Long-time Slashdot reader Anne Thwacks frequently uses YouTube's subtitles "not to disturb others in the room, or because my hearing is not very good." But they say there's a new problem.
"The subtitling is terrible!"
Almost every sentence has a huge error. Proper names are more often wrong than right. Non-English place names are almost always mangled to barely recognizable. And no effort whatsoever is made to use context to figure out whether a place name is Russian or Arabic, and often complete garbage is used in place of a common French, Spanish or Italian name!
If AI actually works (I have my doubts about this), surely it would be possible to figure out language contexts. If it is about an event in Italy, then expect a lot of Italian names! If it is about the Russia-Ukraine war, then expect places in Russia or Ukraine to be more plausible than mindless gobbledygook! Does YouTube not know that there are places in the world that are not in America? (However, plenty of names of people and places famous in America are also regularly screwed up.)
They argue the subtitles are "appallingly bad" — and that "the situation seems to be getting worse," wondering why the problem isn't addressed with some basic spell-checking. ("I'm sure that the vast majority of foul-ups could be fixed by the use of a dictionary.") Have any Slashdot readers seen similar problems? A friend of mine noticed that YouTube's subtitles even bungled this innocuous song from the 1966.
ANNETTE FUNICELLO: "If your love is true love, you can tell by his touch."
YOUTUBE SUBTITLE: "If your love is too lava, you can tell by his touch..."
Share your own experiences and thoughts in the comments. And do you think YouTube's subtitles are "appallingly bad"?
"Nuclear AI startup" Fermi had hoped to build power plants generating 17 gigawatts of electricity, remembers Bloomberg, "three times the amount typically consumed by New York City."
Hyperscalers could install their data centers on the site itself and tap directly into that power, which would come first from natural gas turbines and later from nuclear reactors. The pitch ticked so many boxes — artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, political connections — that some investors found it irresistible. Fermi went public in October worth more than $19 billion in market value, despite reporting no revenue or signed customers.
Now, the startup's board has fired its top executive, Toby Neugebauer, after months of negotiations failed to secure a single client. Chief Financial Officer Miles Everson left as well... Fermi's stock, meanwhile, has tumbled 84% from its peak. The company's more than 5,000-acre site in the Texas panhandle — dubbed Project Matador, or the President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus — remains mostly unfinished. And some analysts see a cautionary tale of the market's AI enthusiasm running ahead of reality, with investors betting on companies whose grand projects may never get built...
The idea of giving data centers their own, dedicated power supply not dependent on the grid may sound tempting, but former US Department of Energy official Jigar Shah said banks don't want to finance it. The grid, drawing power from many sources, is more reliable than a handful of expensive, on-site plants, he said. He considers Fermi a failure "of monumental proportions" and says similar, off-grid data center projects elsewhere deserve more skepticism than they've received... "We're allowing these types of projects to continue to be viewed as viable when they most certainly are not," said Shah, who ran the department's Loan Programs Office during the Biden administration....
"It was a piece of dirt with a dream," an investor who visited the site in February told the short sellers, Fuzzy Panda Research.
Monday a company called Rainmaker announced their rain-triggering technology had produced 143 million gallons of freshwater for Utah and Oregon residents — making them "the first private company in history to validate the results of cloud seeding operations."
The Deseret News reports:
Founded in 2023, Rainmaker uses drones to disperse silver iodide into clouds, then they track precipitation with advanced radar. However, Rainmaker — and every other rain-enhancement company — has been up against the notoriously difficult challenge of validation. Since there is no control set to test, and because the weather is chaotic and variable, the Government Accountability Office declares the benefits of the technology to be "unproven." To overcome this evaluation challenge, Rainmaker flies drones in unique patterns when seeding. Then operators compare distinct radar and satellite features with where their drones operated.
As of April, Rainmaker found 82 unambiguous seeding signatures, which show their seeding operations directly caused precipitation. In Utah and Oregon alone, the company said its cloud-seeding efforts have added enough water to match the annual usage of about 1,750 households. However, "this figure likely represents only a small fraction of Rainmaker's total generation this season," the company said in their press release... Their drone precision, combined with their radar systems, have produced satellite images proving a direct correlation between the seeding and precipitation. Some images show cloud holes or regions of depressed cloud tops after seeding.
Rainmaker's announcement promises they'll "go forward and continue our mission to refill the Great Salt Lake, end drought in the American West and deliver water abundance wherever it is needed most around the world." (Rainmaker currently operates in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, California and Colorado.)
The director of Utah's Natural Resources Department told the Deseret News that with cloud seeding, "cost per unit of water is so low; it really is the smartest thing we can be doing with our money," Ferry said.
"Running a Big Tech company during Silicon Valley's AI mania may not necessarily require fewer workers or cost less," writes the Washington Post:
Amazon, Google and Meta together have roughly the same number of employees now as they did during an industry-wide hiring binge in 2022, company disclosures show. Growing costs for technical workers and related expenses have often outpaced sales recently. The tech giants' big AI bet hasn't yet paid for itself.
That means AI might be killing jobs not through its labor-saving wizardry but by increasing spending so much that CEOs are pressured to find savings, giving them cover to consciously uncouple from their workforces. Marc Andreessen, a prominent start-up investor and a Meta board director, put it bluntly on a recent podcast. Big company layoffs are a fix for overstaffing and changing economic conditions, he said, but AI provides a convenient scapegoat. "Now they all have the silver bullet excuse: 'Ah, it's AI,'" he said...
"Almost every company that does layoffs is blaming AI, whether or not it really is about AI," Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT owner OpenAI, said at a March conference when he listed explanations for AI's unpopularity in the United States.
"Recent history suggests Big Tech companies might not be moving toward a future with fewer workers," the article concludes, "but recalibrating to spend the same, or more, on different people and projects."
So in the end, "AI might soon reduce hiring," the article acknowledges, "But the reluctance or inability of the largest tech firms to cut too deeply so far could also show that the path to making a workforce AI-ready — whatever that means — isn't a predictable straight line charting declining headcount."
Le socket AM4 d'AMD continue à marquer l'histoire du hardware PC. Alors qu'il va fêter dans seulement quatre mois ses dix ans d'existence, les configurations AM4 se vendent toujours très bien, et se découvrent même une énième jeunesse avec la pénurie de DRAM qui fait que les petits budgets se tourne...
Slashdot reader joshuark writes: Scientific American reports that a ChatGPT AI has proved a conjecture with a method no human had developed. A 23-year-old student Liam Price just cracked a 60-year-old problem that world-class mathematicians have tried and failed to solve. The new solution that Price got in response to a single prompt to GPT-5.4 Pro was posted on www.erdosproblems.com, a website devoted to the Erds problems. The question Price solved — or prompted ChatGPT to solve—concerns special sets of whole numbers, where no number in the set can be evenly divided by any other...
Price sent it to his occasional collaborator Kevin Barreto, a second-year undergraduate in mathematics at the University of Cambridge. The duo had jump-started the AI-for-Erds craze late last year by prompting a free version of ChatGPT with open problems chosen at random from the Erds problems website. Reviewing Price's message, Barreto realized what they had was special, and experts whom he notified quickly took notice.
Last Saturday someone dressed as Jesus "was among the dozens of people in costumes and masks seen on a video forcing open the door of a Scientology building on Hollywood Boulevard," reports the Los Angeles Times, "after a tug-of-war with a security guard."
The footage posted on TikTok and Instagram shows the group sprinting up and down stairs and clashing with black-shirted security guards, giggling and gasping to catch their breath while church members scream at them to leave. On their way out — as security guards approach armed with fire extinguishers — one of the sprinters stops and dances to celebrate their successful escape, a move reminiscent of a taunt from the video game Fortnite. For weeks, groups of people have barged into two of the church's Hollywood properties, racing through hallways and tussling with security guards, trying to see how far they can get before they are forced to leave by church staff...
Church officials say the incidents are not a game and have accused the speed runners of "hate crimes." After dozens on Saturday stormed the Ivar Avenue building that houses an exhibit dedicated to the church's founder, science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, the external door handles were removed from all three of Scientology's properties on Hollywood Boulevard by Sunday morning. Guards could be seen blocking the doorway to one building on Monday afternoon...
No arrests have been made.
A report from the Associated Press cites a joke left on one of the videos: that if runners reach the top of the building, they'll find Tom Cruise.
One commenter on a recent TikTok video of a speedrun asked why people are doing this, and another user simply replied, "because it's fun."
The 18-year-old who started the trend told the Hollywood Reporter his original video has been viewed over 100 million times. "From there on out, I pretty much knew that Scientology was like a free gateway to a lot of views."
Vulture notes that "there's even a Roblox re-creation of the trend, made using the 'maps; drawn from actual videos"
Cela fait maintenant un peu plus de 10 ans que Star Citizen est disponible en version alpha pour le grand public. Nous avons évidemment eu le temps d'avoir des retours à la pelle au sujet du jeu et, parmi ce qui ressort le plus en matière de performances et de framerates, il y a sa dépendance énorme...
This week Bill Gates wrote a blog post about a special camera from medtech startup Remidio, which delivers high-resolution images of a patient's retina in seconds. The camera plugs into a phone running an AI system that watches for early signs of diabetes — all without needing a blood draw, eye dilation, or a dibetes specialist. It's already been used in 40 countries for more than 15 million patients.
But that same hardware, with different software, can also flag the conditions that drive so many dangerous pregnancies. Gestational diabetes sharply increases the risk of pre-eclampsia [a spike in blood pressure during pregnancy responsible for half a million fetal deaths every year and 70,000 maternal deaths]... In most of rural sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, it usually isn't screened for at all, because the standard test requires a lab. A retinal scan offers a different way in.
Remidio's device is currently being used in India to screen pregnant women for conditions that drive stillbirth. And researchers are now adapting the same hardware to screen for anemia and hypertension, too... [S]mall, portable, affordable diagnostics in the hands of community health workers are exactly the kind of lever that can start to move a number that hasn't moved in a long time.
Steam on Linux use in March "had skyrocketed to 5.33%..." reports Phoronix, "easily the highest level we've seen Steam on Linux at since its inception more than a decade ago."
So what happened in April?
[April's results] point to Linux having a 4.52% marketshare on Steam, a drop of 0.81% compared to March. Year-over-year it's roughly double with Steam on Linux in April 2025 being at 2.27%. Or two years ago for April 2024, Steam on Linux was at 1.9%.
Vous connaissez Volvo, Lotus, Polestar et Smart. Mais leur propriétaire commun, vous le connaissez ? C’est Geely. Et depuis le 29 avril 2026, ce mastodonte chinois ne se cache plus : il arrive en France sous son propre nom, avec deux SUV, un réseau qui se monte à toute vitesse, et des ambitions qui donnent le vertige.
Vous avez dit Geely?
Commençons par dissiper un malentendu. Geely n’est pas un inconnu de l’industrie automobile mondiale — loin de là. Ce groupe fondé en Chine, qui a écoulé 4,1 millions de véhicules sur son marché intérieur en 2025 et fête ses quarante ans cette année, est déjà le propriétaire ou co-propriétaire de Volvo, Lotus, Polestar, Smart (en coentreprise avec Mercedes), Zeekr et Lynk & Co. Autrement dit, du Geely, vous en avez probablement déjà croisé sans le savoir.
C’est au Carrousel du Louvre à Paris que le constructeur a officialisé le lancement de sa marque éponyme en France, le 29 avril 2026. Un cadre qui ne manque pas d’ambition, à l’image du projet global comme nous l’explique Guillaume Calvar qui dirige le marketing de Geely Auto France.
Le E5 : le SUV électrique qui joue la carte de l’autonomie
Premier modèle de l’offensive française : le Geely E5, un SUV compact 100 % électrique. Avec ses 4,61 m de long, 1,90 m de large et 1,67 m de haut, il se positionne face aux Peugeot e‑3008, Citroën ë‑C5 Aircross et Kia EV5. Son design volontairement sobre repose sur une proue aux lignes épurées, des optiques fines surplombant une calandre pleine, des flancs lissés, des poignées affleurantes et une ligne de toit presque rectiligne destinée à maximiser l’espace arrière.
Côté look, on ne va pas se mentir : rien ne fait frémir, rien ne choque. C’est le syndrome du SUV chinois calibré pour plaire au plus grand nombre. Mais là où Geely frappe fort, c’est sous le capot — ou plutôt sous le plancher.
L’E5 repose sur un électromoteur de 218 ch alimenté par une batterie LFP de 60,2 kWh ou 68,4 kWh, pour une autonomie située entre 430 km et 475 km selon la finition. Les deux versions acceptent une charge rapide jusqu’à 160 kW DC, permettant un passage de 30 à 80 % en 20 minutes.
À bord, l’habitacle prolonge cette philosophie minimaliste avec un combiné numérique de 10,2 pouces et un écran tactile central de 15,4 pouces, complétés par une caméra 360°, la navigation connectée, l’accès et le démarrage sans clé. Un assistant vocal répondant à « Hi Geely » permet de contrôler jusqu’à 200 paramètres en dix langues.
Les prix de l’E5 en France : le modèle débute à 37 990 € et s’affiche à 41 990 € en finition haute, avec des offres de LLD de 399 à 439 € par mois. À noter que l’E5, importé de Chine, n’est pas éligible au bonus écologique ni aux aides CEE. Face à un Citroën ë‑C5 Aircross de 210 ch affiché à partir de 40 290 € — mais bonifiable — la comparaison mérite d’être nuancée.
Le Starray EM-i : le SUV familial qui remet le PHEV à sa place
Le deuxième modèle est le Geely Starray EM-i, un SUV hybride rechargeable plus long et clairement orienté famille. Avec ses 4,74 m de long, 1,91 m de large et 1,69 m de haut, il reprend les codes stylistiques de l’E5 mais les transpose dans un gabarit supérieur. Sa face avant adopte des optiques effilées reliées par un bandeau sombre et un bouclier plus massif, tandis que la poupe, plus structurée, est animée par de larges feux en C inversé.
Là encore, pas de révolution stylistique. Mais la vraie surprise vient de la motorisation. La motorisation hybride rechargeable associe un 4-cylindres 1.5 l essence de 99 ch à un moteur électrique de 217 ch, pour une puissance cumulée de 262 ch. Geely annonce jusqu’à 135 km d’autonomie électrique WLTP avec la plus grosse batterie de 29,8 kWh, ou 82 km avec la version de 18,4 kWh, et une autonomie cumulée pouvant atteindre 1 055 km.
Pour rappel, un Peugeot 3008 PHEV annonce 87 km en tout électrique, un Kia Sportage PHEV 70 km. Le Starray écrase ses concurrents européens sur ce terrain-là.
L’habitabilité arrière profite d’une hauteur sous pavillon de 1,20 m et d’un espace aux jambes très généreux. Le coffre propose 528 l sous cache-bagages et jusqu’à 2 065 l une fois les sièges rabattus.
Les prix du Starray EM-i : la gamme débute à 34 990 € et grimpe à 38 990 €, avec des offres de LLD de 366 à 419 € par mois. Une offre de lancement à 299 € par mois est également proposée sur les deux modèles.
Un réseau qui part à toute vitesse
C’est peut-être là le vrai pari de Geely en France. La marque ne veut pas répéter les erreurs de ses prédécesseurs chinois, ceux qui ont débarqué avec de belles voitures et zéro infrastructure. Le 29 avril 2026 marque les grands débuts de Geely Auto France. Les premiers contrats de distribution ont déjà été signés avec des groupes comme Auto Réal (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Perpignan), Baldassari (Marseille, Toulon, Fréjus), Como (Île-de-France), Elypse Autos (Mulhouse, Belfort, Épinal) et Select Auto (La Rochelle). La liste passera à 30 sites fin juin, 50 en septembre et 70 d’ici la fin de l’année.
Geely annonce vouloir disposer de 170 concessions à l’horizon 2028, avec un cap affiché de 5 % de part de marché en France d’ici à 2030. Sur un marché à 1,6 million de véhicules par an, cela représente environ 80 000 unités. Ambitieux ? Énorme, même.
Pour rassurer les futurs acheteurs, tous les véhicules sont assortis d’une garantie de 8 ans ou 200 000 km, assortie de trois ans d’assistance et dépannage. Un entrepôt de pièces de rechange a été ouvert dans le Nord, doublé d’un centre européen, afin de livrer les pièces à J+1 partout en France.
Notre avis, par leblogauto.com
Geely arrive en France avec les bons arguments sur le papier : une autonomie PHEV qui fait honte à la concurrence européenne, un E5 électrique bien équipé à prix serré, une garantie XXL et un réseau qui se monte vite. Le groupe sait faire des voitures de qualité — ses marques Volvo et Polestar en témoignent — et il a les reins solides pour tenir sur la durée.
Mais deux bémols s’imposent. D’abord, le design : sobre, voire transparent, les E5 et Starray ne se distinguent pas vraiment de la masse des SUV chinois qui envahissent le marché. Difficile de créer un coup de cœur avec des lignes aussi consensuelles. Ensuite, la question du bonus écologique : importés de Chine, ces modèles ne bénéficient d’aucune aide à l’achat, ce qui plombe mécaniquement leur compétitivité face à des modèles européens bonifiables.
Geely le sait et négocie déjà une production locale en Europe, notamment avec Ford en Espagne. Ce jour-là, la donne changera peut-être radicalement. En attendant, la marque a clairement choisi de jouer la carte du sérieux et de la durée. Pas de feu de paille, mais une offensive structurée, méthodique — à la Geely.
The once-a-year free comic book giveaway "is splitting in two," according to a local news report.
Launched in 2002 by Diamond Comic Distributor, comic book giants like Marvel and DC have historically participated together. But things changed after Diamond Comic Distributors went bankrupt in 2025, "leaving other companies to swoop in and pick up where Diamond left off."
The rights to the "Free Comic Book Day" brand were sold to Universal Distribution, which plans to bring Free Comic Book Day back on Saturday. On the same day, Penguin Random House plans to launch a rival event called Comics Giveaway Day. This means you'll still get plenty of free comics, but this time they will be separated, with some coming under the Free Comic Book Day branding and others arriving under the Comics Giveaway Day branding. Free Comic Book Day will include publishers like DC, Image, Dynamite and Archie Comics. Comics Giveaway Day will include publishers such as Marvel, Dark Horse, Boom! Studios and Tokyopop...
The other big change coming this year is the introduction of game publishers Wizards of the Coast and Upper Deck to the lineup, as part of Universal Distribution's Free Comic Book Day. Wizards of the Coast is known for its tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, as well as its trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Upper Deck is best known for its sports trading cards and entertainment collectibles, along with deck-building games like the Legendary series...
In addition to adding these game makers, Universal plans to expand Free Comic Book Day to include what are colloquially referred to as your friendly local game stores.
Marvel's offerings this year include a special Alien, Predator & Planet of the Apes one-shot, while D.C. is offering the first chapter of their upcoming graphic novel Aquamanatee. Other comics include Avatar: The Last Airbender — Legends from Dark Horse Comics and
Sonic the Hedgehog from IDW Publishing.
Dire que Subnautica 2 est attendu par de nombreux joueurs est un euphémisme. Il occupe par exemple la première place des "jeux les plus souhaités" sur Steam. Développé par le studio Unknown Worlds, à qui l'on doit déjà Subnautica et sa suite directe Subnautica: Below Zero, Subnautica 2 aura vu le jo...
Fin 2025, Samsung a lancé son écran Odyssey OLED G55 G50SF QHD 180Hz. Un modèle d'entrée de gamme qui a étonné avec ses caractéristiques dignes d'un "Gen 2" alors qu'il a été lancé finalement très récemment. Il y aurait une explication à ce fait, même si nous allons garder le conditionnel pour en pa...
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Les amateurs d'action-RPG en monde ouvert attendent probablement avec un œil intéressé The Blood of Dawnwalker. Le jeu est en effet le premier titre développé par le studio polonais Rebel Wolves, fondé en 2022 et dirigé par Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, qui n'est autre que le réalisateur du best-seller mond...
Au mois de février, nos confrères de ComputerBase avaient lancé un intéressant blindtest. L'expression "test à l'aveugle" ne lui convenait d'ailleurs finalement pas très bien, car il fallait au contraire avoir les yeux bien ouverts pour répondre au sondage. Car le but était de regarder chaque fois t...
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