Monday, January 22nd, 2024

Time	Event
12:50a	Most CEOs Won't Priorities Return-to-Office Policies, Survey Finds The pandemic may have proved to employeers that remote and flexible-work arrangements were viable — and changed the way we work forever. Axios writes: Just 6 out of 158 U.S. CEOs said they'll prioritize bringing workers back to the office full-time in 2024, according to a new survey released by the Conference Board. Executives are increasingly resigned to a world where employees don't come in every day, as hybrid work arrangements — mixing work from home and in-office — become the norm for knowledge workers. "Maintain hybrid work," was cited as a priority by 27% of the U.S. CEOs who responded to the survey, conducted in October and November. A separate survey of chief financial officers by Deloitte, conducted in November, found that 65% of CFOs expect their company to offer a hybrid arrangement this year. "Remote work appears likely to be the most persistent economic legacy of the pandemic," write Goldman Sachs economists in a recent note. About 20%-25% of workers in the U.S. work from home at least part of the week, according to data Goldman cites. That's below a peak of 47% during the pandemic but well above its prior average of around 3%. "The battle is over," said Diana Scott, human capital center leader at The Conference Board. "There are so many other issues CEOs are facing." Headlines about CEOs determined to get butts in seats get attention, but they are the exception, says Brian Elliott, the cofounder of Future Forum, a future of work think tank. "There are a lot more CEOs that are actually quietly becoming more flexible...." Though the labor market has softened, employers still do care about keeping employees satisfied — and they don't want to fight with them. "It's not worth the fight," says Elliott. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
12:50a	Most CEOs Won't Prioritize Return-to-Office Policies, Survey Finds The pandemic may have proved to employeers that remote and flexible-work arrangements were viable — and changed the way we work forever. Axios writes: Just 6 out of 158 U.S. CEOs said they'll prioritize bringing workers back to the office full-time in 2024, according to a new survey released by the Conference Board. Executives are increasingly resigned to a world where employees don't come in every day, as hybrid work arrangements — mixing work from home and in-office — become the norm for knowledge workers. "Maintain hybrid work," was cited as a priority by 27% of the U.S. CEOs who responded to the survey, conducted in October and November. A separate survey of chief financial officers by Deloitte, conducted in November, found that 65% of CFOs expect their company to offer a hybrid arrangement this year. "Remote work appears likely to be the most persistent economic legacy of the pandemic," write Goldman Sachs economists in a recent note. About 20%-25% of workers in the U.S. work from home at least part of the week, according to data Goldman cites. That's below a peak of 47% during the pandemic but well above its prior average of around 3%. "The battle is over," said Diana Scott, human capital center leader at The Conference Board. "There are so many other issues CEOs are facing." Headlines about CEOs determined to get butts in seats get attention, but they are the exception, says Brian Elliott, the cofounder of Future Forum, a future of work think tank. "There are a lot more CEOs that are actually quietly becoming more flexible...." Though the labor market has softened, employers still do care about keeping employees satisfied — and they don't want to fight with them. "It's not worth the fight," says Elliott. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
3:12a	Walmart's Financial Services 'Became a Fraud Magnet', Says ProPublica One man living in Virginia oversaw "the laundering of some $7 million in fraudulently obtained gift cards" from Walmart in an international operation which over five years scammed hundreds of victims into sending the numbers over the phone, reports a new ProPublica investigation. (Citing court evidence that emerged after his arrested in 2021). Earlier that year, he complained to an associate that more and more people were competing to resell cards in China, eating into his profits. So many scammers were flocking to Walmart that he and his team regularly encountered them at self-checkout counters.... "We ran into quite a few at the store, and we even started chatting." It was apparently so common that federal prosecutors started calling it "The Walmart scheme." And while the store is supposed to watch for customers who appear to be acting on a scammer's instructions, "Too often, Walmart has failed." America's largest retailer has long been a facilitator of fraud on a mass scale, a ProPublica investigation has found. For roughly a decade, Walmart has resisted tougher enforcement while breaking promises to regulators and skimping on employee training, according to more than 50 interviews, internal documents supplied by former industry executives, court filings and other public records...More than $1 billion in fraud losses were routed through the company's financial systems between 2013 and 2022, according to filings by the Federal Trade Commission and court cases analyzed by ProPublica. That has helped fuel a boom in financial chicanery. Americans, many of them elderly, were swindled out of $27 billion between 2013 and 2022, according to the FTC... Walmart has a financial incentive to avoid cracking down. It makes money each time a Walmart gift card is used and earns a fee when another brand of card is bought. And it receives one commission when a person sends a money transfer and a second when the recipient picks it up. The company's financial services business generates hundreds of millions in annual profits. (Its filings do not provide specific figures for gift cards and money transfers.) "They were concerned about the bucks. That's all," Nick Alicea, a former fraud team leader for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service who investigated Walmart for years, told ProPublica. Walmart's deficiencies have repeatedly attracted government scrutiny. In 2017, the attorneys general of New York and Pennsylvania investigated Walmart over concerns that it was "reaping the benefits" of gift card fraud. The investigation concluded a year later with Walmart promising to restrict or eliminate the use of its gift cards to purchase other gift cards... Instead, the company let the practice continue until 2022 — even after it knew that millions of dollars were being laundered through its stores. The FTC sued Walmart in 2022, alleging it "turned a blind eye" as criminals took advantage of its money transfer service. Walmart, the FTC claimed, pocketed millions in fees while "letting fraudsters fleece its customers." Summarizing the FTC's evidence, a federal judge in the case wrote that "Walmart knew that its services were used by fraudsters" and that the company was repeatedly warned about certain stores where "twenty-five, fifty, or even seventy-five percent of money transfer activity was fraudulent." Separately, a federal grand jury in Pennsylvania is hearing evidence of possible criminal conduct in Walmart's money transfer business, according to corporate filings that did not detail the allegations. While the FTC says Americans were swindled out of $27 billion between 2013 and 2022, Walmart responded to ProPublica's investigation by pointing out it's refunded $4 million to gift-card fraud victims, and also blocked more than $700 million in suspicious money transfers. "We have a robust anti-fraud program and other controls to help stop scammers and other criminals who may use the financial services we offer to harm our customers." The company's legal filings in the FTC case struck a different tone. Walmart is seeking to dismiss the suit, partly on the grounds that it has "no responsibility to protect against the criminal conduct of third parties." Though fraud is "deeply unfortunate," Walmart argues, such schemes are "reasonably avoidable by consumers." Other interesting quotes from the article: "Walmart outlets at one point accounted for the top 20 locations for fraud nationally among chains that partnered with MoneyGram, according to internal documents." "In a single week in March 2017, consumers claiming they'd been duped into a money transfer filed 610 complaints about Walmart, according to documents obtained by ProPublica. CVS ranked second, with 47." "Site inspections routinely found that Walmart staff lacked anti-fraud training and that employees failed to ask screening questions..." Walmart resisted MoneyGram's attempts to fight fraud [according to the former fraud team leader for the postal inspector's office in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who investigated MoneyGram and Walmart]. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
5:12a	Should New Jersey's Old Bell Labs Become a 'Museum of the Internet'? "Bell Labs, the historic headwaters of so many inventions that now define our digital age, is closing in Murray Hill," writes journalism professor Jeff Jarvis (in an op-ed for New Jersey's Star-Ledger newspaper). "The Labs should be preserved as a historic site and more." I propose that Bell Labs be opened to the public as a museum and school of the internet. The internet would not be possible without the technologies forged at Bell Labs: the transistor, the laser, information theory, Unix, communications satellites, fiber optics, advances in chip design, cellular phones, compression, microphones, talkies, the first digital art, and artificial intelligence — not to mention, of course, many advances in networks and the telephone, including the precursor to the device we all carry and communicate with today: the Picturephone, displayed as a futuristic fantasy at the 1964 World's Fair. There is no museum of the internet. Silicon Valley has its Computer History Museum. New York has museums for television and the moving image. Massachusetts boasts a charming Museum of Printing. Search Google for a museum of the internet and you'll find amusing digital artifacts, but nowhere to immerse oneself in and study this immensely impactful institution in society. Where better to house a museum devoted to the internet than New Jersey, home not only of Bell Labs but also at one time the headquarters of the communications empire, AT&T, our Ma Bell...? The old Bell Labs could be more than a museum, preserving and explaining the advances that led to the internet. It could be a school... Imagine if Bell Labs were a place where scholars and students in many disciplines — technologies, yes, but also anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, ethics, economics, community studies, design — could gather to teach and learn, discuss and research. The text of Jarvis's piece is behind subscription walls, but has apparently been re-published on X by innovation theorist John Nosta. In one of the most interesting passages, Jarvis remembers visiting Bell Labs in 1995. "The halls were haunted with genius: lab after lab with benches and blackboards and history within. We must not lose that history." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
8:20a	How a Data Breach of 1M Cancer Center Patients Led to Extorting Emails The Seattle Times reports: Concerns have grown in recent weeks about data privacy and the ongoing impacts of a recent Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center cyberattack that leaked personal information of about 1 million patients last November. Since the breach, which hit the South Lake Union cancer research center's clinical network and has led to a host of email threats from hackers and lawsuits against Fred Hutch, menacing messages from perpetrators have escalated. Some patients have started to receive "swatting" threats, in addition to spam emails warning people that unless they pay a fee, their names, Social Security and phone numbers, medical history, lab results and insurance history will be sold to data brokers and on black markets. Steve Bernd, a spokesperson for FBI Seattle, said last week there's been no indication of any criminal swatting events... Other patients have been inundated with spam emails since the breach... According to The New York Times, large data breaches like this are becoming more common. In the first 10 months of 2023, more than 88 million individuals had their medical data exposed, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, the number of reported ransomware incidents, when a specific malware blocks a victim's personal data until a ransom is paid, has decreased in recent years — from 516 in 2021 to 423 in 2023, according to Bernd of FBI Seattle. In Washington, the number dropped from 84 to 54 in the past three years, according to FBI data. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center believes their breach was perpetrated outside the U.S. by exploiting the "Citrix Bleed" vulnerability (which federal cybersecurity officials warn can allow the bypassing of passwords and mutifactor authentication measures). The article adds that in late November, the Department of Health and Human Services' Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center "urged hospitals and other organizations that used Citrix to take immediate action to patch network systems in order to protect against potentially significant ransomware threats." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
12:34p	Remembering The 1970s-Era Technology of Devo It's the 50th anniversary of Devo, the geek-friendly, dystopia-themed band that combined synthesizers with showmanship, first founded in 1973. As a new documentary about the group celebrates its Sundance world premiere, the Los Angeles Times explores how the band made innovative use of the technology of its time: With their yellow radiation suits, red "energy dome" hats and manic energy, part playful and part angry, the band Devo combined the futuristic glamour of new wave with atomic-age anxieties and post-'60s disillusionment.... Uniquely, the band developed a fully formed, intricate internal philosophy and mythology built around the idea that humans were "de-evolving" by becoming dumber and less sophisticated. The mascot of the band, known as "Booji Boy," was an infantile urchin in a rubber mask... Was there an idea to document the band right from the very start? It's incredible that there's footage of the very first show in 1973. GERALD CASALE: We were that delusional, yes. And we were trying to document ourselves when nobody was interested in doing that. And when it was quite expensive and clumsy to do it. You're dealing with Sony U-matic reel-to-reel recorders and big heavy cameras and a scarcity of equipment and very little interest. I mean, my God, if a Devo of now existed like we did, then clearly, there'd be a million cellphone videos. MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: [...] Bob was the first of us to direct a video, back when he was in high school. Bob and me, our dad, starting when we were like babies, like 1 year old, he'd bring out an 8-millimeter camera that didn't have sound, and so he shot hundreds and hundreds of these films through the years, just family stuff. So we always kind of liked that. And Jerry was doing films at Kent State with Chuck Statler before Chuck said, "Hey, let's do a film with a couple of the songs in it." So we were always audio-visual. We were always thinking in both worlds... [DOCUMENTARY DIRECTOR] CHRIS SMITH: One of my favorite details in looking through the old footage is, there's an early show that was recorded in black-and-white, and they have such limited materials to work with, yet they do this thing where the light goes on and off on both sides of the stage. And to me it was so emblematic of where they were going because they were making something that you hadn't seen before that was super creative and visually distinctive and interesting out of something we all had to work with... You could see in that footage, the inventiveness that wasn't a result of means — it was something that was just created out of what they had to work with at that time. MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: [...] Sonically, a lot of what we did was just related to the fact that Bob Mothersbaugh bought a four-track TEAC. So we had this machine that could record four little skinny channels on a quarter-inch tape. It was an amateur home-tape machine, but it made us think about our parts, because we thought, well, OK, you're only going to get to do the bass on one track, and the guitar on one track and the drums on one track and the synth. You're not going to do all these overdubs. We had to think about it, what was an essential part. So we'd work on the song till you could play it just in one pass. Everything essential. I think it really made the early stuff sound really strong because of that. You really get a sense of that on their 1978 song "Mongoloid." But the 2023 documentary's director doesn't see his film as an ending bookmark for the band. "They're still touring. They're all still actively creatively pursuing many different things, as I hope that you would expect after seeing the film." And speaking specifically about the documentary. Mark Mothersbaugh says Booji Boy "describes it as a halfway point to the year of 2073, where we'll celebrate the 100-year anniversary." Booji Boy also says the next 50 years will be more about action. "And it'll be about positive mutation. Mutate, don't stagnate." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
2:00p	FAA Calls for Door-Plug Checks on Second Boeing Jet The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is recommending that airlines check a second type of Boeing jet that uses the same kind of door plug as the one that blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month. From a report: The FAA said late Sunday that it advises operators of Boeing's 737-900ER aircraft to inspect the planes' midexit door plugs. The recommendation comes weeks after the midair accident involving a 737 MAX 9 jet. The 900ER jet isn't part of Boeing's newer MAX family of aircraft, but its door-plug design is identical to the MAX 9's, the FAA said in a release. The FAA cited "an added layer of safety" in recommending the inspections and called for visual checks of four places where door plugs are secured to airplanes. It said some operators had already checked 900ER door plugs and "noted findings with bolts." In a statement, Boeing said, "We fully support the FAA and our customers in this action." The agency grounded 171 MAX 9 airplanes after the Alaska Airlines midair accident and emergency landing on Jan. 5. The grounding remains in place pending a review and approval of inspection and maintenance processes. Boeing has delivered 505 of its 900ER aircraft globally to airlines including Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Indonesia's Lion Air, according to company data. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
2:40p	OpenAI Suspends Developer Behind Dean Phillips Bot theodp writes: OpenAI has banned the developer of a bot that mimicked Democratic White House hopeful Rep. Dean Phillips, the first known instance where the maker of ChatGPT has restricted the use of AI in political campaigns. OpenAI suspended the account of the start-up Delphi, which had been contracted to build Dean.Bot, which could talk to voters in real-time via a website. "Anyone who builds with our tools must follow our usage policies," a spokesperson for OpenAI said in a statement shared with Axios on Sunday. "We recently removed a developer account that was knowingly violating our API usage policies which disallow political campaigning, or impersonating an individual without consent." OpenAI apparently is not a fan of Richard Stallman's 'freedom 0' tenet, which argues software users should have the freedom to run programs as they wish, in order to do what they wish (Stallman is careful to note this freedom doesn't make one exempt from laws). The suspension and subsequent bot removal occurred ahead of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, where Phillips continues his long-shot presidential bid against President Biden. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
3:20p	Terraform Labs Files For Bankruptcy Protection in the US Terraform Labs, the company behind the stablecoin TerraUSD, which collapsed and roiled cryptocurrency markets in 2022, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States, according to court papers filed on Sunday. From a report: Singapore-based Terraform Labs, in a filing with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, listed assets and liabilities in the range of $100-$500 million. Terraform Labs said it would meet all financial obligations to employees and vendors during the Chapter 11 case without requiring additional financing. It also plans to continue Web3 offerings expansion. "The filing will allow TFL to execute on its business plan while navigating ongoing legal proceedings, including representative litigation pending in Singapore and U.S. litigation involving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)," Terraform Labs said in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
4:00p	Predatory Loan Apps Are Thriving in Google Play Store, Despite Ban Tens of thousands of people have fallen victim to predatory loan apps, which extort users using sensitive information from their phones. Google has changed its policy to prevent the loan apps from being listed on the Play store, but enforcement is unreliable. Rest of World: According to Mexico City's Citizen Council for Safety and Justice, a consumer watchdog group, 135 reports to local authorities have been filed against JoyCredito for fraud and extortion. But despite the government attention, the app is still available to download from the Google Play store. For years, apps like JoyCredito have been exploiting borrowers from Mexico to India. They lend small amounts of money with few requirements and very high interest rates to financially vulnerable people -- and then extort them when the loan is due. After years of mounting pressure from watchdog groups, Google explicitly banned the apps from the Play store in October. But stories like those of Macias Gonzalez show how widespread the apps still are -- and how ineffective Google has been at enforcing its own policy. Rest of World presented Google with 15 instances of exploitative loan apps based in Mexico that explicitly violate the terms of the Play store. All of them were still available in the store as of press time. Of the 15 apps, 12 explicitly asked for access to either the camera roll or contacts in the Google Play store's terms of services. Two others specified full access only in external documents. One other gave no data access information. Rest of World also found 10 apps in Peru that have been flagged as exploitative by SBS, a national body that oversees banking, insurance, and private pension. All the apps are still available for download on the Google Play store. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
4:40p	'You Are Not An Embassy' Jamie Bartlett, a technology columnist, argues that social media platforms constantly pressure users to share opinions on events they may not fully understand, contributing to an atmosphere of performative outrage and conformity rather than thoughtful discussion. However, he also acknowledges the counterpoint that silence in the face of injustice can enable harm. From the column: One of the trickier aspects of digital life is the constant pressure to opine. To have a strong opinion on a subject, and to share it with the world. It's literally baked into the design of the most popular platforms. [...] If I am honest, I know very little about most bad things going on in the world. Certainly not enough that sharing my view will inform or educate or enlighten. Yet whenever I see a news report, an urgent need rises up: what shall I say about this? I have a feeling about it -- which must be shared! (And ideally in emotionally charged language, since that will receive more interactions). What's wrong with calling out the bad stuff going on? Nothing per se. And certainly not on an individual level. The problem is when people feel a soft and gentle pressure to denounce, to praise, to comment on things they don't feel they fully understand. Things they don't feel comfortable speaking about. Things that are contentious and difficult to discuss on heartless, unforgiving platforms where the wrong phrase or tone might land you in hot water. What social media has done is to make silence an active -- rather than the default -- choice. To speak publicly is now so easy that not doing it kind-of-implies you don't know or don't care about what's going on in the world. Who wants to look ignorant or indifferent? And besides, who doesn't want to appear kind or wise, or morally upstanding in front of others? But the result is an undirected anger from all sides: frenetic, purposeless, habitual and above all moralising. There's nothing wrong with occasionally saying what you think and sometimes it's very important. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
5:21p	Cameroon Starts World-First Malaria Mass Vaccine Rollout The world's first routine vaccine programme against malaria has started in Cameroon, in a move projected to save thousands of children's lives across Africa. From a report: The symbolic first jab was given to a baby girl named Daniella at a health facility near Yaounde on Monday. Every year 600,000 people die of malaria in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Children under five make up at least 80% of those deaths. Cameroon is offering the RTS,S vaccine free of charge to all infants up to the age of six months old. Patients require a total of four doses. Health officials say these will be given at the same time as other routine childhood vaccines to make it easier for parents. It comes after successful pilot campaigns in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi - where the vaccine caused a 13% drop in malaria deaths in children of eligible age, says Unicef. The jab is known to be effective in at least 36% of cases, according to US researchers, meaning it could save over one in three lives. While the rollout is undoubtedly a relief and a life-saver, its relatively low efficacy rate means that it is not a "silver bullet," argues Willis Akhwale at End Malaria Council Kenya. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
6:00p	Bracing for Impact: AGI Trades Entrepreneur Daniel Gross speculates about the wide-ranging economic, technological, geopolitical, and societal implications if advanced AI systems become extremely capable at many different tasks. He poses open-ended questions across areas like markets, real estate, energy, nations, inflation, and geopolitics regarding what the impacts could be, what trends may emerge, what historical parallels could exist, and what investments or trades might make sense in such a hypothetical future scenario. From the post: Nations: Who wins and loses? $250b of India's GDP exports are essentially GPT-4 tokens... what happens now? Are there any relevant analogies from history we can compare to? What is the euclidean distance of reskilling in prior revolutions, and how does AGI compare? The typist became an EA, can the software engineer become a machinist? Electrification and assembly lines lead to high unemployment and the New Deal, including the Works Progress Administration, a federal project that employed 8.5m Americans with a tremendous budget... does that repeat? Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
6:40p	Exxon Takes Activists To Court Over Emissions Proposal Exxon Mobil has filed a complaint in a Texas court seeking to block a climate proposal by activist investors from a shareholder vote in May. This marks Exxon's first legal action against such a proposal. Exxon argues the proposal, which urges adoption of emissions targets for Exxon's products, does not serve shareholder interests. The activist investors counter that Exxon is the only major oil company lacking these targets. TechCrunch: The problem Exxon faces is that the "basic rules of society," specifically "those embedded in ethical custom," are changing, and the company now finds itself on the wrong side of them. Two-thirds of Americans say we should prioritize alternative energy over fossil fuels, and 69% say the U.S. should move toward net-zero emissions by 2050, according to the Pew Research Center. Internationally, most people want their governments to do something about climate change. Exxon would normally take its grievances to the SEC, filing a request with the regulator to omit the proposal from this year's proxy statement. But under the Biden administration, the SEC has been siding more frequently with shareholders. After all, who's the boss? Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
7:20p	UK University To Beam in Hologram Lecturers Loughborough University will use holographic tech to beam in guest lecturers from around the globe, allowing students to interact with top international experts without leaving campus. The university, the first in Europe to explore this, plans lectures from MIT scientists and tests where management students tackle tricky situations under the guidance of industry leaders. Students have welcomed the lifelike holograms as more engaging than Zoom, The Guardian reports. Following a pilot scheme in 2024, the technology will likely become part of the formal curriculum in 2025. The box-based units are sold by California's Proto, whose clients include BT and IBM for corporate meetings. Proto's founder says the technology could even revive some of history's greatest thinkers to lecture students. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
8:00p	Humans Still Cheaper Than AI in Vast Majority of Jobs, MIT Finds AI can't replace the majority of jobs right now in cost-effective ways, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a study that sought to address fears about AI replacing humans in a swath of industries. From a report: In one of the first in-depth probes of the viability of AI displacing labor, researchers modeled the cost attractiveness of automating various tasks in the US, concentrating on jobs where computer vision was employed -- for instance, teachers and property appraisers. They found only 23% of workers, measured in terms of dollar wages, could be effectively supplanted. In other cases, because AI-assisted visual recognition is expensive to install and operate, humans did the job more economically. [...] The cost-benefit ratio of computer vision is most favorable in segments like retail, transportation and warehousing, all areas where Walmart and Amazon are prominent. It's also feasible in the health-care context, MIT's paper said. A more aggressive AI rollout, especially via AI-as-a-service subscription offerings, could scale up other uses and make them more viable, the authors said. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
8:40p	Japan's Successful Moon Landing Was the Most Precise Ever Japan has become the fifth country in the world to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon, using precision technology that allowed it to touch down closer to its target landing site than any mission has before. However the spacecraft might have survived on the lunar surface for just a few hours due to power failure. Nature: Telemetry showed that the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, touched down in its target area near Shioli crater, south of the lunar equator early Saturday morning, four months after lifting off from the Tanegashima Space Centre, off the south coast of Japan. [...] According to [Hitoshi] Kuninaka (VP of Kanegawa-based Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), SLIM has very likely achieved its primary goal -- to land on the Moon with an unprecedented accuracy of 100 metres, which is a big leap from previous ranges of a few to dozens of kilometres. SLIM carried vision-based navigation technology, which was intended to image the surface as it flew over the Moon, and locate itself quickly by matching the images with onboard maps. It remains unclear if the car-sized, 200-kilogram spacecraft actually touched down in the planned, two-step manner with its five legs. Unlike previous Moon landers, which used four legs to simultaneously reach a relatively flat area, SLIM was designed to hit a 15-degree slope outside Shioli crater first with one leg at the back, and then tip forward to stabilize on the four front legs. Observers suggest that SLIM might have rolled during its touch-down, preventing its solar cells from facing the Sun. Kuninaka said not enough data were available to establish the probe's posture or orientation. However, if some sunlight is able to reach the solar cells there is a chance that SLIM could come back to life. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
9:20p	Alphabet's Moonshot X Lab Cuts Staff Alphabet's lab for pioneering technology is laying off dozens of employees as it turns to outside investors to help fund its ventures. From a report: The division, known as X, has in recent months ramped up discussions on funding with venture capitalists and other investors, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named as it is private. The lab is adopting a new structure that'll enable its projects to more easily spin out of X as independent startups with support from Alphabet and outside backers, according to one of the people and an email to staff obtained by Bloomberg. X seeks bold approaches to major challenges like climate change and connectivity, but its efforts have yielded few durable businesses thus far. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
10:02p	HP CEO Evokes James Bond-Style Hack Via Ink Cartridges An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last Thursday, HP CEO Enrique Lores addressed the company's controversial practice of bricking printers when users load them with third-party ink. Speaking to CNBC Television, he said, "We have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges. Through the cartridge, [the virus can] go to the printer, [and then] from the printer, go to the network." That frightening scenario could help explain why HP, which was hit this month with another lawsuit over its Dynamic Security system, insists on deploying it to printers. Dynamic Security stops HP printers from functioning if an ink cartridge without an HP chip or HP electronic circuitry is installed. HP has issued firmware updates that block printers with such ink cartridges from printing, leading to the above lawsuit (PDF), which is seeking class-action certification. The suit alleges that HP printer customers were not made aware that printer firmware updates issued in late 2022 and early 2023 could result in printer features not working. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and an injunction preventing HP from issuing printer updates that block ink cartridges without an HP chip. [...] Unsurprisingly, Lores' claim comes from HP-backed research. The company's bug bounty program tasked researchers from Bugcrowd with determining if it's possible to use an ink cartridge as a cyberthreat. HP argued that ink cartridge microcontroller chips, which are used to communicate with the printer, could be an entryway for attacks. [...] It's clear that HP's tactics are meant to coax HP printer owners into committing to HP ink, which helps the company drive recurring revenue and makes up for money lost when the printers are sold. Lores confirmed in his interview that HP loses money when it sells a printer and makes money through supplies. But HP's ambitions don't end there. It envisions a world where all of its printer customers also subscribe to an HP program offering ink and other printer-related services. "Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription. This is really what we have been driving," Lores said. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
10:40p	Apple Might Have Sold Up To 180,000 Vision Pro Headsets Over Pre-Order Weekend According to analyst Min-Chi Kuo, Apple may have sold somewhere between 160,000 to 180,000 Vision Pro headsets during the past weekend. "This already far exceeds Kuo's earlier production figures of 60,000 to 80,000 units targeting the initial release on February 2, which is no wonder that the Vision Pro was sold out immediately after pre-orders opened," notes Engadget. From the report: While this sounds like positive news, Kuo pointed out that with shipping times remaining unchanged within the first 48 hours, this might indicate a quick drop in demand after the heavy users and hardcore fans were done pre-ordering. In contrast, iPhone orders would usually "see a steady increase in shipping times 24 to 48 hours after pre-orders open." But of course, the Vision Pro isn't meant for the average consumer in its current state, especially given the lack of some mainstream apps like YouTube, Spotify or Netflix. Not to mention the eye-watering $3,499 base price either, though Apple may later release a cheaper model in the ballpark of $1,500 to $2,500, according to an earlier report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Kuo added that even with the device being sold out based on the upper initial production figure of 80,000 units, that only accounts for about 0.007 percent of Apple's 1.2 billion active users, which makes the Vision Pro "a very niche product" in the eyes of Cupertino. That is to say, the tech giant will need to somehow drum up and sustain demand for the headset before its global launch, which is rumored to take place some time before this year's WWDC -- likely in June. Meanwhile, Apple is also busy setting up demo areas at its US flagship stores, in the hopes of making a few more sales with their 25-minute sessions. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
11:20p	Meta Now Lets EU Users Unlink Their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram Accounts To comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act, Meta is rolling out changes to give users in Europe the ability to unlink their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram accounts. Neowin reports: One key choice users will have is how information is shared between Facebook and Instagram. Instagram and Facebook users will be able to choose whether or not they want information shared between the apps. Those who currently have connected Instagram and Facebook accounts can opt to keep sharing data between the apps or separate their accounts. Furthermore, Messenger is getting a standalone option. Users can continue using Messenger with their Facebook account or create a new account completely independent of Facebook. This new Messenger account will still offer core features like messaging, chat, and voice/video calls, but without Facebook. For Facebook Marketplace, the options will be a personalized marketplace experience that taps into Facebook profiles or an anonymized experience where buyers and sellers only communicate via email instead of Messenger. For gamers, Meta offers a similar choice to Facebook Gaming. Users can keep their Facebook info linked for access to features like multiplayer, in-game purchases, and personalized recommendations. Alternatively, they can opt for a Facebook-free gaming experience. Finally, an option introduced in November 2023 remains relevant -- European users can choose to pay a subscription to Facebook and Instagram ad-free. It ensures that their information is not used for targeted advertising. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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