ICT news

• Generative AI Doesn't Have a Coherent Understanding of the World, MIT Researchers Find

  10-11-2024 23:34 via slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis writes: Despite its impressive output, a recent study from MIT suggests generative AI doesn't have a coherent understanding of the world. While the best-performing large language models have surprising capabilities that make it seem like the models are implicitly learning some general truths about the world, that isn't necessarily the case. The recent paper showed that Large Language Models and game-playing AI implicitly model the world, but the models a
  
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• Washington Post Employees Ordered Back To the Office

  10-11-2024 22:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader DesScorp writes:The Washingtonian magazine reports that yet another company is ending most remote work for its employees. The Post's previous policy from 2022 until now had been 3 days in office, 2 days remote. The employee union for the paper, the Washington Post Guild, will oppose the mandate.
  The union sent members a defiant email, according to the article. "Guild leadership sees this for what it is: a change that stands to further disrupt our work than to improve ou
  
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• Java Proposals Would Boost Resistance to Quantum Computing Attacks

  10-11-2024 21:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "Java application security would be enhanced through two proposals aimed at resisting quantum computing attacks," reports InfoWorld, "one plan involving digital signatures and the other key encapsulation."
  The two proposals reside in the OpenJDK JEP (JDK Enhancement Proposal) index.The Quantum-Resistant Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm proposal calls for enhancing the security of Java applications by providing an implementation of the quantum-resistant module-latticed-based digit
  
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• This Elephant Learned To Use a Hose As a Shower. Then Her Rival Sought Revenge

  10-11-2024 20:35 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader sciencehabit shared this report from Science magazine: Elephants love showering to cool off, and most do so by sucking water into their trunks and spitting it over their bodies. But an elderly pachyderm named Mary has perfected the technique by using a hose as a showerhead, much in the way humans do. The behavior is a remarkable example of sophisticated tool use in the animal kingdom. But the story doesn't end there. Mary's long, luxurious baths have drawn so much attention that
  
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• Salesforce to Hire 1,000 People for Big AI Product Sales Push

  10-11-2024 19:35 via slashdot.org
  
  Salesforce "plans to hire more than 1,000 workers to sell its new generative AI agent product," reports Bloomberg:The hiring surge is aimed at capitalizing on "amazing momentum" for the new artificial intelligence product, Chief Executive Marc Benioff said in a message. "Agentforce became available just two weeks ago and we're already hearing incredible feedback from our customers."
  The top seller of customer relations management software, Salesforce pivoted its AI strategy this year to focus on
  
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• Free Software Foundation Plans Year of Celebrations For Its 40th Anniversary

  10-11-2024 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Free Software Foundation turns forty on October 4, 2025 "and we will end our thirties on a high note!" they announced this week:We wish we were celebrating the achievement of software freedom for all computer users, but we're not there yet. Until our mission becomes reality and we can retire, instead, we are celebrating forty years of activism, and all that we have achieved.
  Since our founding in 1985, we laid out many stepping stones on the road to software freedom, and we're eager to conti
  
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• NASA Investigates Laser-Beam Welding in a Vacuum for In-Space Manufacturing

  10-11-2024 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  NASA hopes to stimulate in-space manufacturing through a multi-year "laser beam welding collaboration" with Ohio State University. The project "seeks to understand the physical processes of welding on the lunar surface," according to NASA.gov, "such as investigating the effects of laser beam welding in a combined vacuum and reduced gravity environment."The goal is to increase the capabilities of manufacturing in space to potentially assemble large structures or make repairs on the Moon, which wi
  
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• The Team Behind GitHub's 'Atom' IDE Build a Cross-Platform, AI-Optional 'Zed Editor'

  10-11-2024 16:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Nathan Sobo "joined GitHub in late 2011 to build the Atom text editor," according to an online biography, "and he led the Atom team until 2018." Max Brunsfeld joined the Atom team in 2013, and "While driving Atom towards its 1.0 launch during the day, Max spent nights and weekends building Tree-sitter, a blazing-fast and expressive incremental parsing framework that currently powers all code analysis at GitHub."
  Last year they teamed up with Antonio Scandurra (another Atom alumnus) to launch a n
  
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• Rust Foundation Shares Draft of New, Simpler Trademark Policy

  10-11-2024 13:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "The Rust trademark policy has been updated and a new draft is available to view," announced the Rust Foundation this week.
  The last proposed trademark policy (in April of 2023) was criticized by open source advocate Bruce Perens in The Register as "far awry of fair use which is legally permitted." The Rust Foundation says this new version has "incorporated a number of suggestions from the Rust community," in a blog post that summarizes the feedback and enumerates specific ways it's been address
  
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• America's First Sodium-Ion Battery Gigafactory Announced. Cost: $1.4 Billion

  10-11-2024 09:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper than lithium-ion batteries — and they're also more environmentally friendly. And "In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States," reports the Washington Post, with a new factory planned to manufacture them "in the same way as lithium-ion batteries, just with different ingredients. Instead of using expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt, these will be made of sodium, iron and manganese..."Last month, sod
  
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• Gig-Working Uber and Lyft Drivers Can Unionize, Say Massachusetts Voters

  10-11-2024 05:35 via it.slashdot.org
  
  On Tuesday Massachusetts voted to become the first state to allow gig-working drivers to join labor unions, reports WBUR:
  Since these gig workers are classified as independent contractors, federal law allowing employees the right to unionize does not apply to them. With the passage of this ballot initiative, Massachusetts is the first state to give ride-hailing drivers the ability to collectively bargain over working conditions.
  Supporters have said the ballot measure "could provide a model for
  
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• Aaron Swartz Day Commemorated With 'Those Carrying on the Work'

  10-11-2024 03:47 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Friday "would have been his 38th birthday," writes the EFF, remembering Aaron Swartz as "a digital rights champion who believed deeply in keeping the internet open..." And they add that today the official web site for Aaron Swartz Day honored his memory with a special podcast "featuring those carrying on the work around issues close to his heart," including an appearance by Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive.The first speaker is Ryan Shapiro, FOIA expert and co-founder of the nation
  
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• Is There New Evidence for a 9th Planet - Planet X?

  10-11-2024 00:57 via science.slashdot.org
  
  This week Discover magazine looks at evidence — both old and new — for a ninth planet in our solar system:"Orbits of the most distant small bodies — comets or asteroids — seem to be clustered on one half or one side of the solar system," says Amir Siraj [an astrophysicist with Princeton University]. "That's very weird and something that can't be explained by our current understanding of the solar system." A 2014 study in Nature first noted these orbits. A 2021 study in Th
  
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