The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on Sunday celebrated the 30th anniversary of releasing the World Wide Web into the public domain. From a report: As the World Wide Web Consortium's brief history of the web explains, in 1989 Tim Berners-Lee - then a fellow at CERN - proposed that the organization adopt "a global hypertext system." His first name for the project was "Mesh." And as the Consortium records, in 1990 Berners-Lee set to work on "a hypertext GUI browser+editor using the NeXTStep development environment. He makes up 'WorldWideWeb' as a name for the program." Berners-Lee's work gathered a very appreciative audience inside CERN, and soon started to attract attention elsewhere. By January 1993, the world had around 50 HTTP servers. The following month, the first graphical browser -- Marc Andreessen's Mosaic -- appeared. Alternative hypertext tools, like Gopher, started to lose their luster. On April 30, 1993, CERN signed off on a decision that the World Wide Web -- a client, server, and library of code created under its roof -- belonged to humanity (the letter was duly stamped on May 3).

Apple and Google said on Tuesday that they were working together to prevent lost item trackers like Apple's AirTag from being used to track people without their permission. From a report: The companies came together to draft a new industry standard that will add the ability to alert victims to unwanted trackers in Android and iOS, the companies said. Apple's AirTag is intended to help people find lost items such as keys by displaying an item's nearly real-time location inside an iPhone app. But there have been many reports about the $30 coin-sized device being used to stalk people since it went on sale in 2021. In response, Apple previously built detection features into iPhones that allow users to detect unfamiliar AirTags in the user's area. Tuesday's announcement suggests that Android phones will also soon gain the ability to warn their users if they are being tracked by an AirTag.

What's the cost of students using ChatGPT for homework? For U.S. education services provider Chegg, it could be nearly $1 billion in market valuation. From a report: Chegg signaled the rising popularity of viral chatbot ChatGPT was pressuring its subscriber growth and prompted it to suspend its full-year outlook, sending shares of the company 47% lower in early trading on Tuesday. "Since March, we saw a significant spike in student interest in ChatGPT. We now believe it's having an impact on our new customer growth rate," said Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig. There are fears Chegg's core business could become extinct as consumers experiment with free artificial intelligence (AI) tools, said analyst Brent Thill at Jefferies, which downgraded the stock to "hold." Last month, the Santa Clara, California-based firm said it would launch ChatGPT's AI powered CheggMate, a study aide tailored to students' needs, at a time educators were grappling with the consequences of the homework drafting chatbot.

In response to a new law that requires porn sites to verify users' ages, Pornhub has completely disabled its websites for people located in Utah. From a report: As of today, anyone accessing Pornhub from a Utah-based IP address doesn't see the Pornhub homepage, but instead is met with a video of Cherie DeVille, adult performer and member of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, explaining that they won't be able to visit the site. "As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website," DeVille says. "While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk."

The Writers Guild of America, the union that bargains on behalf of Hollywood's screenwriters, has called a strike after negotiations with major studios failed to produce a favorable contract this week. From a report: The strike, which is the first involving WGA to occur in 15 years, seeks to bring firms to the table on a host of issues, including higher pay and better working conditions. But some of the issues are quite unique in the annals of modern labor disputes and have to do with technological changes currently disrupting the entertainment industry -- such as the role artificial intelligence may play in future screenwriting projects. "Though our Negotiating Committee began this process intent on making a fair deal, the studios' responses have been wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers are facing," the WGA tweeted late Monday evening. "Picketing will begin Tuesday afternoon."

Negotiations between WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers -- the trade organization that represents the movie and streaming studios in contract negotiations -- have been ongoing for the past month but the deadline for a new contract was midnight on Tuesday morning. In its own statement, the AMPTP claimed that it had presented a "comprehensive package proposal" to the Guild and that it had been willing to "improve that offer" but claimed that the "magnitude of other proposals" that the union had made were untenable. "The AMPTP member companies remain united in their desire to reach a deal that is mutually beneficial to writers and the health and longevity of the industry," said the organization, which represents the likes of Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon, Sony and other entertainment giants. The New York Times adds: The dispute has pitted 11,500 screenwriters against the major studios, including old guard entertainment companies like Universal and Paramount as well as tech industry newcomers like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: When you think of digital entertainment, your mind might turn first to online video-streaming services, such as Sling TV or YouTube TV, and video-on-demand services, including Netflix or Acorn TV. However, consultant Deloitte's 17th annual "Digital Media Trends" survey suggests traditional television shows and movies are no longer the only forms of entertainment. Younger generations, often called Gen Zs and Millennials, are increasingly turning to user-generated content (UGC) -- which relies on unpaid contributors rather than traditional media professionals -- and video games to find personal fulfillment, value, and meaning. These younger users are creating a vibrant, immersive, and social tapestry of experiences with UGC, video games, music, and social media all playing significant roles. And that move towards UGC and gaming could have big implications for everyone.

Deloitte's survey found that about a third (32%) of consumers view online experiences as meaningful substitutes for in-person interactions, with that proportion increasing to 50% among Gen Zs and Millennials. Almost half (48%) of these younger generations engage more with others on social media than in the physical world, and 40% of them socialize more in video games than offline. Of course, it's not only younger people who view online experiences as meaningful substitutes for in-person interactions. [...] Yet those born after 1981, the usual dividing line between Generation X and Millennials, are much more inclined to live their lives online.

When Intel debuts its forthcoming Meteor Lake client processors, the company may drop its iconic "i" CPU branding and add a new moniker. Chipzilla today told The Register "We are making brand changes as we're at an inflection point in our client roadmap in preparation for the upcoming launch of our Meteor Lake processors. We will provide more details regarding these exciting changes in the coming weeks." From the report: The Register asked Intel about branding after semiconductor analyst Dylan Patel on Monday tweeted "Imagine you're losing market share when you've been monopoly for decades, and your bright idea is to burn all brand recognition to the ground!" "That's Intel's plan by removing the 'i' in i7 i5 i3. All the decades brand recognition being lit on fire for no reason!"

Patel labelled the rebranding a "horrible very short sighted move" that won't fix Intel's woes and "will cause more harm than good, as many buyers know + recognize the i7 i5 branding, they won't once it's changed." "The new branding sounds bad with ultra strewn about + confusing scheme."

Patel's mention of "Ultra" branding appears to be a reference to this benchmark result for game Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation which lists a processor called "Intel Core Ultra 5 1003H".

Researchers at the University of Minnesota report via Phys.Org: Biocomputing is typically done either with live cells or with non-living, enzyme-free molecules. Live cells can feed themselves and can heal, but it can be difficult to redirect cells from their ordinary functions toward computation. Non-living molecules solve some of the problems of live cells, but have weak output signals and are difficult to fine-tune and regulate. In new research published in Nature Communications, a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota has developed a platform for a third method of biocomputing: Trumpet, or Transcriptional RNA Universal Multi-Purpose GatE PlaTform.

Trumpet uses biological enzymes as catalysts for DNA-based molecular computing. Researchers performed logic gate operations, similar to operations done by all computers, in test tubes using DNA molecules. A positive gate connection resulted in a phosphorescent glow. The DNA creates a circuit, and a fluorescent RNA compound lights up when the circuit is completed, just like a lightbulb when a circuit board is tested.

The research team demonstrated that:

- The Trumpet platform has the simplicity of molecular biocomputing with added signal amplification and programmability.
- The platform is reliable for encoding all universal Boolean logic gates (NAND, NOT, NOR, AND, and OR), which are fundamental to programming languages.
- The logic gates can be stacked to build more complex circuits.

The team also developed a web-based tool facilitating the design of sequences for the Trumpet platform. "Trumpet is a non-living molecular platform, so we don't have most of the problems of live cell engineering," said co-author Kate Adamala, assistant professor in the College of Biological Sciences. "We don't have to overcome evolutionary limitations against forcing cells to do things they don't want to do. This also gives Trumpet more stability and reliability, with our logic gates avoiding the leakage problems of live cell operations."

"It could make a lot of long-term neural implants possible. The applications could range from strictly medical, like healing damaged nerve connections or controlling prosthetics, to more sci-fi applications like entertainment or learning and augmented memory," added Adamala.

Thanks to a crowdfunding campaign dating back to 2014, soldiers in Ukraine are now using Steam Decks to remotely operate a high-caliber machine gun turret. The weapon is called the "Sabre" and is unique to Ukraine. Motherboard reports: Ukrainian news outlet TPO Media recently reported on the deployment of a new model of the Sabre on its Facebook page. Photos and videos of the system show soldiers operating a Steam Deck connected to a large machine gun via a heavy piece of cable. According to the TPO Media post, the Sabre system allows soldiers to fight the enemy from a great distance and can handle a range of calibers, from light machine guns firing anti-tank rounds to an AK-47.

In the TPO footage, the Sabre is firing what appears to be a PKT belt-fed machine gun. The PKT is a heavy barrelled machine that doesn't have a stock and is typically mounted on vehicles like armored personnel carriers. It uses a solenoid trigger so it can be fired remotely, which is the cable running out of the back of the gun and into the complex of metal and wires on the side of the turret.

The Sabre system wasn't always controlled with a Steam Deck [...]. The first instances of the weapon appeared in 2014. The U.S. and the rest of NATO is giving Ukraine a lot of money for defense now, but that wasn't the case when Russia first invaded in 2014. To fill its funding gaps, Ukrainians ran a variety of crowdfunding campaigns. Over the years, Ukraine has used crowdfunding to pay for everything from drones to hospitals. One of the most popular websites is The People's Project, and it's there that the Sabre was born. The People's Project launched the crowdfunding campaign for Sabre in 2015 and collected more than $12,000 for the project over the next two years. It's initial goal was to deploy 10 of these systems.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Some engineers for the Federal Aviation Administration wanted to ground the Boeing 737 Max soon after a second deadly crash, but top officials in the agency overruled them, according to a government watchdog. The inspector general of the Transportation Department said in a new report that FAA officials wanted to sort out raw data about the two crashes, and held off grounding the plane despite growing international pressure. The inspector general's office said that it reviewed emails and interviewed FAA officials. The investigation "revealed that individual engineers at the Seattle (office) recommended grounding the airplane while the accident was being investigated based on what they perceived as similarities between the accidents."

One engineer made a preliminary estimate that the chance of another Max crash was more than 13 times greater than FAA risk guidelines allow. An FAA official said the analysis "suggested that there was a 25% chance of an accident in 60 days" if no changes were made to the planes. "However, this document was not completed and did not go through managerial review due to lack of detailed flight data," the report said. FAA officials at headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the agency's Seattle office opted not to ground the plane. "Instead, they waited for more detailed data to arrive," the watchdog said in the report, which was made public Friday.

The first Max crash occurred in October 2018 in Indonesia and was followed by the second in March 2019 in Ethiopia. In all, 346 people died. The FAA was the last major aviation regulator to ground the Max -- three days after the second crash. The FAA did not let the planes fly again until late 2020, after Boeing altered a flight-control system that autonomously pointed the plane's nose down before both crashes. The inspector general's office said the FAA's caution on grounding the Max fit with its tendency of waiting for detailed data -- an explanation that agency officials offered at the time. Still, the watchdog recommended that FAA document how key and urgent safety decisions are made and make several other changes in how it analyzes crashes.

According to Windows Latest, Microsoft is working on new ARM chips to compete against Apple Silicon. "I have also spotted some job listings that suggest the company is building its own Silicon-based ARM chips for client devices" writes Mayank Parmar. "Additionally, I understand that Microsoft is optimizing Windows 12 for Silicon-ARM architecture." From the report: These developments coincide with the upcoming launch of Windows 12, which has a special version optimized for silicon and designed to leverage AI capabilities. The job listings (most of them have now been taken down) describe positions related to custom silicon accelerators, System on Chips (SoCs), and high-performance, high-bandwidth designs. This suggests that Microsoft is building its own ARM-based chips, aiming to compete with Apple's M chips lineup in terms of performance and efficiency.

Public transit companies in Germany say more than 3 million people have already snapped up a new ticket being launched Monday that allows them to use all local and regional trains, buses and metros across the country for 49 euros ($53.90) a month. From a report: The new Germany Ticket is intended to encourage people to ditch their cars in favor of more environmentally friendly forms of transportation. It follows on from an experimental 9-euro 'all you can ride' ticket that proved to be success last year, but which officials said wasn't financially viable. The new ticket is considered a revolution in Germany's fractured public transit system where dozens of regional companies offered myriad different fare options that baffled many travelers.

The news-rating group NewsGuard has found dozens of news websites generated by AI chatbots proliferating online, according to a report published Monday, raising questions about how the technology may supercharge established fraud techniques. From a report:The 49 websites, which were independently reviewed by Bloomberg, run the gamut. Some are dressed up as breaking news sites with generic-sounding names like News Live 79 and Daily Business Post, while others share lifestyle tips, celebrity news or publish sponsored content. But none disclose they're populated using AI chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and potentially Alphabet's Google Bard, which can generate detailed text based on simple user prompts. Many of the websites began publishing this year as the AI tools began to be widely used by the public.

In several instances, NewsGuard documented how the chatbots generated falsehoods for published pieces. In April alone, a website called CelebritiesDeaths.com published an article titled, "Biden dead. Harris acting President, address 9 a.m." Another concocted facts about the life and works of an architect as part of a falsified obituary. And a site called TNewsNetwork published an unverified story about the deaths of thousands of soldiers in the Russia-Ukraine war, based on a YouTube video. The majority of the sites appear to be content farms -- low-quality websites run by anonymous sources that churn-out posts to bring in advertising. The websites are based all over the world and are published in several languages, including English, Portuguese, Tagalog and Thai, NewsGuard said in its report.

For half a century, Geoffrey Hinton nurtured the technology at the heart of chatbots like ChatGPT. Now he worries it will cause serious harm. From a report: Geoffrey Hinton was an artificial intelligence pioneer. In 2012, Dr. Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created technology that became the intellectual foundation for the A.I. systems that the tech industry's biggest companies believe is a key to their future. On Monday, however, he officially joined a growing chorus of critics who say those companies are racing toward danger with their aggressive campaign to create products based on generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers popular chatbots like ChatGPT. Dr. Hinton said he has quit his job at Google, where he has worked for more than decade and became one of the most respected voices in the field, so he can freely speak out about the risks of A.I. A part of him, he said, now regrets his life's work.

"I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn't done it, somebody else would have," Dr. Hinton said during a lengthy interview last week in the dining room of his home in Toronto, a short walk from where he and his students made their breakthrough. Dr. Hinton's journey from A.I. groundbreaker to doomsayer marks a remarkable moment for the technology industry at perhaps its most important inflection point in decades. Industry leaders believe the new A.I. systems could be as important as the introduction of the web browser in the early 1990s and could lead to breakthroughs in areas ranging from drug research to education. But gnawing at many industry insiders is a fear that they are releasing something dangerous into the wild. Generative A.I. can already be a tool for misinformation. Soon, it could be a risk to jobs. Somewhere down the line, tech's biggest worriers say, it could be a risk to humanity. "It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things," Dr. Hinton said.

The Independent reports: Russian troops who dug trenches in Chernobyl forest during their occupation of the area have been struck down with radiation sickness, authorities have confirmed.

Ukrainians living near the nuclear power station that exploded 37 years ago, and choked the surrounding area in radioactive contaminants, warned the Russians when they arrived against setting up camp in the forest. But the occupiers who, as one resident put it to The Times, "understood the risks" but were "just thick", installed themselves in the forest, reportedly carved out trenches, fished in the reactor's cooling channel — flush with catfish — and shot animals, leaving them dead on the roads...

In the years after the incident, teams of men were sent to dig up the contaminated topsoil and bury it below ground in the Red Forest — named after the colour the trees turned as a result of the catastrophe... Vladimir Putin's men reportedly set up camp within a six-mile radius of reactor No 4, and dug defensive positions into the poisonous ground below the surface.

On 1 April, as Ukrainian troops mounted counterattacks from Kyiv, the last of the occupiers withdrew, leaving behind piles of rubbish. Russian soldiers stationed in the forest have since been struck down with radiation sickness, diplomats have confirmed. Symptoms can start within an hour of exposure and can last for several months, often resulting in death.

This February Ford cut 3,800 jobs, according to CNN, "citing difficult economic conditions and its major push toward electric vehicles... The veteran automaker said the layoffs were primarily triggered by its transition to electric vehicles, and a reduction in 'vehicle complexity.'"

Then in March GM also "unexpectedly cut several hundred jobs to help it trim costs and form a top-tier workforce to guide its transition to an all-electric car company," according to the Detroit Free Press — while later also announcing buyouts to try to "accelerate attrition." A spokesperson explained that GM wanted "to reduce vehicle complexity and expand the use of shared systems between its internal combustion engine and future electric vehicle programs."

Up next is Stellantis, the multinational automotive giant formed when Fiat-Chrysler merged with PSA Group in 2021. It's now "trying to cut its workforce to trim expenses and stay competitive," reports the Associated Press, "as the industry makes the long and costly transition to electric vehicles." Stellantis on Wednesday said it's offering buyouts to groups of white-collar and unionized employees in the U.S., as well as hourly workers in Canada. The cuts are "in response to today's increasingly competitive global market conditions and the necessary shift to electrification," the company said in a prepared statement.

Stellantis said it's looking to reduce its hourly workforce by about 3,500, but wouldn't say how many salaried employees it's targeting. The company has about 56,000 workers in the U.S., and about 33,000 of them could get the offers. Of those, 31,000 are blue-collar workers and 2,500 salaried employees. The company has another 8,000 union workers in Canada, but it would not say how many will get offers...

The offers follow Ford and General Motors, which have trimmed their workforces in the past year through buyout offers. About 5,000 white-collar workers took General Motors up on offers to leave the company this year. Ford cut about 3,000 contract and full-time salaried workers last summer, giving them severance packages.
The article adds that Shawn Fain, the new president of the United Auto Workers union, has told reporters "that he's unhappy with all three companies" over attempts to unionize "new joint-venture factories that will make battery cells for future electric vehicles."

The Detroit Free Press has specifics: He said, for instance, that the wages are lower at the GM and LG Energy Solution Ultium Cells joint venture in Ohio compared with other auto production jobs even though the work is potentially dangerous and requires significant training... The EV transformation is crucial for the future of the industry and its workers, and the union expects its members not to "get lost in the transition," Fain said, noting that jobs are needed "that raise people up, not take us back."

This month the Linux Foundation announced version 3.0 of DentOS, an open source network operating system using the Linux kernel, Switchdev, and other Linux-based projects for a standardized network operating system "without abstractions or overhead," according to the project's web page. "All underlying infrastructure — including ASIC and Silicon for networking and datapath — is treated equally; while existing abstractions, APIs, drivers, low-level overhead, and other open software are simplified. DENT unites silicon vendors, ODMs, SIs, OEMs, and end users across all verticals to enable the transition to disaggregated networks."

Or, as the Linux Foundation, the operating system provides "a flexible and customizable platform for network administrators to manage their networks." DENT provides access to open source-based switches at a lower cost and with more flexibility compared to proprietary switches with locked ecosystems. Network wiring closets in many facilities--including retail stores, warehousing, remote locations, enterprises, and small and mid-sized businesses--are often small, requiring a compact solution for network management. Additionally, staff expertise may be limited, and branch-office switches from leading suppliers can require costly contracts. DENT can be easily deployed on white-box hardware in small spaces, providing an efficient and cost-effective solution for network management. As a result, DENT deployment can significantly enhance network management in a wide range of environments, providing greater efficiency, reliability, and scalability...

DentOS enables Amazon's Just Walk Out Technology to connect and manage thousands of devices like cameras, sensors, entry and exit gates, and access points on the network edge.

Last weekend around 2 a.m. Sunday, "Facebook's advertising system went haywire," reports Gizmodo, "overcharging customers and wasting money on ads that didn't work." Reports suggest Meta, the social network's parent company, charged some advertisers more than double what they agreed to pay, ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Meta briefly stopped showing ads on part of its network with practically zero communication to its millions of customers.

The company confirmed the bug happened and promised to follow its "normal refund process," but shared very little about what went wrong.
A Meta spokesperson described it as "a technical issue that has now been resolved" (adding that the glitch also appeared to a lesser extent on Instagram).

But Alex Golick, the CEO of marketing agency Intensify told CNBC it was the worst Facebook glitch he'd seen in the decade he's worked in digital advertising — with one client burning through 90% of its ad budget by 9 a.m. And his entire customer base had similar problems: Golick said that all those advertisers had essentially just wasted most of their money for the day, spending roughly triple the amount they normally would to acquire a customer. "The results were horrendous," Golick told CNBC...

For brands that are already lowering ad costs to manage through a sluggish economy and a mobile ad market that no longer allows for targeting based on user data, Facebook's miscue is more than just an unfortunate blip. In low-margin industries, where every dollar counts, it can turn a profitable weekend into a big loser, while also raising further questions about the reliability of Facebook's ad systems...

Data analytics and marketing firm Varos provided data showing that, of the more than 3,000 ecommerce and direct-to-consumer companies that use its technology, the software bug caused a majority of them to experience a rise in cost per thousand impressions, or what those in the industry call CPMs. About 36% of companies were "very significantly impacted" by the bug, meaning their CPMs at least doubled, Varos said...

Varos CEO Yarden Shaked the glitch resulted in a "bidding war for nothing." Data about the glitch provided by the advertising technology firm Proxima on 108 companies also revealed that these firms spent their "entire day's budget in the first few hours of the day," the company said...

California has approved a groundbreaking rule to cut greenhouse gas emissions by limiting rail pollution, banning locomotives over 23 years old by 2030, increasing the use of zero-emissions technology for freight transportation, and imposing restrictions on idling. The Associated Press reports: The rule will ban locomotive engines more than 23 years old by 2030 and increase the use of zero-emissions technology to transport freight from ports and throughout railyards. It would also ban locomotives in the state from idling longer than 30 minutes if they are equipped with an automatic shutoff. The standards would also reduce chemicals that contribute to smog. They could improve air quality near railyards and ports.

The transportation sector contributed the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide in 2020, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But rail only accounts for about 2% of those emissions. Other states can sign on to try to adopt the California rule if it gets the OK from the Biden administration. The rule is the most ambitious of its kind in the country. "The locomotive rule has the power to change the course of history for Californians who have suffered from train pollution for far too long, and it is my hope that our federal regulators follow California's lead," said Yasmine Agelidis, a lawyer with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, in a statement.

ChatGPT's maker said Friday that the artificial intelligence chatbot is available again in Italy after the company met the demands of regulators who temporarily blocked it over privacy concerns. From a report: OpenAI said it fulfilled a raft of conditions that the Italian data protection authority wanted satisfied by an April 30 deadline to have the ban on the AI software lifted. "ChatGPT is available again to our users in Italy," San Francisco-based OpenAI said by email. "We are excited to welcome them back, and we remain dedicated to protecting their privacy."

Last month, Italian watchdog, known as Garante, ordered OpenAI to temporarily stop processing Italian users' personal information while it investigated a possible data breach. The authority said it didn't want to hamper AI's development but emphasized the importance of following the European Union's strict data privacy rules. OpenAI said it "addressed or clarified the issues" raised by the watchdog. The measures include adding information on its website about how it collects and uses data used to train the algorithms that power ChatGPT, giving European Union users a new form they can use to object to having their data used for training, and adding a tool to verify users' ages when signing up.