Wednesday, January 24th, 2024

Time	Event
12:27a	Netflix is Going To Take Away Its Cheapest Ad-Free Plan Although Netflix no longer allows new or returning members to sign up for the ad-free Basic subscription that costs $11.99 per month, company executives told investors while reporting its earnings results today that it's retiring the plan in some countries where ad-supported plans are available. It's starting with Canada and the UK in the second quarter of this year. From a report: That leaves subscribers with Netflix's $15.49 per month option as Netflix's cheapest ad-free plan. Going from $11.99 to $15.49 per month is a pretty big jump, and means there's really no middle ground for ad-free plans. Otherwise, subscribers will have to pay $6.99 per month for its ad-supported basic plan or $22.99 per month for the Premium tier. Netflix stopped letting new subscribers sign up for its Basic plan in Canada last year before rolling out the change to the US and UK. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
1:30a	Apple Dials Back Car's Self-Driving Features and Delays Launch To 2028 Apple, reaching a make-or-break point in its decade-old effort to build a car, has pivoted to a less ambitious design with the intent of finally bringing an electric vehicle to market. Bloomberg: After previously envisioning a truly driverless car, the company is now working on an EV with more limited features, according to people with knowledge of the project. Even so, Apple's goal for a release date continues to slip. With the latest changes, the company looks to introduce the car in 2028 at the earliest, roughly two years after a recent projection, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Apple's secretive effort to create a car is one of the most ambitious endeavors in its history, and one of its more tumultuous. Since it began taking shape in 2014, the project -- codenamed Titan and T172 -- has seen several bosses come and go. There have been multiple rounds of layoffs, key changes in strategy and numerous delays. But it remains one of the company's potential next big things -- an entirely new category for the device maker that could help reinvigorate sales growth. Apple's revenue stalled last year as it contended with a maturing smartphone industry and a slowdown in China, its biggest overseas market. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
4:00a	Ebay To Eliminate 1,000 Jobs, or 9% of Full-Time Workforce Ebay said Tuesday that it plans to lay off 9% of the company's workforce, equal to about 1,000 full-time jobs, as the tech industry continues to downsize to start 2024. From a report: Jamie Iannone, Ebay's CEO, told employees in a letter published on a corporate blog, that the company will also "scale back the number of contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months." Iannone said the job cuts are necessary because Ebay's "overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business. To address this, we're implementing organizational changes that align and consolidate certain teams to improve the end-to-end experience, and better meet the needs of our customers around the world. Shortly, we will begin notifying those employees whose roles have been eliminated and entering into a consultation process in areas where required." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
4:15a	Alaska Air CEO Says Loose Bolts Found in 'Many' Boeing Jets Alaska Air Group found loose bolts on "many" of its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft following the midair blowout of a panel on one of its planes earlier this month, the carrier's chief executive officer said in an interview with NBC. Bloomberg: The accident has prompted some "very tough, candid conversations" with Boeing about the planemaker's operations, Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC in the interview, which aired late Tuesday. "I am angry. I'm more than frustrated and disappointed," he said. "My demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house?" US safety regulators ordered all Max 9 planes grounded following the Jan. 5 incident, which left a gaping hole in the side of a jet and forced an emergency landing. No one was seriously injured. Minicucci said there was a "guardian angel" on the flight. Manufacturing quality at Boeing is facing deep scrutiny from regulators, customers and the planemaker itself in the wake of the blowout. While Alaska and United Airlines Holdings, another large operator of the Max model, have performed inspections on some of the aircraft, they're awaiting final specifications from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing before the planes can fly again. "Boeing is better than this," Minicucci said. "Flight 1282 should never have happened." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
9:00a	Netflix Says That Game Engagement Tripled in 2023 Netflix said that user engagement with games on the service tripled in 2023. Engadget: "[Despite] games still being small, and certainly not yet material relative to our film and series business, we're pleased with this progress," the company said in its earnings report on Tuesday. As an example, the company pointed to the addition of the Grand Theft Auto trilogy to the service last year, although it isn't clear how much the trilogy, which only arrived on Netflix on December 14, helped drive engagement in the final two weeks of the year. Netflix said that Grand Theft Auto has become its "most successful launch to date" in terms of installs and engagement. It didn't say how many people had downloaded the trilogy since it was released on the platform, however. Some customers had signed up for Netflix just to play the Grand Theft Auto games, the company said. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
12:00p	New Blood Test That Screens For Alzheimer's May Be a Step Closer To Reality, Study Suggests Testing a person's blood for a type of protein called phosphorylated tau, or p-tau, could be used to screen for Alzheimer's disease with "high accuracy," even before symptoms begin to show, a new study suggests. CNN: The study involved testing blood for a key biomarker of Alzheimer's called p-tau217, which increases at the same time as other damaging proteins -- beta amyloid and tau -- build up in the brains of people with the disease. Currently, to identify the buildup of beta amyloid and tau in the brain, patients undergo a brain scan or spinal tap, which often can be inaccessible and costly. But this simple blood test was found to be up to 96% accurate in identifying elevated levels of beta amyloid and up to 97% accurate in identifying tau, according to the study published Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology. "What was impressive with these results is that the blood test was just as accurate as advanced testing like cerebrospinal fluid tests and brain scans at showing Alzheimer's disease pathology in the brain," Nicholas Ashton, a professor of neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and one of the study's lead authors, said in an email. The study findings came as no surprise to Ashton, who added that the scientific community has known for several years that using blood tests to measure tau or other biomarkers has the potential to assess Alzheimer's disease risk. "Now we are close to these tests being prime-time and this study shows that," he said. Alzheimer's disease, a brain disorder that affects memory and thinking skills, is the most common type of dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
2:03p	Apple Plans New Fees and Restrictions for Downloads Outside App Store In response to a new European law intended to limit Apple's control over iPhone apps, Apple plans to allow sideloading with restrictions. Users will be able to download apps outside the App Store for the first time, but Apple will review each app, collect fees from developers, and add other limits, WSJ reported Wednesday. The policies will apply only in Europe and test enforcement of the law. Spotify, Meta, Microsoft and others are preparing new direct download options in anticipation. Apple has defended controlling downloads via the App Store as necessary for iPhone security and quality, but critics call it anticompetitive and say Apple collects unfairly high commissions. Apple's approach aims to maintain oversight despite the law, but its plans could still change. Further reading: Apple's App Store Rule Changes Draw Sharp Rebuke From Critics. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
3:00p	Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 Lost Nose Wheel Before Takeoff, FAA Says A Boeing 757 plane operated by Delta Air Lines lost a nose wheel as it prepared to take off from Atlanta's main airport on Saturday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. It was the latest troubling episode involving one of the manufacturer's aircraft. The New York Times: Delta Air Lines Flight 982 was preparing to take off from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for a trip to BogotÃ, Colombia, at about 11:15 a.m. Saturday when a "nose wheel came off and rolled down the hill," the agency said in a preliminary report. More than 170 passengers who were aboard had to deplane, but no one was hurt, the report said. The F.A.A. said that it was continuing its investigation. It's been a turbulent period for Boeing, which has been fraught in recent years with safety concerns after deadly catastrophes. The manufacturer faces renewed scrutiny after a door plug blew off a new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane at 16,000 feet on Jan. 5 just after it took off from the Portland International Airport in Oregon. No one was seriously injured then, but passengers were exposed to whipping winds on the plane's harrowing return to Portland. The F.A.A. then ordered about 170 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to be grounded in the United States until they could be inspected. The plane that lost a wheel in Atlanta on Saturday, a Boeing 757, is a different model. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
4:02p	Thousands of Artists Allege Midjourney Used Their Work To Train AI Software An anonymous reader shares a report: Since the emergence of Midjourney and other image generators, artists have been watching and wondering whether AI is a great opportunity or an existential threat. Now, after a list of 16,000 names emerged of artists whose work Midjourney had allegedly used to train its AI -- including Bridget Riley, Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, Tracey Emin, David Hockney and Anish Kapoor -- the art world has issued a call to arms against the technologists. British artists have contacted US lawyers to discuss joining a class action against Midjourney and other AI firms, while others have told the Observer that they may bring their own legal action in the UK. "What we need to do is come together," said Tim Flach, president of the Association of Photographers and an internationally acclaimed photographer whose name is on the list. "This public showing of this list of names is a great catalyst for artists to come together and challenge it. I personally would be up for doing that." The 24-page list of names forms Exhibit J in a class action brought by 10 American artists in California against Midjourney, Stability AI, Runway AI and DeviantArt. Matthew Butterick, one of the lawyers representing the artists, said: "We've had interest from artists around the world, including the UK." Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
5:00p	Amazon's Ring To Stop Letting Police Request Doorbell Video From Users Amazon's Ring home doorbell unit says it will stop letting police departments request footage from users' video doorbells and surveillance cameras, retreating from a practice that was criticized by civil liberties groups and some elected officials. Bloomberg: Next week, the company will disable its Request For Assistance tool (non-paywalled link), the program that had allowed law enforcement to seek footage from users on a voluntary basis, Eric Kuhn, who runs Ring's Neighbors app, said in a blog post on Wednesday. Police and fire departments will have to seek a warrant to request footage from users or show the company evidence of an ongoing emergency. Kuhn didn't say why Ring was disabling the tool. Yassi Yarger, a spokesperson, said Ring had decided to devote its resources to new products and experiences in the Neighbors app that better fit with the company's vision. The aim is to make Neighbors, which had been focused on crime and safety, into more of a community hub, she said. New features announced on Wednesday -- one called Ring Moments that lets users post clips and a company-produced Best of Ring -- highlight that push. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
6:00p	A Shocking Amount of the Web is Machine Translated Abstract of a paper published on pre-print server arXiv: We show that content on the web is often translated into many languages, and the low quality of these multi-way translations indicates they were likely created using Machine Translation (MT). Multi-way parallel, machine generated content not only dominates the translations in lower resource languages; it also constitutes a large fraction of the total web content in those languages. We also find evidence of a selection bias in the type of content which is translated into many languages, consistent with low quality English content being translated en masse into many lower resource languages, via MT. Our work raises serious concerns about training models such as multilingual large language models on both monolingual and bilingual data scraped from the web. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
7:02p	Top Harvard Cancer Researchers Accused of Scientific Fraud; 37 Studies Affected An anonymous reader shares a report: The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is seeking to retract six scientific studies and correct 31 others that were published by the institute's top researchers, including its CEO. The researchers are accused of manipulating data images with simple methods, primarily with copy-and-paste in image editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop. The accusations come from data sleuth Sholto David and colleagues on PubPeer, an online forum for researchers to discuss publications that has frequently served to spot dubious research and potential fraud. On January 2, David posted on his research integrity blog, For Better Science, a long list of potential data manipulation from DFCI researchers. The post highlighted many data figures that appear to contain pixel-for-pixel duplications. The allegedly manipulated images are of data such as Western blots, which are used to detect and visualize the presence of proteins in a complex mixture. DFCI Research Integrity Officer Barrett Rollins told The Harvard Crimson that David had contacted DFCI with allegations of data manipulation in 57 DFCI-led studies. Rollins said that the institute is "committed to a culture of accountability and integrity," and that "every inquiry about research integrity is examined fully." The allegations are against: DFCI President and CEO Laurie Glimcher, Executive Vice President and COO William Hahn, Senior Vice President for Experimental Medicine Irene Ghobrial, and Harvard Medical School professor Kenneth Anderson. The Wall Street Journal noted that Rollins, the integrity officer, is also a co-author on two of the studies. He told the outlet he is recused from decisions involving those studies. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)
8:01p	OpenAI Quietly Scrapped a Promise To Disclose Key Documents To the Public From its founding, OpenAI said its governing documents were available to the public. When WIRED requested copies after the company's boardroom drama, it declined to provide them. Wired: Wealthy tech entrepreneurs including Elon Musk launched OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab that they said would involve society and the public in the development of powerful AI, unlike Google and other giant tech companies working behind closed doors. In line with that spirit, OpenAI's reports to US tax authorities have from its founding said that any member of the public can review copies of its governing documents, financial statements, and conflict of interest rules. But when WIRED requested those records last month, OpenAI said its policy had changed, and the company provided only a narrow financial statement that omitted the majority of its operations. "We provide financial statements when requested," company spokesperson Niko Felix says. "OpenAI aligns our practices with industry standards, and since 2022 that includes not publicly distributing additional internal documents." OpenAI's abandonment of the long-standing transparency pledge obscures information that could shed light on the recent near-implosion of a company with crucial influence over the future of AI and could help outsiders understand its vulnerabilities. In November, OpenAI's board fired CEO Sam Altman, implying in a statement that he was untrustworthy and had endangered its mission to ensure AI "benefits all humanity." An employee and investor revolt soon forced the board to reinstate Altman and eject most of its own members, with an overhauled slate of directors vowing to review the crisis and enact structural changes to win back the trust of stakeholders. Read more of this story at Slashdot. (Comment on this)

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