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Submission + - SPAM: NY Times subscription cost to increase

Submitted by ole_timer
ole_timer writes: Dear Subscriber,

The mission of The New York Times — to seek the truth and help people understand the world — is as vital as ever. And it’s subscribers like you who make our journalism possible. Thank you.

We’re writing to let you know that on or after April 04, 2024, your News subscription rate will increase to $20.00 every 4 weeks from your current rate of $17.00 every 4 weeks. Your payment method will be charged in advance. (Please note that any future changes you make to your subscription might affect your rate.)

This new rate will help us sustain and strengthen our coverage at a time when it is increasingly difficult, dangerous and expensive to produce original, independent journalism. Your subscription has been helping us cover conflicts worldwide, our deeply divided society, the accelerating impact of A.I., the effects of climate change, global migration and much more.

We're committed as always to helping you navigate the moment and make the most of your life, in large ways and small. Since you’re a subscriber to multiple New York Times products, you might want to consider combining them into a single New York Times All Access subscription, which gives you unlimited access to everything The Times has to offer: News, plus Games, Cooking, Audio, Wirecutter and The Athletic.

We hope you’ll continue to benefit from all that your News subscription provides — or follow even more of your interests with all of The Times.

Sincerely,
The New York Times

Submission + - Bloodbath at Paramount claims 800 jobs including CBS News journalists (nypost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes:

Catherine Herridge — an award-winning senior correspondent whose First Amendment case is being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among the hundreds of employees at CBS parent Paramount who got pink slips on Tuesday, sources told The Post.

The carnage provoked outrage from the rank-and-file at CBS, with some focusing their ire on Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish, who pulled down $32 million in total compensation last year despite the company’s ever-shrinking financial profile.

“Everybody in the newsroom is pissed that Bob Bakish is making over $30 million and he’s making these cuts,” one insider fumed.

Elsewhere, some suspected the layoffs were more than just cost-cutting. Sources said Herridge had clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews — a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post.

Sources said CBS News’ Washington bureau, where Herridge covered national security and intelligence, was hit particularly hard.

Submission + - Rooftop Solar Industry Could Be On the Verge of Collapse (time.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: Some of the nation’s biggest public solar companies are struggling to stay afloat as questions arise over the viability of the financial products they sold to both consumers and investors to fund their growing operations.

These looming financial problems could topple the residential solar industry at a time when solar is supposed to be saving the world. Though solar represented just 3.4% of the nation’s electricity generation in 2022, studies show that rooftop solar could eventually meet residential electricity demand in many states if deployed widely, freeing American homes from dependency on fossil fuels. To help speed adoption, the Inflation Reduction Act extended a 30% tax credit for residential solar and battery installations.

Still, the residential solar industry is floundering. In late 2023 alone, more than 100 residential solar dealers and installers in the U.S. declared bankruptcy, according to Roth Capital Partners—six times the number in the previous three years combined. Roth expects at least 100 more to fail. The two largest companies in the industry, SunRun and Sunnova, both posted big losses in their most recent quarterly reports, and their shares are down 86% and 81% respectively from their peaks in January 2021. (This isn’t because of an economy-wide trend; the S&P 500 has grown 26% over the same time period.) Sunnova is also under the microscope for having received a $3 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy while facing numerous complaints about troubling sales practices that targeted low-income and elderly homeowners. Another solar giant, SunPower, saw shares plunge 41% on Dec. 18 after it said that it may not be able to continue to operate because of debt issues. Sunlight Financial, a big player in the solar finance space, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October; it also faces a lawsuit alleging that the company made false and misleading statements about its financial well-being.

Submission + - Ukraine: Hack wiped 2 petabytes of data from Russian research center (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense claims that pro-Ukrainian hacktivists breached the Russian Center for Space Hydrometeorology, aka "planeta" (), and wiped 2 petabytes of data.

Ukraine says cyber volunteers known as the "BO Team" successfully breached Planeta's Far Eastern branch (the largest of the three). ...they claim the hackers destroyed 280 servers used by the research center, which held 2 petabytes of data (2000 terabytes).

This massive volume of information would be difficult and costly to store in backups, so if Ukraine's claims are true, this is a catastrophic attack on Planeta.

The Ukrainian intelligence service says the damage from the data loss is estimated to be $10,000,000, impacting the operation of supercomputer clusters and also years of research.

"The work of supercomputers equipped in the research center is paralyzed and cannot be fully restored."

In addition to the above, the cyberattack allegedly paralyzed all HVAC and power supply systems in Planeta's main building and cut off the station based on the island of Bolshevik from the network.

Submission + - Soon, Only Republicans Will Get Cancer (wired.com) 1

Submitted by Applehu Akbar
Applehu Akbar writes: Another new use for messenger RNA is emerging: use of lipid carriers to place cancer-fighting compounds precisely into cancerous tissue. Using mRNA to treat cancer works in the same way as in Covid-19 vaccines. Tumor cells notoriously evade the immune system, going undetected. But synthetic mRNA can direct cancerous cells to make certain proteins that alert the immune system to the tumor’s presence.

Submission + - Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Stole Emails from Senior Executives (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: A Russian government-backed hacking team successfully hacked into Microsoft’s corporate network and stole emails and attachments from senior executives and targets in the cybersecurity and legal departments, the company disclosed late Friday.

The software giant said the APT group, known as Midnight Blizzard/Nobelium, used a password spray attack to compromise a legacy non-production test tenant account and gain a foothold, and then used the account’s permissions to access a very small percentage of Microsoft corporate email accounts.

Submission + - Self-checkout hasn't delivered (bbc.com)

Submitted by quonset
quonset writes: When self-checkout at stores was rolled out, many people, including on /., cheered. No longer would they have to wait behind the senior citizen who couldn't remember the PIN for their debit card. No longer would they have to wait in long lines trying to ignore the idle chitchat from fellow shoppers. From now on it would be a breeze to get in and get out without human interaction. Except that hasn't happened.

For shoppers, self-checkout was supposed to provide convenience and speed. Retailers hoped it would usher in a new age of cost savings. Their thinking: why pay six employees when you could pay one to oversee customers at self-service registers, as they do their own labour of scanning and bagging for free?

While self-checkout technology has its theoretical selling points for both consumers and businesses, it mostly isn't living up to expectations. Customers are still queueing. They need store employees to help clear kiosk errors or check their identifications for age-restricted items. Stores still need to have workers on-hand to help them, and to service the machines.

The technology is, in some cases, more trouble than it's worth.

"It hasn't delivered anything that it promises," says Christopher Andrews, associate professor and chair of sociology at Drew University, US, and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy. "Stores saw this as the next frontier If they could get the consumer to think that [self-checkout] was a preferable way to shop, then they could cut labour costs. But they're finding that people need help doing it, or that they'll steal stuff. They ended up realising that they're not saving money, they're losing money."

Submission + - AI girlfriend bots are already flooding OpenAI's GPT store (qz.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s day two of the opening of OpenAI’s buzzy GPT store, which offers customized versions of ChatGPT, and users are already breaking the rules. The Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPTs) are meant to be created for specific purposes—and not created at all in some cases.

A search for “girlfriend” on the new GPT store will populate the site’s results bar with at least eight “girlfriend” AI chatbots, including “Korean Girlfriend,” “Virtual Sweetheart,” “Your girlfriend Scarlett,” “Your AI girlfriend, Tsu.”

Click on chatbot “Virtual Sweetheart,” and a user will receive starting prompts like “What does your dream girl look like?” and “Share with me your darkest secret.”

The AI girlfriend bots go against OpenAI’s usage policy, which was updated when the GPT store launched yesterday (Jan. 10). The company bans GPTs “dedicated to fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities.” It is not clear exactly what regulated activities entail. Quartz has contacted OpenAI for comment and will update this story if the company responds.

Notably, the company is aiming to get ahead of potential conflicts with its OpenAI store. Relationship chatbots are, indeed, popular apps. In the US, seven of the 30 AI chatbot apps downloaded in 2023 from the Apple or Google Play store were related to AI friends, girlfriends, or companions, according to data shared with Quartz from data.ai, a mobile app analytics firm.

The proliferation of these apps may stem from the epidemic of loneliness and isolation Americans are facing. Alarming studies show that one-in-two American adults have reported experiencing loneliness, with the US Surgeon General calling for the need to strengthen social connections. AI chatbots could be part of the solution if people are isolated from other human beings—or they could just be a way to cash in on human suffering.
Movies

Alamo Drafthouse Blames 'Nationwide' Theater Outage on Sony Projector Fail (theverge.com) 52

Posted by BeauHD from the what's-going-on dept.
An issue with Sony's projectors caused theater chain Alamo Drafthouse to close theaters entirely on New Year's Eve. "As of New Year's Day, however, most theaters and most showtimes now appear to be available, with a few exceptions," reports The Verge. From the report: It's not clear what happened. As New Year's Day is a holiday, we somewhat understandably haven't yet been able to reach Alamo or Sony spokespeople, and not every theater or every screening was affected. That didn't stop Alamo from blaming its Sony projectors for what at least one theater called a "nationwide" outage, however.

"Due to nation-wide technical difficulties with Sony, we aren't able to play any titles today," read part of a taped paper sign hanging inside a Woodbury, Minnesota location. That apparently didn't keep the customer who took a picture of that sign from watching The Apartment at that very same location, though: "When we went to our seats, the wait staff let us know that despite the fact that the previews were playing, we wouldn't know until the movie actually started whether we could see the film or not. If it didn't work, the screen would just turn black. Luckily, the film went through without a hitch."

What might have only affected some screenings at some theaters? I've seen speculation on Reddit that it may have something to do with expired digital certificates used to unlock encrypted films, but we haven't heard that from Alamo or Sony. We're looking forward to finding out. Longtime Slashdot reader innocent_white_lamb suggests that "[a] cryptographic key used to master all movies distributed by Deluxe" was the culprit after it expired on December 30. "This means that almost all Hollywood movies will no longer play on many commercial cinema servers. In particular, many showings of Wonka and Aquaman had to be cancelled due to the expired encryption key." From their submitted story: Deluxe and the movie companies have been frantically trying to remaster and send out revised versions of current movies over the past few days. Nobody knows what will happen to older movie titles since everything mastered by Deluxe since 2011 may be affected and may need to be remastered if it is to be shown in movie theaters again. There are at least four separate threads discussing this matter on Film-Tech.com, notes innocent_white_lamb.

Submission + - Do you own a VR headset? 1

Submitted by JustAnotherOldGuy
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: A quick poll on the uptake and market penetration of VR gear, specifically VR headsets:

1) I own a VR headset
2) I don't own a VR headset
3) I own a VR headset and I personally know at least one other person who does
4) I don't own a VR headset and I don't personally know anyone who does

Submission + - People With Suicidal Thoughts Show a Chemical Pattern in Their Blood (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Scientists have figured out a way to identify those most at risk of suicidal behavior, based only on biological markers in their blood.

The analysis isn't foolproof, but in a test of nearly 200 participants – half of whom had major depressive disorder and suicidal ideation, and half of whom did not – the accuracy of diagnosis was around 90 percent.

That impressive result was achieved using just a few markers of energy production in the body's cells: five metabolites in the bloodwork of female participants and a slightly different five in males.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is DuckDuckGo still worth it, and if not, are there alternatives? 6

Submitted by doc1623
doc1623 writes: I've been using DuckDuckGo for many years, but it seems to have degraded in basic search quality and functionality, i.e. syntax and results. I'm just stating my thoughts, and asking what you think. Are any plans, discussions on fixing some of this, or is this by design? Lastly, I'm asking for alternatives.

The first thing I remember, not working anymore, was code and/or error message searches. It used to be you could be code or error messages, and get an exact match right away. Quotes, parenthesis, negatives, and pluses seemed to follow.

I looked up and compared the old syntax circa 2013 vs the current

Comparison:
____________________________________________________

* EACH
        * old: "Every search term should be used by default"
        * current: OR by default (If you type in only two words, don't you want both? there example is "cats dogs")

* OR
        * old: exactly "or"
        * current: the default, with more than one word.

* QUOTES:
        * old: exact match
        * current: "If no or few results are found, we'll try to show related results" (if I put a phrase in quotes, I'm looking for an exact match, why would people want more results that are less relevant?)

* MINUS:
        * old: not included
        * current: fewer (I only put in the minus when there are too many irrelevant results)

* PLUS:
        * old: included (not in 2013, but I'm fairly certain this was the original behavior)
        * current: more (equivocal)

Is it just me, or does the older syntax make so much more sense than the current rules? I really don't understand WHY it became more diluted and equivocated.

Submission + - Porsche Macan pulled from the EU market due to cybersecurity regulations (autocar.co.uk)

Submitted by jay age
jay age writes: Porsche will remove the combustion-powered Macan from sale in the EU in spring 2024, as it won't meet new cybersecurity rules.
The Macan has been a hugely important car for them in Europe, with 20,117 examples sold so far in 2023.

Porsche told Autocar: “In the EU, the combustion-powered Macan will not be available indefinitely. The main reason for this is the General Safety Regulation of the European Union, to which the platform will not be converted. Any models that do not meet these requirements will no longer be eligible for new registration in the EU after 1 July 2024.

"In regions outside the EU, the Macan with an internal-combustion engine can remain available for longer.”

The regulations included a separate regulatory framework called UNECE WP.29, which concerns cybersecurity and stipulates that all new cars in the EU must have a cybersecurity certificate and be fitted with electronics to protect them from hackers.

Each car must prove that it's protected against 70 vulnerabilities, including cyber attacks during development, production and post-production.

Manufacturers will face a fine of up to €30,000 (£25,732) per vehicle if they don't comply with the regulation.

Submission + - Company says it is targeting ads based on conversations around phones/speakers (404media.co)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A marketing team within media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations of consumers through embedded microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices to gather data and use it to target ads, according to a review of CMG marketing materials by 404 Media and details from a pitch given to an outside marketing professional. Called “Active Listening,” CMG claims the capability can identify potential customers “based on casual conversations in real time.”
The news signals that what a huge swath of the public has believed for years—that smartphones are listening to people in order to deliver ads—may finally be a reality in certain situations. Until now, there was no evidence that such a capability actually existed, but its myth permeated due to how sophisticated other ad tracking methods have become.

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