Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Anthropic’s Claude AI Can Respond With Charts, Diagrams, and Other Visualschat
  2. Google Maps Gets Its Biggest Navigation Redesign In a Decade, Plus More AI
  3. Atlassian CEO Cites AI Shift When Announcing Plan To Shed 1,600 Jobs
  4. Strait of Hormuz Closure Triggers Work From Home, 4-Day Weeks In Asia
  5. Reducing Europe’s Nuclear Energy Sector Was ‘Strategic Mistake’, EU Chief Says
  6. Only Half of Americans Went To a Movie Theater In 2025, Study Finds
  7. GFiber and Astound Broadband To Join Forces
  8. Why Falling Cats Always Seem To Land On Their Feet
  9. Researchers Discover 14,000 Routers Wrangled Into Never-Before-Seen Botnet
  10. Microsoft’s ‘Xbox Mode’ Is Coming To Every Windows 11 PC
  11. Grammarly Disables Tool Offering Generative-AI Feedback Credited To Real Writers
  12. Swiss E-Voting Pilot Can’t Count 2,048 Ballots After USB Keys Fail To Decrypt Them
  13. Binance Sues WSJ, Panicked By Gov’t Probes Into Sanctioned Crypto Transfers
  14. Nvidia Is Planning to Launch Its Own Open-Source OpenClaw Competitor
  15. YouTube Expands AI Deepfake Detection To Politicians, Government Officials, and Journalists

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Anthropic’s Claude AI Can Respond With Charts, Diagrams, and Other Visualschat

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Anthropic updated Claude so it can automatically generate charts, diagrams, and other interactive visualizations directly inside conversations, rather than only in a side panel. The new visualizations are rolling out now to all users. The Verge reports:
As an example, Anthropic says a conversation about the periodic table could lead Claude to generate a visualization of it, featuring interactive elements that let you click inside the table for more information. Another example shows how Claude can generate a visual related to a question about how weight travels through a building. Though Claude will automatically determine whether it should generate a visualization in your chat, Anthropic notes that you can also ask the chatbot to generate a diagram, table, or chart directly. […]

Anthropic already allows you to create charts, documents, tools, and apps through Claude’s “artifacts” feature, which opens in a side panel where you can interact, share, and download the AI-generated creation. But, as noted by Anthropic, artifacts are persistent, while the visualizations created within Claude’s conversations will change or disappear as the conversation progresses. You can also ask Claude to make changes to the visualizations it creates.

Google Maps Gets Its Biggest Navigation Redesign In a Decade, Plus More AI

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Google Maps is rolling out its biggest update in more than a decade, introducing a Gemini-powered chatbot and a new “Immersive Navigation” interface. “Ask Maps” lets users plan trips, ask questions, and refine travel suggestions conversationally within the app. “The new chatbot will be accessible via a button up near the search bar,” notes Ars Technica. “You can ask it anything you’re likely to find in Google Maps without jumping into another app. You can ask for directions, of course, but it can also plan out road trips and vacations from a single prompt. Ask Maps works like a chatbot, so it accepts follow-up prompts to refine and expand on its suggestions.”

Meanwhile, Google is promising a “complete transformation” of the navigation experience in Maps with what they’re calling “Immersive Navigation.” It brings detailed 3D visuals, smarter route previews, and improved guidance powered by data from Street View and aerial imagery. “You’ll see accurate overpasses, crosswalks, landmarks, and signage in the new navigation experience,” reports Ars. “Google also aims to solve some of the biggest usability issues with turn-by-turn navigation in this update. […] Immersive Navigation tries to show you more of the route as you drive, using smart zoom and transparent buildings to help you plan ahead. Voice guidance will also reference turns after the next one where appropriate.”

Immersive Navigation will also highlights the tradeoffs between different route options, such as longer routes that avoid traffic or tolls. And, as you approach your destination, it will uses Street View imagery, building entrances, and parking information to help you orient yourself. The features are launching on Android and iOS first, with broader platform support coming later.

"… Plus More AI”

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Well, of COURSE there’s “more AI”. Right now, tech company leaders won’t even take a dump unless it somehow involves “more AI”.

Are they fixing something which ain’t broke?

By Vlad_the_Inhaler • Score: 3 Thread

I’d have thought there are other problems which are more important. A day or so ago in Wiesbaden (Germany) Google Maps decided a section of an Autobahn was closed, even though traffic was running normally there, at that point a number of misguided souls left the Autobahn and drove through the city to avoid the non-closed section. It took them a few hours to fix the error.

IF traffic-running-normally THEN ignore announcements that a road is closed.

If the road is really blocked then I’d expect barriers and signs detailing the detour. Google Maps can’t read those signs but it should be able to notice that traffic has ceased to flow there.

Re:Are they fixing something which ain’t broke?

By SumDog • Score: 4, Informative Thread
In the US, traffic closures are transmitted to cars using old radio frequencies (for in-dash units without Internet access). As much as I hate Google, this may have been due to an incorrect report by your local traffic system and not Google itself.

Does anyone miss…

By karmawarrior • Score: 3 Thread

Does anyone miss the good old days when cryptocurrency was the fraud the techbros wanted to foist on everyone, but there at least was no practical way to integrate it into your operating system, your mapping app, you email, etc, so they couldn’t ruin everything by adding cryptocurrencies to them?

Any how, how’s the open source equivalents of Google Map doing? Are they practical yet?

Atlassian CEO Cites AI Shift When Announcing Plan To Shed 1,600 Jobs

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg:
Atlassian plans to cut 1,600 jobs or a 10th of its global workforce, joining rivals in slashing staffing to cope with the advent of AI and a broader post-Covid industry slowdown. Australian billionaire founder Mike Cannon-Brookes explained the reductions in a staff memo, while also announcing his chief technology officer was leaving the Sydney-based company. “It would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas,” Cannon-Brookes said. “It does.”

Smells like “AI washing”

By Tablizer • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

If AI made your company more productive, you wouldn’t typically cut staff but take on more work, getting projects done at a faster rate with the same number of employees, becoming more profitable. Thus, this smells like mostly a sales slump, which can’t typically be blamed on AI.

Strait of Hormuz Closure Triggers Work From Home, 4-Day Weeks In Asia

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Asian governments are implementing emergency measures like four-day workweeks and work-from-home mandates to cope with a fuel shortage triggered by the Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “Asia is particularly dependent on oil exports from the Middle East; Japan and South Korea respectively source 90% and 70% of their oil from the region,” notes Fortune. From the report:
On March 10, Thailand ordered civil servants to take the stairs rather than the elevator, and to work-from-home for the duration of the crisis. It increased the air-conditioning temperature to 27 degrees Celsius, and will tell government employees to wear short-sleeved shirts over suits. (Thailand has about 95 days of energy reserves left, according to Reuters).

Vietnam also called on businesses to let people work-from-home to “reduce the need for travel and transportation.” The Philippines is pushing for a four-day work week, and has ordered officials to limit travel “to essential functions only.”

South Asia is getting hit hard too. Bangladesh brought forward the Eid-al-fitr holiday, allowing universities to close early in a bid to save fuel. Pakistan also instituted a four-day week for government offices and closed schools. India suspended shipments of liquefied petroleum gas to commercial operators to prioritize supplies for households, leading to worries from hotels and restaurants that they may be forced to close without fuel supplies.
Countries across the region are also considering price caps, subsidies, and tapping strategic oil reserves. On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency "unanimously” agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil and refined products from its reserves.

The Associated Press offers a look at the energy supplies that countries hold and when they tap them.

“Sippowicz wears a tie on a short-sleeved shirt!”

By Pseudonymous Powers • Score: 4, Funny Thread

“Thailand ordered … government employees to wear short-sleeved shirts over suits.”

Okay, but adding another layer like that is just going to make them hotter.

Re:No worries

By Baron_Yam • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Iran is a major supplier of critical drone components to Russia for their war on Ukraine.

Having the price of oil go up helps their shadow fleet provide general funding, but now that the fleet is subject to capture and confiscation that’s not such a great tradeoff for losing capability to replace materials required for the war effort.

If this was a Trump move at Putin’s urging, it may not have been the best one. On the other hand, economic desperation might have made it the least bad choice.

Turns out we don’t need all that fuel

By toutankh • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

All this shows is that society does not need to consume that much fuel, we can adapt.

Re:I’m planning a long road trip…

By BeepBoopBeep • Score: 4, Informative Thread
No natural gas = no electricity ..... www.pjm.com , renewables are a joke in the % contribution. You would be sitting at home along with everyone else.

Reducing Europe’s Nuclear Energy Sector Was ‘Strategic Mistake’, EU Chief Says

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters:
Reducing Europe’s nuclear energy sector was a “strategic mistake,” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday, as governments grapple with an energy crunch from the Iran war. Europe produced around a third of electricity from nuclear power in 1990 but that has fallen to 15%, she told an event in Paris, leaving it reliant on oil and gas imports whose prices have surged in recent days. Being “completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports” of fossil fuels puts Europe at a disadvantage to other regions, von der Leyen said in a speech. “This reduction in the share of nuclear was a choice. I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power.”
The report notes that the EU does not directly fund nuclear energy projects because all 27 member states have not unanimously supported the technology. However, von der Leyen said the Commission plans to provide a 200-million-euro guarantee from the EU’s carbon market to help attract private investment in innovative nuclear technologies.

Admitting the obvious

By prisoner-of-enigma • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It’s about time they admitted to something that was obvious to almost everyone: nuclear power is the only effective path to carbon-free base load power generation. Wind and solar make good intermittent sources, but base load has to be utterly reliable regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. That’s nuclear.

Getting rid of the nukes was a knee-jerk reaction, not a smart technological decision. The pivot to depending on oil and gas from a potential hostile neighbor just added to the madness.

Re:renewables

By AmiMoJo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

The mistake was not investing more heavily in renewables. We well as putting Europe in this situation with gas and oil supplies, it allowed China to get ahead with some of the technology and all of the manufacturing.

Re:Admitting the obvious

By Baron_Yam • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Nuclear power, as we currently generate it, would result in nuclear power becoming unaffordable before the you’d even built enough power plants to satisfy demand.

If you’re not building a fast breeder reactor, you’re wasting 99% of uranium’s energy potential. If you’re not working hard on thorium technology, you’re overlooking something that could supply us twice as long as uranium.

Even then, in less than 2000 years nuclear power is no longer viable… at current energy use rates. I’d expect the entire world will eventually want to consume at rates similar to the highest current consumption rates, so 2000 is probably laughably generous.

Re:Admitting the obvious

By gweihir • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Don’t try facts on the nuclear fanatics. They do not have the braincells to deal with them.

Only Half of Americans Went To a Movie Theater In 2025, Study Finds

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A Pew Research Center survey found that only 53% of U.S. adults went to a movie theater in the past year, while 7% said they’ve never seen a movie in a theater at all. “The findings reflected a domestic box office still fighting to regain its footing since the COVID-19 pandemic, when ticket sales collapsed 81% in 2020 due to theater closures,” reports Variety. From the report:
In 2025, moviegoers in the U.S. and Canada bought 769.2 million tickets, less than half of the all-time peak of roughly 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, according to data from Nash Information Services. However, an August 2025 study field by NRG/National Research Group showed that 77% of Americans ages 12-74 went to see at least one movie in a theater in the previous 12 months.

Box office revenue peaked at an inflation-adjusted $16.4 billion in 2002, and annual ticket revenue held relatively steady through the 2000s and 2010s before falling to under $3 billion in 2020 when theaters closed for months. Last year, U.S. theaters sold just over $9 billion worth of tickets, per media analytics firm Comscore. The number represents a recovery, but nowhere near a full one, as ticket sales have been lagging around 20% below pre-pandemic levels.

It’s not the pandemic

By gratuit • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
It’s not covid that killed the theaters, it’s the incessant talking and cell phone use. If I wanted to listen to someone make a phone call, I could hang out somewhere else for cheaper. The response has been to increase volume to the point of discomfort. I will pass.

Theaters Used to be special

By n2hightech • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Movie length has gotten so long that they need to bring back the intermission. I miss the intermission. Who wants to buy a big drink to enjoy with popcorn and then be uncomfortable for the last hour of the movie. If I wait until it comes out on line I can stop the show and take a break get a snack. Why go to a theater where you have to get up and miss part of the show to relieve yourself? Theaters screwed themselves when they eliminated the intermission. It cut the profits of extra concession sales and drove most viewers home for comfort.

I’m old and cranky

By Baron_Yam • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Why would I ever want to pay through the nose just to have a screen bigger than I need, sound painfully louder than I want, while surrounded by people I don’t know, with a significant chance that one or more of those strangers will do something inconsiderate to subtract from the experience?

No thanks. I have a big screen and the Internet, I can pour a drink and make popcorn, and my couch is big enough to seat the people I want to share the screen with.

Re:Movies used to be special.

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I’m amazed you wrote that much and avoided the word “woke”. Hollywood is doing just fine. It’s the theaters having attendance problems. And yes Hollywood was always woke you just weren’t consuming right wing propaganda back then. First Blood is pretty woke. A war veteran with long hair suffers PTSD and is hassled by the town cops. Dog Day Afternoon is about a bank holdup so a man can get his male partner a sex change. Midnight Cowboy is another one. Dirty Harry is about a cop who realizes he’s gone too far and throws his badge into the river. All woke stuff.

Re: “Girl boss” movies killed it

By zawarski • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Sounds like you’re triggered. Exactly how many girls have kicked your ass?

GFiber and Astound Broadband To Join Forces

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
GFiber (a.k.a. Google Fiber) and Astound Broadband announced that they plan to merge into a deal backed by infrastructure investor Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. The resulting company will be majority owned by Stonepeak, with Alphabet becoming a “significant minority shareholder.” Light Reading reports:
Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners teamed with Patriot Media to acquire Astound in November 2020 for $8.1 billion. Stonepeak is Astound’s largest investor. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. The combined business will be led by the existing GFiber executive team. GFiber is currently led by CEO Dinni Jain. Jain, a former Time Warner Cable and Insight Communications exec, took the helm of what was then called Google Fiber in 2018.

“This agreement advances GFiber’s mission of redefining internet connectivity and represents a major step toward its goal of operational and financial independence,” the companies said. “GFiber will have the external capital and strategic focus needed to accelerate its next phase of growth, expanding its customer-first approach and pioneering fiber technology across the country.” GFiber’s combination with Astound represents “a strategic opportunity to scale our customer-focused approach to connect more households to a truly different type of internet service,” Jain said in a statement.

Google Exits Yet Another Project

By SlashbotAgent • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I’m quite disappointed with the expansion of GFiber. When Google first launched it, I really thought that they were going to disrupt the ISP business and spread high speed internet across the country. But, after a small handful of successes, their expansion and build out pace seems to have collapsed to nothing.

15 Years on Google Fiber — a tiny niche player in the fiber and ISP space — is being sold off to private equity. The end.

It saddens me. Especially when I look at my limited few options of mega-corp ISPs and their low speeds at stupid high prices.

Why Falling Cats Always Seem To Land On Their Feet

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times:
In a paper, published last month in the journal The Anatomical Record, researchers offered a novel take on falling felines. Their evidence suggests new insights into the so-called falling cat problem, particularly that cats have a very flexible segment of their spines that allows them to correct their orientation midair. […] People have been curious about falling cats perhaps as long as the animals have been living with humans, but the method to their acrobatic abilities remains enigmatic. Part of the difficulty is that the anatomy of the cat has not been studied in detail, explains Yasuo Higurashi, a physiologist at Yamaguchi University in Japan and lead author of the study. […]

Modern research has split the falling cat problem into two competing models. The first, “legs in, legs out,” suggests that cats correct their falling trajectory by first extending their hind limbs before retracting them, using a sequential twist of their upper and then lower trunk to gain the proper posture while in free fall. The second model, “tuck and turn,” suggests that cats turn their upper and lower bodies in simultaneous juxtaposed movements. […]

The researchers found that the feline spine was extremely flexible in the upper thoracic vertebrae, but stiffer and heavier in the lower lumbar vertebrae. The discovery matches video evidence showing the cats first turn their front legs, and then their lower legs. The results suggest the cat quickly spins its flexible upper torso to face the ground, allowing it to see so that it can correctly twist the rest of its body to match. “The thoracic spine of the cat can rotate like our neck,” Dr. Higurashi said.

Experiments on the spine show the upper vertebrae can twist an astounding 360 degrees, he says, which helps cats make these correcting movements with ease. The results are consistent with the “legs in, legs out” model, but definitively determining which model is correct will take more work, Dr. Higurashi says. The results also yielded another discovery: Cats, like many animals, appear to have a right-side bias. One of the dropped cats corrected itself by turning to the right eight out of eight times, while the other turned right six out of eight times.

Re:Seems like a waste of time and money

By cusco • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I see an Ig Nobel Prize in this researcher’s future.

Re:Seems like a waste of time and money

By xevioso • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Yes but now you will have to go to Europe to see the awards presented.

Re:Broken cat?

By test321 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

stretched like it didn’t give a damn, and then ran off.

(Your friend is an ahole). Cats hide their pain so they don’t signal themselves as an easy prey. If the cat had been taken up and down normally without pain, it would not have felt the need to run off.

The Buttered Cat Paradox

By alanw • Score: 4, Funny Thread

Since toast always falls buttered side down, what happens if you strap a slice of toast to a cat’s back?

Re: Just Gemini it

By Brain-Fu • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Apparently, you also have no idea how the English language works.

Words are defined by popular use, not some technical authority. And, based on that, what we have now qualifies as “AI”. So, AI does, in fact, exist.

You are trying to impose some rule that eliminates the popular broad and fuzzy definition of AI and replaces it with greater stringency, as would better be captured by such words as “machine intelligence” or “synthetic intelligence.” But, seeing as how you don’t get to control the English language, your efforts fail.

To put it directly, in this context “artificial” means “fake”. AI is “fake intelligence.” It is not actually intelligent. And, it does not need to actually be intelligent in order to qualify as “AI”.

Researchers Discover 14,000 Routers Wrangled Into Never-Before-Seen Botnet

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Researchers say they have uncovered a takedown-resistant botnet of 14,000 routers and other network devices — primarily made by Asus — that have been conscripted into a proxy network that anonymously carries traffic used for cybercrime. The malware — dubbed KadNap — takes hold by exploiting vulnerabilities that have gone unpatched by their owners, Chris Formosa, a researcher at security firm Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, told Ars. The high concentration of Asus routers is likely due to botnet operators acquiring a reliable exploit for vulnerabilities affecting those models. He said it’s unlikely that the attackers are using any zero-days in the operation.

The number of infected routers averages about 14,000 per day, up from 10,000 last August, when Black Lotus discovered the botnet. Compromised devices are overwhelmingly located in the US, with smaller populations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Russia. One of the most salient features of KadNap is a sophisticated peer-to-peer design based on Kademlia (PDF), a network structure that uses distributed hash tables to conceal the IP addresses of command-and-control servers. The design makes the botnet resistant to detection and takedowns through traditional methods.

[…] Despite the resistance to normal takedown methods, Black Lotus says it has devised a means to block all network traffic to or from the control infrastructure.” The lab is also distributing the indicators of compromise to public feeds to help other parties block access. […] People who are concerned their devices are infected can check this page for IP addresses and a file hash found in device logs. To disinfect devices, they must be factory reset. Because KadNap stores a shell script that runs when an infected router reboots, simply restarting the device will result in it being compromised all over again. Device owners should also ensure all available firmware updates have been installed, that administrative passwords are strong, and that remote access has been disabled unless needed.

Pledge fealty to your favorite warlord

By abulafia • Score: 4 Thread
Beginning to think that, if you are a normie[1], affirmatively picking your malware might be the way to go. You’re going to get pwned, so you may as well pick one that will defend your gateway from other gangs and hopefully not be too awful.

Maybe someday we’ll seeing APTs advertising for vassals and competing on terms.

[1] As in, you don’t run snort at home or monitor CVE feeds

I hate to be that guy but…

By ZombieCatInABox • Score: 3 Thread

… OpenWRT. That is all.

A worthy adversary!

By Gravis Zero • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

One of the most salient features of KadNap is a sophisticated peer-to-peer design based on Kademlia (PDF), a network structure that uses distributed hash tables to conceal the IP addresses of command-and-control servers.

For the unaware, distributed hash tables (DHT) are regularly used for file-sharing applications, not the distribute files but to find other computers that are sharing files. The downside of DHT is that it’s “slow” meaning it can take several minutes for a message to permeate the network.

Far too often, it seems like cyber criminals are too dumb to be effective because you almost never hear about P2P infrastructure when it comes to botnets. They just keep putting up obvious C&C points that just get taken down, time and time again. When I read this exact paper years ago, it seemed obvious to me that this was the perfect to improve the resiliency for secret/illegal networks. Despite that, it’s almost never used!

Don’t get me wrong, they’ll still get taken down but it will be more of a challenge.

Re:You Are Totally That Guy

By serafean • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

> The point is that openWRT is definitely not the Holy Grail of internet router OSes.

That may be, but openwrt at least gets updates.

Microsoft’s ‘Xbox Mode’ Is Coming To Every Windows 11 PC

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
In April, Microsoft will be rolling out a full-screen “Xbox mode” to all Windows 11 PCs, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. The move follows last week’s confirmation of its next-generation Xbox console, known internally as Project Helix, which will be capable of running both Xbox titles and PC games. The Verge reports:
Technically, you’ve been able to try the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) in preview since November 2025, if you were part of both the Windows Insider and Xbox Insider Programs. But it needed work, as well as a better name. When Microsoft originally shipped it on the Asus-designed Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handhelds, we were clear: it didn’t meaningfully turn a PC experience into an easy-to-use Xbox one. But if Microsoft is putting its full weight behind PC as the future of Xbox gaming, perhaps that will change change.

Necessary Questions

By El Fantasmo • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Obligatory questions to Microsoft, in this order:

How can I stop it from happening?
How can I remove it?
How can I disable it?
How Can I turn it off ?

Re:Necessary Questions

By UnknowingFool • Score: 5, Funny Thread
Microsoft’s Answer: “You own nothing and will like it.”

Re:Necessary Questions

By UnknowingFool • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Well if it is like every other MS feature I don’t want: 1) it will turn itself on for no reason 2) it will share every detail with MS. 3) I can’t get rid of it even though I have no use for it. 4) Even if I can find a way to remove it, the next patch will reinstall it.

As a basis for comparison, Xbox for Gaming does all of that on Windows 10.

Making Windows 11 More Insecure

By Canberra1 • Score: 3 Thread
Every unnecessary line of code compromises security. In a professional environment like government, police, law courts, lawyers - should not be playing games. Now graphics drivers have a lot of privileged level ‘glue’ . We do not want ports or memory exposed to garbage collection browsing or salvaging. Size wise Windows 11 is obese, dripping with lines of code vulnerabilities. Corporate needs to remove LOC that serve no good purpose.

Re:Necessary Questions

By UnknowingFool • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

1) No windows features turns themselves on for no reason. You do something to turn them on. Maybe you don’t understand what you did, but you did it. In this case it would be hitting Win+G..

Xbox Gaming would throw a pop up in the middle of a game to a suggest I log onto Xbox Live to game with my friends on that game. The game I was playing with Fallout 3 from Steam. Xbox Gaming was installed and monitoring me for “helpful” suggestions like playing online with friends for a single player game even though I don’t have a Xbox or Xbox account.

On my laptop, it would randomly put me in portrait tablet mode. I have specifically turned that off yet it happens now and then. I could list more examples.

2) Why would this app share data with MS? The OS already does this. You use windows, you don’t care about your privacy silly pleb.

Money? I don’t know about you but the OS sharing all my data with third parties is not something I want. I care about privacy; I have to use Windows. I guess that is not something that you thought about.

3) So who cares? You never vetted the 1000 individual packages installed in Linux either. Unless you run Slackware or LFS you’ve applied this to no other OS either.

That is some desperate strawman arguments there. I don’t know have an Xbox or Xbox account. Why is Xbox Gaming mandatory again? I said nothing about vetting every package, but I am pretty sure you can uninstall programs in Linux.

4) See 3.

You failed to explain any rationale why Xbox Gaming reinstalls itself with every major update.

Grammarly Disables Tool Offering Generative-AI Feedback Credited To Real Writers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Grammarly has disabled its Expert Review feature after backlash from writers whose names were used to present AI-generated feedback without their permission. Superhuman (formerly Grammarly) CEO Shishir Mehrotra wrote in a LinkedIn post that the company will disable Expert Review while they “reimagine” the feature:
Back in August, we launched a Grammarly agent called Expert Review. The agent draws on publicly available information from third-party LLMs to surface writing suggestions inspired by the published work of influential voices.

Over the past week, we received valid critical feedback from experts who are concerned that the agent misrepresented their voices. This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously. As context, the agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans. We hear the feedback and recognize we fell short on this. I want to apologize and acknowledge that we’ll rethink our approach going forward.

After careful consideration, we have decided to disable Expert Review while we reimagine the feature to make it more useful for users, while giving experts real control over how they want to be represented — or not represented at all.

We deeply believe in our mission to solve the “last mile of AI” by bringing AI directly to where people work, and we see this as a significant opportunity for experts. For millions of users, Grammarly is a trusted writing sidekick — ever-present in every application, ready to help. We’re opening up this platform so anyone can build agents that work like Grammarly — expanding from one sidekick to a whole team. Imagine your professor sharpening your essay, your sales leader reshaping a customer pitch, a thoughtful critic challenging your arguments, or a leading expert elevating your proposal. For experts, this is a chance to build that same ubiquitous bond with users, much like Grammarly has. But in this world, experts choose to participate, shape how their knowledge is represented, and control their business model. That future excites me, and I hope to build it with experts who want to develop it alongside us.

Like, wtf did they think would happen

By ebunga • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

That all the authors they cloned would just roll over and let some company impersonate them for profit?

Re:Duh, it’s an admission of guilt

By test321 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

They should have limited themselves to few options of classic authors e.g. “in the style of Hemingway”. Instead they used then name of for example Kory Stamper, a live lexicographer for Marriam-Webster (see her comment on TFA / LinkedIn): “I sent my opt-out request—and an invoice for all the work I evidently did for Grammarly.”

Swiss E-Voting Pilot Can’t Count 2,048 Ballots After USB Keys Fail To Decrypt Them

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A Swiss e-voting pilot was suspended after officials couldn’t decrypt 2,048 ballots because the USB keys needed to unlock them failed. “Three USB sticks were used, all with the correct code, but none of them worked,” spokesperson Marco Greiner told the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s Swissinfo service. The canton government says it “deeply regrets” the incident and has launched an investigation with authorities. The Register reports:
Basel-Stadt announced the problem with its e-voting pilot, open to about 10,300 locals living abroad and 30 people with disabilities, last Friday afternoon. It encouraged participants to deliver a paper vote to the town hall or use a polling station but admitted this would not be possible for many. By the close of polling on Sunday, its e-voting system had collected 2,048 votes, but Basel-Stadt officials were not able to decrypt them with the hardware provided, despite the involvement of IT experts. […]

The votes made up less than 4 percent of those cast in Basel-Stadt and would not have changed any results, but the canton is delaying confirmation of voting figures until March 21 and suspending its e-voting pilot until the end of December, while its public prosecutor’s office has started criminal proceedings. The country’s Federal Chancellery said e-voting in three other cantons — Thurgau, Graubunden, and St Gallen — along with the nationally used Swiss Post e-voting system, had not been affected.

why are vote being ENCRYPTED ?

By v1 • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Signed? Sure, that makes perfect sense. But encrypted? Why do you even want to do that? Unless the ballot isn’t anonymous and you can see who voted for which candidates, but I certainly hope you’re not trying to do that?

Re:Buy cheap shit…

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • Score: 5, Informative Thread
have them portable and secure?

Two options: 1) yubikey.


Yubikey I would have once considered secure, but they closed the source with the introduction of the YK4 (exactly commensurate with the Snowden Revelations - Imagine that), and there’s no reason I should trust them. The onus is on them to prove their product is “secure” and they’re not able or willing to do so.

E-voting in Geneva

By almeida • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

The Canton of Geneva used to have e-voting for citizens abroad. I don’t know how secure it was, but it was really convenient.

Voting is handled by the cantons, and I don’t think all of the cantons offered electronic voting. This meant that citizens from Geneva who lived abroad could vote electronically but citizens of Ticino (for example) who lived abroad could not.

Geneva scrapped it a few years ago. I don’t think anyone else has it anymore, outside of this pilot, but I could be wrong.

For those who don’t know, Switzerland votes several times per year in nation-wide referendums, in addition to the normal elections for political offices. It’s interesting to see the kinds of questions that are put to everyday citizens. The questions often come from everyday citizens and sometimes try to make radical changes to things.

The cantons send mail-in ballots to citizens abroad. Between the transit abroad and then back to Switzerland, I wonder how many overseas ballots actually make it back in time.

Re:why are vote being ENCRYPTED ?

By bsolar • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Signed? Sure, that makes perfect sense. But encrypted? Why do you even want to do that? Unless the ballot isn’t anonymous and you can see who voted for which candidates, but I certainly hope you’re not trying to do that?

You need to do that to preserve confidentiality of the vote. Nobody except the voter should know how they personally voted. Furthermore, nobody should know how the votes are being cast until tallying officially begins.

What they do is they authenticate the user to make sure they are eligible to vote, but the ballot is submitted end-to-end encrypted from the voter’s device. The system that receives the ballot knows the user is eligible to vote, receives the user’s ballot, but cannot read the ballot’s content.

The ballot can only be decrypted by the tallying authority and the decryption is performed only after the tallying can officially begin. This means nobody knows how a particular voter voted and nobody knows how the vote is going in advance.

Computer scientists confirm it:

By TuringTest • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Paper and glass boxes is the best technology for voting. It’s easy to spoof, but it’s also easy to detect when someone is spoofing the result.

The most essential property of a voting process is that anyone can understand how it proceeds, and with digital voting you need to rely on techno priests reviewing that everything went as intended. That’s not secure, no matter how complex cryptographic algorithm you create to avoid tampering.

Binance Sues WSJ, Panicked By Gov’t Probes Into Sanctioned Crypto Transfers

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Binance is hoping that suing (PDF) The Wall Street Journal for defamation might help shake off a fresh round of government probes into how the cryptocurrency exchange failed to detect $1.7 billion in transfers to a network that was funding Iran-backed terror groups. The lawsuit comes after a Wall Street Journal investigation, based on conversations with insiders and reviews of internal documents, reported that Binance had quietly dismantled its own investigation into the unlawful transfers and then fired compliance staff who initially flagged them.

Alleging that the report falsely accused Binance of retaliation — among 10 other allegedly false claims — Binance accused the Journal of conducting a “sham” investigation that intentionally disregarded the company’s statements. That included supposedly failing to note that Binance had not closed its investigation into the unlawful transfers. Binance’s role in the large-scale violation of US sanctions laws is currently being investigated by the Justice and Treasury Departments. Congress members also took notice, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), who launched an additional inquiry. In a letter to Binance CEO Richard Teng, Blumenthal cited the Journal’s report, as well as reporting from The New York Times and Fortune, while demanding that Binance explain how it managed to overlook the money-laundering for so long and why compliance staff members were fired.

In its complaint Wednesday, Binance claimed that these probes may “be just the tip of the iceberg” if the record is not corrected. The reputational harm is particularly damaging, the exchange noted, since Binance has allegedly worked hard to strengthen its compliance after reaching a settlement with the US government in 2023. In taking that plea deal, Binance admitted to violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws and paid a $4.3 billion fine, and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, eventually pled guilty to a related charge. Since that scandal, Binance claimed that the WSJ has “made a business of maligning both the cryptocurrency industry generally and Binance specifically.” That’s why the Journal allegedly rushed to publish its story following a similar New York Times investigation. Alleging that the WSJ was financially motivated to publish a negative story that would get more clicks, Binance claimed the Journal provided little time to respond and then failed to make necessary corrections before and after publication.

CEO Changpeng Zhao given pardon in 2025

By edi_guy • Score: 3 Thread

What the actual…Crypto generally is used by criminal orgs to move money around. But in this case you’ve got billions of dollars going to Iran and it’s terrorist proxies.

Binance’s CEO was charged with overseeing money laundering in 2023/2024…but then given a presidential pardon six months ago.

And now US troops and allies are facing down the kinetic weapons that plausibly have been enabled by Binance’s crypto-money laundering.

Is there anyone in Washington DC paying attention to anything any more?

They did an exhaustive internal investigation…

By thesandbender • Score: 4, Funny Thread
The details are freely available in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard”.

Re: CEO Changpeng Zhao given pardon in 2025

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

https://www.bbc.com/news/artic…

Trump added that he did not recall meeting Zhao and had “no idea who he is”, only that he had been told that the businessman was a victim of a “witch hunt” by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

During the interview, Trump also discussed his support for cryptocurrencies and said that the US had to make sure it was a leader in the industry or risk China and its rivals gaining an advantage in the emerging technology.

You enjoying that $5 gas?

again, slowly, for the people in the back

By jsepeta • Score: 3, Informative Thread

CRYPTO IS FOR CRIME

Nvidia Is Planning to Launch Its Own Open-Source OpenClaw Competitor

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Nvidia is preparing to launch an open-source AI agent platform called NemoClaw, designed to compete with the likes of OpenClaw. According to Wired, the platform will allow enterprise software companies to dispatch AI agents to perform tasks for their own workforces. “Companies will be able to access the platform regardless of whether their products run on Nvidia’s chips,” the report adds. From the report:
The move comes as Nvidia prepares for its annual developer conference in San Jose next week. Ahead of the conference, Nvidia has reached out to companies including Salesforce, Cisco, Google, Adobe, and CrowdStrike to forge partnerships for the agent platform. It’s unclear whether these conversations have resulted in official partnerships. Since the platform is open source, it’s likely that partners would get free, early access in exchange for contributing to the project, sources say. Nvidia plans to offer security and privacy tools as part of this new open-source agent platform. […]

For Nvidia, NemoClaw appears to be part of an effort to court enterprise software companies by offering additional layers of security for AI agents. It’s also another step in the company’s embrace of open-source AI models, part of a broader strategy to maintain its dominance in AI infrastructure at a time when leading AI labs are building their own custom chips. Nvidia’s software strategy until now has been heavily reliant on its CUDA platform, a famously proprietary system that locks developers into building software for Nvidia’s GPUs and has created a crucial “moat” for the company.

Killed by Nvidia

By greytree • Score: 3 Thread
Like Chatrtx, they’ll get bored, discontinue it, and move onto newer shiney shit.
And repeat.

“As of 1/21/2026, this project has been deprecated. ChatRTX is not maintained anymore.”

https://github.com/NVIDIA/ChatRTX

So Nvidia believes in FOSS?

By unixisc • Score: 3 Thread

All these years, I used to read about them refusing to opensource their drivers for FOSS operating systems like Linux or BSD

Dead Internet Theory strikes again

By Big Hairy Gorilla • Score: 3 Thread
For an actual human, social media sites for “AI” agents seem ludicrous.
What’s next?
Advertising curated specifically to appeal (game) other agents?
Fee for services aimed only at agents?
Credit cards for agents?
Doxxing bad agents by other agents?

Yeah, this is retarded. Agents scale, humans don’t, expect exponential energy consumption.
OOOH OOHH I have an idea, lets build out nuclear power plants to provide energy for all the agents.
THINK OF THE JOBS.

Yep. This is retarded.

YouTube Expands AI Deepfake Detection To Politicians, Government Officials, and Journalists

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot
YouTube is expanding its AI deepfake detection tools to a pilot group of politicians, government officials, and journalists, allowing them to identify and request removal of unauthorized AI-generated videos impersonating them. TechCrunch reports:
The technology itself launched last year to roughly 4 million YouTube creators in the YouTube Partner Program, following earlier tests. Similar to YouTube’s existing Content ID system, which detects copyright-protected material in users’ uploaded videos, the likeness detection feature looks for simulated faces made with AI tools. These tools are sometimes used to try to spread misinformation and manipulate people’s perception of reality, as they leverage the deepfaked personas of notable figures — like politicians or other government officials — to say and do things in these AI videos that they didn’t in real life.

With the new pilot program, YouTube aims to balance users’ free expression with the risks associated with AI technology that can generate a convincing likeness of a public figure. […] [Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of Government Affairs and Public Policy] explained that not all of the detected matches would be removed when requested. Instead, YouTube would evaluate each request under its existing privacy policy guidelines to determine whether the content is parody or political critique, which are protected forms of free expression. The company noted it’s advocating for these protections at a federal level, too, with its support for the NO FAKES Act in D.C., which would regulate the use of AI to create unauthorized recreations of an individual’s voice and visual likeness.

To use the new tool, eligible pilot testers must first prove their identity by uploading a selfie and a government ID. They can then create a profile, view the matches that show up, and optionally request their removal. YouTube says it plans to eventually give people the ability to prevent uploads of violating content before they go live or, possibly, allow them to monetize those videos, similar to how its Content ID system works. The company would not confirm which politicians or officials would be among its initial testers, but said the goal is to make the technology broadly available over time.

And who monitors this for abuse?

By Sethra • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Just being AI based doesn’t mean it’s intention is to deceive. In most cases it’s parody or protected free speech.

I have no issue with slapping a big “AI Deepfake” label on identified deepfake content, but when you start talking about giving politicians and government officials the ability to prevent you from even being heard, that’s not ok.

Good small step, but we need more

By MpVpRb • Score: 3 Thread

YouTube should clearly label ALL videos where AI was used
The label should describe which model was used and how much of the content was AI generated
A switch should be provided to allow or hide AI generated videos

And of course there’s the Trump problem

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 3 Thread

I mean that seriously. He will say pretty much *anything* when he’s talking off the cuff. So it seems like one obvious way to detect deep fakes of other people won’t work in his case.