An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: An online gaming dispute made its way to the real world when a New Jersey man flew to Florida to attack another player with a hammer, authorities said. Edward Kang, 20, is charged with attempted second-degree murder and armed burglary with a mask, according to Nassau County court records. He was arrested early Sunday morning. Kang and the victim, another young man around the same age as Kang, had never met in real life, but they both played ArcheAge, a medieval fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The game's publisher announced in April that it would be shutting down servers in Europe and North America on June 27, citing a declining number of active players. Kang flew from Newark, New Jersey, to Jacksonville, Florida, last Thursday after telling his mother that he was going to visit a friend that he had met while playing a video game, officials said. Officials didn't say how Kang learned where the victim lives. Upon arrival, Kang took an Uber to a hotel in Fernandina Beach, about 35 miles north of Jacksonville, and then bought a hammer at a local hardware store, deputies said. Kang went to the victim's Fernandina Beach home, which was unlocked, around 2 a.m. Sunday, authorities said. The victim was walking out of his bedroom when he was confronted by Kang, who hit him on the head with the hammer, officials said. The two struggled as the victim called for help. His stepfather responded and helped to restrain Kang until police arrived. The victim suffered several head wounds that were not considered life-threatening, officials said. Online court records didn't list an attorney for Kang. He was being held without bond.

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Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, LuxiTech, and Soochow University have developed a new method to run AI language models more efficiently by eliminating matrix multiplication, potentially reducing the environmental impact and operational costs of AI systems. Ars Technica's Benj Edwards reports: Matrix multiplication (often abbreviated to "MatMul") is at the center of most neural network computational tasks today, and GPUs are particularly good at executing the math quickly because they can perform large numbers of multiplication operations in parallel. [...] In the new paper, titled "Scalable MatMul-free Language Modeling," the researchers describe creating a custom 2.7 billion parameter model without using MatMul that features similar performance to conventional large language models (LLMs). They also demonstrate running a 1.3 billion parameter model at 23.8 tokens per second on a GPU that was accelerated by a custom-programmed FPGA chip that uses about 13 watts of power (not counting the GPU's power draw). The implication is that a more efficient FPGA "paves the way for the development of more efficient and hardware-friendly architectures," they write. The paper doesn't provide power estimates for conventional LLMs, but this post from UC Santa Cruz estimates about 700 watts for a conventional model. However, in our experience, you can run a 2.7B parameter version of Llama 2 competently on a home PC with an RTX 3060 (that uses about 200 watts peak) powered by a 500-watt power supply. So, if you could theoretically completely run an LLM in only 13 watts on an FPGA (without a GPU), that would be a 38-fold decrease in power usage. The technique has not yet been peer-reviewed, but the researchers -- Rui-Jie Zhu, Yu Zhang, Ethan Sifferman, Tyler Sheaves, Yiqiao Wang, Dustin Richmond, Peng Zhou, and Jason Eshraghian -- claim that their work challenges the prevailing paradigm that matrix multiplication operations are indispensable for building high-performing language models. They argue that their approach could make large language models more accessible, efficient, and sustainable, particularly for deployment on resource-constrained hardware like smartphones. [...] The researchers say that scaling laws observed in their experiments suggest that the MatMul-free LM may also outperform traditional LLMs at very large scales. The researchers project that their approach could theoretically intersect with and surpass the performance of standard LLMs at scales around 10^23 FLOPS, which is roughly equivalent to the training compute required for models like Meta's Llama-3 8B or Llama-2 70B. However, the authors note that their work has limitations. The MatMul-free LM has not been tested on extremely large-scale models (e.g., 100 billion-plus parameters) due to computational constraints. They call for institutions with larger resources to invest in scaling up and further developing this lightweight approach to language modeling.

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MTVNews.com has been shut down, with more than two decades' worth of content no longer available. "Content on its sister site, CMT.com, seems to have met a similar fate," adds Variety. From the report: In 2023, MTV News was shuttered amid the financial woes of parent company Paramount Global. As of Monday, trying to access MTV News articles on mtvnews.com or mtv.com/news resulted in visitors being redirected to the main MTV website. The now-unavailable content includes decades of music journalism comprising thousands of articles and interviews with countless major artists, dating back to the site's launch in 1996. Perhaps the most significant loss is MTV News' vast hip-hop-related archives, particularly its weekly "Mixtape Monday" column, which ran for nearly a decade in the 2000s and 2010s and featured interviews, reviews and more with many artists, producers and others early in their careers. "So, mtvnews.com no longer exists. Eight years of my life are gone without a trace," Patrick Hosken, former music editor for MTV News, wrote on X. "All because it didn't fit some executives' bottom lines. Infuriating is too small a word." "sickening (derogatory) to see the entire @mtvnews archive wiped from the internet," Crystal Bell, culture editor at Mashable and one-time entertainment director of MTV News, posted on X."decades of music history gone... including some very early k-pop stories." "This is disgraceful. They've completely wiped the MTV News archive," longtime Rolling Stone senior writer Brian Hiatt commented. "Decades of pop culture history research material gone, and why?" The report notes that some MTV News articles may be available via internet archiving services like the Wayback Machine. However, older articles aren't available.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Waymo said on Tuesday its autonomous ride-hailing service, Waymo One, is now available to everyone in San Francisco, nearly four years after a similar move in Phoenix, Arizona. Driverless vehicles are expected to drive commercial success for automakers even as regulatory scrutiny remains tight amid concerns of investors about growing investments in the nascent technology. Waymo had started a test service with its research-focused program in San Francisco in 2021, which included an autonomous specialist on board for all rides at that time, as it looked to commercialize the technology. The company said that about 300,000 people had signed up to ride with Waymo since it first opened a waitlist in the city, signaling strong demand. Now with open access, anyone can request a ride on its app. The company had opened access to everyone in Phoenix, Arizona without a waitlist in 2020. Mountain View, California-based Waymo is a self-driving technology pioneer, which started its first U.S. driverless taxi service in 2020 over a decade after it was born in 2009 as a project inside Google. In March, the company received approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to start its Waymo One in Los Angeles and some cities near San Francisco.

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Kurt Schlosser reports via GeekWire: Living Computers Museum + Labs, the Seattle institution created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen as a hands-on showcase for rare computing technology and interactive displays, will not reopen, more than four years after closing just ahead of the pandemic. Allen's estate, which has been managing and winding down his vast array of holdings since his death in 2018, confirmed to GeekWire that the 12-year-old museum is closed for good. The estate also announced Tuesday that some key pieces from Allen's personal collection of computer artifacts, displayed over the years at Living Computers, will be auctioned by Christie's as part of a broader sale of various Allen items later this year. As directed by Allen's wishes, proceeds from the sale of any items will go to charitable causes. Allen's sister Jody Allen is the executor of his estate and for several years has been selling pieces of it, ranging from Seattle's Cinerama movie theater, the Everett, Wash.-based Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, Vulcan Productions, Stratolaunch, the superyacht Octopus, and more. The estate previously teamed up with Christie's for a November 2022 auction of 155 masterpieces from Allen's extensive art collection. It was the world's most successful single-owner fine art auction ever, raising a record $1.62 billion. The new auction, titled "Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection," is billed as "a celebration of first-generation technologies and the pioneering minds behind them." The event will feature more than 150 items in three separate auctions, including "Firsts: The History of Computing," an online sale closing Sept. 12. This auction pays homage to Allen's role shaping the modern computing landscape. A highlight of the sale is a computer that Allen helped restore and on which he worked, a DEC PDP-10: KI-10. Built in 1971, it's the first computer that both Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ever used prior to founding Microsoft. It's estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000. Christie's said details about other computers and related items from Allen's collection will be shared this summer. The other two auctions of Allen property include "Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity," a live auction on Sept. 10 that will feature items intended to tell the story of scientific and technological achievements spanning centuries. The top item is a 1939 signed letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited as the impetus behind the establishment of the Manhattan Project. It's estimated to fetch $4 million to $6 million. The third auction is "Over the Horizon: Art of the Future," an online auction closing Sept. 12, showcasing art devoted to interplanetary travel. A sale highlight is Chelsey Bonestell's "Saturn as Seen from Titan," circa 1952, and estimated to fetch $30,000 to $50,000.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Last week, an in-depth investigative report from JBTC revealed that Korean Internet provider KT, formerly known as Korea Telecom, distributed malware onto subscribers' computers to interfere with and block torrent traffic. File-sharing continues to be very popular in South Korea, but operates differently than in most other countries. "Webhard" services, short for Web Hard Drive, are particularly popular. These are paid BitTorrent-assisted services, which also offer dedicated web seeds, to ensure that files remain available. Webhard services rely on the BitTorrent-enabled 'Grid System', which became so popular in Korea that ISPs started to notice it. Since these torrent transfers use a lot of bandwidth, which is very costly in the country, providers would rather not have this file-sharing activity on their networks. KT, one of South Korea's largest ISPs with over 16 million subscribers, was previously caught meddling with the Grid System. In 2020, their throttling activities resulted in a court case, where the ISP cited 'network management' costs as the prime reason to interfere. The Court eventually sided with KT, ending the case in its favor, but that wasn't the end of the matter. An investigation launched by the police at the time remains ongoing. New reports now show that the raid on KT's datacenter found that dozens of devices were used in the 'throttling process' and they were doing more than just limiting bandwidth. When Webhard users started reporting problems four years ago, they didn't simply complain about slow downloads. In fact, the main concern was that several Grid-based Webhard services went offline or reported seemingly unexplainable errors. Since all complaining users were KT subscribers, fingers were pointed in that direction. According to an investigation by Korean news outlet JBTC, the Internet provider actively installed malware on computers of Webhard services. This activity was widespread and effected an estimated 600,000 KT subscribers. The Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency, which carried out the raid and investigation, believes this was an organized hacking attempt. A dedicated KT team allegedly planted malware to eavesdrop on subscribers and interfere with their private file transfers. [...] Why KT allegedly distributed the malware and what it precisely intended to do is unclear. The police believe there were internal KT discussions about network-related costs, suggesting that financial reasons played a role.

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Cruise, the autonomous vehicle unit from General Motors, named Amazon and Microsoft executive Marc Whitten as its new CEO, replacing former CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt. CNBC reports: Whitten was a founding engineer at Microsoft's Xbox before leaving the company after more than 17 years to become chief product officer of audio company Sonos in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then worked at Amazon as vice president of entertainment devices and services before his most recent role as chief product and technology officer for software development company Unity's Create. His appointment comes at a crucial time for Cruise, which is testing and relaunching its autonomous vehicles on public roadways. It ceased operations weeks after an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi. A third-party probe into the October incident ordered by GM and Cruise found that culture issues, ineptitude and poor leadership fueled regulatory oversights that led to the accident. The probe also investigated allegations of a cover-up by Cruise leadership, but investigators did not find evidence to support those claims. During that time, San Francisco-based Cruise was attempting to expand its operations into a revenue-generating business for GM, which has been a majority owner of the company since acquiring it in 2016. Other investors now include Honda Motor, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart. As of this month, Cruise has resumed supervised driving in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, in addition to its ongoing testing in Dubai. It has not relaunched in San Francisco, where it remains under investigation related to the accident.

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Volkswagen today announced it will invest up to $5 billion in U.S. electric-vehicle maker Rivian as part of a new, equally controlled joint venture to share EV architecture and software. Shares surged 40% in extended Nasdaq trading after the announcement. Reuters reports: The investment will provide Rivian - known for its flagship R1S SUVs and R1T pickups - the funding it needs to develop its less-expensive and smaller R2 SUVs that are set to roll out in 2026, CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters. Volkswagen will initially invest $1 billion in Rivian and a further $4 billion in investments later, the companies said. The partnership will help Volkswagen accelerate its plans to develop software-defined vehicles (SDV), with Rivian licensing its existing intellectual property rights to the joint venture.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple might finally allow retro video game emulators on the App Store, but this month, the company rejected submissions of iDOS 3, a new version of the popular DOS emulator, and UTM SE, an app that lets you emulate operating systems like Windows on iOS. In both instances, Apple said the new releases violate guideline 4.7 of the App Review Guidelines, which is the one that allows for retro game emulators. Chaoji Li, the developer of iDOS 3, shared some of Apple's reasoning for the rejection with The Verge. "The app provides emulator functionality but is not emulating a retro game console specifically," according to Apple's notice. "Only emulators of retro game consoles are appropriate per guideline 4.7." "When I asked what changes I should make to be compliant, they had no idea, nor when I asked what a retro game console is," Li said in a blog post. "It's still the same old unreasonable answer along the line of 'we know it when we see it.'" UTM posted about its rejection on X. "The App Store Review Board determined that 'PC is not a console' regardless of the fact that there are retro Windows / DOS games for the PC that UTM SE can be useful in running," according to the post. UTM also noted that Apple is barring UTM SE from being notarized for third-party app stores because the app apparently violated guideline 2.5.2. That rule states that apps have to be self-contained and can't execute code "which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps." Apple typically hasn't allowed just-in-time (JIT) compilation. However, and somewhat confusingly, UTM said that UTM SE doesn't include just-in-time compilation. Additionally, Apple clarified that guideline 4.7, which allows apps to offer "certain software that is not embedded in the binary," is "an exception that only applies to App Store apps" but isn't one that UTM SE qualifies for, UTM said in a follow-up post.

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Passant Rabie reports via Gizmodo: A video circulating online appears to show debris from a Chinese rocket falling above a populated area, with residents running for cover as a heavy cloud of dark yellow smoke trails across the sky in a frightening scene. The suspected debris may have come from China's Long March 2C rocket, which launched on Saturday, June 22, carrying a joint mission by China and France to study Gamma-ray bursts. The launch was declared a success, but its aftermath was captured by videos posted to Chinese social media sites. The videos show what appears to be the first stage rocket booster of the Long March 2C rocket tumbling uncontrollably over a village in southwest China, while local residents cover their ears and run for shelter from the falling debris. There are no reports of injuries or damage to property. That said, unverified video and images show a gigantic cloud erupting at the site of the crashed rocket, and the booster itself seemingly next to a roadway. The first stage of the rocket can be seen leaking fuel, the color of which is consistent with nitrogen tetroxide. The chemical compound is a strong oxidizing agent that is used for rocket propulsion but it can be fatally toxic, according to Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center. "It's known in the rocket industry as BFRC, a big fucking red cloud," McDowell told Gizmodo. "And when you see a BFRC, you run for your life." Nitrogen tetroxide was accepted as the rocket propellant oxidizer of choice in the early 1950s by the U.S.S.R. and the United States, however it became less commonly used over the years because it is extremely toxic, according to NASA (PDF). If it comes in contact with skin, eyes, or respiratory system, it can destroy human tissue, and if inhaled through the lungs, it can lead to a build up of fluids or, in extreme cases, death. "It's pretty scary, but this is just how the Chinese do business," McDowell told Gizmodo. "They have a different level of acceptable public risk." "I think over a 10 year period, we may see the older rockets phased out but they're not in any hurry to do so," added McDowell. "They're still launching one a week or something like that, and they are really quite dangerous."

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While NASA engineers review propulsion system data, Boeing's Starliner will remain docked at the ISS longer than planned, with a new departure date yet to be specified due to upcoming spacewalks and ongoing engineering reviews. "After repeated delays, the spacecraft was set to leave the outpost on June 25 and land at White Sands, New Mexico," notes The Register. NASA has stated that the crew is not in a hurry to leave, with sufficient supplies available, and the delay will allow more time to address helium leaks and thruster issues observed during docking. From the report: The Starliner will need to depart the ISS before August without some additional engineering analysis. During the post-docking news conference, Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, gave a figure of 45 days for the docked duration, meaning a docking would have to occur during the latter half of July at the very latest. The delay will remove any potential conflict with the upcoming spacewalks and give engineers more time to review data from the Starliner's propulsion system. The vehicle has been bedeviled by helium leaks and thruster problems. Once the Starliner commences its return to Earth, the service module where the problematic hardware is located will be discarded, depriving engineers of an avenue of investigation. Stich said, "We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process. We are letting the data drive our decision-making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking. Additionally, given the duration of the mission, it is appropriate for us to complete an agency-level review, similar to what was done ahead of NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 return after two months on orbit, to document the agency's formal acceptance on proceeding as planned." The Starliner has been cleared for use as a return vehicle in the event of an emergency. In the highly unlikely event that NASA opts not to use the Starliner as a crew return vehicle, the agency has a few options open to it. One could be to remove two crew members from the next Crew Dragon launch -- currently set for the latter half of August -- or use an upcoming Soyuz, although the latter requires custom seat liners for the crew. During the June 18 teleconference Stich confirmed that the team had already cleared the vehicle for a contingency or emergency return, and added "I think we will work through each of these issues and we will get to a point where we can bring Butch and Suni back in Starliner."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A new law coming into effect in Colorado in July is banning everyday products that intentionally contain toxic "forever chemicals," including clothes, cookware, menstruation products, dental floss and ski wax -- unless they can be made safer. Under the legislation, which takes effect on 1 July, many products using per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances -- or PFAS chemicals linked to cancer risk, lower fertility and developmental delays -- will be prohibited starting in 2026. By 2028, Colorado will also ban the sale of all PFAS-treated clothes, backpacks and waterproof outdoor apparel. The law will also require companies selling PFAS-coated clothing to attach disclosure labels. The initial draft of state senate bill 81, introduced in 2022, included a full ban on PFAS beginning in 2032. But that measure was written out after facing opposition. Colorado has already passed a measure requiring companies to phase out PFAS in carpets, furniture, cosmetics, juvenile products, some food packaging and those used in oil and gas production. The incoming law's diluted version illustrates the challenges lawmakers have in regulating chemicals that are used to make products waterproof, nonstick or resistant to staining. Manufacturers say the products, at best, will take time to make with a safer replacement -- or at worst, are not yet possible to get made in such fashion. [...] In Colorado, state senator Lisa Cutter, one of the sponsors of the new law there, has said she still wants a complete ban on PFAS but acknowledges the problems. "As much as I want PFAS to go away forever and forever, there are going to be some difficult pivots," she told the outlet. They include balancing the potential cost to consumers in making products PFAS-free. Cutter told CBS News that it was "really hard" challenging lobbying groups that "spent a lot of money ensuring that these chemicals can continue being put into our products and make profits." Cutter had been accused of stifling innovation and industry. She said she believed companies could be successful while also looking out for the communities they serve. "Certainly, there are cases where it's not plausible right away to gravitate away from them, but we need to be moving in that direction," Cutter said. "Our community shouldn't have to pay the price for their health."

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department over his alleged role in one of the largest U.S. government breaches of classified material. As a result, he will avoid imprisonment in the United States. CNN reports: Under the terms of the new agreement (PDF), Justice Department prosecutors will seek a 62-month sentence -- which is equal to the amount of time Assange has served in a high-security prison in London while he fought extradition to the US. The plea deal would credit that time served, allowing Assange to immediately return to Australia, his native country. The plea deal must still be approved by a federal judge. Assange had faced 18 counts from a 2019 indictment for his alleged role in the breach that carried a max of up to 175 years in prison, though he was unlikely to be sentenced to that time in full. Assange was being pursued by US authorities for publishing confidential military records supplied by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and 2011. US officials alleged that Assange goaded Manning into obtaining thousands of pages of unfiltered US diplomatic cables that potentially endangered confidential sources, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

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Since May, Meta has been labeling photos created with AI tools on its social networks to help users better identify the content they're consuming. However, as TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta reports, this approach has faced criticism as many photos not created using AI tools have been incorrectly labeled, prompting Meta to reevaluate its labeling strategy to better reflect the actual use of AI in images. From the report: There are plenty of examples of Meta automatically attaching the label to photos that were not created through AI. For example, this photo of Kolkata Knight Riders winning the Indian Premier League Cricket tournament. Notably, the label is only visible on the mobile apps and not on the web. Plenty of other photographers have raised concerns over their images having been wrongly tagged with the "Made with AI" label. Their point is that simply editing a photo with a tool should not be subject to the label. Former White House photographer Pete Souza said in an Instagram post that one of his photos was tagged with the new label. Souza told TechCrunch in an email that Adobe changed how its cropping tool works and you have to "flatten the image" before saving it as a JPEG image. He suspects that this action has triggered Meta's algorithm to attach this label. "What's annoying is that the post forced me to include the 'Made with AI' even though I unchecked it," Souza told TechCrunch. Meta would not answer on the record to TechCrunch's questions about Souza's experience or other photographers' posts who said their posts were incorrectly tagged. However, after publishing of the story, Meta said the company is evaluating its approach to indicate labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image. "Our intent has always been to help people know when they see content that has been made with AI. We are taking into account recent feedback and continue to evaluate our approach so that our labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "For now, Meta provides no separate labels to indicate if a photographer used a tool to clean up their photo, or used AI to create it," notes TechCrunch. "For users, it might be hard to understand how much AI was involved in a photo." "Meta's label specifies that 'Generative AI may have been used to create or edit content in this post' -- but only if you tap on the label. Despite this approach, there are plenty of photos on Meta's platforms that are clearly AI-generated, and Meta's algorithm hasn't labeled them."

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Microsoft has decided to end its Project Natick experiment, which involved submerging a datacenter capsule 120 miles off the coast of Scotland to explore the feasibility of deploying underwater datacenters. TechSpot's Rob Thubron reports: Project Natick's origins stretch all the way back to 2013. Following a three-month trial in the Pacific, a submersible data center capsule was deployed 120 miles off the coast of Scotland in 2018. It was brought back to the surface in 2020, offering what were said to be promising results. Microsoft lost six of the 855 servers that were in the capsule during its time underwater. In a comparison experiment being run simultaneously on dry land, it lost eight out of 135 servers. Microsoft noted that the constant temperature stability of the external seawater was a factor in the experiment's success. It also highlighted how the data center was filled with inert nitrogen gas that protected the servers, as opposed to the reactive oxygen gas in the land data center. Despite everything going so well, Microsoft is discontinuing Project Natick. "I'm not building subsea data centers anywhere in the world," Noelle Walsh, the head of the company's Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) division, told DatacenterDynamics. "My team worked on it, and it worked. We learned a lot about operations below sea level and vibration and impacts on the server. So we'll apply those learnings to other cases," Walsh added. Microsoft also patented a high-pressure data center in 2019 and an artificial reef data center in 2017, but it seems the company is putting resources into traditional builds for now. "I would say now we're getting more focused," Walsh said. "We like to do R&D and try things out, and you learn something here and it may fly over there. But I'd say now, it's very focused." "While we don't currently have data centers in the water, we will continue to use Project Natick as a research platform to explore, test, and validate new concepts around data center reliability and sustainability, for example with liquid immersion."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google announced on Monday that it's bringing its AI technology Gemini to teen students using their school accounts, after having already offered Gemini to teens using their personal accounts. The company is also giving educators access to new tools alongside this release. Google says that giving teens access to Gemini can help prepare them with the skills they need to thrive in a future where generative AI exists. Gemini will help students learn more confidently with real-time feedback, the company believes. Google claims it will not use data from chats with students to train and improve its AI models, and has taken steps to ensure it's bringing this technology to students responsibly. Gemini has guardrails that will prevent inappropriate responses, such as illegal or age-gated substances, from appearing in responses. It will also actively recommend teens use its double-check feature to help them develop information literacy and critical thinking skills. Gemini will be available to teen students while using their Google Workspace for Education accounts in English in more than 100 countries. Gemini will be off by default for teens until admins choose to turn it on. Google also announced that it's launching its Read Along in Classroom feature worldwide to help students improve reading skills with real-time support. Educators can assign grade-level or phonics-based reading activities and receive insights on students' reading accuracy, speed, and comprehension.

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Top officials from the European Union and China agreed to negotiate a planned series of import taxes on Chinese electric vehicles. "The call marks the first time the two sides have agreed to negotiate since the EU threatened China with electric vehicle (EV) tariffs of up to 38%," reports the BBC. From the report: The EU said Chinese EVs were unfairly subsidised by its government. In response, China accused the EU of protectionism and trade rule breaches. An EU spokesperson told the BBC the call between Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao was "candid and constructive." They said the two sides would "continue to engage at all levels in the coming weeks." However, the spokesperson also doubled down on the EU's opposition to how the Chinese EV industry is funded. They said "any negotiated outcome" to the proposed tariffs must address the "injurious subsidisation" of Chinese EVs. China released a similar statement on Saturday and made clear it still disagreed with the EU. As well as its call with the EU, Mr Wang met German Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck on Saturday. In a Facebook post about the meeting, China's Ministry of Commerce said it had told Mr Habeck about its "firm opposition" to the tariffs. It repeated its threat to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) "to firmly defend its legitimate rights and interests." Germany has also expressed criticism of the tariffs. When the EU first proposed them last week following its investigation of Chinese EVs in the trading bloc, Germany's Transport Minister, Volker Wissing, said the move risked a "trade war" with Beijing. "The European Commission's punitive tariffs hit German companies and their top products," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the time. The European car industry has been critical too. Stellantis - which owns Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Fiat, and several other brands - said it did not support measures that "contribute to the world fragmentation [of trade]."

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OpenAI has purchased Multi (previously Remotion), "a five-person startup based in New York City that focuses on screenshare and collaboration technologies for workers using Mac computers," reports VentureBeat. The latest acquisition comes just days after the AI company announced it had acquired enterprise analytics startup Rockset. No details were provided on the terms of the deal. From the report: Multi's co-founder and CEO Alexander Embiricos posted on his X account today stating specifically that he (and presumably the entire Multi team) has joined OpenAI's "ChatGPT desktop team," the unit at the company responsible for building the ChatGPT for Mac desktop app that was unveiled back in May 2024. Multi broke the news first to its users and followers in a blog post, writing: "Recently, we've been increasingly asking ourselves how we should work with computers. Not on or using computers, but truly with computers. With AI. We believe it's one of the most important product questions of our time. And so, we're beyond excited to share that Multi is joining OpenAI!" The news has users on X speculating that OpenAI will use Multi to allow its AI models such as GPT-4o to "take over" a user's computer and perform actions on their behalf based on text or voice prompts. So you could say something like "ChatGPT, create a spreadsheet of my latest hours and send it to my manager" and it would try to do this. Based on what I've learned about Multi (see final section of this article below) and zero insider knowledge, I think it is at least as likely that OpenAI will seek to use the acquisition as a means of souping up and adding features to its ChatGPT Team and Enterprise subscription plans, as those are already more focused on providing tech for teams to help all the individuals on them work better together. However, Multi also broke the news that it is "sunsetting" the current version of its software and will end support for it in one month: on July 24, 2024, as well as delete all user data. Egads! Multi states in a short FAQ in its blog post that users should go ahead and export their data before that time, using the "Export Session Notes" setting under the URL: https://app.multi.app/account. It is also opening the door to users asking for extensions to the deletion date of July 24, 2024 for their individual or company accounts, if they email Embiricos himself directly at alexander@multi.app. Multi also says its team members can help recommend alternatives through the same email address.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Car dealerships in North America continue to wrestle with major disruptions that started last week with cyberattacks on a software company used widely in the auto retail sales sector. CDK Global, a company that provides software for thousands of auto dealers in the U.S. and Canada, was hit by back-to-back cyberattacks Wednesday. That led to an outage that has continued to impact operations. For prospective car buyers, that's meant delays at dealerships or vehicle orders written up by hand. There's no immediate end in sight, with CDK saying it expects the restoration process to take "several days" to complete. On Monday, Group 1 Automotive Inc., a $4 billion automotive retailer, said that it continued to use "alternative processes" to sell cars to its customers. Lithia Motors and AutoNation, two other dealership chains, also disclosed that they implemented workarounds to keep their operations going. [...] Several major auto companies -- including Stellantis, Ford and BMW -- confirmed to The Associated Press last week that the CDK outage had impacted some of their dealers, but that sales operations continue. In light of the ongoing situation, a spokesperson for Stellantis said Friday that many dealerships had switched to manual processes to serve customers. That includes writing up orders by hand. A Ford spokesperson added that the outage may cause "some delays and inconveniences at some dealers and for some customers." However, many Ford and Lincoln customers are still getting sales and service support through alternative routes being used at dealerships. Group 1 Automotive Inc., which owns 202 automotive dealerships, 264 franchises, and 42 collision centers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, said Monday that the incident has disrupted its business applications and processes in its U.S. operations that rely on CDK's dealers' systems. The company said that it took measures to protect and isolate its systems from CDK's platform. All Group 1 U.S. dealerships will continue to conduct business using alternative processes until CDK's dealers' systems are available, the company said Monday. Group 1's dealerships in the U.K. don't use CDK's dealers' systems and are not impacted by the incident. In regulatory filings, Lithia Motors and AutoNation disclosed that last week's incident at CDK had disrupted their operations as well. Lithia said it activated cyber incident response procedures, which included "severing business service connections between the company's systems and CDK's." AutoNation said it also took steps to protect its systems and data -- adding that all of its locations remain open "albeit with lower productivity," as many are served manually or through alternative processes.

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