An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is expected to announce major artificial intelligence updates to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac next week during its Worldwide Developers Conference. Except Apple won't call its system artificial intelligence, like everyone else, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman on Friday. The system will reportedly be called "Apple Intelligence," and allegedly will be made available to new versions of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. Apple Intelligence, which is shortened to just AI, is reportedly separate from the ChatGPT-like chatbot Apple is expected to release in partnership with OpenAI. Apple's in-house AI tools are reported to include assistance in message writing, photo editing, and summarizing texts. Bloomberg reports that some of these AI features will run on the device while others will be processed through cloud-based computing, depending on the complexity of the task. The name feels a little too obvious. While this is the first we're hearing of an actual name for Apple's AI, it's entirely unsurprising that Apple is choosing a unique brand to call its artificial intelligence systems.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Hopes that replacement fuels for airplanes will slash carbon pollution are misguided and support for these alternatives could even worsen the climate crisis, a new report has warned. There is currently "no realistic or scalable alternative" to standard kerosene-based jet fuels, and touted "sustainable aviation fuels" are well off track to replace them in a timeframe needed to avert dangerous climate change, despite public subsidies, the report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive thinktank, found. "While there are kernels of possibility, we should bring a high level of skepticism to the claims that alternative fuels will be a timely substitute for kerosene-based jet fuels," the report said. [...] In the U.S., Joe Biden's administration has set a goal for 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel, which is made from non-petroleum sources such as food waste, woody biomass and other feedstocks, to be produced by 2030, which it said will cut aviation's planet-heating emissions by 20%. [...] Burning sustainable aviation fuels still emits some carbon dioxide, while the land use changes needed to produce the fuels can also lead to increased pollution. Ethanol biofuel, made from corn, is used in these fuels, and meeting the Biden administration's production goal, the report found, would require 114m acres of corn in the U.S., about a 20% increase in current land area given over to to the crop. In the UK, meanwhile, 50% of all agricultural land will have to be given up to sustain current flight passenger levels if jet fuel was entirely replaced. "Agricultural land use changes could threaten global food security as well as nature-based carbon sequestration solutions such as the preservation of forests and wetlands," the report states. "As such, SAF production may actively undermine the Paris agreement goal of achieving greatly reduced emissions by 2050." Chuck Collins, co-author of the report, said: "To bring these fuels to the scale needed would require massive subsidies, the trade-offs would be unacceptable and would take resources aware from more urgent decarbonization priorities." "It's a huge greenwashing exercise by the aviation industry. It's magical thinking that they will be able to do this." Phil Ansell, director of the Center for Sustainable Aviation at the University of Illinois, added: "There's an underappreciation of how big the energy problem is for aviation. We are still many years away from zero pollution flights. But it's true that the industry has been slow to pick things up. We are now trying to find solutions, but we are working at this problem and realizing it's a lot harder than we thought. We are late to the game. We are in the dark ages in terms of sustainability, compared to other sectors."

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Meta's AI chief said the large language models that power generative AI products such as ChatGPT would never achieve the ability to reason and plan like humans, as he focused instead on a radical alternative approach to create "superintelligence" in machines. From a report: Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at the social media giant that owns Facebook and Instagram, said LLMs had "very limited understanding of logicâ... do not understand the physical world, do not have persistent memory, cannot reason in any reasonable definition of the term and cannot planâ...âhierarchically." In an interview with the Financial Times, he argued against relying on advancing LLMs in the quest to make human-level intelligence, as these models can only answer prompts accurately if they have been fed the right training data and are, therefore, "intrinsically unsafe." Instead, he is working to develop an entirely new generation of AI systems that he hopes will power machines with human-level intelligence, although he said this vision could take 10 years to achieve. Meta has been pouring billions of dollars into developing its own LLMs as generative AI has exploded, aiming to catch up with rival tech groups, including Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google.

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Actress Scarlett Johansson's legal team has sent two letters to OpenAI, demanding the company disclose how it developed an AI personal assistant voice that the actress claims sounds uncannily similar to her own. The controversy was prompted after OpenAI held a live demonstration of the voice, dubbed "Sky," which many observers compared to Johansson's voice in the 2013 film "Her." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had approached Johansson months prior and as recently as two days before the event, proposing to license her voice for the new ChatGPT voice assistant, but she declined the offer, she said. Johansson said she was "shocked and angered" at the similarity between the AI voice and her own, stating, "in a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity." OpenAI denied any connection between Johansson and the "Sky" voice, claiming it was developed from the voice of another actress. The company paused using the voice in its products on Monday.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted amendments to Regulation S-P that require certain financial institutions to disclose data breach incidents to impacted individuals within 30 days of discovery. Regulation S-P was introduced in 2000 and controls how some financial entities must treat nonpublic personal information belonging to consumers. These rules include developing and implementing data protection policies, confidentiality and security assurances, and protecting against anticipated threats. The new amendments (PDF) adopted earlier this week impact financial firms, such as broker-dealers (funding portals included), investment firms, registered investment advisers, and transfer agents. The modifications were initially proposed in March of last year to modernize and improve the protection of individual financial information from data breaches and exposure to non-affiliated parties. Below is a summary of the introduced changes: - Notify affected individuals within 30 days if their sensitive information is, or is likely to be, accessed or used without authorization, detailing the incident, breached data, and protective measures taken. Exemption applies if the information isn't expected to cause substantial harm or inconvenience to the exposed individuals. - Develop, implement, and maintain written policies and procedures for an incident response program to detect, respond to, and recover from unauthorized access or use of customer information. This should include procedures to assess and contain security incidents, enforce policies, and oversee service providers. - Expand safeguards and disposal rules to cover all nonpublic personal information, including that received from other financial institutions. - Require documentation of compliance with safeguards and disposal rules, excluding funding portals. - Align annual privacy notice delivery with the FAST Act, exempting certain conditions. - Extend safeguards and disposal rules to transfer agents registered with the SEC or other regulatory agencies.

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Hopes that replacement fuels for airplanes will slash carbon pollution are misguided and support for these alternatives could even worsen the climate crisis, a new report has warned. The Guardian: There is currently "no realistic or scalable alternative" to standard kerosene-based jet fuels, and touted "sustainable aviation fuels" are well off track to replace them in a timeframe needed to avert dangerous climate change, despite public subsidies, the report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive thinktank, found. "While there are kernels of possibility, we should bring a high level of skepticism to the claims that alternative fuels will be a timely substitute for kerosene-based jet fuels," the report said. Chuck Collins, co-author of the report, said: "To bring these fuels to the scale needed would require massive subsidies, the trade-offs would be unacceptable and would take resources aware from more urgent decarbonization priorities. It's a huge greenwashing exercise by the aviation industry. It's magical thinking that they will be able to do this." In the US, Joe Biden's administration has set a goal for 3bn gallons of sustainable aviation fuel, which is made from non-petroleum sources such as food waste, woody biomass and other feedstocks, to be produced by 2030, which it said will cut aviation's planet-heating emissions by 20%.

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Apple's plans for AI on the iPhone could bring real-time transcription to its Voice Memos and Notes apps, according to a report from AppleInsider: People familiar with the matter have told us that Apple has been working on AI-powered summarization and greatly enhanced audio transcription for several of its next-gen operating systems. The new features are expected to enable significant improvements in efficiency for users of its staple Notes, Voice Memos, and other apps. Apple is currently testing the capabilities as feature additions to several app updates scheduled to arrive with the release of iOS 18 later in 2024. They're also expected to make their way to the corresponding apps in macOS 15 and iPadOS 18 as well.

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Stack Overflow's new deal giving OpenAI access to its API as a source of data has users who've posted their questions and answers about coding problems in conversations with other humans rankled. From a report: Users say that when they attempt to alter their posts in protest, the site is retaliating by reversing the alterations and suspending the users who carried them out. A programmer named Ben posted a screenshot yesterday of the change history for a post seeking programming advice, which they'd updated to say that they had removed the question to protest the OpenAI deal. "The move steals the labour of everyone who contributed to Stack Overflow with no way to opt-out," read the updated post. The text was reverted less than an hour later. A moderator message Ben also included says that Stack Overflow posts become "part of the collective efforts" of other contributors once made and that they should only be removed "under extraordinary circumstances." The moderation team then said it was suspending his account for a week while it reached out "to avoid any further misunderstandings."

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Pam Belluck reports via the New York Times: Scientists are proposing a new way of understanding the genetics of Alzheimer's that would mean that up to a fifth of patients would be considered to have a genetically caused form of the disease. Currently, the vast majority of Alzheimer's cases do not have a clearly identified cause. The new designation, proposed in a study published Monday, could broaden the scope of efforts to develop treatments, including gene therapy, and affect the design of clinical trials. It could also mean that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone could, if they chose, receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer's before developing any symptoms of cognitive decline, although there currently are no treatments for people at that stage. The new classification would make this type of Alzheimer's one of the most common genetic disorders in the world, medical experts said. "This reconceptualization that we're proposing affects not a small minority of people," said Dr. Juan Fortea, an author of the study and the director of the Sant Pau Memory Unit in Barcelona, Spain. "Sometimes we say that we don't know the cause of Alzheimer's disease," but, he said, this would mean that about 15 to 20 percent of cases "can be tracked back to a cause, and the cause is in the genes." The idea involves a gene variant called APOE4. Scientists have long known that inheriting one copy of the variant increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's, and that people with two copies, inherited from each parent, have vastly increased risk. The new study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, analyzed data from over 500 people with two copies of APOE4, a significantly larger pool than in previous studies. The researchers found that almost all of those patients developed the biological pathology of Alzheimer's, and the authors say that two copies of APOE4 should now be considered a cause of Alzheimer's -- not simply a risk factor. The patients also developed Alzheimer's pathology relatively young, the study found. By age 55, over 95 percent had biological markers associated with the disease. By 65, almost all had abnormal levels of a protein called amyloid that forms plaques in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer's. And many started developing symptoms of cognitive decline at age 65, younger than most people without the APOE4 variant.

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CircleID reports that Multinational internet service provider Cogent recently announced that it was offering $206 million in secured notes (a corporate bond backed by assets). "The unusual part is what it's using as security: some of its IPv4 addresses and the leases on those IPv4 addresses." All internet service providers (ISPs) give IP addresses to their users, but Cogent was among the first to lease those addresses independently of internet access. (Internet access customers normally require a unique address as part of their service.) Sources are hard to find, but prevailing wisdom is that they have over 10M addresses leased for about $0.30 per month, or $36M per year in revenue. The notes are expected to be repaid in five years. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader penciling_in for sharing the article.

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Senior Department arms control official Paul Dean on Thursday urged China and Russia to declare that artificial intelligence would never make decisions on deploying nuclear weapons. Washington had made a "clear and strong commitment" that humans had total control over nuclear weapons, said Dean. Britain and France have made similar commitments. Reuters reports: "We would welcome a similar statement by China and the Russian Federation," said Dean, principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability. "We think it is an extremely important norm of responsible behaviour and we think it is something that would be very welcome in a P5 context," he said, referring to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

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Millions of Americans pay for Netflix, doling out anywhere from $6.99 to $22.99 a month. It's a common belief that you can get out of recurring charges like this by canceling your credit card. Netflix won't be able to find you, and your account will just go away, right? You wouldn't be crazy for believing it, but it's a myth that canceling a credit card will definitely stop your recurring charges. From a report: Nearly 46% of Americans opened a new credit card last year, according to Forbes, which means millions of Americans also canceled old ones. When you switch cards, Netflix doesn't just stop your service -- they just start charging your new card. Granted, it might be easier to just cancel your Netflix subscription directly. There's a largely hidden service that enables Netflix and most other subscription services to keep throwing charges at you indefinitely. "Banks may automatically update credit or debit card numbers when a new card is issued. This update allows your card to continue to be charged, even if it's expired," Netflix says in its help center. Most major card providers offer a feature that enables this, including Visa. In 2003, Visa U.S.A. started offering a new software product to merchants called Visa Account Updater (VAU), according to a 2003 American Banker article. The service works with a network of banks to create a virtual tracking service of Americans' financial profiles. Whenever someone renews, or switches a credit card within their bank, the institution automatically update the VAU. This system lets Netflix and countless other corporations charge whatever card you have on file.

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Razer will have to fork over $1.1 million in refunds to customers who purchased its RGB-clad Zephyr face mask, according to a proposed settlement announced by the Federal Trade Commission on Monday. From a report: The company claimed the face mask used N95-grade filters, but the FTC alleges Razer never submitted them for testing and only "stopped the false advertising following negative press coverage and consumer outrage at the deceptive claims." Razer first released its Zephyr face mask in 2021 as a nifty, cyberpunk-esque alternative to traditional face masks worn during the covid-19 pandemic. Although Razer initially marketed the $100 mask as having N95-grade filters, it scrubbed any mention of the grade after YouTuber Naomi Wu tore down the mask and found that it wasn't N95 certified after all. N95 masks are supposed to filter out at least 95 percent of airborne particles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Razer also planned on launching a $150 Zephyr Pro with a voice amplification feature, but that never panned out. At the time, Razer addressed claims about its Zephyr masks, saying in a post on X that "the Razer Zephyr and Zephyr Pro are not medical devices, respirators, surgical masks, or personal protective equipment (PPE) and are not meant to be used in medical or clinical settings."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: With Windows 11 24H2 all geared up to have AI-intensive applications, Microsoft has added a code that will warn you if your PC does not meet the hardware requirements, according to code dug up by Twitter/X sleuth Albacore. The warning will be displayed as a watermark so you know that you cannot use certain AI-powered built-in apps because of an unsupported CPU.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Today Meta unleashed its ChatGPT competitor, Meta AI, across its apps and as a standalone. The company boasts that it is running on its latest, greatest AI model, Llama 3, which was trained on "data of the highest quality"! A dataset seven times larger than Llama2! And includes 4 times more code! What is that training data? There the company is less loquacious. Meta said the 15 trillion tokens on which its trained came from "publicly available sources." Which sources? Meta told The Verge that it didn't include Meta user data, but didn't give much more in the way of specifics. It did mention that it includes AI-generated data, or synthetic data: "we used Llama 2 to generate the training data for the text-quality classifiers that are powering Llama 3." There are plenty of known issues with synthetic or AI-created data, foremost of which is that it can exacerbate existing issues with AI, because it's liable to spit out a more concentrated version of any garbage it is ingesting.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: iPerf is a fairly popular cross-platform tool that is used by many to measure network performance and diagnose any potential issues in this area. The open-source utility is maintained by an organization called Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) and officially supports Linux, Unix, and Windows. However, Microsoft has now published a detailed blog post explaining why you should not use the latest version, iPerf3, on Windows installations. Microsoft has highlighted three key reasons to discourage the use of iPerf3 on Windows. The first is that ESnet does not support this version on Windows, and recommends iPerf2 instead. On its website, ESnet has emphasized that CentOS 7 Linux, FreeBSD 11, and macOS 10.12 are the only supported platforms. Another very important reason not to use iPerf3 on Windows is that it does not make native OS calls. Instead, it leverages Cygwin as an emulation layer, which obviously comes with a performance penalty. This alone means that iPerf3 on Windows isn't really an ideal candidate for benchmarking your network. While Microsoft has praised the maintainers who are trying to get iPerf3 to run on Windows via emulation, another flaw with this approach is that some advanced networking options simply aren't available on Windows or may behave in unexpected ways.

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TikTok has started testing its Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes, in Canada and Australia. TechCrunch reports: The company said on X that it is in the "early stage" of the app's rollout and that the app is "a dedicated space for photo and text content." "We hope that the TikTok community will use TikTok Notes to continue sharing their moments through photo posts. Whether documenting adventures, expressing creativity, or simply sharing snapshots of one's day, the TikTok Notes experience is designed for those who would like to share and engage through photo content," it said. The company didn't say much about the app's features and functionality apart from the fact that users can log in with their existing TikTok account. Even the app's description in the app stores is pretty light on details. The screenshots on the App Store listing suggest that the posts will appear in two-column grids on the home page. The screenshots also indicate that you can post multiple photos through a carousel post.

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According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple's initial set of AI-related features in iOS 18 "will work entirely on device," and won't connect to cloud services. AppleInsider reports: In practice, these AI features would be able to function without an internet connection or any form of cloud-based processing. AppleInsider has received information from individuals familiar with the matter that suggest the report's claims are accurate. Apple is working on an in-house large language model, or LLM, known internally as "Ajax." While more advanced features will ultimately require an internet connection, basic text analysis and response generation features should be available offline. [...] Apple will reveal its AI plans during WWDC, which starts on June 10.

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Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Within yesterday's Linux 6.9-rc4 release is an interesting little nugget by Linus Torvalds to battle Kconfig parsers that can't correctly handle tabs but rather just assume spaces for whitespace for this kernel configuration format. Due to a patch having been queued last week to replace a tab with a space character in the kernel tracing Kconfig file, Linus Torvalds decided to take matters into his own hand for Kconfig parsers that can't deal with tabs... Torvalds authored a patch to intentionally add some tabs of his own into Kconfig for throwing off any out-of-tree/third-party parsers that can't correctly handle them. Torvalds added these intentional hidden tabs to the common Kconfig file for handling page sizes for the kernel. Thus sure to cause dramatic and noticeable breakage for any parsers not having tabs correctly.

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