A pre-dawn statewide alert about an officer shooting in Hall County triggered over 4,500 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission. The 4:52 a.m. "Blue Alert" on October 4 awakened millions of Texans, many living hundreds of miles from the incident location, to notify them about suspect Seth Altman. Air traffic controllers, healthcare workers, and other professionals reported safety concerns from sleep disruption, according to records obtained by 404 Media. Multiple residents told the FCC they disabled all emergency notifications in response, potentially compromising public safety for future alerts.

AI startup Perplexity demonstrated strong performance in real-time during Tuesday election coverage, while rivals failed by predicting wrong outcomes before polls closed, marking the first major test of AI systems in U.S. election reporting, TechCrunch reports.

Perplexity launched an election hub featuring live maps powered by Associated Press and Democracy Works data, contrasting with major competitors like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, which declined to provide election information. Despite some minor data display issues and occasional inaccuracies in state-level analysis, Perplexity's coverage largely matched traditional media outlets, potentially intensifying its ongoing legal battle with Dow Jones over audience competition.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday the government would legislate for a ban on social media for children under 16, a policy the government says is world-leading. "Social media is doing harm to our kids and I'm calling time on it," Albanese told a news conference. Legislation will be introduced into parliament this year, with the laws coming into effect 12 months after it is ratified by lawmakers, he added. There will be no exemptions for users who have parental consent.

"The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access," Albanese said. "The onus won't be on parents or young people." Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said platforms impacted would include Meta Platforms' Instagram and Facebook, as well as Bytedance's TikTok and Elon Musk's X. Alphabet's YouTube would likely also fall within the scope of the legislation, she added.

Intel faces a class-action lawsuit alleging its 13th and 14th generation desktop processors from 2022 and 2023 are defective, causing system instability and frequent crashes. The suit claims that Intel knew of the issue but continued marketing the processors anyway. The Register reports: The plaintiff, Mark Vanvalkenburgh of Orchard Park, New York, purchased an Intel Core i7-13700K from Best Buy in January 2023, according to the complaint [PDF]. "After purchasing the product, Plaintiff learned that the processor was defective, unstable, and crashing at high rates," the complaint claims. "The processor caused issues in his computer, including random screen blackouts and random computer restarts. These issues were not resolved even after he attempted to install a patch issued by Intel for its 13th Generation processors."

The potential class-action lawsuit cites various media reports and social media posts dating back to December 2022 that describe problems with Intel's 13th and 14th generation processors, known as Raptor Lake. These reports document unexplained failures and system instability, as well as a higher-than-expected rate of product returns. "By late 2022 or early 2023, Intel knew of the defect," the complaint says. "Intel's Products undergo pre-release and post-release testing. Through these tests, Intel became aware of the defect in the processors." And because Intel continued making marketing claims touting the speed and performance of its products, with no mention of any defect, the complaint alleges that Intel committed fraud by omission, breached implied warranty, and violated New York General Business Law.

The federal government of Canada has ordered TikTok to shut down its operations in the country, citing national security concerns. However, Canadians will still be able to access the app and use it to create content. "The decision to use a social media application or platform is a personal choice," said Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne.

"We came to the conclusion that these activities that were conducted in Canada by TikTok and their offices would be injurious to national security. I'm not at liberty to go into much detail, but I know Canadians would understand when you're saying the government of Canada is taking measures to protect national security, that's serious." CBC News reports: Champagne urged Canadians to use TikTok "with eyes wide open." Critics have claimed that TikTok users' data could be obtained by the Chinese government. "Obviously, parents and anyone who wants to use social platform should be mindful of the risk," he said. The decision was made in accordance with the Investment Canada Act, which allows for the review of foreign investments that may harm Canada's national security.

Former CSIS director David Vigneault told CBC News it's "very clear" from the app's design that data gleaned from its users "is available to the government of China" and its large-scale data harvesting goals. "Most people can say, 'Why is it a big deal for a teenager now to have their data [on TikTok]?' Well in five years, in 10 years, that teenager will be a young adult, will be engaged in different activities around the world," he said at the time. "As an individual, I would say that I would absolutely not recommend someone have TikTok."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The US supreme court grappled on Wednesday with a bid by Meta's Facebook to scuttle a federal securities fraud lawsuit brought by shareholders who accused the social media platform of misleading them about the misuse of user data. The justices heard arguments in Facebook's appeal of a lower court's decision allowing the 2018 class action suit led by Amalgamated Bank to proceed. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages in part to recoup the lost value of the Facebook stock held by the investors. It is one of two cases coming before them this month -- the other one involving artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia on 13 November -- that could lead to rulings making it harder for private litigants to hold companies to account for alleged securities fraud.

At issue is whether Facebook broke the law when it failed to detail the prior data breach in subsequent business-risk disclosures, and instead portrayed the risk of such incidents as purely hypothetical. Facebook argued in a supreme court brief that it was not required to reveal that its warned-of risk had already materialized because "a reasonable investor" would understand risk disclosures to be forward-looking statements. "When we think about these questions, we're not looking only to lies or complete false statements," the liberal justice Elena Kagan told Kannon Shanmugam, the lawyer for Facebook. "We're also looking to misleading statements or misleading omissions." The conservative justice Samuel Alito asked Shanmugam: "Isn't it the case that an evaluation of risks is always forward-looking?" "It is. And that is essentially what underlies our argument here," Shanmugam responded.

The plaintiffs accused Facebook of misleading investors in violation of the Securities Exchange Act, a 1934 federal law that requires publicly traded companies to disclose their business risks. They claimed the company unlawfully withheld information from investors about a 2015 data breach involving British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica that affected more than 30 million Facebook users. Edward Davila, a US district judge, dismissed the lawsuit but the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals revived it. The supreme court's ruling is expected by the end of June.

Major media outlets are beginning to declare former President Trump the winner of the 2024 presidential election, having secured 270 electoral votes. "He becomes the first president in more than 120 years to lose the White House, and then to come back and win it again, after President Grover Cleveland in 1892," notes The Hill. As with previous election announcements on Slashdot, this is your chance to talk about it and what it means for the future of our nation.

In a victory speech, Trump said that he was the leader of "the greatest political movement of all time." He said: "We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible," adding that he would take office with an "unprecedented and powerful mandate." President Trump has vowed a radical reshaping of American government, tasking SpaceX and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk "with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms."

UPDATE 12:30 PM PST: Vice President Kamala Harris has officially conceded the 2024 presidential election, calling former President Trump to offer her congratulations. She's expected to make a concession speech at Howard University at 4:00 PM EST. You can stream the speech here.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Rightsholders have asked Google to remove more than 10 billion 'copyright infringing' URLs from its search results. The search engine doesn't celebrate the milestone in any way, but the takedown notices document intriguing shifts in volume over time, as well as shifting takedown interests. [...] The path to 10 billion was turbulent. When Google first made DMCA details public it was processing a few million DMCA takedown requests in a year. That number swiftly increased to hundreds of millions and eventually reached a billion DMCA requests in 2016.

The exponential growth curve eventually flattened out and around 2017, the takedown volume started to decline. The decrease was in part due to various anti-piracy algorithms making pirated content less visible in search results. By downranking pirate sites, infringing content became harder to find. As a result, Google processed fewer takedown notices, a welcome change for both rightsholders and the search engine. Today, Google continues to make pirate sites less visible in search, but the reduction in takedown notices didn't last. On the contrary, over the past several months, Google search processed a record number of DMCA notices.

Last summer, the search giant recorded the 7 billionth takedown request and after that the numbers shot up, adding billions more in the year that followed. The company is now handling removal requests at a rate of roughly 2.5 billion per year; a new record. This represents more than 50 million takedown requests per week and roughly 5,000 every minute. [...] While the 10 billionth reported URL is undoubtedly a milestone, this number is largely driven by a few rightsholders, reporting outfits, and domain names. The aforementioned takedown outfit Link-Busters, for example, accounts for roughly 15% of all reported links, nearly 1.5 billion. Similarly, the ten most prolific rightsholders, including the BPI, HarperCollins, and VIZ Media, are responsible for 40% of all reported links. These ten companies are only a tiny fraction of the 600,000 rightsholders that reported pirated links, however. A small group of domains also receives a disproportionate amount of attention. In total, 5,400,061 domains have been reported, with the top domains having dozens of millions of flagged URLs each. However, most domains have only a few flagged links, some of which are erroneous.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The CEO of AI search company Perplexity, Aravind Srinivas, has offered to cross picket lines and provide services to mitigate the effect of a strike by New York Times tech workers. The NYT Tech Guild announced its strike Monday, after setting November 4 as its deadline months earlier. The workers represented provide software support and data analysis for the Times, on the business side of the outlet. They have been asking for an annual 2.5% wage increase and to cement a current two days per week in-office expectation, among other things. [...] Picketers demonstrated in front of the NYT building in New York as negotiations continued. Meanwhile, on X, formerly known as Twitter, Perplexity's CEO offered to step in for the striking workers.

Replying to Semafor media editor Max Tani quoting the publisher, Srinivas wrote: "Hey AG Sulzberger @nytimes sorry to see this. Perplexity is on standby to help ensure your essential coverage is available to all through the election. DM me anytime here." Many on X immediately castigated Srinivas for acting as a scab -- a derogatory term for people willing to perform the jobs of striking workers. It is widely considered a disreputable behavior in matters of labor and equity. By undercutting collective action, scabs limit the ability of workers to bargain with those in positions of power. Srinivas may simply be trying to make sure people have the information they need on election day. The company has lately unveiled its own elections info hub and map. But to offer its services explicitly as a replacement for striking workers was bound to be an unpopular move.

Though TechCrunch asked Perplexity for comment, Srinivas responded to TechCrunch's post on X saying that "the offer was *not* to 'replace' journalists or engineers with AI but to provide technical infra support on a high-traffic day." The striking workers in question, however, are the ones who provide that service to the NYT. It's not really clear what services other than AI tools Perplexity could offer, or why they would not amount to replacing the workers in question.

Anton Shilov reports via Tom's Hardware: FFmpeg is an open-source video decoding project developed by volunteers who contribute to its codebase, fix bugs, and add new features. The project is led by a small group of core developers and maintainers who oversee its direction and ensure that contributions meet certain standards. They coordinate the project's development and release cycles, merging contributions from other developers. This group of developers tried to implement a handwritten AVX512 assembly code path, something that has rarely been done before, at least not in the video industry.

The developers have created an optimized code path using the AVX-512 instruction set to accelerate specific functions within the FFmpeg multimedia processing library. By leveraging AVX-512, they were able to achieve significant performance improvements -- from three to 94 times faster -- compared to standard implementations. AVX-512 enables processing large chunks of data in parallel using 512-bit registers, which can handle up to 16 single-precision FLOPS or 8 double-precision FLOPS in one operation. This optimization is ideal for compute-heavy tasks in general, but in the case of video and image processing in particular.

The benchmarking results show that the new handwritten AVX-512 code path performs considerably faster than other implementations, including baseline C code and lower SIMD instruction sets like AVX2 and SSSE3. In some cases, the revamped AVX-512 codepath achieves a speedup of nearly 94 times over the baseline, highlighting the efficiency of hand-optimized assembly code for AVX-512.

Cybercriminals have breached dozens of major companies including AT&T, Ticketmaster and Hot Topic by exploiting "infostealer" malware that harvests login credentials from infected computers, an investigation has found. The malware, spread through pirated software and social media, has infected 250,000 new devices daily, according to cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Russian developers create the malware while contractors distribute it globally, deliberately avoiding former Soviet states. Hot Topic suffered potentially the largest retail hack ever in October when attackers accessed 350 million customer records using stolen developer credentials. Google and Microsoft are racing to patch vulnerabilities, but malware makers quickly adapt to new security measures.

Slashdot reader samleecole shared this report from 404 Media: Northwell Health, New York State's largest healthcare provider, recently launched a large language model tool that it is encouraging doctors and clinicians to use for translation, sensitive patient data, and has suggested it can be used for diagnostic purposes, 404 Media has learned. Northwell Health has more than 85,000 employees.

An internal presentation and employee chats obtained by 404 Media shows how healthcare professionals are using LLMs and chatbots to edit writing, make hiring decisions, do administrative tasks, and handle patient data. In the presentation given in August, Rebecca Kaul, senior vice president and chief of digital innovation and transformation at Northwell, along with a senior engineer, discussed the launch of the tool, called AI Hub, and gave a demonstration of how clinicians and researchers—or anyone with a Northwell email address—can use it... AI Hub can be used for "clinical or clinical adjacent" tasks, as well as answering questions about hospital policies and billing, writing job descriptions and editing writing, and summarizing electronic medical record excerpts and inputting patients' personally identifying and protected health information.

The demonstration also showed potential capabilities that included "detect pancreas cancer," and "parse HL7," a health data standard used to share electronic health records.

The leaked presentation shows that hospitals are increasingly using AI and LLMs to streamlining administrative tasks, and shows that some are experimenting with or at least considering how LLMs would be used in clinical settings or in interactions with patients.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNBC: Threads now has nearly 275 million monthly users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday. "We continue to be on track towards this becoming our next major social app," Zuckerberg said on a call with analysts, adding that he was "quite pleased" with the trajectory of the app.

The latest numbers indicate Threads is up 175% from a year ago when it reached 100 million users... The app is now signing up more than 1 million users per day, Zuckerberg also said on Wednesday. X remains ahead of Threads in terms of users, but not by much. Musk's social media app now has roughly 318 million monthly users, according to an estimate by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That's down 24% since Musk completed his acquisition of the company in October 2022, according to Sensor Tower.
The news also drew a reaction from ActivityPub/Activity Streams 2.0 co-author Evan Prodromou, who pointed out that the 275 million monthly active users is up from the 200 million reported just 13 weeks ago at the end of July.

"And most of them have access to the Fediverse. With more, hopefully, getting access soon."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other countries in banning a widely used weedkiller linked to Parkinson's disease and other health dangers. In a October 31 letter (PDF) to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weedkiller commonly applied on US farms, was a "highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities". The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter (PDF) to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.

The lawmakers cite scientific links between paraquat use and development of Parkinson's and other "life threatening diseases" as well as "grave impacts on the environment". "Health risks include a higher risk of Parkinson's disease, with some studies finding a 64% increase in the likelihood of developing Parkinson's, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, thyroid cancer, and other thyroid issues," they wrote. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker, organizer of the Senate letter, said the risks of paraquat exposure were "well documented" and that it was "irresponsible" for the EPA to continue to allow its use. "I hope the EPA will follow the science and ban paraquat," Booker said. The EPA has long maintained that there is no "clear link" between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease, though the agency does have a number of restrictions on use of the chemical due to its acute toxicity. The agency issued a draft report earlier this year affirming its position. Still, the agency said at that time that it would be reviewing more scientific studies and would issue a final report by January 17, 2025.

An enormous fine levied by a Russian court on Google caught the attention of the Kremlin -- which hopes Google will notice in turn. From a report: President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, commented on the sum on Thursday. It came after a court demanded payment equivalent of $20.6 decillion -- an almost incomprehensible figure that exceeds the world's GDP. The sum came from a penalty for suspending the YouTube accounts of various Russian outlets. It has been regularly doubling for years, with no limit, leading it into realms of the absurd, which Peskov seemed to acknowledge. "Although it is a specific amount, I cannot even pronounce this number, it is rather filled with symbolism," said Peskov in response to a question from NBC News.

Former Google chief Eric Schmidt thinks the US Army should expunge "useless" tanks and replace them with AI-powered drones instead. From a report: Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia this week, he said: "I read somewhere that the US had thousands and thousands of tanks stored somewhere," adding, "Give them away. Buy a drone instead."

The former Google supremo's argument is that recent conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, have demonstrated how "a $5,000 drone can destroy a $5 million tank." In fact, even cheaper drones, similar to those commercially available for consumers, have been shown in footage on social media dropping grenades through the open turret hatch of tanks. Schmidt, who was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, then executive chairman to 2015, and executive chairman of Alphabet to 2018, founded White Stork with the aim of supporting Ukraine's war effort. It hopes to achieve this by developing a low-cost drone that can use AI to acquire its target rather than being guided by an operator and can function in environments where GPS jamming is in operation.

Notably, Schmidt also served as chair of the US government's National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), which advised the President and Congress about national security and defense issues with regard to AI. "The cost of autonomy is falling so quickly that the drone war, which is the future of conflict, will get rid of eventually tanks, artillery, mortars," Schmidt predicted.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: If you've recently been laid off and have started the arduous process of looking for a new job, you've probably seen them on networking platforms like LinkedIn: postings for roles that are 30 days old, maybe more, with suspiciously wide salary ranges. They usually have hundreds, or even thousands, of hopeful applicants vying for the same position, but if you do a quick cross-check and notice that the role isn't posted on the company's actual website -- or any of their social media pages -- you should probably stop drafting that cover letter, because it's possible they're not hiring at all. "Ghost jobs," or ads for positions that aren't actually open, are a common phenomenon in the tech industry, which has been plagued by layoffs and budget cuts over recent years. As unemployed workers struggle to regain their footing, recruiters and career coaches who spoke with SFGATE warned that these fake jobs posted by real companies serve multiple, sometimes insidious purposes.

According to a 2024 survey from MyPerfectResume, 81% of recruiters admitted to posting ads for positions that were fake or already filled. While some respondents said employers did it to maintain a presence on job boards and build a talent pool, it's also used to commit psychological warfare: 25% said ghost jobs helped companies gauge how replaceable their employees were, while 23% said it helped make the company appear more stable during a hiring freeze. Another damning 2024 report from Resume Builder said that 62% companies posted them specifically to make their employees feel replaceable. They also made ads to "trick overworked employees" into believing that more people would be brought on to alleviate their overwhelming workload.

After interviewing 1,641 hiring managers, Resume Builder researchers found that 40% of employers posted fake job listings in 2024, and that three in 10 currently had ghost jobs listed. The idea to post them mostly trickled down from HR, followed by senior management and executives, their June 2024 article continued. Though the listings were posted on multiple hiring platforms, the majority of them appeared on LinkedIn and the companies' websites. Evidence suggests this trend is taking hold throughout the Bay Area, too. A collaborative document circulating online reveals a growing list of employers accused of posting ghost jobs. Many of them, it turns out, are tech companies with offices based in California.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Last month at Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta AI was "on track" to become the most-used generative AI assistant in the world. The company has now passed a significant milestone toward that goal, with Meta AI passing the 500 million user mark, Zuckerberg revealed during the company's latest earnings call. The half billion user mark comes just barely a year after the social network first launched its AI assistant last fall. Zuckerberg said the company still expects to become the "most-used" assistant by the end of 2024, though he's never specified how the company is measuring that metric. Zuck said that AI-driven improvements in feed and video recommendations have led to an 8% increase in time spent on Facebook and 5% increase on Instagram this year. Advertisers have also leveraged the company's AI tools to generate over 15 million ads in just the past month.

Separately, Meta's Threads app is gaining over a million new sign-ups daily, with nearly 275 million total monthly users.

First we had friends. Then we had influencers. And if Mark Zuckerberg is correct, the next big thing in our social media feeds will be AI generated content. Lots of it. Fortune: Zuckerberg described our future feeds during Facebook-parent company Meta's third quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday, describing it as a natural evolution. "I think were going to add a whole new category of content which is AI generated or AI summarized content, or existing content pulled together by AI in some way," the Meta CEO said. "And I think that that's gonna be very exciting for Facebook and Instagram and maybe Threads, or other kinds of feed experiences over time."

Zuckerberg touted the company's Llama large language model and the success of products it powers, such as the Meta AI chatbot that is now used by more than 500 million users every month. But Llama will increasingly play a role across Meta's business, Zuckerberg said, including tools for business customers and advertisers. As AI tools become more widespread, AI content will proliferate within social media feeds. Such feeds are actively being worked on inside Meta, Zuckerberg noted. "It's something we're starting to test different things around." "I don't know if we know what's exactly going to work really well yet, but some things are really promising," he added. "I have high confidence that over the next several years, this will be one of the important trends and one of the important applications."

Simon Sharwood, reporting for The Register: Organisers of WordCamps, community-organized events for WordPress users, have been ordered to take down some social media posts and share their login credentials for social networks. The order to share creds came from an employee of Automattic, the WordPress host whose CEO happens to be Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress.

A letter sent to WordCamp organizers explains that the creds are needed due to "recurrent issues with new organizing teams losing access to the event's social media accounts." So far, so sensible. But the requirement to share creds comes in the middle of a nasty spat in the WordPress community, sparked by Mullenweg's efforts to have rival hosting biz WP Engine license the WordPress trademark or devote more staff to working on the open source content management system's code.