Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment No thanks, just bring back what was nerfed (Score 1) 36

Assistant used to:

- let me play music not on Youtube Music;
- play some actually fun party games;
- have an SDK for custom voice-controlled apps.
- (the BIG one) let me ask for and play podcasts outside of Youtube Music. (newsflash: not everyone hosts podcasts on youtube!)

All this was nerfed in the past 2-3 years and now our Assistants at home are used for nothing more than asking the time, date, weather, maybe an alarm or reminder, switching on/off some lights.

If they gimp the platform any more I'm just going to throw them out at this point.

Comment This is a problem with Boeing and the law (Score 1) 232

Boeing has had how long to build the new AF1? 8 years without progress?

And what law has Congress passed that stops a president from corruptly diverting assets into their foundations upon exit from office?

Solve these two problems first before you go moaning about Trump being Trump yet again.

Comment Hate to be that guy but... (Score 2) 214

Hate to be that guy who sounds like he's supporting Trump, but too many of these DEI programs are racial profiling under another guise.

If DEI actually sought diversity of thought, experience, output, then yes I'd be complaining about Trump.

Instead we see the real-world implementation seeks only 'diversity' of skin color.

Submission + - Boffins report: "AI" creates more "work" than it saves (arstechnica.com) 1

Mr. Dollar Ton writes: Moreover, previous estimates of huge "productivity gains" are largely faked and the new "work" it is not necessarily useful.

A new study analyzing the Danish labor market in 2023 and 2024 suggests that generative AI models like ChatGPT have had almost no significant impact on overall wages or employment yet, despite rapid adoption in some workplaces.

The reported productivity benefits were modest in the study. Users reported average time savings of just 2.8 percent of work hours (about an hour per week).

The finding contradicts a randomized controlled trial published in February that found generative AI increased worker productivity by 15 percent on average. The difference stems from other experiments focusing on tasks highly suited to AI, whereas most real-world jobs involve tasks AI cannot fully automate.

Submission + - Apple Maps putting Long Island drivers at risk with false red light camera alert (betanews.com)

BrianFagioli writes: Sigh. It’s May 2025, folks, and believe it or not, Apple Maps still hasn’t caught up with a change that happened on Long Island way back in 2024. If you’re driving through Suffolk County, New York, chances are your iPhone is still screaming about red light cameras that no longer exist. You see, the county shut the whole program down in December of last year, but Apple hasn’t bothered to update its navigation data. The alerts keep coming like the cameras are still up and active — but they actually aren’t.

For years, Suffolk’s red light camera program was a point of frustration. Sure, officials said it was about safety, but many residents saw it differently — especially once it brought in nearly $290 million. Then came a court ruling that said the extra fees attached to the tickets weren’t legal. That basically brought the system to its knees. Suffolk shut it all down. But Apple? Still acting like nothing’s changed.

In case you are wondering, I personally tested this on an iPhone 16 Pro Max running the latest iOS version. I was getting the false alerts as recent as May 3, 2025! Quite frankly, it isn’t just annoying — it is worrying.

Drivers depending on Apple Maps are now stuck reacting to ghost warnings. You approach an intersection, the app warns of a red light camera, and you hit the brakes — even though there’s no reason to. It’s unnecessary and disruptive. And it could cause accidents. Truth be told, it’s a bad look for Apple. For a company that pushes out flashy features every few months, you’d think updating map data would be a basic task.

Let’s not forget — this is a Suffolk County issue, not all of Long Island. Nassau County still runs red light cameras. But Suffolk pulled the plug months ago. That’s not a small detail. It’s a fundamental change in how driving enforcement works in that area, and Apple is still stuck in the past.

Apple Maps is on every iPhone. It’s not some niche product. It shapes how millions of people drive and make decisions behind the wheel. So when the app keeps shouting about enforcement that ended last year, it makes drivers question how accurate any of its other data is.

At this point, there’s no excuse. Apple has the money. Apple has the data. Apple has the engineers. But somehow, Suffolk County drivers are still being spooked by alerts tied to a program that hasn’t been active since 2024. That’s not just outdated — it’s careless.

Slashdot Top Deals

The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group"

Working...