An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted increases the opacity of Liquid Glass and adds more contrast.

Apple says that the new toggle was added because during the beta testing period over the summer, user feedback suggested that some people would prefer to have a more opaque option for Liquid Glass. The added setting provides additional customization in iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1. Increasing opacity and adding contrast applies to Liquid Glass throughout the operating system, including in apps and Lock Screen notifications.

Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear writes: Following U.S. lawmakers' call on Tuesday for broader bans on the export of chipmaking equipment to China, China dramatically expanded its rare earths export controls on Thursday, adding five new elements, dozens of pieces of refining technology, and extra scrutiny for semiconductor users as Beijing tightens control over the sector ahead of talks between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. The new rules expands controls Beijing announced in April that caused shortages around the world, before a series of deals with Europe and the U.S. eased the supply crunch.

China produces over 90% of the world's processed rare earths and rare earth magnets. The 17 rare earth elements are vital materials in products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars. Foreign companies producing some of the rare earths and related magnets on the list will now also need a Chinese export license if the final product contains or is made with Chinese equipment or material, even if the transaction includes no Chinese companies, mimicking rules the U.S. has implemented to restrict other countries' exports of semiconductor-related products to China.

Developing mining and processing capabilities requires a long-term effort, meaning the United States will be on the back foot for the foreseeable future. The Commerce Ministry also added to its "unreliable entity list" 14 foreign organizations, which are mostly based in the United States, restricting their ability to carry out commercial activities within the world's second-largest economy for carrying out military and technological cooperation with Taiwan, or "made malicious remarks about China, and assisted foreign governments in suppressing Chinese companies," it said in a separate statement, referring to TechInsights, a prominent Canadian tech research firm, and nine of its subsidiaries including Strategy Analytics which were among those blacklisted.

The Washington Post notes AI's "increasingly outsize role" in propping up America's economic fortunes.

"Last week, the United States reported that the economy expanded at a rate of 1.6 percent in the first half of the year, with most of that growth driven by AI spending. Without AI investment, growth would have been at about a third of that rate, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis." The huge economic influence of AI spending illustrates how Silicon Valley is placing a bet of unprecedented scale that the technology will revolutionize every aspect of life and work. Its sway suggests there will be economic damage far beyond Silicon Valley if that bet doesn't work out or companies pull back. Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are on track to spend nearly $400 billion this year on data centers...

Concern about a potential bubble in AI investment has recently grown in technology and financial circles. ChatGPT and other AI tools are hugely popular with companies and consumers, and hundreds of billions of dollars has been sunk into AI ventures over the past three years. But few of the new initiatives are profitable, and huge profits will be needed for the immense investments to pay off... "I'm getting more and more skeptical and more and more concerned with what's happening" with artificial intelligence, said Andrew Odlyzko, an economic historian and University of Minnesota emeritus professor who has studied financial bubbles closely, including the telecom bubble that collapsed in 2001 as part of the dot-com crash. Some industry insiders have expressed concern that the latest AI releases have fallen short of expectations, suggesting the technology may not advance enough to pay back the huge investments being made, he said. "AI is a craze," Odlyzko said...

[The Federal Reserve's August "beige book" summarizes interviews with business owners across the country, according to the article — and it found surging investments in AI data centers, which could tie their fortunes to other sectors.] That's boosting demand for electricity and trucking in the Atlanta region, a hot spot for the facilities, and creating new projects for commercial real estate developers in the Philadelphia region. Because tech companies now dominate public markets, any change in their fortunes and share prices can also have a powerful influence on stock indexes, 401(k)s and the wider economy... Stock market slumps can have knock-on effects by undercutting the confidence of American businesses and consumers, leading them to spend less, said Gregory Daco [chief economist at strategy consulting firm EY-Parthenon]... "That directly affects economic activity," he said, potentially widening the economic fallout...

Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a Sept. 4 note to clients that even if AI investment works out for companies like Google, there will be an "inevitable slowdown" in data center construction. That will cut revenue to companies providing the projects with chips and electricity, the note said. In a more extreme scenario where Big Tech pulls back spending to 2022 levels, the entire S&P 500 would lose 30 percent of the revenue growth Wall Street currently expects next year, the analysts wrote.
The AI bubble is 17 times the size of the dot-com frenzy — and four times the subprime bubble, according to estimates in a recent note from independent research firm the MacroStrategy Partnership (as reported by MarketWatch).

And "never before has so much money been spent so rapidly on a technology that, for all its potential, remains somewhat unproven as a profit-making business model," writes Bloomberg, adding that OpenAI and other large tech companies are "relying increasingly on debt to support their unprecedented spending." (Although Bloomberg also notes that ChatGPT alone has roughly 700 million weekly users, and that last month Anthropic reported roughly three quarters of companies are using Claude to automate work.)

Amazon will be adding facial recognition to its camera-equipped Ring doorbells for the first time in December, according to the Washington Post.

"While the feature will be optional for Ring device owners, privacy advocates say it's unfair that wherever the technology is in use, anyone within sight will have their faces scanned to determine who's a friend or stranger." The Ring feature is "invasive for anyone who walks within range of your Ring doorbell," said Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center. "They are not consenting to this." Ring spokeswoman Emma Daniels said that Ring's features empower device owners to be responsible users of facial recognition and to comply with relevant laws that "may require obtaining consent prior to identifying people..."

Other companies, including Google, already offer facial recognition for connected doorbells and cameras. You might use similar technology to unlock your iPhone or tag relatives in digital photo albums. But privacy watchdogs said that Ring's use of facial recognition poses added risks, because the company's products are embedded in our neighborhoods and have a history of raising social, privacy and legal questions... It's typically legal to film in public places, including your doorway. And in most of the United States, your permission is not legally required to collect or use your faceprint. Privacy experts said that Ring's use of the technology risks crossing ethical boundaries because of its potential for widespread use in residential areas without people's knowledge or consent.

You choose to unlock your iPhone by scanning your face. A food delivery courier, a child selling candy or someone walking by on the sidewalk is not consenting to have their face captured, stored and compared against Ring's database, said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director for the consumer advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's troubling that companies are making a product that by design is taking biometric information from people who are doing the innocent act of walking onto a porch," he said.
Ring's spokesperson said facial recognition won't be available some locations, according to the article, including Texas and Illinois, which passed laws fining companies for collecting face information without permission. But the Washington Post heard another possible worst-case scenario from Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center: databases of identified faces being stolen by cyberthieves, misused by Ring employees, or shared with outsiders such as law enforcement.

Amazon says they're "reuniting lost dogs through the power of AI," in their announcement this week, thanks to "an AI-powered community feature that enables your outdoor Ring cameras to help reunite lost dogs with their families... When a neighbor reports a lost dog in the Ring app, nearby outdoor Ring cameras automatically begin scanning for potential matches."

Amazon calls it an example of their vision for "tools that make it easier for neighbors to look out for each other, and create safer, more connected communities." They're also 10x zoom, enhanced low-light performance, 2K and 4K resolutions, and "advanced AI tuning" for video...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When the COVID-19 pandemic forced kids to stay home, educators flocked to VMware, and thousands of school districts adopted virtualization. The technology became a solution for distance learning during the pandemic and after, when events such as bad weather and illness can prevent children from physically attending school. However, the VMware being sold to K-12 schools today differs from the VMware that existed before and during the pandemic. Now a Broadcom business, the platform features higher prices and a business strategy that favors big spenders. This has created unique problems for educational IT departments juggling restrictive budgets and multiple technology vendors with children's needs.

Ars Technica recently spoke with an IT director at a public school district in Indiana. The director requested anonymity for themself and the district out of concern about potential blowback. The director confirmed that the district has five schools and about 3,000 students. The district started using VMware's vSAN, a software-defined storage offering, and the vSphere virtualization platform in 2019. The Indiana school system bought the VMware offerings through a package that combined them with VxRail, which is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) hardware that Dell jointly engineered with VMware.

However, like many of VMware customers, the Indiana school district was priced out of VMware after Broadcom's acquisition of the company. The IT director said the district received a quote that was "three to six" times higher than expected. This came as the school district is looking to manage changes in education-related taxes and funding over the next few years. As a result, the district's migration from VMware is taking IT resources from other projects, including ones aimed at improving curriculum. For instance, the Indiana district has been trying to bolster its technology curriculum, the IT director said. One way is through a summer employment program for upperclassmen that teaches how to use real-world IT products, like VMware and Cisco Meraki technologies. The district previously relied on VMware-based virtual machines (VMs) for creating "very easily and accessible" test environments for these students. But the school is no longer able to provide that opportunity, creating a learning "barrier," as the IT director put it. The IT director told Ars that dealing with a migration could be "catastrophic in that that's too much work for one person," adding: "It could be a chokehold, essentially, to where they're going to be basically forced into switching platforms -- maybe before they were anticipating -- or paying exorbitant prices that have skyrocketed for absolutely no reason. Nothing on the software side has changed. It's the same software. There's no features being added. Nobody's benefiting from the higher prices on the education side."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Finnish tech firm Bluefors, a maker of ultracold refrigerator systems critical for quantum computing, has purchased tens of thousands of liters of Helium-3 from the moon — spending "above $300 million" — through a commercial space company called Interlune. The agreement, which has not been previously reported, marks the largest purchase of a natural resource from space.

Interlune, a company founded by former executives from Blue Origin and an Apollo astronaut, has faced skepticism about its mission to become the first entity to mine the moon (which is legal thanks to a 2015 law that grants U.S. space companies the rights to mine on celestial bodies). But advances in its harvesting technology and the materialization of commercial agreements are gradually making this undertaking sound less like science fiction. Bluefors is the third customer to sign up, with an order of up to 10,000 liters of Helium-3 annually for delivery between 2028 and 2037...

Helium-3 is lighter than the Helium-4 gas featured at birthday parties. It's also much rarer on Earth. But moon rock samples from the Apollo days hint at its abundance there. Interlune has placed the market value at $20 million per kilogram (about 7,500 liters). "It's the only resource in the universe that's priced high enough to warrant going out to space today and bringing it back to Earth," said Rob Meyerson [CEO of Interlune and former president of Blue Origin]...

[H]eat, even in small doses, can cause qubits to produce errors. That's where Helium-3 comes in. Bluefors makes the cooling technology that allows the computer to operate — producing chandelier-type structures known as dilution refrigerators. Their fridges, used by quantum computer leader IBM, contain a mixture of Helium-3 and Helium-4 that pushes temperatures below 10 millikelvins (or minus-460 degrees Fahrenheit)... Existing quantum computers have been built with more than a thousand qubits, he said, but a commercial system or data center would need a million or more. That could require perhaps thousands of liters of Helium-3 per quantum computer. "They will need more Helium-3 than is available on planet Earth," said Gary Lai [a co-founder and chief technology officer of Interlune, who was previously the chief architect at Blue Origin]. Most Helium-3 on Earth, he said, comes from the decay of tritium (an isotope of hydrogen) in nuclear weapons stockpiles, but between 22,000 and 30,000 liters are made each year...

"We estimate there's more than a million metric tons of Helium-3 on the moon," Meyerson said. "And it's been accumulating there for 4 billion years." Now, they just need to get it.
Interlune CEO Meyerson tells the post "It's really all about establishing a resilient supply chain for this critical material" — adding that in the long-term he could also see Helium-3 being used for other purposes including fusion energy.

Businesses are overwhelmingly relying on Anthropic's AI software to automate rather than collaborate on work, according to a new report from the OpenAI rival, adding to the risk that AI will upend livelihoods. From a report: More than three quarters (77%) of companies' usage of Anthropic's Claude AI software involved automation patterns, often including "full task delegation," according to a research report the startup released on Monday. The finding was based on an analysis of traffic from Anthropic's application programming interface, which is used by developers and businesses.

[...] On the whole, Anthropic found businesses primarily use Claude for administrative tasks and coding, the latter of which has been a key focus for the company and much of the AI industry. Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI developers have released more sophisticated AI tools that can write and debug code on a user's behalf.

The blog OMG Ubuntu notes that Microsoft Copilot chatbot support has been added in the latest Firefox Nightly builds. "Firefox's sidebar already offers access to popular chatbots, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, Le Chat's Mistral and Google's Gemini. It previously offered HuggingChat too." As the testing bed for features Mozilla wants to add to stable builds (though not all make it — eh, rounded bottom window corners?), this is something you can expect to find in a future stable update... Copilot in Firefox offers the same features as other chatbots: text prompts, upload files or images, generate images, support for entering voice prompts (for those who fancy their voice patterns being analysed and trained on). And like those other chatbots, there are usage limits, privacy policies, and (for some) account creation needed. In testing, Copilot would only generate half a summary for a webpage, telling me it was too long to produce without me signing in/up for an account.

On a related note, Mozilla has updated stable builds to let third-party chatbots summarise web pages when browsing (in-app callout alerts users to the 'new' feature). Users yet to enable chatbots are subtly nudged to do so each time they right-click on web page. [Between "Take Screenshot" and "View Page Source" there's a menu option for "Ask an AI Chatbot."] Despite making noise about its own (sluggish, but getting faster) on-device AI features that are privacy-orientated, Mozilla is bullish on the need for external chatbots.
The article suggests Firefox wants to keep up with Edge and Chrome (which can "infuse first-party AI features directly.") But it adds that Firefox's nightly build is also testing some non-AI features, like new task and timer widgets on Firefox's New Tab page. And "In Firefox Labs, there are is an option to enable JPEG XL support, a super-optimised version of JPEG that is gaining traction (despite Google's intransigence).

Other Firefox news:

• There's good news "for users still clinging to Windows 7," writes the Register. Support for Firefox Extended Support Release 115 "is being extended until March 2026."

• Google "can keep paying companies like Mozilla to make Google the default search engine, as long as these deals aren't exclusive anymore," reports the blog It's FOSS News. (The judge wrote that "Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners..." according to CNBC — especially since the non-profit Mozilla Foundation gets most of its annual revenue from its Google's search deal.)

• Don't forget you can now search your tabs, bookmarks and browsing history right from the address bar with keywords like @bookmarks, @tabs, and @history. (And @actions pulls up a list of actions like "Open private window" or "Restart Firefox").

"For months, tens of thousands of people around the world have been complaining Meta has been banning their Instagram and Facebook accounts in error..." the BBC reported this month... More than 500 of them have contacted the BBC to say they have lost cherished photos and seen businesses upended — but some also speak of the profound personal toll it has taken on them, including concerns that the police could become involved.

Meta acknowledged a problem with the erroneous banning of Facebook Groups in June, but has denied there is wider issue on Facebook or Instagram at all. It has repeatedly refused to comment on the problems its users are facing — though it has frequently overturned bans when the BBC has raised individual cases with it.
One examples is a woman lost the Instagram profile for her boutique dress shop. ("Over 5,000 followers, gone in an instant.") "After the BBC sent questions about her case to Meta's press office, her Instagram accounts were reinstated... Five minutes later, her personal Instagram was suspended again — but the account for the dress shop remained."

Another user spent a month appealing. ("In June, the BBC understands a human moderator double checked," but concluded he'd breached a policy.) And then "his account was abruptly restored at the end of July. 'We're sorry we've got this wrong,' Instagram said in an email to him, adding that he had done nothing wrong." Hours after the BBC contacted Meta's press office to ask questions about his experience, he was banned again on Instagram and, for the first time, Facebook... His Facebook account was back two days later — but he was still blocked from Instagram.
None of the banned users in the BBC's examples were ever told what post breached the platform's rules. Over 36,000 people have signed a petition accusing Meta of falsely banning accounts; thousands more are in Reddit forums or on social media posting about it. Their central accusation — Meta's AI is unfairly banning people, with the tech also being used to deal with the appeals. The only way to speak to a human is to pay for Meta Verified, and even then many are frustrated.

Meta has not commented on these claims. Instagram states AI is central to its "content review process" and Meta has outlined how technology and humans enforce its policies.
The Guardian reports there's been "talk of a class action against Meta over the bans." Users report Meta has typically been unresponsive to their pleas for assistance, often with standardised responses to requests for review, almost all of which have been rejected... But the company claims there has not been an increase in incorrect account suspension, and the volume of users complaining was not indicative of new targeting or over-enforcement. "We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we've made a mistake," a spokesperson for Meta said.
"It happened to me this morning," writes long-time Slashdot reader Daemon Duck," asking if any other Slashdot readers had their personal (or business) account unreasonably banned. (And wondering what to do next...)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Greenhouse gas reduction is no longer a priority for the US government, but if you're looking for a new vehicle and want to buy something with the lowest life cycle carbon emissions, you're best off looking for a compact with a small battery. That's one of the findings from a group at the University of Michigan of a comprehensive study that calculates the overall cradle-to-grave carbon impact for different types of vehicles, including factors like powertrain options, location (within the country), and use patterns. Even better, they built a tool you can use yourself. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, compares internal combustion engine powertrains with hybrid, 35- and 50-mile range plug-in hybrids, and 200-mile, 300-mile, and 400-mile battery electric powertrains across compact and midsize sedans, small and midsize SUVs, and pickup trucks, using a life cycle assessment model developed by Argonne National Laboratory and data of model year 2025 vehicles from the Environmental Protection Agency. If you expected that a gas-powered pickup truck would have the biggest carbon footprint, you'd be right. With a driving profile of 43 percent city driving and the rest highways (no cargo), a pickup will emit about 486 g CO2e per mile. Compared to that, a compact electric sedan with a 200-mile battery has just 17 percent of the life cycle emissions and is responsible for just 81 g CO2e per mile.

A short-range electric pickup -- maybe that Slate that so many are salivating over -- is nearly as good, with a footprint that's only 25 percent the size of the gas pickup truck. On the other hand, hybrid powertrains (the kind that don't plug in) only reduce life cycle carbon compared to internal combustion alone by a modest amount -- between 11 and 13 percent, depending on the vehicle class. Plug-in hybrids with 35 miles of range can reduce emissions compared to plain combustion by 53-56 percent; with 50-mile batteries the reduction is 56-60 percent, assuming the PHEVs were driven in electric mode for 58 percent and 69 percent of the time, respectively. When it comes to BEVs, the smallest battery pack always has the least environmental impact. BEV powertrains with 400 miles of range have lifecycle emissions that are 67-69 percent lower than an ICE powertrain in the same vehicle. For 300-mile BEVs, this is an 81-83 percent reduction. A 200-mile BEV can be expected to contribute just 25-26 percent as much CO2e as an equivalent gas-burning vehicle would.

That's not because EVs with big batteries are inefficient -- far from it -- but because making a battery for an EV is a very energy-intensive process. Most emissions from internal combustion engine (92 percent) and hybrid (89 percent) vehicles come from their use on the roads. But this changes once you start adding significant kWh-worth of battery. For PHEVs, the use phase is more like 73-80 percent, and for BEVs, it's just 48-60 percent, depending on the size of the batteries. The researchers also modeled different driving behaviors, including the use cases of someone who uses their vehicle just to commute and run errands; the "occasional road-tripper," most of whose needs are met by a small battery; and a contractor or someone else who has to drive a lot for work, with varying amounts of cargo onboard. As we've known for some time, where you get your energy from affects how clean your EV will be, and switching from gasoline to an EV has more of an impact in Seattle (which relies on hydropower) versus Cincinnati (where the electricity comes from burning coal), for both PHEVs and BEVs.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A lawyer representing the online message board 4chan says it won't pay a proposed fine by the UK's media regulator as it enforces the Online Safety Act. According to Preston Byrne, managing partner of law firm Byrne & Storm, Ofcom has provisionally decided to impose a 20,000-pound fine "with daily penalties thereafter" for as long as the site fails to comply with its request. "Ofcom's notices create no legal obligations in the United States," he told the BBC, adding he believed the regulator's investigation was part of an "illegal campaign of harassment" against US tech firms.

"4chan has broken no laws in the United States -- my client will not pay any penalty," Mr Byrne said. Ofcom began investigating 4chan over whether it was complying with its obligations under the UK's Online Safety Act. Then in August, it said it had issued 4chan with "a provisional notice of contravention" for failing to comply with two requests for information. Ofcom said its investigation would examine whether the message board was complying with the act, including requirements to protect its users from illegal content. "American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an email," law firms Byrne & Storm and Coleman Law wrote. "Under settled principles of US law, American courts will not enforce foreign penal fines or censorship codes. If necessary, we will seek appropriate relief in US federal court to confirm these principles."

The statement calls on the Trump administration to intervene and protect American businesses from "extraterritorial censorship mandates."

Google's Android 16 QPR2 beta 1 is rolling out with new customization features, including the ability to force dark mode and icon themes on apps that don't support them. The update also adds enhanced parental controls, better data migration, PDF editing, and Bluetooth audio sharing, with a full release expected in December. The Verge reports: The beta includes a new dark theme option that will "intelligently invert the UI of apps that appear light despite users having selected the dark theme" when enabled, according to Google's announcement, forcibly making apps that don't natively support the feature to appear darker. Google says this is "largely intended as an accessibility feature" for users with low vision or photosensitivity, and will also automatically darken app splash screens and adjust status bar colors to match the darker theming.

Another feature will allow users to forcibly apply themed icon colors to apps that don't natively support them. Android's icon theming currently only works if app developers have provided a monochrome version of their app icon that can be adjusted, which is annoying for users who want to apply a consistent aesthetic across their entire home page. Auto-themed app icons spare developers from adding this capability manually, removing the hassle for users to customize their phone's theme. The full list of features in the QPR2 beta 1 update can be found on the Android developers' blog.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Adweek: Meta wanted advertisers to believe its ecommerce ad product, Shops ads, was outperforming the competition, per a whistleblower complaint filed in a U.K. court. The former employee alleges the social media giant artificially inflated return on ad spend (ROAS) by counting shipping fees as revenue, subsidizing bids in ad auctions, and applying undisclosed discounts. The complaint, viewed by ADWEEK, was filed with the London Central Employment Tribunal on Wednesday (August 20) by Samujjal Purkayastha, a former product manager on Meta's Shops ads team. The document claims Meta artificially inflated performance metrics to push brands toward its fledgling ecommerce ad product.

The company's motivation, the complaint says, was in part to combat Apple's 2021 privacy changes that cut the troves of iOS tracking information that had long powered Meta's ad machine. Meta's former chief financial officer (CFO), David Wehner, said the changes would cost "on the order of $10 billion" in losses during the company's Q4 2021 earnings call. User purchases on Facebook or Instagram Shops pages would provide more first-party data, however. Purkayastha, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2020 as a product manager on the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Applied Research team, was reassigned to the Shops Ads team in March 2022 and remained at the company until Feb. 19, 2025, when he was terminated.

He alleged that during internal reviews in early 2024, Meta data scientists found the return on ad spend (ROAS) from Shops ads had been inflated between 17% and 19%. This discrepancy stemmed from Meta counting shipping fees and taxes as part of a sale, even though that money never went to merchants, he alleged. The company's other ad products exclude those figures, in line with competitors like Google, the complaint reads. Without including the fees and taxes, Shops ads performed no better than Meta's traditional ads, Purkayastha claimed. "This was significant," the complaint reads. "In addition to the ROAS performance metric being overstated by nearly a fifth, it meant that, rather than having exceeded our primary target, the Shops Ads team had in fact missed it once the figure was reduced to take account of the artificial inflation." Purkayastha raised these concerns with senior leadership in multiple meetings between 2022 and 2024, and is now seeking interim relief through his employment tribunal filing to have his former position reinstated.

A Meta spokesperson told ADWEEK the company is "actively defending these proceedings," adding that "allegations related to the integrity of our advertising practices are without merit and we have full confidence in our performance review processes."

A real estate developer searched Google for a cruise ship company's customer service number, reports the Washington Post, calling the number in Google's AI Overview. "He chatted with a knowledgeable representative and provided his credit card details," the Post's reporter notes — but the next day he "saw fishy credit card charges and realized that he'd been fooled by an impostor for Royal Caribbean customer service."

And the Post's reporter found the same phone number "appearing to impersonate other cruise company hotlines and popping up in Google and ChatGPT" (including Disney and Carnival's Princess line): He'd encountered an apparent AI twist on a classic scam targeting travelers and others searching Google for customer help lines of airlines and other businesses... The rep knew the cost and pickup locations for Royal Caribbean shuttles in Venice. [And "had persuasive explanations" when questioned about paying certain fees and gratuities.] The rep offered to waive the shuttle fees...

Here's how a scam like this typically works: Bad guys write on online review sites, message boards and other websites claiming that a number they control belongs to a company's customer service center. When you search Google, its technology looks for clues to relevant and credible information, including online advice. If scammer-controlled numbers are repeated as truth often enough online, Google may suggest them to people searching for a business.

Google is a patsy for scammers — and we're the ultimate victims. Google's AI Overviews and OpenAI's ChatGPT may use similar clues as Google's search engine to spit out information gleaned from the web. That makes them new AI patsies for the old impostor number scams.
"I've seen so many versions of similar trickery targeting Google users that I largely blame the company for not doing enough to safeguard its essential gateway to information," the reporter concludes, (adding "So did two experts in Google's inner workings.") The Post is now advising its reader to "be suspicious of phone numbers in Google results or in chatbots."

Reached for comment, a Google spokesman told the Post they'd "taken action" on several impostor numbers identified by the reporter. That spokesman also said Google continues to "work on broader improvements" to "address rarer queries like these." OpenAI said that many of the webpages that ChatGPT referenced with the bogus cruise number appear to have been removed, and that it can take time for its information to update "after abusive content is removed at the source."
Meanwhile, the man with the bogus charges has now canceled his credit card, the Post reports, with the charges being reversed. Reflecting on his experience, he tells the Post's readers "I can't believe that I fell for it. Be careful."

The African Union has endorsed the "Correct The Map" campaign, urging governments and global institutions to replace the distorted 16th-century Mercator projection with the Equal Earth map that more accurately represents Africa's true size. Reuters reports: "It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not," AU Commission deputy chairperson Selma Malika Haddadi told Reuters, saying the Mercator fostered a false impression that Africa was "marginal," despite being the world's second-largest continent by area, with 54 nations and over a billion people. Such stereotypes influence media, education and policy, she said. Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the 'Correct The Map' campaign led by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa has revived the debate, urging organizations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries' true sizes.

"The current size of the map of Africa is wrong," Moky Makura, executive director of Africa No Filter, said. "It's the world's longest misinformation and disinformation campaign, and it just simply has to stop." Fara Ndiaye, co-founder of Speak Up Africa, said the Mercator affected Africans' identity and pride, especially children who might encounter it early in school. "We're actively working on promoting a curriculum where the Equal Earth projection will be the main standard across all (African) classrooms," Ndiaye said, adding she hoped it would also be the one used by global institutions, including Africa-based ones. [...]

The Mercator projection is still widely used, including by schools and tech companies. Google Maps switched from Mercator on desktop to a 3D globe view in 2018, though users can still switch back to the Mercator if they prefer. On the mobile app, however, the Mercator projection remains the default. 'Correct The Map' wants organizations like the World Bank and the United Nations to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said they already use the Winkel-Tripel or Equal Earth for static maps and are phasing out Mercator on web maps.

The Pentagon is poised to cancel two nearly finished Navy and Air Force HR software projects worth over $800 million so new contracts can be awarded to other vendors, including Salesforce, Palantir, and Workday. "The reason for the unusual move: officials at those departments, who have so far put the existing projects on hold, want other firms, including Salesforce and billionaire Peter Thiel's Palantir, to have a chance to win similar projects, which could amount to a costly do-over," reports Reuters. From the report: In 2019, Accenture said it had won a contract to expand an HR platform to modernize the payroll, absence management, and other HR functions for the Air Force with Oracle software. The project, which includes other vendors and was later expanded to include Space Force, grew to cost $368 million and was scheduled for its first deployment this summer at the Air Force Academy. An April "status update" on the project conducted by the Air Force and obtained by Reuters described the project as "on track," with initial deployment scheduled for June, noting that it would end up saving the Air Force $39 million annually by allowing it to stop using an older system. But on May 30, Darlene Costello, then-Acting assistant Secretary of the Air Force, sent out a memo placing a "strategic pause" on the project for ninety days and calling for the study of alternate technical solutions, according to a copy of the memo seen by Reuters that was previously unreported. Costello, who has since retired, was reacting to pressure from other Air Force officials who wanted to steer a new HR project to SalesForce and Palantir, three sources said. [...] The Air Force said in a statement that it "is committed to reforming acquisition practices, assessing the acquisition workforce, and identifying opportunities to improve major defense acquisition programs."

Space Force, which operates within the Air Force, was set to receive the Air Force's new payroll system in the coming months. But it is also pulling out of the project because officials there want to launch yet another HR platform project to be led by Workday, according to three people familiar with the matter. The service put out a small business tender on May 7 for firms to research HR platform alternatives, with the goal of selecting a company that will recommend Workday as the best option, the people said. Now the Air Force and Space Force "want to start over with vendors that do not meet their requirements, leading to significant duplication and massive costs," said John Weiler, director of the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council, a government-chartered nonprofit group that makes recommendations to improve federal IT contracting.

In 2022, the Honolulu-based Nakupuna Companies took over a 2019 project with other firms to integrate the Navy's payroll and personnel systems into one platform using Oracle software and known as "NP2". The project, which has cost about $425 million since 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office, was set to be rolled out earlier this year after receiving a positive review by independent reviewer and consulting firm Guidehouse in January, according to a copy obtained by Reuters. But the head of Navy's human resources, now retired Admiral Rick Cheeseman, sought to cancel the project according to a June 5 memo seen by Reuters, directing another official to "take appropriate contractual actions" to cancel the project. Navy leaders instead mandated yet another assessment of project, according to a memo seen by Reuters, leaving it in limbo, two sources said.

Cheeseman's reason for trying to kill the project was his anger over a decision by DOGE earlier this year to cancel a $171 million contract for data services provider Pantheon Data that essentially duplicated parts of the HR project. In an email obtained by Reuters, he threatened to withhold funding from the Nakupuna-led project unless the Pantheon contract was restored. "I am beyond exasperated with how this happened," Cheeseman wrote in a May 7 email to Chief Information Officer Jane Rathbun about the contract cancellation, arguing the Pantheon contract was not "duplicative of any effort." "From where I sit, I'm content taking every dime away from NP2 in order to continue this effort," he added in the email. The pausing of NP2 was "unexpected, especially given that multiple comprehensive reviews validated the technical solution as the fastest and most affordable approach," Nakupuna said in a statement, adding it was disappointed by the change because the project was ready to deploy. The Navy said it "continues to prioritize essential personnel resources in support of efforts to strengthen military readiness through fiscal responsibility and departmental efficiency."

A federal judge struck down California's strict anti-deepfake election law, citing Section 230 protections rather than First Amendment concerns. Politico reports: [Judge John Mendez] also said he intended to overrule a second law, which would require labels on digitally altered campaign materials and ads, for violating the First Amendment. [...] The first law would have blocked online platforms from hosting deceptive, AI-generated content related to an election in the run-up to the vote. It came amid heightened concerns about the rapid advancement and accessibility of artificial intelligence, allowing everyday users to quickly create more realistic images and videos, and the potential political impacts. But opponents of the measures ... also argued the restrictions could infringe upon freedom of expression.

The original challenge was filed by the creator of the video, Christopher Kohls, on First Amendment grounds, with X later joining the case after [Elon Musk] said the measures were "designed to make computer-generated parody illegal." The satirical right-wing news website the Babylon Bee and conservative social media site Rumble also joined the suit. Mendez said the first law, penned by Democratic state Assemblymember Marc Berman, conflicted with the oft-cited Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for what third parties post on their sites. "They don't have anything to do with these videos that the state is objecting to," Mendez said of sites like X that host deepfakes.

But the judge did not address the First Amendment claims made by Kohls, saying it was not necessary in order to strike down the law on Section 230 grounds. "I'm simply not reaching that issue," Mendez told the plaintiffs' attorneys. [...] "I think the statute just fails miserably in accomplishing what it would like to do," Mendez said, adding he would write an official opinion on that law in the coming weeks. Laws restricting speech have to pass a strict test, including whether there are less restrictive ways of accomplishing the state's goals. Mendez questioned whether approaches that were less likely to chill free speech would be better. "It's become a censorship law and there is no way that is going to survive," Mendez added.

NBC News reports that in the U.S., many recent graduates looking to enter the labor force "are painting a dire picture of their job search." NBC News asked people who recently finished technical school, college or graduate school how their job application process was going, and in more than 100 responses, the graduates described months spent searching for a job, hundreds of applications and zero responses from employers — even with degrees once thought to be in high demand, like computer science or engineering.

Some said they struggled to get an hourly retail position or are making salaries well below what they had been expecting in fields they hadn't planned to work in. "It was very frustrating," said Jensen Kornfeind, who graduated this spring from Temple University with a degree in international trade. "Out of 70-plus job applications, I had three job interviews, and out of those three, I got ghosted from two of them."

The national economic data backs up their experience. The unemployment rate among recent graduates has been increasing this year to an average of 5.3%, compared to around 4% for the labor force as a whole, making it one of the toughest job markets for recent graduates since 2015, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Friday. "Recent college graduates are on the margin of the labor market, and so they're the first to feel when the labor market slows and hiring slows," said Jaison Abel, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Across the economy, hiring in recent months has ground to its slowest pace since the start of the pandemic, with employers adding just 73,000 jobs in July, according to data released Friday... Tech workers have been some of the hardest hit in a slowing job market, with more than 400 employers including Meta, Intel and Cisco announcing more than 130,000 jobs cut in 2025, according to tech job site TrueUp.
The article cites an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab who believes early adoption of AI "is also likely driving some of the cuts and leading employers to rethink hiring plans in anticipation of AI's future role." So besides federal policy changes, the article blames "the emergence of AI, which some companies have said they are using to replace certain entry-level jobs, like those in customer support or basic software development."

Seven months after graduating, one CS major told NBC News he'd applied for 100 jobs, and got one job offer — for the 4 a.m. shift at Starbucks.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Google executives are pushing employees to act with more urgency in their use of artificial intelligence as the company looks for ways to cut costs. That was the message at an all-hands meeting last week, featuring CEO Sundar Pichai and Brian Saluzzo, who runs the teams building the technical foundation for Google's flagship products. "Anytime you go through a period of extraordinary investment, you respond by adding a lot of headcount, right?" Pichai said, according to audio obtained by CNBC. "But in this AI moment, I think we have to accomplish more by taking advantage of this transition to drive higher productivity. [...] We are competing with other companies in the world," Pichai said at the meeting. "There will be companies which will become more efficient through this moment in terms of employee productivity, which is why I think it's important to focus on that." [...]

"We are going to be going through a period of much higher investment and I think we have to be frugal with our resources, and I would strive to be more productive and efficient as a company," Pichai said, adding that he's "very optimistic" about how Google is doing. At the meeting, Saluzzo highlighted a number of tools the company is building for software engineers, or SWEs, to help "everybody at Google be more AI-savvy." "We feel the urgency to really quickly and urgently get AI into more of the coding workflows to address top needs so you see a much more rapid increase in velocity," Saluzzo said. Saluzzo said Google has a portfolio of AI products available to employees "so folks can go faster." He mentioned an internal site called "AI Savvy Google" which has courses, toolkits and learning sessions, including some for individual product areas.

Google's engineering education team, which develops courses for internal and external use, partnered with DeepMind on a training called "Building with Gemini" that the company will start promoting soon, Saluzzo said. He also referenced a new internal AI coding tool called Cider that helps software engineers with various aspects of the development process. Since May, when the company first introduced Cider, 50% of users tap the service on a weekly basis, Saluzzo said. Regarding Google's internal AI tools, Saluzzo said that employees should "expect them to continuously get better" and that "they'll become a pretty integral part of most SWE work."

New submitter Pravetz-82 shares a report from Politico: A cyberattack on Russian state-owned flagship carrier Aeroflot caused a mass outage to the company's computer systems on Monday, Russia's prosecutor's office said, forcing the airline to cancel more than 100 flights and delay others. Ukrainian hacker group Silent Crow and Belarusian hacker activist group the Belarus Cyber-Partisans, which opposes the rule of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, claimed responsibility for the cyberattack. Images shared on social media showed hundreds of delayed passengers crowding Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, where Aeroflot is based. The outage also disrupted flights operated by Aeroflot's subsidiaries, Rossiya and Pobeda. While most of the flights affected were domestic, the disruption also led to cancellations for some international flights to Belarus, Armenia and Uzbekistan.

Silent Crow claimed it had accessed Aeroflot's corporate network for a year, copying customer and internal data, including audio recordings of phone calls, data from the company's own surveillance on employees and other intercepted communications. "All of these resources are now inaccessible or destroyed and restoring them will possibly require tens of millions of dollars. The damage is strategic," the channel purporting to be the Silent Crow group wrote on Telegram. There was no way to independently verify its claims. The same channel also shared screenshots that appeared to show Aeroflot's internal IT systems, and insinuated that Silent Crow could begin sharing the data it had seized in the coming days. "The personal data of all Russians who have ever flown with Aeroflot have now also gone on a trip -- albeit without luggage and to the same destination," it said. The Belarus Cyber-Partisans told The Associated Press that they had hoped to "deliver a crushing blow." Russia's Prosecutor's Office said it had opened a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called reports of the cyberattack "quite alarming," adding that "the hacker threat is a threat that remains for all large companies providing services to the general public."