Technology

After months of back and forth, Intel has finally agreed to extend the warranty on all affected 13th- and 14th-generation desktop CPUs by an additional two years. This extension increases the warranty period for new boxed Intel CPUs from three to five years. For CPUs pre-installed in systems, Intel directs users to contact their PC's manufacturer for support, maintaining its established channels for warranty claims. The Verge adds: Intel has said that a primary cause of the instability issues for the desktop CPUs was due to an "elevated operating voltage" and that it was working on a patch for mid-August that addresses the root cause of that. But the patch apparently won't fix any damage that's already happened, meaning the best way to fix a damaged chip is to replace it.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The technology flaws of the U.S. Secret Service helped the gunman who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month evade detection. An officer broadcast "long gun!" over the local law enforcement radio system, according to congressional testimony from the Secret Service this week, the New York Times reported. The radio message should have travelled to a command center shared between local police and the Secret Service, but the message was never received by the Secret Service. About 30 seconds later, the shooter, Thomas Crooks, fired his first shots. It was one of several technology issues facing the Secret Service on 13 July due to either malfunction, improper deployment or the Secret Service opting not to utilize them. The Secret Service had also previously rejected requests from the Trump campaign for more resources over the past two years. The use of a surveillance drone was turned down by the Secret Service at the rally site and the agency also did not bring in a system to boost the signals of agents' devices as the area had poor cell service. And a system to detect drone use in the area by others did not work, according to the report in the New York Times, due to the communications network in the area being overwhelmed by the number of people gathered at the rally. The federal agency did not use technology it had to bolster their communications system. The shooter flew his own drone over the site for 11 minutes without being detected, about two hours before Trump appeared at the rally. Ronald Rowe Jr, the acting Secret Service director, said it never utilized the technological tools that could have spotted the shooter beforehand. A former Secret Service officer also told the New York Times he "resigned in 2017 over frustration with the agency's delays in evaluating new technology and getting clearance and funding to obtain it and then train officers on it," notes The Guardian. Furthermore, the Secret Service failed to record communications between federal and local law enforcement at the rally.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has agreed to pay a licensing fee [non-paywalled link] to chatbot maker Character.AI for its models and will hire its cofounders and many of its researchers, Character's leaders told staff on Friday. The leaders told Character staff that investors would be bought out at a valuation of about $88 per share, the leaders said in a meeting. That's about 2.5 times the value of shares in Character's 2023 Series A, which valued the company at $1 billion, they said. The Character employees joining Google will work on its Gemini AI efforts, they said. Character will switch to open-source models such as Meta Platforms' Llama 3.1 to power its products, rather than its in-house models, they said. The deal follows a string of similar arrangements by other well-funded artificial intelligence startups. AI developers Adept and Inflection have both effectively sold themselves to Amazon and Microsoft, respectively, in the last five months despite raising considerable capital.

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ROMhacking.net, a prominent platform for fan translations and modifications of classic games, is shutting down after nearly two decades of operation. The site's administrator, who goes by the name Nightcrawler, said the website will remain accessible in a read-only format, but all new submissions have been halted and the site's extensive database has been transferred to the Internet Archive for preservation. ROMhacking.net has long served as a crucial resource for gaming enthusiasts, according to Polygon, hosting a vast array of fan-made translations, bug fixes, and modifications for classic titles, many of which never received official localizations outside their countries of origin. The site's contributions to the gaming community include fan translations of Japanese-exclusive titles and even patches for long-standing bugs in popular games like Super Mario 64. Nightcrawler said the website ran into challenges including in managing the site's exponential growth and increasing copyright pressures, things that contributed to the decision to winding down operations.

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Game Informer, the longest-running gaming magazine in the U.S., is officially dead and GameStop killed it. Kotaku: It began publishing in 1991 and has been one of the last remaining physical gaming magazines in the world, with cover stories that continued to share deep dives and exclusive interviews on the biggest games coming out, from Final Fantasy: VII Rebirth to Star Wars Outlaws. No more. Staff at the magazine, which also publishes a website, weekly podcast, and online video documentaries about game studios and developers, were all called into a meeting on Friday with parent company GameStop's VP of HR. In it they were told the publication was closing immediately, they were all laid off, and would begin receiving severance terms. At least one staffer was in the middle of a work trip when the team was told. The sudden closure of Game Informer means that issue number 367, the outlet's Dragon Age: The Veilguard cover story, will be its last.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The new Labour government has shelved $1.66 bn of funding promised by the Conservatives for tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects, the BBC has learned. It includes $1 bn for the creation of an exascale supercomputer at Edinburgh University and a further $640m for AI Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI. Both funds were unveiled less than 12 months ago. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the money was promised by the previous administration but was never allocated in its budget. Some in the industry have criticised the government's decision. Tech business founder Barney Hussey-Yeo posted on X that reducing investment risked "pushing more entrepreneurs to the US." Businessman Chris van der Kuyl described the move as "idiotic." Trade body techUK said the government now needed to make "new proposals quickly" or the UK risked "losing out" to other countries in what are crucial industries of the future.

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schwit1 writes: A U.S. appeals court on Thursday blocked the Federal Communications Commission's reinstatement of landmark net neutrality rules, saying broadband providers are likely to succeed in a legal challenge. The agency voted in April along party lines to reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet and reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 that were rescinded under then-President Donald Trump. The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which had temporarily delayed the rules, said on Thursday it would temporarily block net neutrality rules and scheduled oral arguments for late October or early November on the issue, dealing a serious blow to President Joe Biden's effort to reinstate the rules. "The final rule implicates a major question, and the commission has failed to satisfy the high bar for imposing such regulations," the court wrote. "Net neutrality is likely a major question requiring clear congressional authorization."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Payments infrastructure firm Infibeam Avenues has acquired a majority 54% stake in Rediff.com for up to $3 million, a dramatic twist of fate for the 28-year-old business that was the first Indian internet firm to list on Nasdaq back in the year 2000. Founded in 1996, Rediff rode the initial dot-com wave to become one of India's leading web portals, offering email, news, and e-commerce services. At its peak, Rediff was valued at over $600 million on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It also drove some of the largest traffic in India, climbing at least up to the 12th spot, according to brokerage house Jefferies.

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Hedge fund Elliott Management has told investors that Nvidia is in a "bubble," and the AI technology driving the chipmaking giant's share price is "overhyped." From a report: The Florida-based firm, which manages about $70bn in assets, said in a recent letter to clients seen by the Financial Times that the megacap technology stocks, particularly Nvidia, were in "bubble land." [non-paywalled link] It added that it was "sceptical" that Big Tech companies would keep buying the chipmaker's graphics processing units in such high volumes, and that AI is "overhyped with many applications not ready for prime time." [...] Many of AI's supposed uses are "never going to be cost-efficient, are never going to actually work right, will take up too much energy, or will prove to be untrustworthy," it said. Elliott, which was founded by billionaire Paul Singer in 1977, added in its client letter that, so far, AI had failed to deliver a promised huge uplift in productivity. "There are few real uses," it said, other than "summarising notes of meetings, generating reports and helping with computer coding." AI, it added, was in effect software that had so far not delivered "value commensurate with the hype."

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Ground temperatures across great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have soared an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a near record heatwave. From a report: While temperatures remain below zero on the polar land mass, which is shrouded in darkness at this time of year, the depths of southern hemisphere winter, temperatures have reportedly reached 28C above expectations on some days. The globe has experienced 12 months of record warmth, with temperatures consistently exceeding the 1.5C rise above preindustrial levels that has been touted as the limit to avoiding the worst of climate breakdown. Michael Dukes, the director of forecasting at MetDesk, said that while individual daily high temperatures were surprising, far more significant was the average rise over the month. Climate scientists' models have long predicted that the most significant effects of anthropogenic climate change would be on polar regions, "and this is a great example of that," he said. "Usually you can't just look at one month for a climate trend but it is right in line with what models predict," Dukes added. "In Antarctica generally that kind of warming in the winter and continuing in to summer months can lead to collapsing of the ice sheets."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google launched its latest artificial intelligence powerhouse, Gemini 1.5 Pro, today, making the experimental "version 0801" available for early testing and feedback through Google AI Studio and the Gemini API. This release marks a major leap forward in the company's AI capabilities and has already sent shockwaves through the tech community. The new model has quickly claimed the top spot on the prestigious LMSYS Chatbot Arena leaderboard (built with Gradio), boasting an impressive ELO score of 1300. This achievement puts Gemini 1.5 Pro ahead of formidable competitors like OpenAI's GPT-4o (ELO: 1286) and Anthropic's Claude-3.5 Sonnet (ELO: 1271), potentially signaling a shift in the AI landscape. Simon Tokumine, a key figure in the Gemini team, celebrated the release in a post on X.com, describing it as "the strongest, most intelligent Gemini we've ever made." Early user feedback supports this claim, with one Redditor calling the model "insanely good" and expressing hope that its capabilities won't be scaled back. "A standout feature of the 1.5 series is its expansive context window of up to two million tokens, far surpassing many competing models," adds VentureBeat. "This allows Gemini 1.5 Pro to process and reason about vast amounts of information, including lengthy documents, extensive code bases, and extended audio or video content."

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According to China's National Energy Administration (NEA), wind and solar energy have collectively eclipsed coal in capacity for the first time ever. By 2026, analysts forecast solar power alone will surpass coal as the country's primary energy source, with a cumulative capacity exceeding 1.38 terawatts (TW) -- 150 gigawatts (GW) more than coal. Oil Pricereports: This shift stems from a growing emphasis on cleaner energy sources and a move away from fossil fuels for the nation. Despite coal's early advantage, with around 50 GW of annual installations before 2016, China has made substantial investments to expand its renewable energy infrastructure. Since 2020, annual installations of wind and solar energy have consistently exceeded 100 GW, three to four times the capacity additions for coal. This momentum has only gathered pace since then, with last year seeing China set a record with 293 GW of wind and solar installations, bolstered by gigawatt-scale renewable hub projects from the NEA's first and second batches connected to the country's grid. China's coal power sector is moving in the opposite direction. Last year, approximately 40 GW of coal power was added, but this figure plummeted to 8 GW in the first half of 2024, according to our estimates. Despite the expansion of renewable energy under supportive policies, the government has implemented stricter restrictions on new coal projects to meet carbon reduction goals. Efforts are now focused on phasing out smaller coal plants, upgrading existing ones to reduce emissions and enforcing more stringent standards for new projects. As a result, the annual capacity addition gap between coal and clean energy has widened dramatically, reaching a 16-fold difference in the first half of 2024.

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For the first time, an AI-controlled autonomous robot performed an entire dental procedure on a human patient, completing the task eight times faster than a human dentist could. New Atlas reports: The system, built by Boston company Perceptive, uses a hand-held 3D volumetric scanner, which builds a detailed 3D model of the mouth, including the teeth, gums and even nerves under the tooth surface, using optical coherence tomography, or OCT. This cuts harmful X-Ray radiation out of the process, as OCT uses nothing more than light beams to build its volumetric models, which come out at high resolution, with cavities automatically detected at an accuracy rate around 90%. At this point, the (human) dentist and patient can discuss what needs doing -- but once those decisions are made, the robotic dental surgeon takes over. It plans out the operation, then jolly well goes ahead and does it. The machine's first specialty: preparing a tooth for a dental crown. Perceptive claims this is generally a two-hour procedure that dentists will normally split into two visits. The robo-dentist knocks it off in closer to 15 minutes. Here's a time-lapse video of the drilling portion, looking very much like a CNC machine at work. Remarkably, the company claims the machine can take care of business safely "even in the most movement-heavy conditions," and that dry run testing on moving humans has all been successful. [...] The robot's not FDA-approved yet, and Perceptive hasn't placed a timeline on rollout, so it may be some years yet before the public gets access to this kind of treatment.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: People who regularly eat processed red meat, like hot dogs, bacon, sausage, salami and bologna, have a greater risk of developing dementia later in life. That was the conclusion of preliminary research presented this week at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference. The study tracked more than 130,000 adults in the United States for up to 43 years. During that period, 11,173 people developed dementia. Those who consumed about two servings of processed red meat per week had a 14 percent greater risk of developing dementia compared to those who ate fewer than three servings per month. Eating unprocessed red meat, like steak or pork chops, did not significantly increase the risk for dementia, though people who ate it every day were more likely to report that they felt their cognition had declined than those who ate red meat less often. (The results of the study have not yet been published in a journal.) There have been several studies published in the past few years that have found an association between ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline. The report notes a study of more than 10,000 middle-aged adults in Brazil, which found that "people who consumed 20 percent or more of their daily calories from ultraprocessed foods experienced more rapid cognitive decline, particularly on tests of executive functioning, over the course of eight years."

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Microsoft Dynamics 365's "field service management" tools enable employers to monitor mobile workers via smartphone apps -- "allegedly to the detriment of their autonomy and dignity," reports The Register. From the report: According to a probe by Cracked Labs - an Austrian nonprofit research group -- the software is part of a broader set of applications that disempowers workers through algorithmic management. The case study [PDF] summarizes how employers in Europe actually use software and smartphone apps to oversee field technicians, home workers, and cleaning staff. It's part of a larger ongoing project helmed by the group called "Surveillance and Digital Control at Work," which includes contributions from AlgorithmWatch; Jeremias Adams-Prassl, professor of law at the University of Oxford; and trade unions UNI Europa and GPA. Mobile maintenance workers used to have a substantial amount of autonomy when they were equipped with basic mobile phones, the study notes, but smartphones have allowed employers to track what mobile workers do, when they do it, where they are, and gather many other data points. The effect of this monitoring, the report argues, means diminished worker discretion, autonomy, and sense of purpose due to task-based micromanagement. The shift has also accelerated and intensified work stress, with little respect to workers' capabilities, differences in lifestyle, and job practices. "Field service workers travel to multiple locations servicing different products every day," a Microsoft spokesperson told The Register. "Dynamics 365 Field Service and its Copilot capabilities are designed to help field service workers schedule, plan and provide onsite maintenance and repairs in the right location, on time with the right information and workplace guides on their device to complete their jobs." "Dynamics 365 Field Service does not use AI to recommend individual workers for specific jobs based on previous performance. Dynamics 365 Field Service was developed in accordance with our Responsible AI principles and data privacy statement. Customers are solely responsible for using Dynamics 365 Field Service in compliance with all applicable laws, including laws relating to accessing individual employee analytics and monitoring."

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Rob Thubron reports via TechSpot: It's a sad case of another day, another round of mass layoffs at a game studio. On this occasion, Destiny developer Bungie has announced it is letting go of 220 employees, or 17% of its workforce. CEO Pete Parsons said the eliminations were due to "financial challenges," which isn't going down well, especially after it was discovered he may have spent over $2.4 million on classic cars after Sony acquired the company, and continued buying them even after the previous layoffs. Bungie blames the job eliminations on "rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions." The Sony subsidiary says it needs to make substantial changes to its cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon. The cuts will impact every level of the company, including executives and senior leader roles -- but not Parsons, obviously. In what appears to be a way of reducing the number of people being laid off, Bungie is moving 155 people to Sony Interactive Entertainment over the next few quarters. Furthermore, a team working on one of Bungie's incubation projects -- an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe -- will be spun off to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios. [...] "This is hitting people who were told they were valued. That they were important. That they were critical to business success. But none of that mattered," wrote Bungie technical UX designer Ash Duong. Many have called for Parsons to resign. The calls were amplified when he set his X account to private, but it seems the CEO realized that was making things worse and soon set it to public again. What's angering people even further is the discovery of what seems to be Parsons' account on a car bidding site called Bring a Trailer. It shows he has spent $2.4 million on classic cars since September 2022, which includes $500,000 since the October layoffs.

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Progressive groups and Senator Elizabeth Warren are urging the Department of Justice to investigate Nvidia for potential antitrust violations due to its dominant position in the AI chip market. The groups criticize Nvidia's bundling of software and hardware, claiming it stifles innovation and locks in customers. Reuters reports: Demand Progress and nine other groups wrote a letter (PDF) this week, opens new tab urging Department of Justice antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to probe business practices at Nvidia, whose market value hit $3 trillion this summer on demand for chips able to run the complex models behind generative AI. The groups, which oppose monopolies and promote government oversight of tech companies, among other issues, took aim at Nvidia's bundling of software and hardware, a practice that French antitrust enforcers have flagged as they prepare to bring charges. "This aggressively proprietary approach, which is strongly contrary to industry norms about collaboration and interoperability, acts to lock in customers and stifles innovation," the groups wrote. Nvidia has roughly 80% of the AI chip market, including the custom AI processors made by cloud computing companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com. The chips made by the cloud giants are not available for sale themselves but typically rented through each platform. A spokesperson for Nvidia said: "Regulators need not be concerned, as we scrupulously adhere to all laws and ensure that NVIDIA is openly available in every cloud and on-prem for every enterprise. We'll continue to support aspiring innovators in every industry and market and are happy to provide any information regulators need."

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Longtime Slashdot reader ArchieBunker shares a report from Jalopnik: YouTube's Rich Rebuilds has been taking electric vehicles apart to see what makes them tick for years, so when a bargain-priced Fisker Ocean came on his radar, he had to buy it. Even if it was totally bricked. This car was purchased new for over $70,000, had several thousand dollars of paint protection and tint applied, was driven for 300 miles, and traded in. It sat on the dealer lot for long enough for the battery to die, and the techs at the dealer couldn't figure it out. So they sold it to Rich for just 10 grand! As Rich notes in the video, the car is worth way more than ten grand in parts alone, as current Fisker owners will be looking for ways to keep their cars on the road for years to come. The company has gone the way of the dodo, and parts supply and software updates are never going to come. What you see is what you get, and what you get is kind of shitty. In June, Fisker filed for bankruptcy, months after the electric-vehicle startup stopped production of its only model, the oft-malfunctioning Ocean SUV.

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San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has approved a first-in-the-nation ordinance banning landlords from using certain software and algorithms to set rents. The measure, proposed by Board President Aaron Peskin, passed with a 10-0 vote and targets companies like RealPage and Yardi. The ordinance prohibits the sale or use of "algorithmic devices" that analyze non-public competitor data to recommend rents or occupancy levels for residential units in San Francisco. Violators could face civil penalties up to $1,000 per infraction. Proponents argue the software exacerbates the city's housing crisis by enabling artificial rent inflation. RealPage defended its product, stating it "benefits both housing providers and residents" and that customers can reject price recommendations. The ban follows federal scrutiny of algorithmic rent-setting practices. A final vote is scheduled for September 3.

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An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed, written by former hedge fund manager Marc Rubinstein: With new technologies come new rules governing how they are used. Often, policy is framed via analogy: Are social media platforms publishers or are they town squares? Are instant messages water-cooler chatter or are they formal communication? So it is with peer-to-peer electronic payments. Last week a US Senate committee joined the debate over whether they're analogous to cash or to bank-payment channels. It's an essential distinction -- for both consumers and the companies that provide this free service. [...] Yet while no bank would accept liability if a customer lost their wallet to a pickpocket, the senators' debate focused on who's responsible when fraudsters target electronic wallets. Last year, customers of the three largest lenders -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- lost a total of $370 million via Zelle, the platform these banks jointly own with four others. According to the majority staff report (PDF) filed by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which convened the July 23 hearing, the banks reimbursed only around $100 million of that, leaving consumers to shoulder the rest. While small in the context of overall volume that go through Zelle -- $806 billion last year, of which these banks did 73% -- that's cold comfort for the customers. Legally, a bank's obligation rests on whether clients fall victim to a "fraud" or to a "scam." In a fraud, money is transferred out of the user's account without their authorization, usually as the result of hacking. Under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, banks are required to reimburse such losses. As long as the customer authorizes the transaction, though, even if fraudulently induced to do so, banks don't have to pick up the tab. Such scams are growing as fraudsters parade as a bank employee, a love interest or a potential new employer, often via social media. According to a Pew Research survey, 13% of P2P platform users reported sending money, only later to realize they were set up. Persuading your bank you are the victim of a fraud rather than a scam can take some work. [...] For bad guys, the speed of P2P payments makes them a particularly attractive target. A Zelle transfer can take 20 to 30 seconds to initiate. In most cases, by the time an unsuspecting consumer realizes they have been targeted, their money is already gone. Banks argue this is no different from cash. [...] However, others see P2P transactions more akin to electronic payments and question why reimbursement rates, at 26% in the case of Zelle, are so much lower than for credit-card payments (47%) or debit-card payments (36%) at the three big banks. Despite critical differences, the subcommittee agrees. Its report recommends extending purchase protections standard in credit and debit-card markets to commercial P2P payments, and amending the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to make fraudulently induced transactions subject to reimbursement. Such a move has already been adopted in the UK, where new rules requiring financial institutions to fully reimburse victims of scams come into force in October this year. US bankers aren't keen. "We need to be thoughtful and think about unintended consequences," Adam Vancini, Wells Fargo's head of payments for Consumer, Small & Business Banking, said at the Senate hearing. For now, Zelle transfers enjoy all the benefits of cash. Layer in the benefits of card payments, too, and the no-cost model may disappear.

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