Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - UK Woman Fitted With AI-Powered Bionic Arm (bbc.com)

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: "This is straight out of science fiction. The technology is absolutely incredible..." says a woman who received an AI-powered bionic arm. "I'm just absolutely in awe of the technology and excited about the future prospects this will give me."

The short video clip (produced by the BBC) also features the woman's doctor explaining that "the top section is customized to fit...with electrodes there recording the unique pattern of movement, that then talk to a little computer inside the forearm that then, through AI, build data and record those movements to tell the arm what to do."

A GoFundMe campaign had raised £296,613 (about $378,121 USD) to purchase the bionic arm — and last week the grateful recipient shared a long-awaited status update. "It's here. It fits. It works...! 6 months after I first signed up in the clinic I have my bionic arm. State of the art, tailored to my body, the price of a very nice sports car. 24h in and I'm already putting it to good use. The feeling of freedom is unbeatable. Being able to carry things in 2 hands! Open a bottle! Give my husband a 2 arm hug!

"I wouldn't have been able to do this without you, you believed in me since the very beginning. You stood by me in my darkest hour. THANK YOU."

Submission + - Do Developers Tend to Scrap or Ship Their First Drafts?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Writers rework their ideas, revise, and complete many drafts before publishing a piece," reminds Erika Nichols-Frazer in How to Help with Rough Drafts. "This is important to emphasize to students, that everybody starts somewhere and puts a lot of work into the final product, that it won’t be perfect (or even close!) the first time around, or maybe the second or third."

The necessity of multiple drafts may be an idea that's drilled into children's minds by teachers and parents, but in 2023 there's still a need to remind software engineers to Throw Away Your First Draft of Your Code. "The next time you start on a major project," advises Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya, "I want you to write code for a couple of days and then delete it all. Just throw it away. I'm serious. And you should probably have some of your best engineers doing this throwaway work. It's going to save you time in the long run."

While Tietz-Sokolskaya's advice echoes that of Ernest Hemingway ("the first draft of anything is shit"), do developers tend to scrap or ship their first drafts in the real world?

Submission + - LNG on Par with Coal in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Submitted by sonlas
sonlas writes: The prevailing notion that natural gas is a cleaner alternative to coal and oil as a fossil fuel is facing increasing scrutiny. While it is true that natural gas emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) per unit of heat generated when burned, the picture becomes more complex when considering other factors that contribute to its overall environmental impact. One significant concern with natural gas is the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, during its extraction, production, transportation, and processing. Methane is approximately 30 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 100-year period. Methane leaks can occur at various stages of the gas supply chain, from wellhead emissions during drilling and extraction to leakage during transportation and distribution. Additionally, intentional venting or flaring of methane also contributes to the problem.

Recent research, highlighted in an article published in Environmental Research Letters, challenges the assumption that natural gas is a cleaner energy source compared to coal or oil. The study takes into account the full lifecycle emissions of natural gas, including methane leakage rates, and arrives at a different conclusion. With a methane leakage rate of 7.5% and other relevant factors considered, the greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas can be on par with or even exceed those of coal. Even a lower methane leakage rate of 2% can diminish the environmental advantage of natural gas significantly.

A key aspect of the study is its focus on real-world methane leakage rates. Aerial measurements conducted in various oil and gas production regions in the United States revealed substantial methane leak rates ranging from 0.65% to a staggering 66.2%. Similar leak rates have been identified in other parts of the world. These findings raise serious concerns about the climate impact of natural gas and cast doubt on its role as a so-called "transition energy" in the quest for cleaner and more sustainable energy sources.

This challenges the idea of natural gas, especially liquefied natural gas (LNG), as a suitable transition energy source and raises doubts about its environmental benefits. This complexity complicates the search for sustainable energy solutions, especially in Europe where gas was included in the green taxonomy following push from Germany.

Submission + - New algorithm spots its "potentially hazardous" near-Earth asteroid - 600' long (washington.edu)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: An algorithm designed to discover near-Earth asteroids has identified its first "potentially hazardous asteroid," researchers from the University of Washington said in a statement.

The algorithm, known as HelioLinc3D and developed in part by researchers from the University of Washington, is still in its testing phase. The "potentially hazardous" asteroid, named 2022 SF289, was 600 feet long and was discovered during a test of the algorithm in Hawaii. Scientists were able to confirm that the asteroid "poses no risk to Earth for the foreseeable future."

The algorithm will eventually be used at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a survey telescope being built in Chile. The observatory will have multiple goals , including probing dark energy and dark matter and mapping the Milky Way, and is expected to begin operating in early 2025, according to the university's release. It's expected that the observatory will "dramatically increase the discovery rate" of items like asteroids. The observatory will only need to look at spots in the night sky twice per night, instead of the four times needed for telescopes, an advancement that means it can "scan the sky unprecedentedly quickly."

However, this new speed meant researchers needed to create a new type of discovery algorithm. That's where HelioLinc3D comes in. The algorithm can find asteroids in Rubin's dataset, and developers of the algorithm have had it study existing data with too few observations to be usable by conventional algorithms. It was in one of those data sets that the algorithm discovered the "potentially hazardous" asteroid 2022 SF289. The asteroid had been observed multiple times on different nights by older technology, but because it had never been seen four times in one night, it could not be properly identified. By combining the multiple observations, the algorithm made the discovery.

Submission + - Can Ai Chatbots Replace Human Participants? (science.org)

Submitted by silverjacket
silverjacket writes: A feature in Science reports on psychologists who are exploring whether language models can stand in for humans as research participants. It's cheaper and faster and could allow researchers to do studies that it would be unethical to do using people. (One team reran the shocking Milgram experiment.)

Submission + - 40 years ago, WarGames anticipated AI (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by quonset
quonset writes: This summer will mark the 40th anniversary of the movie WarGames in which a computer hacker, played by Matthew Broderick, inadvertently sets in motion events which could lead to a worldwide nuclear war. It is only when he challenges the military's super computer and its artificial intelligence to a game of thermonuclear war that the threat ends.

The story gets set in motion because military brass fret about human operators exhibiting reluctance to launch nuclear strikes, despite what appear to be valid orders. The solution: A computer system that will remove them from the equation, championed by a character played by Dabney Coleman, the go-to bad-guy bureaucrat (see “9 to 5”) of the era.

As Ryan Britt wrote recently at the Inverse, what really makes “WarGames” scary isn’t that the computer is evil, but rather its potentially dire inability to recognize nuance the way a human can. “In ‘WarGames,’ the computer doesn’t understand the difference between a game and real life,” Britt noted.

Submission + - Big Tech Can Transfer Europeans' Data To US In Win For Facebook and Google (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The European Commission today decided it is safe for personal data to be transferred from the European Union to US-based companies, handing a victory to firms like Facebook and Google despite protests from privacy advocates who worry about US government surveillance. The commission announced that it "adopted its adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework," concluding "that the United States ensures an adequate level of protection—comparable to that of the European Union—for personal data transferred from the EU to US companies under the new framework. On the basis of the new adequacy decision, personal data can flow safely from the EU to US companies participating in the Framework, without having to put in place additional data protection safeguards."

In May, Facebook-owner Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with transfers of personal data to the United States and was ordered to stop storing European Union user data in the US within six months. But Meta said at the time that if the pending data-transfer pact "comes into effect before the implementation deadlines expire, our services can continue as they do today without any disruption or impact on users." The data-transfer deal "is expected to face a legal challenge from European privacy advocates, who have long said that the US needs to make substantial changes to surveillance laws," a Wall Street Journal report said today. "Transfers of data from Europe to the US have been in question since an EU court ruled in 2020 that a previous deal allowing trans-Atlantic data flows was illegal because the US didn't give EU individuals an effective way to challenge surveillance of their data by the US government."

The EC's announcement said the new framework has "binding safeguards to address all the concerns raised by the European Court of Justice, including limiting access to EU data by US intelligence services to what is necessary and proportionate, and establishing a Data Protection Review Court (DPRC), to which EU individuals will have access." The new court "will be able to order the deletion" of data that is found to have been collected in violation of the new rules. The framework will be administered and monitored by the US Department of Commerce and the "US Federal Trade Commission will enforce US companies' compliance," the EC announcement said. EU residents who challenge data collection will have free access to "independent dispute resolution mechanisms and an arbitration panel." US companies can join the EU-US framework "by committing to comply with a detailed set of privacy obligations, for instance the requirement to delete personal data when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, and to ensure continuity of protection when personal data is shared with third parties," the European Commission said.

Submission + - New Study Finds Heavy Drinkers Don't 'Hold Their Liquor' Better (uchicagomedicine.org)

Submitted by WankerWeasel
WankerWeasel writes: A recent study by the University of Chicago found that heavy drinkers experience significant fine motor and cognitive impairment after drinking — even if they don’t feel the effects. The research group says that alcohol use disorder is “more nuanced than commonly believed,” as consistently heavy drinkers displayed notably higher impairment than expected, according to a June 19 press release.

The findings were published in “Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research”, as part of professor Andrea King’s ongoing Chicago Social Drinking Project study.

Submission + - How Threads Could Kill Twitter (wired.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: Threads, Meta’s Instagram-Twitter hybrid, had been met with confusion and skepticism. Then, when it launched yesterday, 30 million people signed up within hours.

Threads, the latest of Meta’s copycat innovations, faces a long slog in its bid to topple Twitter as the microblogging platform of choice. It has jumped into a feeding frenzy for users that has grown increasingly heated since Elon Musk bought the platform last year. But Threads comes with big potential, thanks to its polished tech, built-in user base, and a reputation for better moderation that’s likely to please big-money advertisers.

The platform also arrives at a particularly weak moment for Twitter. Musk’s recent announcement that free Twitter accounts would, temporarily, only be able to view 600 tweets per day was met with derision. Such moves will likely further hurt advertising on the platform—worsening a crisis that’s been ongoing throughout Musk’s tenure.

It’s a perfect storm: Technical troubles at Twitter converging with a slow news week have set the stage for Threads. “Suddenly, you have something that’s improbable: Meta has gotten into microblogging and people are actually digging it,” says John Wihbey, a professor in the School of Journalism and Media Innovation at Northeastern University who has worked as a contracted consultant for Twitter.

Threads, which is closely linked to Instagram but is actually a different app, has a major advantage over other Twitter copycats—it already has a huge potential pool of users on Instagram, and those people can choose to follow accounts they already follow on Instagram as they come onto Threads.

With the backing of Meta, Threads has a team of engineers that volunteer-run networks like Mastodon can’t rival. People can also post Threads directly to their Instagram stories. And, according to a post yesterday from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Threads will eventually have support for ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, which would let people take their followers to another service if they leave Threads or the app ever shuts down.

Threads can’t do all that Twitter can—yet. People need an Instagram account to sign up, and Threads is not available in the European Union, which has strict privacy standards that the app may not meet. The feed defaults to a mix of accounts people follow and a slurry of posts selected by an algorithm; there’s no direct messaging feature; and the feed’s order is algorithmic, not chronological. Threads doesn’t have a trending topics section, and the search feature seems to only bring up accounts, not specific topics or posts, which makes it initially less appealing for anyone following big news events. There are also no ads—yet.

But Threads had a mostly smooth launch and largely positive reception, aside from a slight hiccup when Zuckerberg’s own Threads failed to load this morning. Still, microblogging remains a risky bet, as social platforms focusing on it haven’t been consistently profitable. At the same time, Threads may boost Meta’s brand as Twitter’s reputation falters. And it’s a chance to capitalize on advertisers that have ditched Twitter.

Comment Clearly these are people who donâ(TM)t travel (Score 1) 284

Iâ(TM)m just on the cusp of GenX (56 yo) and thereâ(TM)s no way I would want to go back to pre-smart phone days. I am old enough to remember having to use travellers cheques (and actual cheques too ffs) and needing to stand in queues for passport control, and getting lost in foreign places, and needing phrase books, not knowing how to buy rail tickets, and all manner of things that are trivially simple / non-problems these days.

I enjoy reading books and news etc on my phone. I donâ(TM)t participate much in âoesocialâ media (left Facebook years ago, still scroll thru twitter occasionally and could not give a fuck about Reddit, Iâ(TM)ve got Slashdot for that). But with a smart phone I have ChatGPT at my fingertips (really handy when touring old art galleries and ancient cities etc), maps, payments, ID, my files and so on. Iâ(TM)ve got Vivino to tell me about the wine Iâ(TM)m being served. I can buy a new book and not end up with luggage full of books.

The people they surveyed must be people who pretty much never leave their own homes.

Slashdot Top Deals

Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream, But vision with work is the hope of the world.

Close