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Submission + - Microsoft Touted OpenAI's Independence Nine Days Before Hiring Its Top Talent 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In a panel on AI at the Paris Peace Forum just 10 days ago, Microsoft President Brad Smith gave Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun a lecture on the importance of OpenAI's nonprofit independence.

"Meta is owned by shareholders," Smith argued. "OpenAI is owned by a nonprofit . Which would you have more confidence in? Getting your technology from a nonprofit? Or a for-profit company that is entirely controlled by one human being?"

But on Sunday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pretty much trashed Smith's argument with his announcement that Microsoft was hiring OpenAI's co-founders and some of its top talent to head up a "new advanced AI research team." Another case of Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish?

Submission + - Google publishes schedule for abolishing third-party cookies, starting 2024 (gigazine.net)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Google engineers have published a schedule for eliminating third-party cookies in Chrome. It will be tested on 1% of users from the first quarter of 2024, and then phased out from the third quarter. The original plan was to abolish third-party cookies in 2022 , but due to suspicions of antitrust violations, this was postponed to the end of 2023, and then again to 2024. The abolition of third-party cookies will make it possible to protect privacy-related data such as what sites users visit and what pages they view from advertising companies.

Submission + - Aspartame Is Possibly Linked to Cancer in Humans, the WHO Says (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A World Health Organization agency declared on Thursday that aspartame, an artificial sweetener widely used in diet drinks and low-sugar foods, could possibly cause cancer. A second W.H.O. committee, though, held steady on its assessment of a safe level of aspartame consumption. By some calculations using the panel’s standard, a person weighing 150 pounds could avoid a risk of cancer but still drink about a dozen cans of diet soda a day. The declaration by a W.H.O. agency of a cancer risk associated with aspartame reflects the first time the prominent international body has weighed in publicly on the effects of the nearly ubiquitous artificial sweetener. Aspartame has been a contentious ingredient for decades.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, or I.A.R.C., said it based its conclusion that aspartame was a possible carcinogen on limited evidence from three observational studies of humans that the agency said linked consumption of artificially sweetened beverages to an increase in cases of liver cancer — at levels far below a dozen cans a day. It cautioned that the results could potentially be skewed toward the profile of people who drink higher amounts of diet drinks and called for further study. Still, people who consume high amounts of aspartame should consider switching to water or other unsweetened drinks, said Dr. Francesco Branca, director of the W.H.O. Department of Nutrition and Food Safety. But, he added: “Our results do not indicate that occasional consumption should pose a risk to most.”

Submission + - Actors Say Hollywood Studios Want Their AI Replicas -- For Free, Forever (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: During today’s press conference in which Hollywood actors confirmed that they were going on strike, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, revealed a proposal from Hollywood studios that sounds ripped right out of a Black Mirror episode. In a statement about the strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said that its proposal included “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.”

When asked about the proposal during the press conference, Crabtree-Ireland said that “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

The use of generative AI has been one of the major sticking points in negotiations between the two sides (it’s also a major issue behind the writers strike), and in her opening statement of the press conference, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said that “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.” The SAG-AFTRA strike will officially commence at midnight tonight.

Submission + - When Open Becomes Opaque: The Changing Face of Open-Source Hardware Companies (adafruit.com)

Submitted by caseih
caseih writes: A thoughtful post on the Adafruit Blog chronicles the problems facing open-source hardware companies, and how more and more companies, including Sparkfun, Arduino and Prusa, are becoming more and more proprietary. In Arduino's case, they are deliberately trying to stamp out the clones undercutting them. The new Arduino Pro is not open source in any way, and the web site has now removed references to being an open source company.

As always there are subtlies and nuances. In the case of Prusa, not only are Chinese companies taking Prusa designs and source to make proprietary, closed-source products, they are also actively patenting designs and algorithms they've taken from open source.

With Red Hat recently taking a step towards becoming a proprietary software company (which happens to use and work on open source projects) and now these reports, what are slashdotters' thoughts on the future? Are truly open source companies doomed to failure, especially when overseas companies do not respect or even understand the principles of open source development?

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 + - James Webb Space Telescope Launched (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Dave Knott
Dave Knott writes: The world's largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life.

The $10-billion US observatory hurtled toward its destination 1.6 million kilometresÂaway, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos.

The observatory will be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang.

Submission + - Beatles documentary Get Back used custom AI to remove background noise (newscientist.com)

Submitted by MattSparkes
MattSparkes writes: Peter Jackson’s documentary about the making of the album Let It Be would have been impossible without custom-made artificial intelligence, say sound engineers.

Sixty hours of footage were recorded but most of the audio was captured by a single microphone that picked up the musicians’ instruments in a noisy jumble rather than a carefully crafted mix. It also recorded background noise and chatter, which made much of the footage unusable.

The team scoured academic papers on using AI to separate audio sources but realised that none of the previous research would work for a music documentary. They consulted with Paris Smaragdis at the University of Chicago and started to create a neural network called MAL (machine assisted learning) and a set of training data that was higher quality than datasets used in academic experiments.

Submission + - Dyson Loses Fight For $198 Million Compensation Over EU Energy Labeling Rules (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Britain's Dyson, which makes bagless vacuum cleaners, on Wednesday lost its fight for $198.4 million in compensation from the European Commission for alleged losses due to EU energy labelling rules. Dyson had challenged the rules introduced by the EU executive in 2014, saying the labelling requirements on vacuum cleaners discriminated against its technology, misled customers about the efficiency of some vacuum cleaners and unfairly benefited its German rivals.

It won the backing of the Luxembourg-based General Court, which in its 2018 ruling scrapped the EU energy labelling rules. Dyson subsequently went back to the same court seeking 176 million euros in compensation for losses allegedly incurred due to the rules. The court dismissed its claim. "By using the standardized empty receptacle testing method, the Commission did not manifestly and gravely disregard the limits on its discretion or commit a sufficiently serious breach of the principles of equal treatment and sound administration," judges said. Dyson said it would appeal.

Submission + - Boss Says Sorry For 'Blundered' Zoom Firing of 900 Staff (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The boss of a US mortgage company, who fired hundreds of his staff in a Zoom meeting has said he is "deeply sorry" for the way the lay-offs were handled. The sackings were necessary said Vishal Garg, but he accepted he had "blundered the execution" and "embarrassed" them. "I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected," he said in a letter (PDF) on the firm's website. Mr Garg was heavily criticized after he sacked 900 staff in an online meeting. "I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be," he said. Mr Garg said he had realized "the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse."

Submission + - When a Newspaper Publishes an Unsolvable Puzzle' (10zenmonkeys.com)

Submitted by DevNull127
DevNull127 writes: It's a newspaper puzzle that's like Sudoku, except it's impossible... They call it "The Challenger" puzzle — but when the newspaper leaves out a crucial instruction, you can end up searching forever for a unique solution which doesn't exist!

"If you're thinking 'This could be a 9 or an 8....' — you're right!" complains Lou Cabron. "Everyone's a winner today! Just start scribbling in numbers! And you'd be a fool to try to keep narrowing them down by, say, using your math and logic skills. A fool like me..." (A fool who once solved a Sudoku puzzle entirely in his head.) But two hours of frustration later — and one night of bad dreams — he's stumbled onto the web page of Dr. Robert J. Lopez, an emeritus math professor in Indiana, who's calculated that in fact Challenge puzzles can have up to 190 solutions... and in fact, there's more than one solution for more than 97 of them!

At the end of the day, it becomes an appreciation for the local newspaper, and the puzzles they run next to the funnies. But with a friendly reminder "that they ought to honor and respect that love — by always providing the complete instructions."

Submission + - Scientists Discover How the SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evades Our Immune System (scitechdaily.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: A discovery by researchers at the Texas A&M College of Medicine could lead to new therapies to prevent the virus from proliferating in the human body.

The immune system is a complex network of cells and proteins that is designed to fight off infection and disease, especially those like the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, that can cause numerous issues in the human body. But many individuals are still at risk of being infected with the coronavirus, letting it replicate in the body and further transmitting to other individuals.

The underlying mechanism of how SARS-CoV-2 escapes from the immune system has been poorly understood. However, researchers from the Texas A&M University College of Medicine and Hokkaido University have recently discovered a major mechanism that explains how SARS-CoV-2 can escape from the immune system and replicate in the human body. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

“We found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus carries a suppressive gene that acts to inhibit a human gene in the immune system that is essential for destroying infected cells,” said Dr. Koichi Kobayashi, adjunct professor at the College of Medicine and lead author of the paper.

Naturally, the cells in a human’s immune system are able to control virus infection by destroying infected cells so that the virus cannot be replicated. The gene that is essential in executing this process, called NLRC5, regulates major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I genes, which are genes that create a pathway that is vital in providing antiviral immunity. Kobayashi and his colleagues discovered this in 2012.

“During infection, the amount and activity of NLRC5 gene become augmented in order to boost our ability of eradication of viruses,” Kobayashi said. “We discovered that the reason why SARS-CoV-2 can replicate so easily is because the virus carries a suppressive gene, called ORF6, that acts to inhibit the function of NLRC5, thus inhibiting the MHC class I pathway as well.”

Submission + - THE LOST AMIGA CD64 - After the CD32... - A Commodore History Documentary

Submitted by Mike Bouma
Mike Bouma writes: Lady Decade talks about the fate of the Amiga CD32 after Commodore's demise, as well as covers what could have been the successor to the short-lived Amiga CD32 (which was the world's first true 32-bit CD based home console), the Amiga CD64.

The Amiga CD32 released in Europe on September 16, 1993 and on March 1, 1994, Commodore Business Machines announced: "First launched in Europe this past fall, Commodore reports to have sold over 100,000 units in Europe in just three months prior to Christmas. By outselling Sega four to one and claiming 38% market share of all CD ROM drives sold in the UK (according to the Gallup Weekly Report), the Amiga CD32 has established itself as the undisputed leader of the 32 bit machines." Operations in Germany and the United Kingdom were still profitable, but Commodore was not able to meet demand for new units because of component supply problems and could not release the (already made) Amiga CD32 stock in the United States due to a legal patent issue .Commodore declared bankruptcy on April 29, 1994 causing the CD32 to be discontinued only eight months after its debut. (source: wikipedia and Amiga Report)

The Amiga CD32 still has more than 100 games released for it. Sadly most of them were straight A500 conversions to CD format without any or little improvements technically. IMO the most impressive game released for the system was Super Stardust by Bloodhouse, published by Team17. It was the sequel to Stardust for the Amiga 500 and Atari STE. Bloodhouse merged with Terramarque (famous for their impressive Amiga 500 game Elfmania) to form Housemarque, which is still making games as of today.

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