An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Thirty-six flights were cancelled at Japan's New Chitose airport on Saturday after a pair of scissors went missing. Japanese media report that retail outlets at the airport -- which serves the regional city of Chitose on Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido -- are required to store scissors in a locker. When staff need to cut something, they withdraw the scissors and then replace them after they're done snipping. But last Saturday, an unnamed retailer at the airport was unable to find a pair of scissors. A lengthy search ensued, during which security checks for incoming passengers were paused for at least two hours. Chaos ensued as queues expanded, passengers were denied entry, and airport authorities scrambled to determine whether the scissors had been swiped by somebody with malicious intent. The incident saw over 200 flights delayed, and 36 cancelled altogether. The mess meant some artists didn't appear at a music festival. Happily, the scissors were eventually found -- in the very same shop from which they had gone missing, and not in the hands of someone nefarious. But it took time for authorities to verify the scissors were the missing cutters and not another misplaced pair.

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The Verge's Tom Warren reports: Valve is banning Counter-Strike 2 players from using keyboard features to automate perfect counter-strafes. Razer was the first keyboard maker to add a Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions (SOCD) feature to its range of Huntsman V3 Pro keyboards last month, followed shortly by Wooting. Using Snap Tap as Razer calls it or Wooting's Snappy Tappy will now get you kicked from Counter-Strike 2 games. "Recently, some hardware features have blurred the line between manual input and automation, so we've decided to draw a clear line on what is or isn't acceptable in Counter-Strike," says Valve. "We are no longer going to allow automation (via scripting or hardware) that circumvent these core skills and, moving forward, (and initially -- exclusively on Valve Official Servers) players suspected of automating multiple player actions from a single game input may be kicked from their match." [...] Razer and Wooting's SOCD features both let players automate switching strafe directions without having to learn the skill. Normally, to switch strafe directions in a first-person shooter, you have to fully release one key before pressing the other. If both are pressed, they cancel each other, and you stand there for a moment until you release one of the keys. SOCD means you don't need to release a key and you can rapidly tap the A or D key to counter-strafe with little to no effort.

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Approvals for new coal-fired power plants in China dropped by 80% in the first half of this year compared to last, according to an analysis from Greenpeace and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The Associated Press reports: A review of project documents by Greenpeace East Asia found that 14 new coal plants were approved from January to June with a total capacity of 10.3 gigawatts, down 80% from 50.4 gigawatts in the first half of last year. Authorities approved 90.7 gigawatts in 2022 and 106.4 gigawatts in 2023, a surge that raised alarm among climate experts. China leads the world in solar and wind power installations but the government has said that coal plants are still needed for periods of peak demand because wind and solar power are less reliable. While China's grid gives priority to greener sources of energy, experts worry that it won't be easy for China to wean itself off coal once the new capacity is built. "We may now be seeing a turning point," Gao Yuhe, the project lead for Greenpeace East Asia, said in a statement. "One question remains here. Are Chinese provinces slowing down coal approvals because they've already approved so many coal projects ...? Or are these the last gasps of coal power in an energy transition that has seen coal become increasingly impractical? Only time can tell." [...] Gao said that China should focus its resources on better connecting wind and solar power to the grid rather than building more coal power plants. Coal provides more than 60% of the country's electricity. "Coal plays a foundation role in China's energy security," Li Fulong, an official of National Energy Administration, said at a news conference in June. The report notes that China is also looking to nuclear power to help reach its carbon reduction targets. The country approved five nuclear power projects on Monday with 11 units and a total cost of $28 billion.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Births in the United States dropped again between 2022 and 2023, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The national birth rate has been steadily declining for the last 17 years, with a particularly steep drop in births between 2007 and 2009 during the Great Recession. Between 2007 and 2022, the U.S. birth rate fell by nearly 23 percent, according to CDC data. There were 3,596,017 registered births in 2023, about 2 percent fewer than in 2022, when there were 3,667,758 registered births, according to CDC data. The general fertility rate fell by nearly 3 percent last year to 54.5 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44. That's down from the 2022 rate of 56 births per 1,000 women, CDC data shows. Teen births have declined almost every year since the 1990s and are continuing to fall. The teenage birth rate dropped by 4 percent between 2022 and 2023, from 13.6 to 13.1 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, according to the CDC. And the birth rate for teens between the ages of 15 and 17, specifically, declined by 2 percent from 5.6 to 5.5 births per 1,000 girls. In 2007, the general fertility rate reached a height not seen since the 1990s at 69.5 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, 1 percentage point higher than the year before, according to CDC data.

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Ars Technica's Dan Goodwin writes: Last Tuesday, loads of Linux usersâ"many running packages released as early as this year -- started reporting their devices were failing to boot. Instead, they received a cryptic error message that included the phrase: "Something has gone seriously wrong." The cause: an update Microsoft issued as part of its monthly patch release. It was intended to close a 2-year-old vulnerability in GRUB, an open source boot loader used to start up many Linux devices. The vulnerability, with a severity rating of 8.6 out of 10, made it possible for hackers to bypass secure boot, the industry standard for ensuring that devices running Windows or other operating systems don't load malicious firmware or software during the bootup process. CVE-2022-2601 was discovered in 2022, but for unclear reasons, Microsoft patched it only last Tuesday. [...] With Microsoft maintaining radio silence, those affected by the glitch have been forced to find their own remedies. One option is to access their EFI panel and turn off secure boot. Depending on the security needs of the user, that option may not be acceptable. A better short-term option is to delete the SBAT Microsoft pushed out last Tuesday. This means users will still receive some of the benefits of Secure Boot even if they remain vulnerable to attacks that exploit CVE-2022-2601. The steps for this remedy are outlined here (thanks to manutheeng for the reference).

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Toyota confirmed a breach of its network after 240GB of data, including employee and customer information, was leaked on a hacking forum by a threat actor. The company has not provided details on how or when the breach occurred. BleepingComputer reports: ZeroSevenGroup (the threat actor who leaked the stolen data) says they breached a U.S. branch and were able to steal 240GB of files with information on Toyota employees and customers, as well as contracts and financial information. They also claim to have collected network infrastructure information, including credentials, using the open-source ADRecon tool that helps extract vast amounts of information from Active Directory environments. "We have hacked a branch in United States to one of the biggest automotive manufacturer in the world (TOYOTA). We are really glad to share the files with you here for free. The data size: 240 GB," the threat actor claims. "Contents: Everything like Contacts, Finance, Customers, Schemes, Employees, Photos, DBs, Network infrastructure, Emails, and a lot of perfect data. We also offer you AD-Recon for all the target network with passwords." While Toyota hasn't shared the date of the breach, BleepingComputer found that the files had been stolen or at least created on December 25, 2022. This date could indicate that the threat actor gained access to a backup server where the data was stored. "We are aware of the situation. The issue is limited in scope and is not a system wide issue," Toyota told BleepingComputer. The company added that it's "engaged with those who are impacted and will provide assistance if needed."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian, written by Julian Benson: It's been eight years since Civilization 6 -- the most recent in a very long-running strategy game series that sees you take a nation from the prehistoric settlement of their first town through centuries of development until they reach the space age. Since 2016 it has amassed an abundance of expansions, scenario packs, new nations, modes and systems for players to master -- but series producer Dennis Shirk at Firaxis Games feels that enough it enough. "It was getting too big for its britches," he says. "It was time to make something new." "It's tough to even get through the whole game," designer Ed Beach says, singling out the key problem that Firaxis aims to solve with the forthcoming Civilization 7. While the early turns of a campaign in Civilization 6 can be swift, when you're only deciding the actions for the population of a single town, "the number of systems, units, and entities you must manage explodes after a while," Beach says. From turn one to victory, a single campaign can take more than 20 hours, and if you start falling behind other nations, it can be tempting to restart long before you see the endgame. That's why Civilization 7's campaign has been split into three ages -- Antiquity, Exploration and Modern -- with each ending in a dramatic explosion of global crises. "Breaking the game into chapters lets people get through history in a more digestible fashion," Beach says. When you start a new campaign, you pick a leader and civilization to govern, and direct your people in establishing their first settlements and encounters with the other peoples populating a largely undeveloped land. You'll choose the technologies they research, the expansions they make to their cities, and whom they try to befriend or conquer. Every turn you complete or scientific, economic, cultural and military milestone you pass adds points to a meter running in the background. Once that meter hits 200, you and all the other surviving civilizations on the map will transition into the next age. When moving from Antiquity to Exploration and later Exploration to Modern, you select a new civilization to lead. You'll retain all the cities you controlled before but have access to different technologies and attributes. This may seem strange, but it's built to reflect history: think of London, which was once run by the Romans before being supplanted by the Anglo-Saxons. No empire lasts for ever, but they don't all collapse, either. Breaking Civilization 7 into chapters also gives campaigns a new rhythm. As you approach the end of an age, you'll begin to face global crises. In Antiquity, for instance, you can see a proliferation of independent powers similar to the tribes that tore down Rome. "We're not calling them barbarians any more," Beach says. "It's a more nuanced way to present them." These crises multiply and strengthen until you reach the next age. "It's like a sci-fi or fantasy series with a huge, crazy conclusion, and then the next book starts nice and calm," Beach says. "There's a point where getting to the next age is a relief." Here's a round-up of thoughts on Civilization 7 from some of the most respected gaming outlets and reviewers: Civilization VII hands-on: This strategy sequel rethinks the long game -- Ars Technica's Samuel Axon Civilization 7 pairs seismic changes with a lovably familiar formula -- Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell Civilization 7 hands-on: Huge changes are coming to the classic strategy series - PC Gamer's Tyler Wilde Civilization 7 lets you mix and match history -- and it's a blast - The Verge's Ash Parrish Civilization 7 Hands-On Preview: Creating Your Legacy - Game Rant's Joshua Duckworth Sid Meier's Civilization VII preview -- possibly the freshest sequel yet - GamesHub's Jam Walker How Civilization 7 Rethinks The Series' Structure - GameSpot's Steve Watts

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U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas blocked the FTC's rule banning noncompete agreements, arguing the FTC lacks authority to implement such broad regulations and did not adequately justify the sweeping prohibition. Reuters reports: Brown had temporarily blocked the rule in July while she considered a bid by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobby, and tax service firm Ryan to strike it down entirely. The rule was set to take effect Sept. 4. Brown in her ruling said that even if the FTC had the power to adopt the rule, the agency had not justified banning virtually all noncompete agreements. "The Commission's lack of evidence as to why they chose to impose such a sweeping prohibition ... instead of targeting specific, harmful non-competes, renders the Rule arbitrary and capricious," wrote Brown, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump. FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham said the agency was disappointed with the ruling and is "seriously considering a potential appeal." "Today's decision does not prevent the FTC from addressing noncompetes through case-by-base enforcement actions," Graham said in a statement. The Democratic-controlled FTC approved the ban on noncompete agreements in a 3-2 vote in May. The commission and supporters of the rule say the agreements are an unfair restraint on competition that violate U.S. antitrust law and suppress workers' wages and mobility.

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OpenAI has announced a partnership with Conde Nest, allowing the company's AI products to display content from Vogue, The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Wired, Bon Appetit and other outlets. CNBC reports: "With the introduction of our SearchGPT prototype, we're testing new search features that make finding information and reliable content sources faster and more intuitive," OpenAI wrote in a blog post. "We're combining our conversational models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources." OpenAI added that the SearchGPT prototype offers direct links to news stories and that the company plans "to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future." It is the latest in a recent trend of some media outlets joining forces with AI startups such as OpenAI to enter into content deals.

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A new TV series is capturing the dramatic saga of the The Pirate Bay, the notorious file-sharing website that openly challenged the entertainment industry in the early 2000s. A just-launched teaser is available on YouTube. TorrentFreak reports: A few years ago, news broke that The Pirate Bay story was being turned into a TV series. Written by Piotr Marciniak and directed by Jens Sjogren, who also made the "I am Zlatan" documentary, production was in the hands of B-Reel Films, working for the Swedish broadcaster SVT. American distribution company Dynamic Television scooped up worldwide rights. As far as we know, international deals have not yet been announced. The Swedish premiere on November 8 is coming closer, however, and a few days ago SVT released an official teaser. The founders of The Pirate Bay -- Anakata, Brokep and Tiamo -- are played by Arvid Swedrup, Simon Greger Carlsson and Willjam Lempling. The teaser doesn't give away much, but it's interesting that one of The Pirate Bay's infamous responses to legal threats features prominently. The teaser quotes from Anakata's response to a letter from DreamWorks, written twenty years ago. The movie company sent a DMCA takedown notice requesting the removal of a torrent for the film Shrek 2, but the reply was not what they had hoped for. "As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe. Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here," Anakata wrote. "It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ........ morons, and that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons." The response was public information and made it into the series. Whether there will be any new revelations has yet to be seen, however, as none of the site's founders were actively involved in production. Instead, the producers used interviews with other people involved, plus the vast amount of public information available on the Internet. That includes the infamous responses to legal threats. Time will tell how the producers and director have decided to tell this story. Production took place in Stockholm, Sweden, but also ventured to other countries, including Chile and Thailand, where Fredrik Neij was arrested and paraded in front of the press in 2014.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Andrew Cunningham: Back in 2013, Nvidia introduced a new technology called G-Sync to eliminate screen tearing and stuttering effects and reduce input lag when playing PC games. The company accomplished this by tying your display's refresh rate to the actual frame rate of the game you were playing, and similar variable refresh-rate (VRR) technology has become a mainstay even in budget monitors and TVs today. The issue for Nvidia is that G-Sync isn't what has been driving most of that adoption. G-Sync has always required extra dedicated hardware inside of displays, increasing the costs for both users and monitor manufacturers. The VRR technology in most low-end to mid-range screens these days is usually some version of the royalty-free AMD FreeSync or the similar VESA Adaptive-Sync standard, both of which provide G-Sync's most important features without requiring extra hardware. Nvidia more or less acknowledged that the free-to-use, cheap-to-implement VRR technologies had won in 2019 when it announced its "G-Sync Compatible" certification tier for FreeSync monitors. The list of G-Sync Compatible screens now vastly outnumbers the list of G-Sync and G-Sync Ultimate screens. Today, Nvidia is announcing a change that's meant to keep G-Sync alive as its own separate technology while eliminating the requirement for expensive additional hardware. Nvidia says it's partnering with chipmaker MediaTek to build G-Sync capabilities directly into scaler chips that MediaTek is creating for upcoming monitors. G-Sync modules ordinarily replace these scaler chips, but they're entirely separate boards with expensive FPGA chips and dedicated RAM. These new MediaTek scalers will support all the same features that current dedicated G-Sync modules do. Nvidia says that three G-Sync monitors with MediaTek scaler chips inside will launch "later this year": the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQNR, the Acer Predator XB273U F5, and the AOC AGON PRO AG276QSG2. These are all 27-inch 1440p displays with maximum refresh rates of 360 Hz.

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GoPro has announced a restructuring plan that involves cutting about 15% of its workforce. "The company expects to take charges in the range of $5 million to $7 million for the restructuring plan, with cash expenses of $1 million to be recognized in the third quarter and about $4 million to $6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024," reports Reuters. From the report: The layoffs - around 139 jobs - are expected to begin in the third quarter and would be completed by the end of 2024. Shares of the company, which had 925 full-time employees at the end of the second quarter ended June 30, were up 1.5% after the layoffs were announced. Earlier this month, GoPro reported revenue of $186 million for second quarter, down 22.7% compared to last year and operating expenses of $103 million, an increase of 5% from a year ago.

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NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are facing challenges returning to Earth due to compatibility issues between their Boeing-designed spacesuits and SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. Inc. Magazine reports: The space suits in question are the "intra-vehicular activity" outfits now worn by astronauts. They're simpler than the bulky extra-vehicular space suits used on space walks, and are designed to keep astronauts safe in the capsule in the very unlikely case there's a problem that causes the capsule's atmosphere to be lost. The problem is simple: Should Butch and Suni need to fly back aboard SpaceX's vehicle, their suits won't fit in Dragon's seats. [...] Boeing and SpaceX suits evolved under totally different design sensibilities. If Boeing and NASA deem Starliner unsafe for humans to fly home in, Butch and Suni must head earthward aboard a SpaceX Dragon, but their suits won't be able to plug into Dragon's systems. Like trying to plug an essentially outdated USB A socket into an iPhone's charge port, the suit connectors have different shapes, styles, and functions. The suits themselves have different systems that integrate with their own capsules for purposes like air leak checks during pre-flight testing. So if an emergency situation presents itself and astronauts have to come back to Earth before proper plans are finalized, Butch and Suni will have to return inside the cargo section of a Dragon space capsule "unsuited," according to NASA leadership who spoke on the matter in a press conference last week. Other plans include flying up suitable Dragon-connecting space suits for the two astronauts on a later mission, should Starliner be deemed incapable of bringing them back.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: A student has successfully developed a small nuclear fusion reactor as part of his A-Levels. The 17-year-old built the reactor to generate neutrons as part of his Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). Notably, Cesare Mencarini's work is claimed to be the only nuclear reactor built in a school environment. Showcased at the Cambridge Science Festival recently, the nuclear reactor achieved plasma a few months ago. It also gave Mencarini an A* in his A-Level results, according to reports. [...] Mencarini maintained that the goal of the reactor is to create conditions that are required for fusion. However, the project couldn't get same pressure that's generated by the Sun due to its own gravity. Therefore, to make atoms hot enough, the teen used high voltage. The reactor achieved plasma in June. "Two days ago I achieved plasma, which was brilliant and I'm massively happy about this," wrote Mencarini in a LinkedIn post. "The system is running thanks to a Leybold Trivac E2 roughing pump, which allows me to achieve a minimum pressure of 8E-3 Torr." At that time, he mentioned that Pfeiffer TPH062 would be used later to achieve fusion. "This turbomolecular pump is currently isolated by a VAT Throttling Valve." "The grid is then attached to a 30kV rated High Voltage Feedthrough connected to a 5kV Unilab power supply, which allows me to use the fusor in my school (It is limited to a 2mA output). While running the fusor I experimented with 2 grids which you can see in the images," added Mencarini in the post.

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Security researcher Brian Krebs writes: New details are emerging about a breach at National Public Data (NPD), a consumer data broker that recently spilled hundreds of millions of Americans' Social Security Numbers, addresses, and phone numbers online. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that another NPD data broker which shares access to the same consumer records inadvertently published the passwords to its back-end database in a file that was freely available from its homepage until today. In April, a cybercriminal named USDoD began selling data stolen from NPD. In July, someone leaked what was taken, including the names, addresses, phone numbers and in some cases email addresses for more than 272 million people (including many who are now deceased). NPD acknowledged the intrusion on Aug. 12, saying it dates back to a security incident in December 2023. In an interview last week, USDoD blamed the July data leak on another malicious hacker who also had access to the company's database, which they claimed has been floating around the underground since December 2023. Following last week's story on the breadth of the NPD breach, a reader alerted KrebsOnSecurity that a sister NPD property -- the background search service recordscheck.net -- was hosting an archive that included the usernames and password for the site's administrator. A review of that archive, which was available from the Records Check website until just before publication this morning (August 19), shows it includes the source code and plain text usernames and passwords for different components of recordscheck.net, which is visually similar to nationalpublicdata.com and features identical login pages. The exposed archive, which was named "members.zip," indicates RecordsCheck users were all initially assigned the same six-character password and instructed to change it, but many did not. According to the breach tracking service Constella Intelligence, the passwords included in the source code archive are identical to credentials exposed in previous data breaches that involved email accounts belonging to NPD's founder, an actor and retired sheriff's deputy from Florida named Salvatore "Sal" Verini. Reached via email, Mr. Verini said the exposed archive (a .zip file) containing recordscheck.net credentials has been removed from the company's website, and that the site is slated to cease operations "in the next week or so." "Regarding the zip, it has been removed but was an old version of the site with non-working code and passwords," Verini told KrebsOnSecurity. "Regarding your question, it is an active investigation, in which we cannot comment on at this point. But once we can, we will [be] with you, as we follow your blog. Very informative." The leaked recordscheck.net source code indicates the website was created by a web development firm based in Lahore, Pakistan called creationnext.com, which did not return messages seeking comment. CreationNext.com's homepage features a positive testimonial from Sal Verini.

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Waymo has unveiled its sixth-generation robotaxi, an electric minivan made by Chinese automaker Zeekr. While the company claims it's more advanced than previous generations, it features fewer sensors to help reduce costs. The Verge reports: [W]ithin its high-powered computer, it contains all the learnings of the previous five generations of Waymo's autonomous vehicles, meaning it won't have to do as much real-world testing as past models before it can be rolled out to the public. But looming over Waymo's assertion that its new robotaxi will be cheaper to produce is the possibility that it could also be subject to costly new tariffs against Chinese-made electric vehicles. Earlier this year, the Biden administration said it would quadruple tariffs on EVs from China to 100 percent, from the current 25 percent, as a way to "protect American workers and American companies from China's unfair trade practices." [...] Waymo says the sixth-gen robotaxi will feature a streamlined sensor suite of "16 cameras, 5 lidar, 6 radar, and an array of external audio receivers (EARs)." These sensors will help provide "overlapping fields of view, all around the vehicle, up to 500 meters away, day and night, and in a range of weather conditions." That's the equivalent of over five football fields of visible range. Waymo's use of multiple sensors is important for redundancy, in which multiple sensors and cameras can ensure the vehicle can continue to detect and respond to its surroundings if something fails. It's unclear where and when the new sixth-gen robotaxis will first appear. "Waymo currently operates in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with plans to launch commercial service in Austin, Texas," notes the report. "The company has been manually testing the Zeekr-made minivans on public roads, with the goal of adding them to its commercial fleet sometime soon."

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Hyundai Motor Group, which includes Kia and Genesis, accounted for 10% of the U.S. EV market through the first seven months of 2024, outpacing Ford (7.4%) and GM (6.3%). Electrek reports: Although IONIQ 5 and 6 sales slipped last month, they are still up 25% and 54% year-to-date, respectively. Meanwhile, sister company Kia continued its record-setting performance in July after EV sales nearly doubled YTD. Kia's new EV9, its first three-row electric SUV, is a major part of its growth. According to Kelley Blue Book, Kia EV9 sales outpaced the Toyota bZ4X, VW ID.4, Nissan Ariya, Rivian R1T, and Tesla Model S in the US through the first half of 2024. It even topped Kia's Niro EV sales. Hyundai's luxury brand, Genesis, remains a dark horse in the US EV market. Genesis is quickly expanding in the US. After adding 21 dedicated retailers in the US this year, including in eight new states, Genesis recently announced it now has 56 standalone facilities. "In two short years, Genesis' retail footprint has grown rapidly from one dedicated retail facility in Louisiana to 56 retail facilities nationwide," Genesis North America COO Claudia Marquez said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Voters in Wyoming's capital city on Tuesday are faced with deciding whether to elect a mayoral candidate who has proposed to let an artificial intelligence bot run the local government. Earlier this year, the candidate in question -- Victor Miller -- filed for him and his customized ChatGPT bot, named Vic (Virtual Integrated Citizen), to run for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming. He has vowed to helm the city's business with the AI bot if he wins. Miller has said that the bot is capable of processing vast amounts of data and making unbiased decisions. In what AI experts say is a first for US political campaigns, Miller and Vic have told local news outlets in interviews that their form of proposed governance is a "hybrid approach." The AI bot told Your Wyoming Link that its role would be to provide data-driven insights and innovative solutions for Cheyenne. Meanwhile, Vic said, the human elected office contender, Miller, would serve as the official mayor if chosen by voters and would ensure that "all actions are legally and practically executed." "It's about blending AI's capabilities with human judgment to effectively lead Cheyenne," the bot said. The bot said it did not have political affiliations -- and its goal is to "focus on data-driven practical solutions that benefit the community." During a meet-and-greet this summer, the Washington Post reported that the AI bot was asked how it would go about making decisions "according to human factor, involving humans, and having to make a decision that affects so many people." "Making decisions that affect many people requires a careful balance of data-driven insights and human empathy," the AI bot responded, according to an audio recording obtained and published by the Washington Post. Vic then ran through a multi-part plan that suggested using AI technology to gather data on public opinion and feedback from the community, holding town hall meetings to listen to residents' concerns, consulting experts in relevant fields, evaluating the human impact of the decision and providing transparency about the decision-making. According to Wyoming Public Media, Miller has also pledged that he would donate half the mayoral salary to a non-profit if he is elected. The other half could be used to continually improve the AI bot, he said. Miller has faced some pushback since announcing his mayoral campaign. Wyoming's Secretary of State, Chuck Gray, launched an investigation to determine if the AI bot could legally appear on the ballot, citing state law that says only real people that are registered to vote can run for office. City officials clarified that Miller is the actual candidate, so he was allowed to continue. However, Laramie County ruled that only Miller's name would appear on the ballot, not the bot's. OpenAI later shut down Miller's account, but he quickly created a new one and continued his campaign.

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Apple's Podcasts app is now available on all major web browsers, allowing you to stream episodes directly from the web at www.podcasts.apple.com. TechCrunch reports: The new dedicated web experience aims to make it easier for anyone with a web browser on any device to access podcasts. Web listening has been available for some time; however, in order to listen to an episode, users had to look up a show on a search engine and go to the show's Apple Podcasts Preview page. Now Apple Podcasts on the web has launched a new interface, allowing users to access features that were previously only available on the app. These include browsing millions of shows, accessing sections like Library and Top Charts, purchasing premium podcast subscriptions, and more. Listeners can sync their Apple Accounts to be able to pause a podcast and save their play progress to listen to later, as well as see their followed shows and subscriptions. Users without an Apple Account can also use the web experience but can only browse and listen. You can try it out by listening to the latest episode of the SourceForge Podcast!

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