the long-term impact of GenAI is going to be quite significant, but we may have overestimated, in some sense, what it can do in the near term."

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Software engineers at Microsoft earn an average total compensation ranging from $148,436 to $1,230,000 annually, depending on their level, according to a leaked spreadsheet viewed by Business Insider. The data, voluntarily shared by hundreds of U.S.-based Microsoft employees, includes information on salaries, performance-based raises, promotions, and bonuses. The highest-paid engineers work in Microsoft's newly formed AI organization, with average total compensation of $377,611. Engineers in Cloud and AI, Azure, and Experiences and Devices units earn between $242,723 and $255,126 on average.

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Peloton on Thursday said it will start charging new subscribers a one-time $95 activation fee if they bought their hardware on the secondary market as more consumers snag lightly used equipment for a fraction of the typical retail price. From a report: The used equipment activation fee for subscribers in the U.S. and Canada comes as Peloton starts to see a meaningful increase in new members who bought used Bikes or Treads from peer-to-peer markets such as Facebook Marketplace. During its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended June 30, Peloton said it saw a "steady stream of paid connected fitness subscribers" who bought hardware on the secondary market. The company said the segment grew 16% year over year. "We believe a meaningful share of these subscribers are incremental, and they exhibit lower net churn rates than rental subscribers," the company said in a letter to shareholders. "It's also worth highlighting that this activation fee will be a source of incremental revenue and gross profit for us, helping to support our investments in improving the fitness experience for our members," interim co-CEO Christopher Bruzzo later added on a call with analysts.

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Epic Games launched its alternative app store in the European Union last week, capitalizing on new regulations opening up iOS. The store aims to offer developers lower commissions and greater payment flexibility compared to Apple's App Store. However, Apple's new terms for alternative marketplaces present significant challenges for developers. Apple imposes a 50 euro cent per user per year installation fee, a 10% commission on external sales, and a 5% fee on purchases within a year of installation. These fees apply on top of Epic's 12% commission, potentially making the alternative store less attractive for many developers, The Verge writes. While Epic can likely absorb these costs for its hit game Fortnite, smaller developers face a steeper hurdle. Some industry insiders express skepticism about the viability of the new ecosystem for most app creators. Epic plans to offer a curated selection of third-party games on its mobile store by December, but widespread adoption remains uncertain.

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