An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Hollywood's video game performers voted to go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections. The strike -- the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists -- will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor's voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said. Fran Drescher, the union's president, said in a prepared statement that members would not approve a contract that would allow companies to "abuse AI." "Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live -- and work -- with, we will be here, ready to negotiate," Drescher said. [...]

The last interactive contract, which expired November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood's two largest actors unions in 2012. The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union. Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered indie and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. "Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable AI protections, but rather flagrant exploitation," said Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee Chair Sarah Elmaleh. The studios have not commented.

Malaysia's digital minister said today he has asked global tech firms Microsoft and CrowdStrike to consider compensating companies that suffered losses during last week's global tech outage. From a report: Five government agencies and nine companies operating in aviation, banking and healthcare were among those affected in Malaysia, minister Gobind Singh Deo told reporters. "If there are any damages or losses, where there have been any parties that have made such claims, I've asked them to consider those claims and see to what extent they are able to help resolve the issue," Gobind said, adding that the government would also assist on the claims where possible. The total amount of losses incurred has not yet been determined, he said. The outage will cost Fortune 500 companies $5.4 billion, according to estimates from insurers. The projected financial losses exclude Microsoft.

Negotiations on a global tax deal have extended beyond the June 30 deadline, with countries now looking to the G20 finance leaders meeting for progress. "The stakes in the negotiations are high," reports Reuters. "A failure to reach agreement on final terms could prompt several countries to reinstate their taxes on U.S. tech giants and risk punitive duties on billions of dollars in exports to the U.S." Some countries, like Canada, have already implemented their own digital services tax. Reuters reports: The so-called "Pillar 1" arrangement, part of a 2021 global two-part tax deal, aims to replace unilateral digital services taxes (DSTs) on U.S. tech giants including Alphabet's Google, Amazon.com and Apple through a new mechanism to share taxing rights on a broader, global group of companies. Standstill agreements under which Washington has suspended threatened trade retaliation against seven countries -- Austria, Britain, France, India, Italy, Spain and Turkey -- expired on June 30, but the U.S. has not taken steps to impose tariffs.

Discussions on the matter are continuing. An Italian government source said that European countries were seeking assurances that the U.S. tariffs on some $2 billion worth of annual imports from French Champagne to Italian handbags and optical lenses remained frozen while the talks continue, including at the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro. A European Union document prepared for the G20 meeting lists finalizing the international tax deal as a "top priority." It said the G20 should urge countries and jurisdictions participating in the tax deal "to finalize discussions on all aspects of Pillar 1, with a view to signing the Multilateral Convention (MLC) by summer end and ratifying it as soon as possible." "Treasury continues to oppose all tax measures that discriminate against U.S. businesses," a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said in response to Canada's move. "We encourage all countries to finalize the work on the Pillar 1 agreement. We are in active discussions on next steps related to the existing DST joint statements."

Humble Games, the indie game publisher behind the popular pay-what-you-want "Humble Game Bundle," has laid off its entire staff of 36 people. However, the company says it is not shutting down and Humble Bundle will not be impacted. Instead, the job cuts are part of a restructuring of operations. GameSpot reports: In a statement shared with GameSpot, Humble Games confirmed that Humble Bundle will have "no impact on its operations. Additionally, ongoing and upcoming games from Humble Games will still move ahead and be published by the company. Humble Games is the publisher of many notable indie games, including Stray Gods, Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, Chinatown Detective Agency, Ikenfell, Unpacking, Slay the Spire, and Midnight Fight Express, just to name a few.

Humble Games is the separate publishing arm of digital storefront Humble Bundle. Both companies are owned by IGN Entertainment, but operate as a separate entities. Earlier this year, IGN Entertainment also bought video game websites Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, GamesIndustry.biz, and Dicebreaker from Gamer Network.

Switzerland has enacted the "Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfillment of Government Tasks" (EMBAG), mandating open-source software (OSS) in the public sector to enhance transparency, security, and efficiency. "This new law requires all public bodies to disclose the source code of software developed by or for them unless third-party rights or security concerns prevent it," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "This 'public money, public code' approach aims to enhance government operations' transparency, security, and efficiency." From the report: Making this move wasn't easy. It began in 2011 when the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published its court application, Open Justitia, under an OSS license. The proprietary legal software company Weblaw wasn't happy about this. There were heated political and legal fights for more than a decade. Finally, the EMBAG was passed in 2023. Now, the law not only allows the release of OSS by the Swiss government or its contractors, but also requires the code to be released under an open-source license "unless the rights of third parties or security-related reasons would exclude or restrict this."

Professor Dr. Matthias Sturmer, head of the Institute for Public Sector Transformation at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, led the fight for this law. He hailed it as "a great opportunity for government, the IT industry, and society." Sturmer believes everyone will benefit from this regulation, as it reduces vendor lock-in for the public sector, allows companies to expand their digital business solutions, and potentially leads to reduced IT costs and improved services for taxpayers.

In addition to mandating OSS, the EMBAG also requires the release of non-personal and non-security-sensitive government data as Open Government Data (OGD). This dual "open by default" approach marks a significant paradigm shift towards greater openness and practical reuse of software and data. Implementing the EMBAG is expected to serve as a model for other countries considering similar measures. It aims to promote digital sovereignty and encourage innovation and collaboration within the public sector. The Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS) is leading the law's implementation, but the organizational and financial aspects of the OSS releases still need to be clarified.

The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association claims that AI-powered search engines by U.S. tech giants like Google and Microsoft likely infringe on copyright by using news articles without permission. Therefore, they're urging the Japanese government to quickly review and revise intellectual property laws to address these issues. Kyodo News reports (translated in English): The association argued in the statement that while traditional search engines direct users to various copyrighted material available online, AI search engines disclose the content, making them a completely different type of service. While stressing that in many instances, the essential content of the referenced article is reprinted in its entirety and therefore constitutes copyright infringement, the association also highlighted the issue of "zero-click searches," where users do not visit the source site. It warned that the lack of traffic could lead to the diminution of news organizations' reporting activities, which would then have a negative impact on democracy and culture.

The statement also expressed concern over potential inaccuracies in responses generated by AI search engines, which could give the impression that the source articles themselves were erroneous and damage the credibility of news organizations. The association added that providing AI search engine services without obtaining permission to use the source articles could violate the antimonopoly law. "There are many reasons AI companies are attracted to Japan, including the need for its companies to rapidly develop their digital capabilities and the country's declining population, which is very open to AI," said Yutaka Matsuo, a professor at Tokyo University and chair of the government's AI council, in a statement to the Financial Times. "One other attraction is that AI companies are permitted to learn from information without infringing copyright laws," he added.

The Financial Times says the push to bring AI companies to Japan has raised alarm for some content creators who worry their work isn't being protected. "As it relates to generative AI, Japan's existing Copyright Act does not contribute to protecting creators. In fact, it is focused on restricting the rights of creators," the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers said in a statement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The European Commission (EC) has finally taken action to block Meta's heavily criticized plan to charge a subscription fee to users who value privacy on its platforms. Surprisingly, this step wasn't taken under laws like the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Instead, the EC announced Monday that Meta risked sanctions under EU consumer laws if it could not resolve key concerns about Meta's so-called "pay or consent" model. Meta's model is seemingly problematic, the commission said, because Meta "requested consumers overnight to either subscribe to use Facebook and Instagram against a fee or to consent to Meta's use of their personal data to be shown personalized ads, allowing Meta to make revenue out of it." Because users were given such short notice, they may have been "exposed to undue pressure to choose rapidly between the two models, fearing that they would instantly lose access to their accounts and their network of contacts," the EC said. To protect consumers, the EC joined national consumer protection authorities, sending a letter to Meta requiring the tech giant to propose solutions to resolve the commission's biggest concerns by September 1.

That Meta's "pay or consent" model may be "misleading" is a top concern because it uses the term "free" for ad-based plans, even though Meta "can make revenue from using their personal data to show them personalized ads." It seems that while Meta does not consider giving away personal information to be a cost to users, the EC's commissioner for justice, Didier Reynders, apparently does. "Consumers must not be lured into believing that they would either pay and not be shown any ads anymore, or receive a service for free, when, instead, they would agree that the company used their personal data to make revenue with ads," Reynders said. "EU consumer protection law is clear in this respect. Traders must inform consumers upfront and in a fully transparent manner on how they use their personal data. This is a fundamental right that we will protect." Additionally, the EC is concerned that Meta users might be confused about how "to navigate through different screens in the Facebook/Instagram app or web-version and to click on hyperlinks directing them to different parts of the Terms of Service or Privacy Policy to find out how their preferences, personal data, and user-generated data will be used by Meta to show them personalized ads." They may also find Meta's "imprecise terms and language" confusing, such as Meta referring to "your info" instead of clearly referring to consumers' "personal data." A Meta spokesperson said in a statement: "Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries. Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and we are confident it complies with European regulation."

In an interview with The Verge's Nilay Patel, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said the automaker has no plans to adopt Apple CarPlay in its vehicles. "We have a great relationship with Apple," he said. "As much as I love their products, there's a reason that ironically is very consistent with Apple ethos for us to want to control the ecosystem." CarPlay isn't "consistent with how we think about really creating a pure product experience," Scaringe said. From the report: One example given by Scaringe includes CarPlay's inability to "leverage other parts of the vehicle experience," which would require Rivian customers to leave the app in order to do things like open the vehicle's front trunk. "We've taken the view of the digital experience in the vehicle wants to feel consistent and holistically harmonious across every touchpoint," said Scaringe. Instead, the Rivian CEO says the company will eventually add CarPlay's most desirable features "but on an a la carte basis."

Scaringe says that excluding CarPlay will allow the company to be more selective about features like routing and mapping charging points, noting that Rivian had acquired route planning app maker Iternio last year to facilitate that. "We recognize that it'll take us time to fully capture every feature that's in CarPlay, and hopefully, customers are seeing that. I think it often gets more noise than it deserves," Scaringe said in the interview. "The other thing beyond mapping that's coming is better integration with texting. We know that needs to come, and it's something that teams are actively working on."

Slashdot covered Barrett Brown back in 2011 and 2012. The New York Times calls him "an activist associated with the hacker group Anonymous, and a political prisoner recently denied asylum in Britain, all of which sounds a bit dreary until we hear tell of it through Brown's unhinged self-regard."

They're reviewing Brown's "extraordinary" new memoir, My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous," a book they call "deranged, hyperbolic, and true." A "machine" that focuses attention on little-known social issues, Anonymous has gone after the Church of Scientology, Koch Industries, websites hosting child pornography and the Westboro Baptist Church. The public tends to be confused by nebulous digital activities, so it was, in the collective's heyday, helpful to have Brown act as a translator between the hackers and mainstream journalists. "The year 2011 ended as it began," he writes, "with a sophisticated hack on a state-affiliated corporation that ostensibly dealt in straightforward security and analysis while secretly engaging in black ops campaigns against activists who'd proven troublesome to powerful clients."

This particular corporation was Stratfor, a company that spied on activists for the government... Brown waited for the feds to come back and drag him to jail. He also says he tried to get off suboxone in order to avoid the painful possibility of prison withdrawal, and stopped taking Paxil, inducing a manic state, all of which is given as explanation for his regrettable next move, which was to set up a camera and start talking. The feds had threatened his mother, he told the internet, and in response he was threatening Robert Smith, the lead agent on his case. He found himself in custody the same night.

Brown was then subjected to the kind of nonsense the Department of Justice is prone to inflicting on those involved in shadowy internet activities that, in fact, almost no one in the legal process understands. He was charged with participating in the hack of Stratfor, though he was not really involved and cannot code, and although the whole thing was organized by an F.B.I. informant. Brown had also retweeted a Fox News host's call to murder Julian Assange; the prosecution presented this as if he were himself calling for the murder of Assange. But generally, Brown's primary victim is himself. "My thirst for glory and hatred for the state," he writes, "were incompatible with an orthodox criminal defense, in which the limiting of one's sentence is the sole objective."

In his cell, with an eraser-less pencil he needs a compliant guard to repeatedly sharpen, he writes "The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail." His mother types it up; The Intercept publishes. He develops the character he will play in his memoir: a self-aware narcissist and addict. He wins a National Magazine Award, and is especially pleased that his column "Please Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels," wins while Franzen is in attendance.
"The state is an afterthought here — a litany of absurdist horrors too stupid to appall..." the review concludes.

"We're left with a man who refuses to look away from the deep structure of the world, an unstable position from which there is no sanctuary. My Glorious Defeats is deranged, hyperbolic and as true a work as I have read in a very long time."

Slashdot reader Thelasko shared Friday's article from Digital Trends: Nearly every flight in the U.S. is grounded right now following a CrowdStrike system update error that's affecting everything from travel to mobile ordering at Starbucks — but not Southwest Airlines flights. Southwest is still flying high, unaffected by the outage that's plaguing the world today, and that's apparently because it's using Windows 3.1.

Yes, Windows 3.1 — an operating system that is 32 years old. Southwest, along with UPS and FedEx, haven't had any issues with the CrowdStrike outage. In responses to CNN, Delta, American, Spirit, Frontier, United, and Allegiant all said they were having issues, but Southwest told the outlet that its operations are going off without a hitch. Some are attributing that to Windows 3.1. Major portions of Southwest's systems are reportedly built on Windows 95 and Windows 3.1...
UPDATE: Reached for comment, Southwest "would not confirm" that's it's using Windows 3.1, reports SFGate. But they did get this quote from an airline analyst:

âoeWe believe that Southwestâ(TM)s older technology kept it somewhat immune from the issues affecting other airlines today."

Bangladesh is experiencing a "near-total" nationwide internet shutdown amid government efforts to control widespread student protests against the country's quota system for government jobs. The country's quota system requires a third of government jobs be reserved for relatives of veterans who had fought for independence from Pakistan.

According to Reuters, the protests "have opened old and sensitive political fault lines between those who fought for Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971 and those accused of collaborating with Islamabad." Analysts say the protests have also been "fueled by high unemployment among young people" and "wider economic woes, such as high inflation and shrinking reserves of foreign exchange." Engadget reports on the internet disruptions: To control the situation, Bangladeshi authorities shut down internet and phone access throughout the country, a common practice in South Asia to prevent the spread of rumors and misinformation and exercise state control. NetBlocks, a global internet monitor that works on digital rights analyzed live network data that showed that Bangladesh was in the middle of a "near-total national internet shutdown." [...]

Bangladesh has frequently blacked out the internet to crack down on political opposition and activists. At the end of 2023, research tool CIVICUS Monitor, which provides data on the state of civil society and freedoms in nearly 200 countries, downgraded Bangladesh's civic space to "closed," its lowest possible rating, after the country imposed six internet shutdowns the previous year. That made Bangladesh the fifth-largest perpetrator of internet shutdowns in 2022, Access Now said.

The country's telecom regulator had pledged to keep internet access on through Bangladesh's general elections at the beginning of 2024, but that electoral period is now over. Despite the pledge, Bangladesh blocked access to news websites during its elections.

Oracle agreed to pay $115 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the database software and cloud computing company of invading people's privacy by collecting their personal information and selling it to third parties. Reuters: The plaintiffs, who otherwise have no connection to Oracle, said the company violated federal and state privacy laws and California's constitution by creating unauthorized "digital dossiers" for hundreds of millions of people. They said the dossiers contained data including where people browsed online, and where they did their banking, bought gas, dined out, shopped and used their credit cards. Oracle then allegedly sold the information directly to marketers or through products such as ID Graph, which according to the company helps marketers "orchestrate a relevant, personalized experience for each individual."

Russian officials boasted on Friday that Moscow was spared the impact of the global IT systems outage because of its increased self-sufficiency after years of Western sanctions, though some experts said Russian systems could still be vulnerable. From a report: Microsoft and other IT firms have suspended sales of new products in Russia and have been scaling down their operations in line with sanctions imposed over Russia's war in Ukraine, which Moscow describes as a special military operation. The Kremlin, along with companies from state nuclear giant Rosatom, which operates all of Russia's nuclear plants, to major lenders and airlines, reported no glitches amid the outage that affected international companies across the globe. "The situation once again highlights the significance of foreign software substitution," Russia's digital development ministry said. Russian financial and currency markets also ran smoothly.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A group of researchers, academics, and hackers are trying to make it easier to break AI companies' terms of service to conduct "good faith research" that exposes biases, inaccuracies, and training data without fear of being sued. The U.S. government is currently considering an exemption to U.S. copyright law that would allow people to break technical protection measures and digital rights management (DRM) on AI systems to learn more about how they work, probe them for bias, discrimination, harmful and inaccurate outputs, and to learn more about the data they are trained on. The exemption would allow for "good faith" security and academic research and "red-teaming" of AI products even if the researcher had to circumvent systems designed to prevent that research. The proposed exemption has the support of the Department of Justice, which said "good faith research can help reveal unintended or undisclosed collection or exposure of sensitive personal data, or identify systems whose operations or outputs are unsafe, inaccurate, or ineffective for the uses for which they are intended or marketed by developers, or employed by end users. Such research can be especially significant when AI platforms are used for particularly important purposes, where unintended, inaccurate, or unpredictable AI output can result in serious harm to individuals."

Much of what we know about how closed-sourced AI tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and others work are from researchers, journalists, and ordinary users purposefully trying to trick these systems into revealing something about the data they were trained on (which often includes copyrighted material indiscriminately and secretly scraped from the internet), its biases, and its weaknesses. Doing this type of research can often violate the terms of service users agree to when they sign up for a system. For example, OpenAI's terms of service state that users cannot "attempt to or assist anyone to reverse engineer, decompile or discover the source code or underlying components of our Services, including our models, algorithms, or systems (except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law)," and adds that users must not "circumvent any rate limits or restrictions or bypass any protective measures or safety mitigations we put on our Services."

Shayne Longpre, an MIT researcher who is part of the team pushing for the exemption, told me that "there is a lot of apprehensiveness about these models and their design, their biases, being used for discrimination, and, broadly, their trustworthiness." "But the ecosystem of researchers looking into this isn't super healthy. There are people doing the work but a lot of people are getting their accounts suspended for doing good-faith research, or they are worried about potential legal ramifications of violating terms of service," he added. "These terms of service have chilling effects on research, and companies aren't very transparent about their process for enforcing terms of service." The exemption would be to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a sweeping copyright law. Other 1201 exemptions, which must be applied for and renewed every three years as part of a process through the Library of Congress, allow for the hacking of tractors and electronic devices for the purpose of repair, have carveouts that protect security researchers who are trying to find bugs and vulnerabilities, and in certain cases protect people who are trying to archive or preserve specific types of content. Harley Geiger of the Hacking Policy Council said that an exemption is "crucial to identifying and fixing algorithmic flaws to prevent harm or disruption," and added that a "lack of clear legal protection under DMCA Section 1201 adversely affect such research."

The FBI was given access to unreleased technology to access the phone of the man identified as the shooter of former President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported late Thursday, citing people familiar with the investigation. From the report: As the FBI struggled to gain access on Sunday morning to the phone, they appealed directly to Cellebrite, a digital intelligence company founded in Israel that supplies technology to several US federal agencies, according to the people, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the case.

FBI agents wanted to pull data from the device to help decipher his motives for the shooting at a rally in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, where Trump suffered an injured ear and a spectator was killed. Authorities have identified the deceased shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks. The local FBI bureau in Pittsburgh held a license for Cellebrite software, which lets law enforcement identify or bypass a phone's passcode. But it didn't work with Crooks' device, according to the people, who said the deceased shooter owned a newer Samsung model that runs Android's operating system. The agents called Cellebrite's federal team, which liaises with law enforcement and government agencies, according to the people. Within hours, Cellebrite transferred to the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, additional technical support and new software that was still being developed. The details about the unsuccessful initial attempt to access the phone, and the unreleased software, haven't been previously reported.

Longtime Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares an op-ed from Reason, written by Sen. Rand Paul: In America, we do not punish businesses for their success. We certainly do not punish businesses because their competitors are struggling to keep pace. Sadly, that is exactly what the Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to do in its recent lawsuit against Apple. In March, the DOJ, joined by 15 states and the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit aimed at penalizing Apple for successfully competing in the market for smartphones. However, like much of the Biden administration's approach to antitrust enforcement, the DOJ's lawsuit is focused on punishing Apple for its success rather than addressing any real harm to consumers. Instead of fostering innovation and competition, this approach threatens to stifle the very progress that benefits Americans.

In its lawsuit, the DOJ makes the unsubstantiated claim that Apple has "willfully monopolized" the smartphone market through "exclusionary" and "anticompetitive" conduct. In particular, it accuses Apple of exercising unwarranted control over the creation, distribution, and functioning of apps within the iPhone operating system. What the complaint ignores, however, is that this control is not simply a lawful business practice by a privately held company; it is an indispensable part of Apple's business model. Far from being an "anticompetitive" practice that harms consumers, Apple's careful approach to app integration is a pro-competitive way in which it meets its users' demands.

Privacy, security, and seamless integration have been the core of Apple's operational strategy for years. Back in 2010, Steve Jobs explained that "when selling to people who want their devices to just work, we think integrated wins every time." That "open systems don't always work," and Apple was "committed to the integrated approach." What makes Apple products so unique is their ease of use and consistency over time. While no product will ever be perfect, Apple's goal is to deliver a seamless, integrated experience that users can rely on time after time without giving it a second thought. How does Apple do this? By carefully exercising the very control that the DOJ is trying to punish. As economist Alex Tabarrok explains in Marginal Revolution: "Apple's promise to iPhone users is that it will be a gatekeeper. Gatekeeping is what allows Apple to promise greater security, privacy, usability and reliability. Gatekeeping is Apple's brand promise. Gatekeeping is what the consumer's are buying." [...] "Digital markets do not need more government regulation; they need more companies willing to innovate and compete," concludes Sen. Paul. "The DOJ should not waste taxpayer-provided resources targeting a company that has earned its success through excellence in the marketplace. An Apple a day may keep the doctor away, but it seems that all of the pro-competitive justifications in the world cannot keep a politically motivated antitrust enforcer at bay."

RealPage says it isn't doing anything wrong by suggesting to landlords how much rent they could charge. From a report: In a move to reclaim its own narrative, the property management software company published a microsite and a digital booklet it's calling "The Real Story," as it faces multiple lawsuits and a reported federal criminal probe related to allegations of rental price fixing. RealPage's six-page digital booklet, published on the site in mid-June, addresses what it calls "false and misleading claims about its software" -- the myriad of allegations it faces involving price-fixing and rising rents -- and contends that the software benefits renters and landlords and increases competition. It also said landlords accept RealPage's price recommendations for new leases less than 50 percent of the time and that the software recommends competitive prices to help fill units.

[...] But landlords are left without concrete answers, as questions around the legality of this software are ongoing as they continue renting properties. "I don't think we're seeing this as a RealPage issue but rather as a revenue management software issue," says Alexandra Alvarado, the director of marketing and education at the American Apartment Owners Association, the largest association of landlords in the US. Alvarado says some landlords are taking pause and asking questions before using the tech.

Meta says it won't be launching its upcoming multimodal AI model -- capable of handling video, audio, images, and text -- in the European Union, citing regulatory concerns. From a report: The decision will prevent European companies from using the multimodal model, despite it being released under an open license. Just last week, the EU finalized compliance deadlines for AI companies under its strict new AI Act. Tech companies operating in the EU will generally have until August 2026 to comply with rules around copyright, transparency, and AI uses like predictive policing. Meta's decision follows a similar move by Apple, which recently said it would likely exclude the EU from its Apple Intelligence rollout due to concerns surrounding the Digital Markets Act.

Major changes are coming to the ACT college admissions exam in the spring, the CEO of ACT announced Monday. From a report: The exam will be evolving to "meet the challenges students and educators face" -- and that will include shortening the core test and making the science section optional, chief executive Janet Godwin said in a post on the non-profit's website. The changes will begin with national online tests in spring 2025 and be rolled out for school-day testing in spring 2026, Godwin said in the post. The decision to alter the ACT follows changes made to the SAT earlier this year by the College Board, the non-profit organization that develops and administers that test. The SAT was shortened by a third and went fully digital.

Science is being removed from the ACT's core sections, leaving English, reading and math as the portions that will result in a college-reportable composite score ranging from 1 to 36, Godwin wrote. The science section, like the ACT's writing section already was, will be optional. "This means students can choose to take the ACT, the ACT plus science, the ACT plus writing, or the ACT plus science and writing," Godwin wrote. "With this flexibility, students can focus on their strengths and showcase their abilities in the best possible way."

In a post on X today, Andrej Karpathy announced that he is "starting an AI+Education company called Eureka Labs." Karpathy taught deep learning for computer vision at Stanford University, left to co-found OpenAI in 2015 and then moved on to direct artificial intelligence for Tesla Autopilot until 2022. He then migrated back to OpenAI to lead a small team related to ChatGPT. CoinTelegraph reports: Eureka is creating virtual teaching assistants powered by generative AI to bring top courses to vastly more students without sacrificing the personalized interactions typical of in-person learning. The startup's ultimate goal is to bring elite educators and coursework to students throughout the world, regardless of barriers such as geography and language. [...] Eureka's first product will be an undergraduate AI course called LLM101n. The course will guide students through the process of training an AI similar to the AI Teaching Assistant. Materials will be available online but will also include digital and physical cohorts, allowing students to progress through the course in small groups. "The teacher still designs the course materials, but they are supported, leveraged and scaled with an AI Teaching Assistant who is optimized to help guide the students through them," Karpathy explained.

"If we are successful, it will be easy for anyone to learn anything, expanding education in both reach (a large number of people learning something) and extent (any one person learning a large amount of subjects, beyond what may be possible today unassisted)."