Programming

Replit Wiped Production Database, Faked Data to Cover Bugs, SaaStr Founder Says (theregister.com) 43

AI coding service Replit deleted a user's production database and fabricated data to cover up bugs, according to SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin. Lemkin documented his experience on social media after Replit ignored his explicit instructions not to make code changes without permission.

The database deletion eliminated 1,206 executive records representing months of authentic SaaStr data curation. Replit initially told Lemkin the database could not be restored, claiming it had "destroyed all database versions," but later discovered rollback functionality did work. Replit said it made "a catastrophic error of judgement" and rated the severity of its actions as 95 out of 100. The service also created a 4,000-record database filled with fictional people and repeatedly violated code freeze requests.

Lemkin had initially praised Replit after building a prototype in hours, spending $607.70 in additional charges beyond his $25 monthly plan. He concluded the service isn't ready for commercial use by non-technical users.
Transportation

Delta's Boeing 767 Makes Emergency Landing as Engine Catches Fire Moments After Takeoff (livemint.com) 79

A new video shows flames emanating from one side of a Boeing 767 moments after takeoff, reports LiveMint.com. "Delta flight 446 was forced to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles," they report, adding "No one was injured. The fire was extinguished upon landing." According to a report by Aviation A2Z, the plane (24-year-old Boeing 767-400 with registration N836MH) had just departed from Los Angeles International Airport when its left engine ignited. The pilots promptly declared an emergency and requested to return to the airport.
Delta faced a similar issue less than three months ago. The article notes the engine of an Airbus also caught on fire in April when pushing back from the gate for departure. CBS News describes that incident: Delta said crew members evacuated the cabin when flames were seen in the tailpipe of one of the plane's two main engines and fire crews quickly responded. According to Delta, the plane, an Airbus 330, had 282 passengers, 10 flight attendants and two pilots on board...

The engine fire marks the latest aviation scare involving the airline in recent months. In February, 21 people were injured after a Delta plane flipped upside down while landing amid wintry conditions at Toronto Pearson International Airport. All of the injured passengers were later released from the hospital. In January, several people were injured after a Delta flight aborted its takeoff at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, forcing about 200 passengers to evacuate the plane through emergency slides. ["A passenger says the engine on the Boeing 757 caught fire," according to CBS's video report in January.]

IBM

Why IBM's Amazing 'Sliding Keyboard' ThinkPad 701 Never Survived Past 1995 (fastcompany.com) 40

Fast Company's tech editor Harry McCracken (also harrymccSlashdot reader #1,641,347) writes: As part of Fast Company's "1995 week", I wrote about IBM's ThinkPad 701, the famous model with an expanding "butterfly" keyboard [which could be stretched from 9.7-inches to 11.5 inches]. By putting full-sized keys in a subnotebook-sized laptop, it solved one of mobile computing's biggest problems.

IBM discontinued it before the end of the year, and neither it nor anyone else ever made anything similar again. And yet it remains amazing.

Check out this 1995 ad for the keyboard! The article calls the butterfly ThinkPad "one of the best things the technology industry has ever done with moving parts," and revisits 1995's race "to design a subnotebook-sized laptop with a desktop-sized keyboard." It's still comically thick, standing almost as tall as four MacBook Airs stacked on each other. That height is required to accommodate multiple technologies later rendered obsolete by technological progress, such as a dial-up fax/modem, an infrared port, two PCMCIA expansion card slots, and a bulky connector for an external docking station... Lifting the screen set off a system of concealed gears and levers that propelled the two sections of keyboard into position with balletic grace... A Businesweek article cited sales of 215,000 units and said it was 1995's best-selling PC laptop. Yet by the time that story appeared in February 1996, the 701 had been discontinued. IBM never made anything like it again. Neither did anyone else...

As portable computers became more popular, progress in display technology had made it possible for PC makers to use larger screens. Manufacturers were also getting better at fitting a laptop's necessary components into less space. These advances let them design a new generation of thin, light laptops that went beyond the limitations of subnotebooks. Once IBM could make a lightweight laptop with a wider screen, "the need for an expanding keyboard was no longer essential," says [butterfly ThinkPad engineer] George Karidis. "It would have just been a novelty."

The article notes a fan's open source guides for repairing butterfly Thinkpads at Project Butterfly, and all the fan-community videos about it on YouTube, "from an excellent documentary to people simply being entranced by it.

"As a thing of wonder, it continues to transcend its own obsolescence."
Biotech

Healthy Babies Born in Britain After Scientists Used DNA From Three People to Avoid Genetic Disease (phys.org) 100

"Eight healthy babies were born in Britain," reports Phys.org, "with the help of an experimental technique that uses DNA from three people to help mothers avoid passing devastating rare diseases to their children, researchers reported Wednesday."

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA "can cause a range of diseases in children that can lead to muscle weakness, seizures, developmental delays, major organ failure and death," and in rare cases even pre-IVF testing can't clearly detect their presence. Researchers have been developing a technique that tries to avoid the problem by using the healthy mitochondria from a donor egg. They reported in 2023 that the first babies had been born using this method... Using this method means the embryo has DNA from three people — from the mother's egg, the father's sperm and the donor's mitochondria — and it required a 2016 U.K. law change to approve it. It is also allowed in Australia but not in many other countries, including the U.S. Experts at Britain's Newcastle University and Monash University in Australia reported in the New England Journal of Medicine Wednesday that they performed the new technique in fertilized embryos from 22 patients, which resulted in eight babies that appear to be free of mitochondrial diseases. One woman is still pregnant...

Robin Lovell-Badge [a stem cell and developmental genetics scientist at the Francis Crick Institute who was not involved in the research] said the amount of DNA from the donor is insignificant, noting that any resulting child would have no traits from the woman who donated the healthy mitochondria...

In the U.K., every couple seeking a baby born through donated mitochondria must be approved by the country's fertility regulator. As of this month, 35 patients have been authorized to undergo the technique. Critics have previously raised concerns, warning that it's impossible to know the impact these sorts of novel techniques might have on future generations... But in countries where the technique is allowed, advocates say it could provide a promising alternative for some families.

The Military

What Eyewitnesses Remembered About the World's First Atomic Bomb Explosion in 1945 (politico.com) 47

Historian Garrett M. Graff describes his upcoming book, The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb. "I assembled an oral history of the Manhattan Project, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II in the Pacific, told through the voices of around 500 participants and witnesses of the events — including luminaries like Albert Einstein and Oppenheimer and political figures like President Harry Truman."

It was 80 years ago this week that physicists and 150 other leaders in the atomic bomb program "gathered in the desert outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, for the world's first test of a nuclear explosion." In an except from his upcoming book, Graff publishes quotes from eyewitness: Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves: I had become a bit annoyed with Fermi when he suddenly offered to take wagers from his fellow scientists on whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world. He had also said that after all it wouldn't make any difference whether the bomb went off or not because it would still have been a well worthwhile scientific experiment. For if it did fail to go off, we would have proved that an atomic explosion was not possible. Afterward, I realized that his talk had served to smooth down the frayed nerves and ease the tension of the people at the base camp, and I have always thought that this was his conscious purpose. Certainly, he himself showed no signs of tension that I could see...

As the hour approached, we had to postpone the test — first for an hour and then later for 30 minutes more — so that the explosion was actually three- and one-half hours behind the original schedule... Our preparations were simple. Everyone was told to lie face down on the ground, with his feet toward the blast, to close his eyes and to cover his eyes with his hands as the countdown approached zero. As soon as they became aware of the flash they could turn over and sit or stand up, covering their eyes with the smoked glass with which each had been supplied... The quiet grew more intense. I, myself, was on the ground between Bush and Conant...

Edward Teller: We all were lying on the ground, supposedly with our backs turned to the explosion. But I had decided to disobey that instruction and instead looked straight at the bomb. I was wearing the welder's glasses that we had been given so that the light from the bomb would not damage our eyes. But because I wanted to face the explosion, I had decided to add some extra protection. I put on dark glasses under the welder's glasses, rubbed some ointment on my face to prevent sunburn from the radiation, and pulled on thick gloves to press the welding glasses to my face to prevent light from entering at the sides... We all listened anxiously as the broadcast of the final countdown started; but, for whatever reason, the transmission ended at minus five seconds...

Kenneth T. Bainbridge: My personal nightmare was knowing that if the bomb didn't go off or hang-fired, I, as head of the test, would have to go to the tower first and seek to find out what had gone wrong...

Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Farrell: Dr. Oppenheimer held on to a post to steady himself. For the last few seconds, he stared directly ahead.

A few examples of how they remembered the explosion:
  • William L. Laurence: There rose from the bowels of the earth a light not of this world, the light of many suns in one.
  • Kenneth T. Bainbridge: I felt the heat on the back of my neck, disturbingly warm.
  • George B. Kistiakowsky: I am sure that at the end of the world — in the last millisecond of the earth's existence — the last man will see what we have just seen.
  • Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Farrell: Oppenheimer's face relaxed into an expression of tremendous relief.
  • J. Robert Oppenheimer: We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried.
  • Norris Bradbury, physicist, Los Alamos Lab: Some people claim to have wondered at the time about the future of mankind. I didn't. We were at war, and the damned thing worked.

Transportation

Boeing Fuel Switches Checked, as Critic Cites a Similar Fuel Switch Cutoff in 2019 (financialexpress.com) 90

ABC News reports: Dialogue heard on a cockpit voice recording indicates that the captain of the Air India flight that crashed in June, killing 260 people, may have turned off the fuel just after takeoff, prompting the first officer to panic, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited sources familiar with U.S. official's early assessment... The president of the Federation of Indian Pilots condemned the Wall Street Journal report, saying, "The preliminary report nowhere states that the pilots have moved the fuel control switches, and this has been corroborated by the CVR [cockpit voice recorder] recording."
But meanwhile "India on Monday ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing aircraft models," reports Reuters, "while South Korea ordered a similar measure on Tuesday, as scrutiny intensified of fuel switch locks at the centre of an investigation into a deadly Air India crash." The precautionary moves by the two countries and airlines in several others came despite the planemaker and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration assuring airlines and regulators in recent days that the fuel switch locks on Boeing jets are safe... [The preliminary report] noted a 2018 advisory from the FAA, which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally... Some airlines around the world told Reuters they had been checking relevant switches since 2018 in accordance with the FAA advisory, including Australia's Qantas Airways. Others said they had made additional or new checks since the release of the preliminary report into the Air India crash.
The web site of India's Financial Express newspaper spoke to Mary Schiavo, who was Inspector General of America's Transportation Department from 1990 to 1996 (and is also a long-time critic of the FAA). The site notes Schiavo "rejected the claims of human error that a pilot downed the Ahmedabad to London flight by cutting off the fuel supply." Schiavo exclusively told FinancialExpress.com that this is not the first time fuel switch transitioned from "Run" to "Cutoff" on its own. It happened five years ago, too. "There was an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight in 2019 in which the 787 aircraft did this itself, while the flight was on final approach. No pilot input cutting off the fuel whatsoever," Schiavo told FinancialExpress.com... "The investigation revealed the plane software made the 787 think it was on the ground and the Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation System cut the fuel to the engines," she told FinancialExpress.com, before adding, "The pilots never touched the fuel cutoff..." Both engines flamed out immediately after the pilot deployed the thrust reversers for landing. The aircraft, which was also a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was towed away from the runway by the authorities, and no injuries were reported.

UK Civil Aviation Authority, four weeks before the crash, had warned about similar fuel system issues on Boeing aircraft [on May 15, 2025]. "The FAA has issued an Airworthiness Directive addressing a potential unsafe condition affecting fuel shutoff valves installed on Boeing aircraft," the UK regulator's notice read, listing the B737, B757, B767, B777 and B787...

Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation informs FADEC [a digital computer] about whether the aircraft is on the ground or in the air, and if it believes the aircraft is on the ground, it may automatically throttle back the engines, without the pilot's input.

Reuters notes that the Air India crash preliminary report "said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader wired_parrot for sharing the news.
Transportation

'Edge of Space' Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Dies in Paragliding Accident (go.com) 38

Felix Baumgartner has died. He was 56.

In 2012 Slashdot extensively covered the skydiver's "leap from the edge of space." ABC News remembers it as a Red Bull-financed stunt that involved "diving 24 miles from the edge of space, in a plummet that reached a speed of more than 500 mph." Baumgartner recalled the legendary jump in the documentary, "Space Jump," and said, "I was the first human being outside of an aircraft breaking the speed of sound and the history books. Nobody remembers the second one...."

Baumgartner, also known as "Fearless Felix," accomplished many records in his career, including setting the world record for highest parachute jump atop the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, flying across the English Channel in a wingsuit in 2003, and base jumping from the 85-foot arm of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil in 2007.

"Baumgartner's altitude record stood for two years," remembers the Los Angeles Times, "until Google executive Alan Eustace set new marks for the highest free-fall jump and greatest free-fall distance."

They report that Baumgartner died Thursday "while engaged in a far less intense activity, crashing into the side of a hotel swimming pool while paragliding in Porto Sant Elpidio, a town on central Italy's eastern coast." More details from the Associated Press: "It is a destiny that is very hard to comprehend for a man who has broke all kinds of records, who has been an icon of flight, and who traveled through space," Mayor Massimiliano Ciarpella told The Associated Press.Ciarpella said that Baumgartner had been in the area on vacation, and that investigators believed he may have fallen ill during the fatal flight... Baumgartner, a former Austrian military parachutist, made thousands of jumps from planes, bridges, skyscrapers and famed landmarks...
ABC News remembers that in 2022 Baumgartner wrote in Newsweek that "Since I was a little kid, I've always looked up to people who left a footprint on this planet... now I think I have left a footprint...

"I believe big dreamers always win."
Privacy

'Coldplay Kiss-Cam Flap Proves We're Already Our Own Surveillance State' (theregister.com) 78

Brandon Vigliarolo writes via The Register: A tech executive's alleged affair exposed on a stadium jumbotron is ripe fodder for the gossip rags, but it exhibits something else: proof that we need not wait for an AI-fueled dystopian surveillance state to descend on us -- we're perfectly able and willing to surveil ourselves. The embracing couple caught at a Coldplay concert this week as the jumbotron camera panned around the audience would have been another unremarkable clip, if not for the pair panicking and rushing to hide, triggering attendees to publish the memorable moment on social media. "Either they're having an affair or they're very shy," Coldplay singer Chris Martin said of the pair's reaction.

As is always the case when viral moments of unknown people get uploaded to the internet, they didn't remain anonymous for long, with the internet quickly identifying them as the CEO of data infrastructure outfit Astronomer, Andy Byron, and its Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. We're not going to weigh in on Byron's, who internet sleuths have determined is married (for now), or Cabot's behavior - making someone pay for the moral transgression of an alleged extramarital affair may be enough reason for the internet to go on a witch hunt, but that's not our concern here.

What's worrying is what this moment says - yet again - about us as a society: We have cameras everywhere, our personal data has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world, and we're all perpetually ready to use that tech to make those we feel have violated the social contract pay publicly for their transgressions. This is hardly a new phenomenon. [...] There's really no reason to set up an expensive and oppressive surveillance state when we all have location tracking, internet-connected shaming machines in our pockets. Big tech gave us the tools of our own surveillance, and as "ColdplayGate" shows yet again, we'll keep using those tools if they'll make us feel better about ourselves - especially if someone else gets knocked down a peg in the process.

Government

Trump Signs First Major Federal Crypto Bill Into Law 52

President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, marking the first major U.S. regulation of stablecoins by creating a legal framework for their issuance and consumer protections, while also championing crypto innovation as a major financial revolution. The bill passed the House on Thursday with the support of 206 Republicans and 102 Democrats. From a report: Members of Congress and top executives from Robinhood, Tether, Gemini and other crypto and financial firms were in attendance for the signing ceremony. The fate of the GENIUS Act was in question earlier this week when a dozen conservatives stymied a procedural vote. A compromise was ultimately reached, and the holdouts allowed the legislation to proceed. The president on Friday suggested that he spoke to the holdouts individually on the phone to persuade them, after House Speaker Mike Johnson told him there were a dozen Republicans opposing the bill.

"The good news is, I call up, 'Hello, Jim, how are you?' 'Sir, you have my vote.' Boom. 'Sir, you have my vote.' I really just, they just want a little love," he said. "Unfortunately, it's always the same 12 people." David Sacks, the venture capitalist-turned Mr. Trump's AI and crypto czar, said the president "stepped in and saved this bill." Mr. Trump also said Vice President JD Vance had been on the phone late at night, helping push the legislation through.
AI

Google Hides Secret Message In Name List of 3,295 AI Researchers 24

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: How many Google AI researchers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A recent research paper detailing the technical core behind Google's Gemini AI assistant may suggest an answer, listing an eye-popping 3,295 authors. It's a number that recently caught the attention of machine learning researcher David Ha (known as "hardmaru" online), who revealed on X that the first 43 names also contain a hidden message. "There's a secret code if you observe the authors' first initials in the order of authorship," Ha wrote, relaying the Easter egg: "GEMINI MODELS CAN THINK AND GET BACK TO YOU IN A FLASH."

The paper, titled "Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities," describes Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash AI models, which were released in March. These large language models, which power Google's chatbot AI assistant, feature simulated reasoning capabilities that produce a string of "thinking out loud" text before generating responses in an attempt to help them solve more difficult problems. That explains "think" and "flash" in the hidden text. But clever Easter egg aside, the sheer scale of authorship tells its own story about modern AI development. Just seeing the massive list made us wonder: Is 3,295 authors unprecedented? Why so many?
Ars' Benj Edwards notes that this collaborative effort within Google doesn't quite break the record for academic authorship.

"According to Guinness World Records, a 2021 paper by the COVIDSurg and GlobalSurg Collaboratives holds that distinction, with 15,025 authors from 116 countries. In physics, a 2015 paper from CERN's Large Hadron Collider teams featured 5,154 authors across 33 pages -- with 24 pages devoted solely to listing names and institutions."
The Internet

Dictionary.com 'Devastated' Paid Users By Abruptly Deleting Saved Word Lists (arstechnica.com) 61

Dictionary.com abruptly deleted all user accounts and saved word lists from its premium apps without notice or refunds, leaving long-time logophiles "devastated." "The company deleted all accounts, as well as the only ways to use Dictionary.com without seeing ads -- even if you previously paid for an ad-free experience," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Dictionary.com offers a free dictionary through its website and free Android and iOS apps. It used to offer paid-for mobile apps, called Dictionary.com Pro, that let users set up accounts, use the app without ads, and enabled other features (like grammar tips and science and rhyming dictionaries) that are gone now. Dictionary.com's premium apps also let people download an offline dictionary (its free apps used to let you buy a downloadable dictionary as a one-time purchase), but offline the dictionaries aren't available anymore.

About a year ago, claims of Dictionary.com's apps being buggy surfaced online. We also found at least one person claiming that they were unable to buy an ad-free upgrade at that time. Reports of Dictionary.com accounts being deleted and the apps not working as expected, and with much of its content removed, started appearing online about two months ago. Users reported being unable to log in and access premium features, like saved words. Soon after, Dictionary.com's premium apps were removed from Google Play and Apple's App Store. The premium version was available for download for $6 as recently as March 23, per the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

AI

Young Americans Face Job Market Disconnect as Parents Offer Outdated Career Advice (axios.com) 189

Nearly half of young Americans feel unprepared for future jobs as AI reshapes the workforce faster than career guidance can adapt, according to a new study from the Schultz Family Foundation and HarrisX. The survey of thousands of workers aged 16-24, along with parents, counselors and employers, revealed differences between generations about job availability and requirements. While 71% of employers say sufficient opportunities exist, only 43% of young people agree.

Parents rely on outdated personal experiences when advising children, with 79% drawing from their own career paths despite 66% believing their children should pursue different directions. Employers require at least one year of experience for 77% of entry-level positions while offering internships for just 38% of roles.
AI

Hugging Face Is Hosting 5,000 Nonconsensual AI Models of Real People (404media.co) 33

An anonymous reader shares a report: Hugging Face, a company with a multi-billion dollar valuation and one of the most commonly used platforms for sharing AI tools and resources, is hosting over 5,000 AI image generation models that are designed to recreate the likeness of real people. These models were all previously hosted on Civitai, an AI model sharing platform 404 Media reporting has shown was used for creating nonconsensual pornography, until Civitai banned them due to pressure from payment processors.

Users downloaded the models from Civitai and reuploaded them to Hugging Face as part of a concerted community effort to archive the models after Civitai announced in May it will ban them. In that announcement, Civitai said it will give the people who originally uploaded them "a short period of time" before they were removed. Civitai users began organizing an archiving effort on Discord earlier in May after Civitai indicated it had to make content policy changes due to pressure from payment processors, and the effort kicked into high gear when Civitai announced the new "real people" model policy.

AI

Candy Crush-Maker King Lays Off 200 Staff, Replacing Many With AI Tools They Built (mobilegamer.biz) 41

Candy Crush-maker King is cutting approximately 200 employees, with many positions filled by AI tools the departing workers helped develop, according to multiple sources who spoke anonymously to industry publication MobileGamer.biz. The layoffs heavily target level designers, user research staff, and UX and narrative writers across King's London, Barcelona, Stockholm, and Berlin studios.

The London-based Farm Heroes Saga team faces cuts of roughly 50 people, including key leadership positions. "Most of level design has been wiped, which is crazy since they've spent months building tools to craft levels quicker," one staffer said. "Now those AI tools are basically replacing the teams."
AI

Meta's Superintelligence Lab Considers Shift To Closed AI Model (yahoo.com) 13

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Investing.com: Meta's newly formed superintelligence lab is discussing potential changes to the company's artificial intelligence strategy that could represent a major shift for the social media giant. A small group of top members of the lab, including 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, Meta's new chief A.I. officer, talked last week about abandoning the company's most powerful open source A.I. model, called Behemoth, in favor of developing a closed model, according to a report in the New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter.

Meta has traditionally open sourced its A.I. models, making the computer code public for other developers to build upon, and any shift toward a closed A.I. model would mark a significant philosophical change for Meta. Meta had completed training its Behemoth model by feeding in data to improve it, but delayed its release due to poor internal performance. After the company announced the formation of the superintelligence lab last month, teams working on the Behemoth model, which is considered a "frontier" model, stopped conducting new tests on it. The discussions within the superintelligence lab remain preliminary, and no decisions have been finalized. Any potential changes would require approval from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Social Networks

Are a Few People Ruining the Internet For the Rest of Us? 150

A small fraction of hyperactive social media users generates the vast majority of toxic online content, according to research by New York University psychology professor Jay Van Bavel and colleagues Claire Robertson and Kareena del Rosario. The study found that 10% of users produce roughly 97% of political tweets, while just 0.1% of users share 80% of fake news.

Twelve accounts known as the "disinformation dozen" created most vaccine misinformation on Facebook during the pandemic, the research found. In experiments, researchers paid participants to unfollow divisive political accounts on X. After one month, participants reported 23% less animosity toward other political groups. Nearly half declined to refollow hostile accounts after the study ended, and those maintaining healthier newsfeeds reported reduced animosity 11 months later. The research describes social media as a "funhouse mirror" that amplifies extreme voices while muting moderate perspectives.
Transportation

Air India Chief Says Preliminary Crash Report Raises Fresh Questions 108

Air India's chief executive urged staff to avoid drawing premature conclusions about what caused one of the airline's Boeing triangle jets to crash last month, after a preliminary investigation ruled out mechanical or maintenance issues, turning attention to the pilots' actions. WSJ: Campbell Wilson told staff that the probe into the crash was "far from over," according to an internal memo, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, in which he set out some of the findings of a report issued by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau at the end of last week.

Wilson's memo didn't mention one of the AAIB's findings: that the airplane's fuel-control switches had been turned off one by one, seconds after takeoff, starving both engines of fuel. The switches, which sit between the two seats in the cockpit, were turned back on about 10 seconds later, but the engines apparently couldn't fully restart and gain thrust fast enough, the report said.

The crash of the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner killed all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board, as well as 19 people on the ground, when the plane slammed into a residential area beyond the airport in the Indian city of Ahmedabad. In the memo, Wilson said "over the past 30 days, we've seen an ongoing cycle of theories, allegations, rumours and sensational headlines, many of which have later been disproven."
Google

Google Plans To Combine ChromeOS and Android Into Single Platform 71

Google will merge ChromeOS and Android into a unified platform, according to Sameer Samat, President of Android Ecosystem at Google. "We're going to be combining ChromeOS and Android into a single platform, and I am very interested in how people are using their laptops these days and what they're getting done," Samat said during a recent interview.
Social Networks

Bay Area Restaurants Are Vetting Your Social Media Before You Even Walk In (sfgate.com) 154

Bay Area Michelin-starred restaurants are conducting extensive background research on diners before they arrive, mining social media profiles and maintaining detailed guest databases to personalize dining experiences. Lazy Bear maintains records on 115,000 people and employs a guest services coordinator who creates weekly reports by researching publicly available social media information.

Staff study color-coded Google documents containing guest data before each service. SingleThread's reservation team researches social media, Google, and LinkedIn profiles for guests, where meals cost over $500 on weekends. General manager Akeel Shah told SFGate the information helps "tailor the experience and make it memorable." Acquerello has collected guest data for 36 years, initially handwritten in books. Co-owner Giancarlo Paterlini said their director of operations reviews each reservation for dining history and wine preferences to customize service.
Japan

Japanese AI Adoption Remains Drastically Below Global Leaders (nhk.or.jp) 28

A Japanese government survey found 26.7% of people in Japan used generative AI during fiscal 2024, which ended in March. The figure tripled from the previous year but remained far behind China's 81.2% and the United States' 68.8%.

People in their 20s led Japanese adoption at 44.7%, followed by those in their 40s and 30s. Among companies, 49.7% of Japanese firms planned to use generative AI, compared to more than 80% of companies in China and the US.

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