ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols shares what's new in the release of Linux 6.5: The biggest news for servers -- and cloud Linux users -- is AMD Ryzen processors' P-State support. This support should mean better performance and power use across CPU cores. Intel Alder Lake CPUs have also received improved load balancing in a related development. RISC-V architecture fans will be pleased to find Linux now has Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support. ACPI is used in Linux and other operating systems for power management. It's vital for laptops and other battery-powered systems.

For better security, people using virtual machines or sandboxes based on Usermode Linux for testing, or running multiple versions of Linux at once, now have Landlock support. Landock is a Linux Security Module that enables applications to sandbox themselves by selecting access rights to directories. It's designed to be used by unprivileged processes while following the system security policy. To make talking with the rest of the world easier, Linux 6.5 now supports USB 4v2. This new USB-C standard will support up to an eye-watering 120Gbps. And while we're still getting used to Wi-Fi 6E, the Wi-Fi Alliance is already working on bringing us Wi-Fi 7. When Wi-Fi 7 arrives, with its theoretical maximum speed of 46Gbps, Linux will be ready. As usual, the new Linux has many more built-in audio and graphics drivers. The Bcachefs filesystem didn't make it into Linux 6.5, notes Vaughan-Nichols. "While the Bcachefs filesystem looks good, there's been a lot of developers fighting about the development process. These personal arguments have led Torvalds to decide not to incorporate Bcachefs into Linux 6.5."

Linus Torvalds announced Linux 6.5's delivery in a brief post on August 27.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Sports leagues are urging the US to require "instantaneous" takedowns of pirated livestreams and new requirements for Internet service providers to block pirate websites. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 requires websites to "expeditiously" remove infringing material upon being notified of its existence. But pirated livestreams of sports events often aren't taken down while the events are ongoing, said comments submitted last week by Ultimate Fighting Championship, the National Basketball Association, and National Football League.

The "DMCA does not define 'expeditiously,' and OSPs [online service providers] have exploited this ambiguity in the statutory language to delay removing content in response to takedown requests," the leagues told the US Patent and Trademark Office in response to a request for comments on addressing counterfeiting and piracy. The leagues urged the US "to establish that, in the case of live content, the requirement to 'expeditiously' remove infringing content means that content must be removed 'instantaneously or near-instantaneously' in response to a takedown request." The leagues claimed the change "would be a relatively modest and non-controversial update to the DMCA that could be included in the broader reforms being considered by Congress or could be addressed separately." They also want stricter "verification measures before a user is permitted to livestream."

The UFC separately submitted comments on its own, urging the US to require that ISPs block pirate sites. The UFC said that a "significant and growing" number of websites, typically operated from outside the US, don't respond to takedown requests and thus should be blocked by broadband network operators. The UFC wrote: "Unlike many other jurisdictions around the world, the US lacks a 'site-blocking' regime whereby copyright owners may obtain no-fault injunctions requiring domestic Internet service providers to block websites that are primarily geared at infringing activity. A 'site-blocking' regime, with appropriate safeguards to prevent abuse, would substantially facilitate all copyright owners' ability to address piracy, including UFC's." Website-blocking is bound to be a controversial topic, although the Federal Communications Commission's now-repeated net neutrality rules only prohibited blocking of "lawful Internet traffic." While the UFC said it just wants "websites that are primarily geared at infringing activity" to be blocked, a site-blocking regime could be used more expansively if there aren't strict limits.

Google DeepMind has launched a new watermarking tool that labels whether images have been generated with AI. From a report: The tool, called SynthID, will initially be available only to users of Google's AI image generator Imagen, which is hosted on Google Cloud's machine learning platform Vertex. Users will be able to generate images using Imagen and then choose whether to add a watermark or not. The hope is that it could help people tell when AI-generated content is being passed off as real, or help protect copyright. [...] Traditionally images have been watermarked by adding a visible overlay onto them, or adding information into their metadata. But this method is "brittle" and the watermark can be lost when images are cropped, resized, or edited, says Pushmeet Kohli, vice president of research at Google DeepMind.

SynthID is created using two neural networks. One takes the original image and produces another image that looks almost identical to it, but with some pixels subtly modified. This creates an embedded pattern that is invisible to the human eye. The second neural network can spot the pattern and will tell users whether it detects a watermark, suspects the image has a watermark, or finds that it doesn't have a watermark. Kohli said SynthID is designed in a way that means the watermark can still be detected even if the image is screenshotted or edited -- for example, by rotating or resizing it.

Google is making some big changes to Google Chat, its answer to Slack and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app -- aka the product formerly known as hangouts -- is getting a new design, some features that will feel distinctly familiar to Slack and Teams users, and a lot of Google's new Duet AI collaboration tools. From a report: Most of the new features are rolling out later this year and early next, but they add up to a much more useful and competitive Chat platform. Duet is the flagship new feature and potentially a reason for a lot of Workspace users to start using Chat. You can use Duet to search and ask questions about all your stuff in Drive and Gmail and summarize both documents and conversations. You'll also be able to use AI-powered autocorrect in Chat, and thanks to Smart Reply, you might never have to manually talk to your co-workers again. You'll be able to talk to Duet in a one-on-one chat or invoke it in a group chat or a space to help get stuff done. "You essentially have a co-worker who has infinite memory and amazing recall at your fingertips," says Vamsee Jasti, Google's product lead for Chat.

Outside of the AI integrations, Chat is also getting a facelift. The app has, until now, looked like a fairly barebones messaging app, with a list of conversations on the left and the active chat on the right; now, it's going to have a lot more going on. (And, yes, it will look a lot more like Slack and Teams.) There will be a new home view with all your recent conversations, plus dedicated ways to see all your starred conversations and mentions. For now, everything will be reverse-chronological, but Google says it plans to start more intelligently organizing and ordering things next year. The interface as a whole is getting a bit of cleanup, too, with larger buttons and aesthetics borrowed from Google's Material You design language.

When employees leave Google to join the artificial intelligence startup race, the search giant still has a way to benefit -- by keeping those former workers as cloud customers. From a report: More than half of venture-backed generative AI startups pay for Google's cloud computing platform, Alphabet, Google's parent company, said Tuesday. Of the startups valued at over $1 billion, 70% are Google Cloud customers, and about a third of those are helmed by former employees, including Anthropic, Character.ai and Cohere, the company said. That gives Google a way to extend its influence in the field even when it sheds talent.

Google's cloud unit, which reported a profit for the first time this year, has emerged as one of the company's best bets for growth as its core search business matures. Google still trails Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure in the market. But startups in the field of generative AI -- programs that can spin up images, text and video from simple prompts -- are increasingly turning to the company, said James Lee, Google Cloud's general manager for startups and AI. "We're seeing strong momentum in our business, and we see Google Cloud as the preferred choice for startups building generative AI," Lee said in an interview. Google Cloud customers have the option to use AI models from Google itself as well as other companies, a degree of flexibility that appeals to startups, Lee said.

Meta's decision to block news links in Canada this month has had almost no impact on Canadians' usage of Facebook, data from independent tracking firms indicated on Tuesday, as the company faces scorching criticism from the Canadian government over the move. From a report: Daily active users of Facebook and time spent on the app in Canada have stayed roughly unchanged since parent company Meta started blocking news there at the start of August, according to data shared by Similarweb, a digital analytics company that tracks traffic on websites and apps, at Reuters' request. Another analytics firm, Data.ai, likewise told Reuters that its data was not showing any meaningful change to usage of the platform in Canada in August. The estimates, while early, appear to support Meta's contention that news holds little value for the company as it remains locked in a tense standoff in Canada over a new law requiring internet giants to pay publishers for the news articles shared on their platforms.

Under an ambitious program, dubbed Replicator, the Pentagon aims to field thousands of autonomous systems within two years to counter China. The effort is being spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. Politico reports: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion. "Industry is ready. The culture is ready to shift," Hicks said. "We have to drive that from the top, and we need to give it a hard target." "The great paradox of military innovation is you're going to have to make big bets and you've got to execute on those bets," she added.

With Replicator, the Pentagon aims to have thousands of autonomous systems across various domains produced and delivered in 18 to 24 months. Hicks declined to discuss what specific platforms might be produced under the program -- such as aerial drones or unmanned ships -- citing the "competition landscape" in the defense industry as well as concerns about tipping DOD's hand to China. The Pentagon will instead "say more as we get to production on capabilities."

Autonomous weapons are seen as a potential way to counter China's numerical advantages in ships, missiles and troops in a rapidly narrowing window. Fielding large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, proponents argue, is faster and lower-cost than exquisite weapons systems and puts fewer troops at risk. Another major aim of the Replicator initiative is to provide a template for future efforts to rapidly field military technology. She said lessons from the Replicator program could be applied throughout the Pentagon, military services and combatant commands.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Cities across the country are suing Kia and Hyundai for failing to install basic anti-theft technology, with a subsequent massive surge of stolen cars burdening police departments, according to lawsuits filed in recent months. Since the beginning of the year, Seattle, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbus have all sued Kia and Hyundai, which are owned by the same parent company, for selling cars without engine immobilizers, a technology that has served as a major contributor to the plummeting rate of stolen vehicles in the U.S. As the rest of the industry adopted immobilizers, Kia and Hyundai didn't, with only 26 percent of their cars including them in 2015, compared to 96 percent for other manufacturers.

Without the immobilizers, the cars are trivially easy to steal, requiring just a USB cable. A viral Youtube and Tiktok trend instructed people how to steal the cars. Kia and Hyundai cars manufactured without the immobilizers between 2015 and 2020, especially lower-end models like the Accent, Rio, and Sportage, are especially vulnerable. A lawsuit filed by dozens of insurance companies against Kia and Hyundai allege the lack of immobilizers violated federal regulations. The surge in Kia and Hyundai thefts in cities around the country has been staggering and it shows no sign of abating. In a lawsuit filed last week, the City of Chicago said that in 2022, more than 8,800 Kia and Hyundai vehicles were stolen in the city, which accounts for 41 percent of all of Chicago's car thefts, despite Kia and Hyundai making up just seven percent of the city's vehicles. In a press release announcing the lawsuit, the city said it is getting even worse in 2023, with Kias and Hyundais making up more than half of all stolen cars in the city this year. Chicago is hardly alone. [...]

In statements to Motherboard, Kia spokesperson James Bell said the lawsuits filed by cities against the company are "without merit" and that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration determined it did not violate any regulations or safety standards. In June, NHTSA's acting associate director of enforcement Cem Hatipoglu responded to 18 state attorneys general that asked for a recall of the cars by saying, "At this time, NHTSA has not determined that this issue constitutes either a safety defect or noncompliance requiring a recall." A NHTSA spokesperson told Motherboard the agency has been meeting with Kia and Hyundai about the issue but wouldn't say if it agreed with Kia's interpretation. Hyundai spokesperson Ira Gabriel similarly said that all its vehicles are "fully compliant with federal anti-theft requirements." Hyundai and Kia owners can get steering wheel locks from their local police departments or through dedicated websites. Both companies also offer a free software patch that they say removes the threat of theft, which requires visiting a dealer. Bell of Kia says the company has distributed more than 190,000 wheel locks and that 650,000 vehicles have gotten the software update, out of three million total. Both companies now include immobilizers on all their new cars.

According to CNBC, Google is planning to license new sets of mapping data to companies building solar products, and is hoping to generate up to $100 million in its first year. From the report: The company plans to sell access to new APIs (application programming interfaces) with solar and energy information and air quality, according to materials viewed by CNBC. Among the new offerings will be a Solar API, which could be used by solar installers like SunRun and Tesla Energy and solar design companies like Aurora Solar, according to a list of example customers viewed by CNBC. Google also sees customer opportunities with real estate companies like Zillow, Redfin, hospitality companies like Marriott Bonvoy, and utilities like PG&E.

Some of the data from the Solar API will come from a consumer-focused pilot called Project Sunroof, a solar savings calculator that originally launched in 2015. The program allows users to enter their address and to receive estimated solar costs such as electric bill savings and the size of the solar installation they'll need. It also offers 3D modeling of the roofs of buildings and nearby trees based on Google Maps data. Google plans to sell API access to individual building data, as well as aggregated data for all buildings in a particular city or county, one document states. The company says it has data for over 350 million buildings, according to documents, up significantly from the 60 million buildings it cited for Project Sunroof in 2017.

One internal document estimates the company's solar APIs will generate revenue between $90 and $100 million in the first year after launch. There's also a potential to connect with Google Cloud products down the line, documents state. As part of the planned launch, the company is also planning to announce an Air Quality API that will let customers request air quality data, such as pollutants and health-based recommendations for specific locations. It'll also include digital heat maps of the data and hourly air quality information, as well as air quality history of up to 30 days.

Hosting platform WordPress has announced a new century-long domain registration plan for users who want to ensure a lifelong digital legacy. From a report: Its new 100-year plan is designed to give users "the ultimate security and longevity for their digital presence" at a cost of $38,000 -- working out at $380 per year of the plan. While average domain registrations range from one year to a maximum of 10 years, WordPress's new plan allows users to secure their domain for 100 years.

The plan comes with other features as well, such as multiple backups of content across geographically distributed data centres, unmetered bandwidth and "personalised" 24/7 support. The company also claims the plan comes with "enhanced ownership protocols" and "top-tier" managed hosting. In a statement, the company said the offering could be used by families who wish to preserve their digital assets such as stories, photos, sounds and videos or by founders who want to protect and document their company's history.

Helen Marie Plourde, an 86-year-old Minnesota resident, just spent over a month without home Internet and phone service because CenturyLink failed to fix a problem that began in July. From a report: CenturyLink didn't show up for scheduled appointments at her home in Saint Paul, Plourde told Ars in a phone interview on Thursday, August 24, one day after the latest missed service appointment. Another appointment was scheduled for August 28, but she was skeptical that it would actually happen. "I'll believe it when I see them," Plourde said. Plourde buys broadband through Velocity Telephone, which resells CenturyLink fiber service in her area and acts as an intermediary between customers and CenturyLink for repairs. Velocity told us that it set up CenturyLink appointments for Plourde on August 10, August 17, and August 23, but no CenturyLink technicians showed up to any of the appointments.

We talked to Plourde after hearing from Amalia Deloney, whose parents live nearby. Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, put Deloney in touch with us. "For the past month, [Plourde] has been going to my mom and dad's house to use the Internet two times a day because hers went out and CenturyLink can't be bothered fixing it. She's ready to write letters to elected officials and the Utilities Commission out of desperation," Deloney said. That didn't end up being necessary because CenturyLink sprang into action after Ars contacted the company's media relations team on Thursday night. A CenturyLink technician went to Plourde's home on Friday morning and fixed a line problem on a nearby street, restoring her Internet and VoIP phone service. Velocity, the CenturyLink reseller, also offers its own fiber service on infrastructure it owns in parts of Minnesota, but not where Plourde lives. Comcast is the other option at Plourde's house. She chose Velocity to support a local company.

The upcoming release of GNOME 45 — expected September 20th — will bring new features to the Nautilus file manager (now in public beta testing). An anonymous reader shared this report from 9to5Linux: Nautilus in GNOME 45 already received a search performance boost, support for dropping images directly from web pages, an improved Grid View that now indicates starred files too, the ability to display bytes size as a tooltip for folder properties, and a more adaptive design for the sidebar. It also got an improved file opening experience while sandboxed (think Flatpak, Snap, etc.), a more consistent date and time format, a more simplistic definition of the Keyboard Shortcuts window, the ability to refocus the search bar using the Ctrl+F keyboard shortcut, and a better archiving experience.

But there's room for more new features as Nautilus now received new "Search Everywhere" buttons to expand the search scope and a modern full-height sidebar layout, along with refined sidebar sizing and folding threshold. This is what Nautilus looks like in GNOME 45.
The article includes some screenshots, adding that Nautilus "also received some performance improvements to more quickly generate multiple thumbnails, provide users with flickerless transition into and from search, and avoid DBus-activating other apps when it starts."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York Times: It is powered into flight by a rocket engine. It can fly a distance equal to the width of China. It has a stealthy design and is capable of carrying missiles that can hit enemy targets far beyond its visual range. But what really distinguishes the Air Force's pilotless XQ-58A Valkyrie experimental aircraft is that it is run by artificial intelligence, putting it at the forefront of efforts by the U.S. military to harness the capacities of an emerging technology whose vast potential benefits are tempered by deep concerns about how much autonomy to grant to a lethal weapon.

Essentially a next-generation drone, the Valkyrie is a prototype for what the Air Force hopes can become a potent supplement to its fleet of traditional fighter jets, giving human pilots a swarm of highly capable robot wingmen to deploy in battle. Its mission is to marry artificial intelligence and its sensors to identify and evaluate enemy threats and then, after getting human sign-off, to move in for the kill... The emergence of artificial intelligence is helping to spawn a new generation of Pentagon contractors who are seeking to undercut, or at least disrupt, the longstanding primacy of the handful of giant firms who supply the armed forces with planes, missiles, tanks and ships. The possibility of building fleets of smart but relatively inexpensive weapons that could be deployed in large numbers is allowing Pentagon officials to think in new ways about taking on enemy forces.

It also is forcing them to confront questions about what role humans should play in conflicts waged with software that is written to kill...
The article adds that the U.S. Air Force plans to build 1,000 to 2,000 AI drones for as little as $3 million apiece. "Some will focus on surveillance or resupply missions, others will fly in attack swarms and still others will serve as a 'loyal wingman' to a human pilot....

"A recently revised Pentagon policy on the use of artificial intelligence in weapons systems allows for the autonomous use of lethal force — but any particular plan to build or deploy such a weapon must first be reviewed and approved by a special military panel."

In July "Safe Street Rebels" launched the "Week of Cone" pranks (which went viral on TikTok and Twitter). TechCrunch called it "a bid to raise awareness and invite more pissed-off San Franciscans to submit public comments" to regulatory agencies.

But NPR sees a larger context: Coning driverless cars fits in line with a long history of protests against the impact of the tech industry on San Francisco. Throughout the years, activists have blockaded Google's private commuter buses from picking up employees in the city. And when scooter companies flooded the sidewalks with electric scooters, people threw them into San Francisco Bay. "Then there was the burning of Lime scooters in front of a Google bus," says Manissa Maharawal, an assistant professor at American University who has studied these protests.

She points out that when tech companies test their products in the city, residents don't have much say in those decisions: "There's been various iterations of this where it's like, 'Oh, yep, let's try that out in San Francisco again,' with very little input from anyone who lives here...." Waymo is already giving rides in Phoenix and is testing with human safety drivers in Los Angeles and Austin. And Cruise is offering rides in Phoenix and Austin and testing in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Nashville and Charlotte.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, members of Safe Street Rebel continue to go out at night and stalk the vehicles one cone at a time.
They're apparently bicycling activists, judging by their web site, advocating "for car-free spaces, transit equity, and the end of car dominance." ("We regularly protest the city's thoughtless reopening of the Upper Great Highway to cars by slowing traffic to show just how unnecessary of a route this road is.") Their long-term goal is to expand the group "to the point where we can make a city for people to safely walk, bike and take public transit, not a city dominated by cars..." The last half-century has been a failed experiment with car dominance. They bankrupt our cities, ruin our environment, and force working people to sacrifice an unacceptable amount of their income to pay for basic transpiration. It is time to end car dependence and rethink our streets around public transit, walking and bikes.
Their demands include unredacted data from self-driving car companies about safety incidents (and a better reporting system) — plus a mechanism for actually citing robotaxis for traffic violations. But they also raise concerns about surveillance, noting the possibility of "a city-wide, moving network observing and analyzing everything."

Their web page says they also want to see studies on the pollution impact of self-driving cars — and whether or not AVs will increase car usage. They support the concerns of San Francisco's Taxi Workers Alliance about the possibility of lost jobs and increased traffic congestion.

And they raise one more concern: Their cars are not wheelchair accessible and do not pull up to the curb. Profit-driven robotaxi companies see accessibility as an afterthought. Without enforcement, their promises for the future will likely never materialize. Paratransit and transit are accountable to the public, but Cruise and Waymo are only accountable to shareholders.
But their list of concerns is followed by an exhaustive list of 266 robotaxi incidents documented with links to news articles and social media reports. ("The cars have run red lights, rear-ended a bus and blocked crosswalks and bike paths," writes NPR. "In one incident, dozens of confused cars congregated in a residential cul-de-sac, clogging the street. In another, a Waymo ran over and killed a dog.")

NPR's article adds one final note. "Neither Cruise nor Waymo responded to questions about why the cars can be disabled by traffic cones."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Tony Isaac for sharing the news.

The New York Times explores harrowing stories about recent airplane near-miss "close calls" on U.S. runways: The incidents — highlighted in preliminary F.A.A. safety reports but not publicly disclosed — were among a flurry of at least 46 close calls involving commercial airlines last month alone... While there have been no major U.S. plane crashes in more than a decade, potentially dangerous incidents are occurring far more frequently than almost anyone realizes — a sign of what many insiders describe as a safety net under mounting stress. So far this year, close calls involving commercial airlines have been happening, on average, multiple times a week, according to a Times analysis of internal F.A.A. records, as well as thousands of pages of federal safety reports and interviews with more than 50 current and former pilots, air traffic controllers and federal officials.

The incidents often occur at or near airports and are the result of human error, the agency's internal records show... The close calls have involved all major U.S. airlines and have happened nationwide... In addition to the F.A.A. records, The Times analyzed a database maintained by NASA that contains confidential safety reports filed by pilots, air traffic controllers and others in aviation. The analysis identified a similar phenomenon: In the most recent 12-month period for which data was available, there were about 300 accounts of near collisions involving commercial airlines... One problem is that despite repeated recommendations from safety authorities, the vast majority of U.S. airports have not installed warning systems to help prevent collisions on runways.

But the most acute challenge, The Times found, is that the nation's air traffic control facilities are chronically understaffed. While the lack of controllers is no secret — the Biden administration is seeking funding to hire and train more — the shortages are more severe and are leading to more dangerous situations than previously known. As of May, only three of the 313 air traffic facilities nationwide had enough controllers to meet targets set by the F.A.A. and the union representing controllers, The Times found. Many controllers are required to work six-day weeks and a schedule so fatiguing that multiple federal agencies have warned that it can impede controllers' abilities to do their jobs properly.

Tuesday Mark Zuckerberg shared a photo on Instagram with "actual footage of me building Threads for web." And now ZDNet reports that Zuckerberg's photo is available on his new Threads page on the web.

"As of Thursday, Meta's new platform is fully accessible to all users from any computer and desktop browser, Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed in a new Threads post."

"Use your Instagram account to log in: threads.net," explains the official Threads account. "Scroll to catch up on the conversation, or start a new thread of your own." Posts can include photos and videos, or you can reply and repost to other posts. "This is just the beginning. We're working on bringing everything you know and love from mobile over to web. More soon."

Wired argues the move makes Threads "more broadly usable." Most users will still access it through mobile, if the way people currently access the internet is any indication. But the move to the web is the next step in Meta creating an application just sticky enough to kneecap X and draw attention away from Bluesky, Mastodon, Spoutible, Post, and any other newish social app.

It's also a way to juice its users again. After that spectacular initial sign-up period in July, Threads usage dropped off precipitously. New data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower suggests that daily active users are down more than 60 percent from its first-week average, though it's now back on the upswing. Threads amassed 44 million daily active users during its launch peak, then saw usage drop to a low of 7 million DAUs in late July. As of mid-August, the app has seen increases of 11 million DAUs, Sensor Tower analysts say. However, time spent on the app per daily active user has also fallen, the firm says.
Caling Threads "a work in progress," Wired notes it ""will supposedly be compatible with ActivityPub, an open social networking protocol, but that hasn't happened yet. The app also doesn't currently support direct messages, a popular feature on X. And Threads is not available in the European Union, due to the regulatory climate there."

Their article also shares an idea from data journalist and engineer Surya Mattu: that both devices and social media apps like Threads should implement a transparency-guaranteeing "inspectability API" to always allow users to inspect their data and activity in real-time.

Google Chrome is adding a read-aloud option to its reading mode, allowing users to have articles read to them like an audiobook. Android Police reports: Google is actively working to bring additional features to its reading mode, and a handy read-aloud option is already on the way for the Chrome browser. As the name suggests, read aloud basically reads out the entire article, as if you're listening to an audiobook, with text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities. Again, a few mainstream browsers and apps like Pocket already have the feature, but Google Chrome is only now rolling it out through the Canary channel.

When you open an article in Chrome Canary's reading mode on the desktop, you will see a new option, as spotted by browser expert Leopeva64. You can use this tiny play button to get the browser to read the article aloud for you. In the video sample shared by the user, you can hear what the narration sounds like -- and it isn't very pleasing. The voice output sounds pretty robotic as it used to be in the early days of TTS conversions, which is especially ironic coming from Google, which has some of the most natural-sounding voice models at its disposal. This clearly indicates that the read-aloud feature is in its early stages of development and will take some time before it becomes ready for prime time.

Microsoft's August 2023 preview updates for Windows 11 and Windows 10, labeled as KB5029351 and KB5029331 respectively, have led to blue screen errors citing an unsupported processor problem. BleepingComputer reports: "Microsoft has received reports of an issue in which users are receiving an 'UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR' error message on a blue screen after installing updates released on August 2," Redmond said. The company also added that the problematic cumulative updates "might automatically uninstall to allow Windows to start up as expected." Microsoft is investigating the newly acknowledged known issue to find out whether it stems from a Microsoft-related cause. The company also urged users encountering these BSOD errors to file a report using the Feedback Hub.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge yesterday granted Google's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which claims that Google intentionally used Gmail's spam filter to suppress Republicans' fundraising emails. An order (PDF) dismissing the lawsuit was issued yesterday by US District Judge Daniel Calabretta. The RNC is seeking "recovery for donations it allegedly lost as a result of its emails not being delivered to its supporters' inboxes," Calabretta noted. But Google correctly argued that the lawsuit claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the judge wrote. The RNC lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in US District Court for the Eastern District of California.

"While it is a close case, the Court concludes that... the RNC has not sufficiently pled that Google acted in bad faith in filtering the RNC's messages into Gmail users' spam folders, and that doing so was protected by Section 230. On the merits, the Court concludes that each of the RNC's claims fail as a matter of law for the reasons described below," he wrote. Calabretta, a Biden appointee, called it "concerning that Gmail's spam filter has a disparate impact on the emails of one political party, and that Google is aware of and has not yet been able to correct this bias." But he noted that "other large email providers have exhibited some sort of political bias" and that if Google did not filter spam, it would harm its users by subjecting them "to harmful malware or harassing messages. On the whole, Google's spam filter, though in this instance imperfect, is not morally blameworthy."

The RNC was given leave to amend another claim that alleged intentional interference with prospective economic relations under California law. The judge dismissed the claim as follows: "The RNC argues that Google's conduct was independently wrongful because '(1) it is political discrimination against the RNC, (2) it is dishonest to Google's users and the public, and (3) Google repeatedly lied about it.' As established above, political discrimination is not prohibited by California anti-discrimination laws and so Google's alleged discrimination would not be unlawful. The latter two reasons do not provide a 'determinable legal standard' under which the Court could find the conduct wrongful; they rest on a 'nebulous' theory of wrongfulness which other courts have rejected." The RNC "has failed to establish that Defendant's alleged interference constituted a separate, independently 'wrongful act' that would be an appropriate predicate offense" but "will be granted leave to amend this claim to establish that Defendant's conduct was unlawful by some legal measure," Calabretta wrote. Google said in a statement: "We welcome the Court's finding that there are no plausible allegations that Gmail's spam filters discriminate for political purposes. We will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages."

Afghanistan's Taliban-led government is working with Huawei to install a wide-ranging surveillance system across the country in an effort to identify and target insurgents or terrorism activities, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the discussions. From the report: Representatives of the Shenzhen-headquartered tech company met with Interior Ministry officials on Aug. 14, the person said, and a verbal agreement was reached regarding the contract. The Interior Ministry initially posted images and details of the meeting on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. In one post, spokesman Mufti Abdul Mateen Qani said the advanced camera system was being considered "in every province of Afghanistan."

The posts, which were later deleted, included comments from Abdullah Mukhtar, the deputy minister of the ministry. "We are willing to accept projects that are better in terms of quality and price," he said. "Reports on this meeting are factually incorrect. No plans or agreements were discussed," Huawei said in an emailed statement.