Submission + - Meta Employees Launch Protest Against Mouse-Tracking Tech At US Offices (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Metaemployees distributed flyers at multiple U.S. offices on Tuesday to protest the company's recent installation ofmouse-tracking softwareon their computers, according to photos of the pamphlets seen by Reuters. The flyers, which appeared in meeting rooms, on vending machines and atop toilet paper dispensers at the Facebook owner's offices, encouraged staffers to sign anonline petition against the move. "Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?" they asked, according to the photos seen by Reuters. [...]

The pamphlets and the petition both cite the U.S. National Labor Relations Act, saying "workers are legally protected when they choose to organize for the improvement of working conditions." In the UK, a group of Meta employees has started organizing a drive for unionization with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW), a branch of the Communication Workers Union. The employees set up a website to recruit members using the URL "Leanin.uk," a reference to former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's best-selling book encouraging women to seek equal footing in the workplace. “Meta’s workers are paying the price for management’s reckless and expensive bets. While executives chase speculative AI strategies, staff are facing devastating job cuts, draconian surveillance, and the cruel reality of being forced to train the inefficient systems being positioned to replace them," said Eleanor Payne, an organizer with UTAW.

Submission + - German Sovereign Tech Fund supports KDE Plasma (kde.org)

Submitted by Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: The German Sovereign Tech Fund invests 1.2 million Euro (= 1,400,000 USD)in KDE Plasma technologies. According to the STF, they are investing in KDE because it is one of the two major desktop environments used across Linux and plays a key role in how millions of people experience open technology. Strengthening KDE's testing infrastructure, security architecture, and communication frameworks is how they invest in the resilience and reliability of the core digital infrastructure that modern society depends on.

Submission + - Sam Altman Testifies That Elon Musk Wanted Control of OpenAI (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Before Elon Musk left OpenAI in a power struggle in 2018, he wanted to merge the nonprofit artificial intelligence lab with Tesla, his electric car company. Mr. Musk and other OpenAI co-founders met several times to discuss the merger. OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, was even offered a seat on Tesla’s board of directors, according to a court document. But folding OpenAI into Tesla would have eliminated the lab’s nonprofit status, and that, Mr. Altman said on the witness stand on Tuesday, was something he wanted to avoid. [...] “I believed that A.I. should not be under the control of any one person,” Mr. Altman said. [...] Mr. Altman testified about his feud with Mr. Musk. He said he had become worried that Mr. Musk, who provided the early investment money for OpenAI, wanted to take control of the lab. He described what he called a “particularly harrowing moment” when his OpenAI co-founders asked Mr. Musk what would happen to his control of a potential for-profit when he died. Mr. Altman said Mr. Musk had replied that the control would pass to his children. “I was not comfortable with that,” Mr. Altman said. When Mr. Musk lost a power struggle for control of the lab, he left, forcing Mr. Altman to find another big financial backer in Microsoft.

But Mr. Altman ran into trouble in 2023 when OpenAI’s board fired him because, as several of its members have testified in the trial, it didn’t trust him. Steven Molo, Mr. Musk’s lead lawyer, homed in on Mr. Altman’s trustworthiness during an aggressive cross-examination. “Are you completely trustworthy?” Mr. Molo asked. “I believe so,” Mr. Altman answered. After questioning Mr. Altman’s trustworthiness for nearly 20 minutes, Mr. Molo turned to Mr. Altman’s relationship with Mr. Musk. Mr. Altman said that after he met Mr. Musk in the mid-2010s, Mr. Musk had occasionally expressed concern about the dangers of A.I. But Mr. Musk spent far more time saying he was worried that companies like Google would get ahead in A.I. development, Mr. Altman said. (Mr. Musk testified in the trial that he had wanted to create OpenAI to prevent Google from controlling the technology.) Mr. Altman, the lawyer intimated, took advantage of Mr. Musk’s concerns and was never sincere about his own A.I. fears. “Are you a person who just tells people things they want to hear whether those things are true or not?” Mr. Molo asked. The lawyer also questioned whether Mr. Atman, who became a billionaire through years of tech investments, was self-dealing through OpenAI. Mr. Molo showed a list of Mr. Altman’s personal investments across a number of companies that stand to benefit from their association with OpenAI. They included Helion Energy, a start-up that has deals with Microsoft and OpenAI, and Cerebras, a chip maker in business with OpenAI. Mr. Molo asked if Mr. Altman, who is on OpenAI’s board as well as its chief executive, would ever fire himself. “I have no plans to do that,” Mr. Altman said.

OpenAI’s odd journey from nonprofit lab to what it is today — a well-funded, for-profit company that is still connected to a nonprofit called the OpenAI Foundation with an endowment that could be worth more than $130 billion — provided grist for Mr. Molo’s questions about Mr. Altman’s motivations. He implied that Mr. Altman could have continued to build OpenAI as a pure nonprofit. But the only way to build such a valuable charity was to raise billions through a for-profit venture, Mr. Altman responded. Still, the giant sums being raised appeared to upset Mr. Musk. In late 2022, according to court documents, Mr. Musk sent a text to Mr. Altman complaining that Microsoft was preparing to invest $10 billion in OpenAI. “This is a bait and switch,” Mr. Musk said at the time. But Mr. Altman, under questioning from his own lawyers, said: “Every step of the way, I have done my best to maximize the value of the nonprofit. I would point out that there are not a lot of historical examples of a nonprofit at this scale.”

Submission + - NVIDIA CEO tells graduates to embrace AI despite fears it could replace them (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang delivered the commencement speech at Carnegie Mellon University this weekend, telling graduates they are entering âoean extraordinary momentâ as artificial intelligence reshapes science, computing, and industry. Huang described AI as a tool that will expand human knowledge and create opportunities for the next generation, encouraging students to âoerun, donâ(TM)t walkâ toward the future. NVIDIA, of course, sits at the center of the AI boom, supplying many of the GPUs powering modern machine learning systems.

But the speech also carried an awkward irony. Many graduates entering the workforce today are already wondering whether AI will shrink opportunities in coding, writing, customer support, and other white-collar fields. While tech executives continue presenting AI as empowering and productivity-enhancing, companies are increasingly experimenting with automation as a cost-cutting measure. Listening to AI billionaires hype the future of work can sometimes feel a bit like motivational speeches at a hamburger factory.

Submission + - State ACA sites shared personal data with social media companies (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by JoeyRox
JoeyRox writes: Almost all of the 20 state-run ACA exchanges are embedding advertising trackers that share personal data with major tech companies, including gender, race, citizenship, and insurance premium information by zip.

“It is very harmful that these tracking technologies are so embedded in these sites because people would expect this information to be private,” said Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, citing research that indicates people alter their behavior online when they know they’re being surveilled.

Submission + - Canvas hacked and down (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by tphb
tphb writes: In the middle of final's season, Instructure Canvas, the widely used learning management system for thousands of schools and universities such as Harvard, Colorado, and Georgia tech has been hacked and is currently down. Per a report from Bleeping Computer, the company reported a breach on May 1. Today, school landing pages were replaced by a message from the hacking consortium ShinyHunters claiming that they would release the data by May 12th unless a ransom is paid. Shortly thereafter all school landing sites went offline for "maintenance".

Submission + - ReactOS Unifies Installation Media, Introduces GUI Installer and New ATA Driver (phoronix.com)

Submitted by jeditobe
jeditobe writes: Developers of ReactOS told Phoronix that the project has introduced a unified BootCD, replacing its previously separate installation media and LiveCD images. The new image combines the traditional text-mode installer with a LiveCD mode in a single medium.

Within this unified BootCD, the updated LiveCD mode now includes an option to launch a first-stage GUI installer. The graphical interface is intended to make installation more approachable for new users compared to the long-standing text-based setup process.

In a separate development, the project has also merged a new ATA storage driver that has been in progress since early 2024. The plug-and-play–aware storage stack supports SATA, PATA, ATAPI, AHCI, and even SCSI devices, potentially expanding the range of hardware on which ReactOS can successfully boot.

Following recent improvements to graphics driver support, the project continues to make incremental progress across core subsystems, though its long development timeline remains a point of discussion.

Will these usability and hardware compatibility improvements be enough to broaden ReactOS adoption beyond its current niche?

Please note that all new features are not present in version 0.4.15 and are available for testing in the latest nightly test builds.

     

Submission + - Silicon Valley Bets $200 Million On AI Data Centers Floating In the Ocean (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Silicon Valley investors such as Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel have bet hundreds of millions of dollars on deploying AI data centers powered by waves in the middle of the world’s oceans—a move that coincides with tech companies facing mounting challenges in building AI data center projects on land. The latest investment round of $140 million is intended to help the company Panthalassa complete a pilot manufacturing facility near Portland, Oregon, and speed up deployments of wave-riding “nodes” designed to generate electrical power, according to a May 4 press release. Instead of sending renewable energy to a land-based data center, the floating nodes would directly power onboard AI chips and transmit inference tokens representing the AI models’ outputs to customers worldwide via satellite link.

Each node resembles a huge steel sphere bobbing on the water with a tube-like structure extending vertically down beneath the surface. The wave motions drive water upward through the tube into a pressurized reservoir, where it can be released to spin a turbine generator that produces renewable energy for the AI chips on board. Panthalassa claims the node’s AI chips would also get cooled using the surrounding water, which could offer another advantage over traditional data centers. “Ocean-based compute might offer a massive cooling advantage because the ambient temperature is so low,” Lee said. “Land-based data centers use a lot of electricity and fresh water for cooling.”

The newest node prototype, called Ocean-3, is scheduled for testing in the northern Pacific Ocean later in 2026. The latest version reaches about 85 meters in length and would stand nearly as tall as London’s Big Ben or New York City’s Flatiron Building, according to the Financial Times. Panthalassa has already tested several earlier prototypes of the wave energy converter technology, including the Ocean-1 in 2021 and the Ocean-2 that underwent a three-week sea trial off the coast of Washington state in February 2024. The company’s CEO and co-founder, Garth Sheldon-Coulson, said in a CBS interview that he hopes to eventually deploy thousands of the nodes.

Submission + - 'Notepad++ For Mac' Release Is Disavowed By the Creator of the Original (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As its name implies, the venerable Notepad++ text editor began as a more capable version of the classic Windows Notepad, with features such as line numbering and syntax highlighting. It was created in 2003 by Don Ho, who continues to be its primary author and maintainer, and it has been a Windows-exclusive app throughout its existence (older Notepad++ versions support OSes as old as Windows 95; the current version officially supports everything going back to Windows 7). I’m not a devoted user of the app, but I was aware of its history, which is why I was surprised to see news of a “Notepad++ for Mac” port making the rounds last week, as though it were a port of the original available from the Notepad++ website.

Apparently, this news surprised Ho as well, who claims that the Mac version and its author, Andrey Letov, are “using the Notepad++ trademark (the name) without permission." “This is misleading, inappropriate, and frankly disrespectful to both the project and its users,” Ho wrote. “It has already fooled people—including tech media—into believing this is an official release. To be crystal clear: Notepad++ has never released a macOS version. Anyone claiming otherwise is simply riding on the Notepad++ name.”

Submission + - Google celebrates Americaâ(TM)s 250th anniversary with AI-driven history ex (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Google has launched a new âoeMaking of the Nation — America at 250â experience through its Arts & Culture platform, tying into the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States. Built in collaboration with the National Archives, the National Park Service, and a White House task force, the project aggregates historical documents, artifacts, and stories into a single interactive hub. Users can explore founding era materials, including letters from figures like George Washington and Abigail Adams, along with lesser-known stories such as Revolutionary War espionage efforts and behind the scenes contributors to independence.

The experience leans heavily on AI, with tools like NotebookLM used to make primary sources more accessible and interactive. There is also a virtual Founders Museum rendered as a 3D gallery, plus AI generated âoeOne Minute Guidesâ for national parks like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. The result is a mix of digital archiving and modern presentation, raising the usual questions about whether this kind of tech driven storytelling meaningfully improves access to history or simply repackages it under a big tech umbrella.

Submission + - Infrasound Waves Stop Kitchen Fires, But Can They Replace Sprinklers? (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a makeshift demonstration kitchen in Concord, California, cooking oil splatters in and around a frying pan, which catches fire on an unattended gas stove. Within moments, a smoke detector wails. But in this demonstration, something less common happens: An AI-driven sensor activates and wall emitters blast infrasound waves toward the source of the fire in an attempt to put it out. The science of acoustic fire suppression, which has long been known and documented in scientific literature and the press, works by vibrating oxygen molecules away from a fuel source, depriving the fire of a critical component needed for combustion. Indeed, after just a few seconds of infrasound, the tiny kitchen blaze goes out.

“We were able to not just point-and-shoot like a fire extinguisher; we figured out how to run it through ducting and distribute it like a sprinkler system,” said Geoff Bruder, co-founder and CEO of Sonic Fire Tech, during the presentation. The company’s goal is to replace sprinklers, which are effective at stopping fires but can also do significant water damage to a property. Sonic Fire Tech appears to be the first company trying to commercialize the science of acoustic fire suppression. Its executives have already been touring Southern California; Wednesday’s event was the first in the northern half of the state.

The company aims to make this infrasound technique mainstream in both commercial (for instance, a data center, where sprinklers would damage electronics) and in-home installations, given that sprinklers are already required in all new California homes built in 2011 and later. Sonic Fire Tech also hopes to produce a backpack-based system that could be worn by wildland firefighters headed out into the field. “We are making meaningful technological improvements on a monthly basis,” Stefan Pollack, a company spokesperson, emailed Ars after the event. But two experts who spoke with Ars raised serious questions about the potential for this technology to supplant traditional sprinklers in a home. They are even more skeptical as to whether the technique can be effective in an uncontrolled wildfire situation, where flames can grow very quickly.

Submission + - In Backlash Against Tech in Schools, Parents Are Winning Rollbacks

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: From Salt Lake City to New York City, the New York Times reports, parents are demanding more sway over the digital tools that schools give children:

"Los Angeles parents are fed up with schools loading up students with laptops and tablets, and assigning schoolwork on a slew of apps. Some families, who had decided against giving their children screens at home, told school board members that they were appalled to find young students using school-issued devices — even in kindergarten. Some parents complained that their children were able to play video games or watch social media videos during school. Others reported that an A.I. app, which fourth graders were assigned to use to create portraits of the fictional Swedish schoolgirl Pippi Longstocking, generated sexualized imagery."

"Such concerns prompted parents last year to form a group called Schools Beyond Screens to push for increased technology oversight in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest public school system. Last week, the Los Angeles school board passed a resolution requiring the district to restrict student access to YouTube, eliminate digital devices entirely through first grade and develop screen time limits for higher grades — becoming the first major U.S. school system to do so. The parents’ successful campaign points to an escalating national reckoning for the powerful classroom technology industry. Encouraged by the fast spread of school cellphone bans, parents, teachers and legislators across the United States have banded together to ensure that technology use in schools is beneficial for learning."

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