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Friday, June 7th, 2024
| Time | Event |
| 12:01a | GOG Will Start Deleting Cloud Saves This Summer GOG, a Poland-based popular gaming platform, has announced plans to enforce a 200MB limit on cloud save files per game. This move may adversely affect players of open-world titles like Cyberpunk 2077, where save folders can reach several gigabytes. A report adds: The company will begin deleting game saves that exceed the limit on Aug 31. When the deadline rolls around, GOG will delete saves for each game, beginning with the oldest until it's below the 200MB threshold. That means your newest saves will survive. 
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 1:25a | UK Imposes Mysterious Ban On Quantum Computer Exports Longtime Slashdot reader MattSparkes shares a report from NewScientist: Quantum computing experts are baffled by the UK government's new export restrictions on the exotic devices (source paywalled), saying they make little sense. [The UK government has set limits on the capabilities of quantum computers that can be exported -- starting with those above 34 qubits, and rising as long as error rates are also higher -- and has declined to explain these limits on the grounds of national security.] The legislation applies to both existing, small quantum computers that are of no practical use and larger computers that don't actually exist, so cannot be exported. Instead, there are fears the limits will restrict sales and add bureaucracy to a new and growing sector. For more context, here's an excerpt from an article published by The Telegraph in March: The technology has been added to a list of "dual use" items that could have military uses maintained by the Export Control Joint Unit, which scrutinizes sales of sensitive goods. A national quantum computer strategy published last year described the technology as being "critically important" for defense and national security and said the UK was in a "global race" to develop it. [...] The changes have been introduced as part of a broader update to export rules agreed by Western allies including the US and major European countries. Several nations with particular expertise on quantum computer technologies have added specific curbs, including France which introduced rules at the start of this month. Last year, industry body Quantum UK said British companies were concerned about the prospect of further export controls, and that they could even put off US companies seeking to relocate to the UK. Quantum computer exports only previously required licenses in specific cases, such as when they were likely to lead to military use. Oxford Instruments, which makes cooling systems for quantum computers, said last year that sales in China had been hit by increasing curbs. James Lindop of law firm Eversheds Sutherland said: "Semiconductor and quantum technologies -- two areas in which the UK already holds a world-leading position -- are increasingly perceived to be highly strategic and critical to UK national security. This will undoubtedly create an additional compliance burden for businesses active in the development and production of the targeted technologies."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 2:00a | eBay To Drop American Express Over Fees Online marketplace behemoth eBay said it plans to no longer accept American Express, citing what the company says are "unacceptably high fees." CNBC: It's a notable blow to American Express, whose customers are often the most attractive among merchants and spend the most money per month on their cards. But it's not the first time merchants have voiced opposition to AmEx's business practices by walking away, most notably the warehouse chain Costco nearly a decade ago. [...] Overland said that eBay customers have become aware of new ways to pay for items, making payments more competitive than ever before, and AmEx was no longer a necessary partner for eBay. eBay has increasingly been offering customers buy now, pay later options on purchases through Apple Pay, PayPal and other companies like Klarna and Affirm as well.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 3:30a | Costco Plans To Stop Selling Books Year-Round An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: In a blow to publishers and authors, Costco plans to stop selling books regularly at stores around the United States, four publishing executives who had been informed of the warehouse retailer's plans said on Wednesday. Beginning in January 2025, the company will stop stocking books regularly, and will instead sell them only during the holiday shopping period, from September through December. During the rest of the year, some books may be sold at Costco stores from time to time, but not in a consistent manner, according to the executives, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a confidential business matter that has not yet been publicly announced. Costco's shift away from books came largely because of the labor required to stock books, the executives said. Copies have to be laid out by hand, rather than just rolled out on a pallet as other products often are at Costco. The constant turnaround of books -- new ones come out every Tuesday and the ones that have not sold need to be returned -- also created more work. The decision could be a significant setback for publishers at a moment when the industry is facing stagnant print sales and publishing houses are struggling to find ways to reach customers who have migrated online. Costco had already stopped selling books in some markets, including Alaska and Hawaii. While Costco may not be as critical of an outlet as a bookstore like Barnes & Noble, its influence is also evident in the large quantities it orders. When Costco chose to carry a book, "it often went big, ordering tens of thousands of copies at a minimum," says the report. "For major blockbusters, they might stock hundreds of thousands of copies of a single title." "The change may also impact Costco customers, particularly those who live in areas without a bookstore. And because many books at Costco were impulse buys, some of those sales may not shift over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Instead, they might not happen at all."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 7:00a | Boeing Starliner Docks With ISS Longtime Slashdot reader destinyland shared a story from Space.com reporting on Boeing's missed opportunity to dock with the International Space Station, after five of the 28 thrusters that help control Starliner's movement in space stopped operating. NASA has since been able to recover four of the thrusters to successfully dock Boeing's Starliner capsule with the ISS. From the report: There are now two U.S.-built crew spacecraft docked with the ISS for the first time. Boeing's Starliner joined SpaceX's Dragon capsule "Endeavour," which arrived in March. Boeing's Starliner launched successfully on Wednesday to begin the crew flight test. The mission represents a final major step before NASA certifies Boeing to fly crew on operational missions. [...] NASA flight controllers called off a previously scheduled approach to resolve issues with Starliner's propulsion system. Starliner has 28 jets, known as its reaction control system, or RCS, engines, that help the spacecraft make small movements in orbit. The crew on Starliner, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, were told by NASA capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, Neal Nagata, that the 12:15 p.m. docking attempt had to be called off to resolve the spacecraft's propulsion issue. CAPCOM Nagata noted that the ISS has a zero fault tolerance for a spacecraft control problem. The agency and Boeing had to troubleshoot five of the RCS jets that were not operating. Four of Starliner's malfunctioning jets were recovered after Wilmore and Williams worked with flight controllers to test fire the thrusters. CAPCOM Nagata had the astronauts hold the spacecraft beyond the "keep out sphere," an invisible boundary around the ISS that serves as a safety measure, while diagnosing the problematic thrusters.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 10:00a | Radio Signal From Space Repeats Every Hour, Defying Explanation An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: The universe is awash with strange radio signals, but astronomers have now detected a really bizarre one that repeats every hour, cycling through three different states. While they have some ideas about its origin it can't be explained by our current understanding of physics. The signal first appeared in data gathered by the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia, which watches a big swath of sky at once for transient pulses. Officially designated ASKAP J1935+2148, the signal seems to repeat every 53.8 minutes. Whatever it is, the signal cycles through three different states. Sometimes it shoots out bright flashes that last between 10 and 50 seconds and have a linear polarization, meaning the radio waves all "point" in the same direction. Other times, its pulses are much weaker with a circular polarization, lasting just 370 milliseconds. And sometimes, the object misses its cue and stays silent. So what could be behind such a weird radio signal? Let's get it out of the way up front: it's not aliens (probably). The most likely explanation, according to the scientists who discovered it, is that it's coming from a neutron star or a white dwarf. But it's not a neat solution, since the signal's weird properties don't fit with our understanding of the physics of those two kinds of objects. Neutron stars and white dwarfs are fairly similar, but with some key differences. They're both born from the deaths of bigger stars, with the original mass dictating whether you end up with a neutron star or a white dwarf. Neutron stars are known to blast radio waves out regularly, so they're a prime suspect here. It's possible that signals this varied could be produced by interactions between their strong magnetic fields and complex plasma flows. But there's a major problem: they usually spin at speeds of seconds or fractions of a second per revolution. It should be physically impossible for one to spin as slow as once every 54 minutes. White dwarfs, on the other hand, would have no problem spinning that slowly, but as the team says, "we don't know of any way one could produce the radio signals we are seeing here." "It might even prompt us to reconsider our decades-old understanding of neutron stars or white dwarfs; how they emit radio waves and what their populations are like in our Milky Way galaxy," added Caleb. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 1:00p | Earth Broke Heat Records 12 Months Straight The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that the past year saw record-breaking heat, with global temperatures surpassing all historical measurements. According to Copernicus, May marked the 12th consecutive month of record-high global temperatures, and exceeded a key Paris Agreement temperature target. The Week reports: The stretch is a "stark warning." In a separate study published Wednesday, a group of 57 scientists found that human activity was responsible for 92% of 2023's warming, which increased at a rate "unprecedented in the instrumental record." While averting catastrophe is "still just about possible," the decisions made by global leaders "especially in the next 18 months" will determine whether the planet can be saved, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a special address. "We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell." Without serious efforts to reverse global warming, "this string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold," Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said. "The 11 months in a row that tied or broke the 1.5C barrier did not yet constitute a breaching of the Paris target, since the benchmark refers to a timescale of multiple decades," notes Axios. "Still, the fact that the climate is now exceeding the target with greater regularity, and is projected to continue doing so, is a sign of the matter's urgency."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 2:00p | Apple To Launch 'Passwords' App, Intensifying Competition With 1Password, LastPass Apple will introduce a new app called Passwords next week, aiming to simplify website and software logins for users, according to Bloomberg. The app -- offered as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 -- will be unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10. Powered by iCloud Keychain, Passwords will generate and manage passwords, allowing imports from rival services, and support Vision Pro headset and Windows computers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 2:49p | Bangladeshi Police Agents Accused of Selling Citizens' Personal Information on Telegram An anonymous reader shares a report: Two senior officials working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh allegedly collected and sold classified and personal information of citizens to criminals on Telegram, TechCrunch has learned. The data allegedly sold included national identity details of citizens, cell phone call records and other "classified secret information," according to a letter signed by a senior Bangladeshi intelligence official, seen by TechCrunch. The letter, dated April 28, was written by Brigadier General Mohammad Baker, who serves as a director of Bangladesh's National Telecommunications Monitoring Center, or NTMC, the country's electronic eavesdropping agency. Baker confirmed the legitimacy of the letter and its contents in an interview with TechCrunch. "Departmental investigation is ongoing for both the cases," Baker said in an online chat, adding that the Bangladeshi Ministry of Home Affairs ordered the affected police organizations to take "necessary action against those officers." The letter, which was originally written in Bengali and addressed to the senior secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs Public Security Division, alleges the two police agents accessed and passed "extremely sensitive information" of private citizens on Telegram in exchange for money.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 3:25p | California AI Bill Sparks Backlash from Silicon Valley Giants California's proposed legislation to regulate AI has sparked a backlash from Silicon Valley heavyweights, who claim the bill will stifle innovation and force AI start-ups to leave the state. The Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Systems Act, passed by the state Senate last month, requires AI developers to adhere to strict safety frameworks, including creating a "kill switch" for their models. Critics argue that the bill places a costly compliance burden on smaller AI companies and focuses on hypothetical risks. Amendments are being considered to clarify the bill's scope and address concerns about its impact on open-source AI models.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 4:12p | It's Not AI, It's 'Apple Intelligence' An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is expected to announce major artificial intelligence updates to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac next week during its Worldwide Developers Conference. Except Apple won't call its system artificial intelligence, like everyone else, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman on Friday. The system will reportedly be called "Apple Intelligence," and allegedly will be made available to new versions of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. Apple Intelligence, which is shortened to just AI, is reportedly separate from the ChatGPT-like chatbot Apple is expected to release in partnership with OpenAI. Apple's in-house AI tools are reported to include assistance in message writing, photo editing, and summarizing texts. Bloomberg reports that some of these AI features will run on the device while others will be processed through cloud-based computing, depending on the complexity of the task. The name feels a little too obvious. While this is the first we're hearing of an actual name for Apple's AI, it's entirely unsurprising that Apple is choosing a unique brand to call its artificial intelligence systems.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 4:49p | Windows Won't Take Screenshots of Everything You Do After All Microsoft says it's making its new Recall feature in Windows 11 that screenshots everything you do on your PC an opt-in feature and addressing various security concerns. From a report: The software giant first unveiled the Recall feature as part of its upcoming Copilot Plus PCs last month, but since then, privacy advocates and security experts have been warning that Recall could be a "disaster" for cybersecurity without changes. Thankfully, Microsoft has listened to the complaints and is making a number of changes before Copilot Plus PCs launch on June 18th. Microsoft had originally planned to turn Recall on by default, but the company now says it will offer the ability to disable the controversial AI-powered feature during the setup process of new Copilot Plus PCs. "If you don't proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default," says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 5:34p | Retailers Can't Keep Scammers Away From Their Favorite Payment Form: Gift Cards Retailers are struggling to rein in the proliferation of scammers tricking Americans into buying thousands of dollars' worth of gift cards. From a report: The Federal Trade Commission estimates that Americans lost at least $217 million to gift card scams last year. That number is likely higher, given many victims are too embarrassed to report to law enforcement. Cracking down on gift card scams was a hot topic this week at the National Retail Federation's (NRF) cybersecurity conference in Long Beach, California. Some gift card scams start with texts from people pretending to be tech support, your boss, the government or a wrong number. Eventually, those conversations lead to someone asking the victim to buy gift cards on their behalf and send the barcode number to them via text. Others involve criminals in physical locations, tampering with a gift card to access the barcode information and then stealing the funds without taking the actual card. Each scam targets vulnerable populations: elderly, less-tech savvy people; those who are lonely and work from home; and even young kids, experts say.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 6:12p | A 27-Year Old Tamagotchi Mystery Has Been Solved A 27-year old Tamagotchi mystery was solved this week when a collector figured out how to unlock secret characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi, released in Japan in 1997. From a report: A Discord user named rhubarb_pie found out how to unlock the "Moll & Lora" twins as playable characters, which were previously seen in the handheld pet-raising-simulator as medical nurses who healed your character when it was sick. The Tamagotchi Wiki states they had previously been obtained through a "battery glitch," but rhubarb_pie figured out how to unlock them as playable characters through the normal course of gaming. As a reminder, Tamagotchis are virtual pets made by Bandai and introduced in 1996 that were incredibly popular at the time and inspired a ton of clones. There have been many different versions of Tamagotchi since its original release, which included the Mothra Tamagotchi, which was tied to the Japanese release of the movie Rebirth of Mothra II. Mothra is a giant flying moth that exists in the Godzilla cinematic universe. There is an entire community of Tamagotchi collectors, enthusiasts, and reverse engineers, and for several decades players had wondered whether Moll & Lora could be unlocked as playable characters on the Mothra Tamagotchi. "After years of debate whether this was even possible, I have proven that, in fact, you can raise the Twin characters Moll & Lora on the Mothra," rhubarb_pie wrote in a lengthy guide to unlocking the characters posted on Discord Wednesday. "The ROM for the Mothra was dumped about a month ago and I figured out how everything worked by studying the code."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 6:45p | Canonical Launches Ubuntu Core 24 Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has released Ubuntu Core 24, a version of its operating system designed for edge devices and the Internet of Things (IoT). The new release comes with a 12-year Long Term Support commitment and features that enable secure, reliable, and efficient deployment of intelligent devices. Ubuntu Core 24 introduces validation sets for custom image creation, offline remodelling for air-gapped environments, and new integrations for GPU operations and graphics support. It also offers device management integrations with Landscape and Microsoft Azure IoT Edge. The release is expected to benefit various industries, including automation, healthcare, and robotics, Canonical said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 7:25p | Yelp Can Sue Reputation Company For Promising To Suppress Bad Reviews Yelp can pursue a lawsuit accusing a reputation management company of fraudulently advertising its ability to remove "bad" reviews from the business review website. From a report: In a decision late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Yelp can pursue trademark infringement and unfair competition claims against ReviewVio, which operates as Dandy. Yelp said ReviewVio's ads, which include the Yelp logo, harmed its reputation by suggesting that businesses could pay for artificially inflated star ratings. This allegedly undercut honest businesses that will not pay to remove negative reviews, and undermined the usefulness of Yelp's website to consumers. Yelp also said it lost ad revenue from businesses that paid for "review gating," which the company prohibits, or incorrectly believed that Yelp endorsed the practice.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 8:04p | Some Cheap Wired Headphones Are Actually Using Bluetooth An anonymous reader shares a report: Buy a pair of wired headphones, and you'd be forgiven for thinking they're just plug and play. Stick them into your phone, and out goes the audio up copper cables into your earholes. Simple as that. Trouble is, that straightforward mechanism has gotten more complicated, and in recent years there has been an influx of budget wired earbuds that, counterintuitively, depend on Bluetooth to function, despite having those copper cables. The problem is largely present in earbuds designed for iPhones. In 2016, Apple removed universal 3.5-mm headphone jacks in its iPhones, which means there are nearly eight years worth of iPhones out in the world -- from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 14 -- that can connect to headphones only via Bluetooth or Apple's proprietary Lightning ports. (Apple switched to USB-C ports in its iPhones last year after legislation from the European Union put pressure on device companies to standardize connection ports.) Apple used this move to push its wireless AirPods, and it also sells its own wired headphones that connect to its Lightning ports for $19. You can also get an official $9 dongle that adapts the Lightning port to a 3.5-mm output. These work as intended, connecting with the Lightning port to playback audio. But Apple also has strict certification processes called MFi that require any accessories for Apple products to meet certain requirements in order to work with the Lightning port as intended. That means companies have to pay for the privilege of being a genuine Apple accessory. (If you have an unlicensed accessory, you'll probably see an alert pop up every time you plug it in saying, "Accessory may not be supported.") This has led to a steady trickle of knockoff earbuds that have chosen to use roundabout ways of connecting to Apple's proprietary port. Namely, by requiring a Bluetooth connection -- even for wired buds.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 8:45p | Ashton Kutcher: Entire Movies Can Be Made on OpenAI's Sora Someday Hollywood actor and venture capitalist Ashton Kutcher believes that one day, entire movies will be made on AI tools like OpenAI's Sora. From a report: The actor was speaking at an event last week organized by the Los Angeles-based think tank Berggruen Institute, where he revealed that he'd been playing around with the ChatGPT maker's new video generation tool. "I have a beta version of it and it's pretty amazing," said Kutcher, whose VC firm Sound Venture's portfolio includes an investment in OpenAI. "You can generate any footage that you want. You can create good 10, 15-second videos that look very real." "It still makes mistakes. It still doesn't quite understand physics. But if you look at the generation of this that existed one year ago, as compared to Sora, it's leaps and bounds. In fact, there's footage in it that I would say you could easily use in a major motion picture or a television show," he continued. Kutcher said this would help lower the costs of making a film or television show. "Why would you go out and shoot an establishing shot of a house in a television show when you could just create the establishing shot for $100?" Kutcher said. "To go out and shoot it would cost you thousands of dollars," Kutcher was so bullish about AI advancements that he said he believed people would eventually make entire movies using tools like Sora. "You'll be able to render a whole movie. You'll just come up with an idea for a movie, then it will write the script, then you'll input the script into the video generator, and it will generate the movie," Kutcher said. Kutcher, of course, is no stranger to AI.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 9:25p | VMware Customers May Stay, But Broadcom Could Face Backlash 'For Years To Come' An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After acquiring VMware, Broadcom swiftly enacted widespread changes that resulted in strong public backlash. A new survey of 300 director-level IT workers at companies that are customers of North American VMware provides insight into the customer reaction to Broadcom's overhaul. The survey released Thursday doesn't provide feedback from every VMware customer, but it's the first time we've seen responses from IT decision-makers working for companies paying for VMware products. It echos concerns expressed at the announcement of some of Broadcom's more controversial changes to VMware, like the end of perpetual licenses and growing costs. [...] Every person surveyed said that they expect VMware prices to rise under Broadcom. In a March "User Group Town Hall," attendees complained about "price rises of 500 and 600 percent," according to The Register. We heard in February from ServeTheHome that "smaller" cloud service providers were claiming to see costs grow tenfold. In this week's survey, 73 percent of respondents said they expect VMware prices to more than double. Twelve percent of respondents expect a price hike of 301 to 500 percent. Only 1 percent anticipate price hikes of 501 to 1,000 percent. "At this juncture post-acquisition, most larger enterprises seem to have a clear understanding of how their next procurement cycle with Broadcom will be impacted from a pricing and packaging standpoint," the report noted. Further, 95 percent of survey respondents said they view Broadcom buying VMware as disruptive to their IT strategy, with 46 percent considering it extremely or very disruptive. Widespread concerns about cost and IT strategy help explain why 99 percent of the 300 respondents said they are concerned about Broadcom owning VMware, with 46 percent being "very concerned" and 30 percent "extremely concerned." Despite widespread anxiety over Broadcom's VMware, most of the respondents said they will likely stay with VMware either partially (43 percent of respondents) or fully (40 percent). A smaller percentage of respondents said they would move more workloads to the public cloud (38 percent) or a different hypervisor (34 percent) or move entirely to the public cloud (33 percent). This is with 69 percent of respondents having at least one contract expiring with VMware within the next 12 months. [...] Top reasons cited for considering abandoning VMware partially or totally were uncertainty about Broadcom's plans, concerns about support quality under Broadcom, and changes to relationships with channel partners (each named by 36 percent of respondents). Following closely was the shift to subscription licensing (34 percent), expected price bumps (33 percent), and personal negative experiences with Broadcom (33 percent). Broadcom's history with big buys like Symantec and CA Technologies also has 32 percent of people surveyed considering leaving VMware. "The emotional shock has started to metabolize inside of the Broadcom customer base, but it's metabolized in the form of strong commitment to mitigating the negative impacts of the Broadcom VMware acquisition," said Kyle Campos, CTPO for CloudBolt Software, the company that commissioned the study. He warned that Broadcom could see backlash continue "for months and even years to come."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 10:00p | United Airlines Starts Serving Passengers Personalized Ads On Seat-Back Screens United Airlines on Friday launched a media platform to serve travelers personalized ads on seat-back screens and in its app, among other platforms, as it seeks to leverage customer data. CNBC reports: United said its new platform, Kinective Media, is already working with Norwegian Cruise Line, Macy's, IHG Hotels & Resorts, TelevisaUnivision and JPMorgan Chase, which offers a host of co-branded credit cards with United. [...] Customers can opt out of seeing targeted ads through a United web page, and United says advertisers can't access customers' personally identifiable information, the airline said. "There is the potential for 3.5 hours of attention per traveler, based on average flight time," United said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 10:40p | Samsung Electronics Workers Strike For the First Time Ever Victoria Song reports via The Verge: Samsung Electronics workers went on a strike on Friday for the very first time in the company's history. The move comes at a time when the Korean corporation faces increased competition from other chipmakers, particularly as demand for AI chips grows. The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), the largest of the company's several unions, called for the one-day strike at Samsung's Seoul office building as negotiations over pay bonuses and time off hit a standstill. The New York Times reports that the majority of striking workers come from Samsung's chip division. (Samsung Electronics is technically only a subsidiary comprising its consumer tech, appliances, and semiconductor divisions; Samsung itself is a conglomerate that controls real estate, retail, insurance, food production, hotels, and a whole lot more.) It's unclear how many of the NSEU's roughly 28,400 members participated in the walkout. Even so, multiple outlets are reporting that the walkout is unlikely to affect chip production or trigger shortages. Union leaders told Bloomberg that further actions are planned if management refuses to engage. That said, the fact that it's happening at all is awkward timing for Samsung, particularly due to tensions with the chipmaking portion of its business. Last year, the division reported a 15 trillion won ($11 billion) loss, leading to a 15-year low in operating profits. The current AI boom played a big role in the massive loss. Samsung has historically been the world leader in making high-bandwidth memory chips â" the kind that are in demand right now to power next-gen generative AI features. However, last year's decline was partly because Samsung wasn't prepared for increased demand, allowing local rival SK Hynix to take the top spot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 11:20p | Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App To Combat Falling Birthrates An anonymous reader quotes a report from Time Magazine: Called "Tokyo Futari Story," the city hall's new initiative is just that: An effort to create couples, "futari," in a country where it is increasingly common to be "hitori," or alone. While a site offering counsel and general information for potential lovebirds is online, a dating app is also in development. City hall hopes to offer it later this year, accessible through phone or web, a city official said Thursday. Details were still undecided. City Hall declined to comment on Japanese media reports that said the app will require a confirmation of identity, such as a driver's license, your tax records to prove income and a signed form that says you are ready to get married. According to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday, Japan's birth rate fell to a new low for the eighth straight year in 2023. "According to the latest statistics, Japan's fertility rate -- the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime -- stood at 1.2 last year," reports ABC News. "The 727,277 babies born in Japan in 2023 were down 5.6% from the previous year, the ministry said -- the lowest since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. Separately, the data shows that the number of marriages fell by 6% to 474,717 last year, something authorities say is a key reason for the declining birth rate."
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