Slashdot

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: Worried that your latest ask to a cloud-based AI reveals a bit too much about you? Want to know your genetic risk of disease without revealing it to the services that compute the answer? There is a way to do computing on encrypted data without ever having it decrypted. It's called fully homomorphic encryption, or FHE. But there's a rather large catch. It can take thousands -- even tens of thousands -- of times longer to compute on today's …

Last November, Amazon sued Perplexity demanding that the AI search startup stop allowing its AI browser agent, Comet, to make purchases for users online. Today, a judge ruled in favor of the tech giant, granting it a temporary court injunction blocking the scraping of Amazon's website. According to court filings, the judge found strong evidence the tool accessed the retailer's systems "without authorization." CNBC reports: In a ruling dated Monday, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney wrote that …

sziring shares a report from Business Insider: Silicon Valley has long competed for talent with ever-richer pay packages built around salary, bonus, and equity. Now, a fourth line item is creeping into the mix: AI inference. As generative AI tools become embedded in software development, the cost of running the underlying models -- known as inference -- is emerging as a productivity driver and a budget line that finance chiefs can't ignore. Software engineers and AI researchers inside tech comp…

AT&T plans to invest more than $250 billion over the next five years to expand U.S. telecom infrastructure for the AI age. The company says it will also hire thousands of technicians while partnering with AST SpaceMobile to extend coverage to remote areas. Reuters reports: Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and connected devices has prompted telecom operators to invest heavily in fiber and 5G networks as they also seek to fend off intensifying competition from cable broa…

Since 1999, Slashdot has been covering the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremonies -- which honor real scientific research into strange or surprising subjects. "After 35 years in Boston, the annual prize ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland, this year and will continue to be held in a European city for the foreseeable future," reports Ars Technica. "The reason: concerns about the safety of international travelers, who are increasingly reluctant to travel to the U.S. to participate." "During…

OpenAI is reportedly backing away from expanding its AI data center partnership with Oracle because newer generations of Nvidia GPUs may arrive before the facility is even operational. CNBC reports: Artificial intelligence chips are getting upgraded more quickly than data centers can be built, a market reality that exposes a key risk to the AI trade and Oracle's debt-fueled expansion. OpenAI is no longer planning to expand its partnership with Oracle in Abilene, Texas, home to the Stargate data…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: AI can reverse engineer machine code and find vulnerabilities in ancient legacy architectures, says Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich, who used his own Apple II code from 40 years ago as an example. Russinovich wrote: "We are entering an era of automated, AI-accelerated vulnerability discovery that will be leveraged by both defenders and attackers." In May 1986, Russinovich wrote a utility called Enhancer for the Apple II personal comput…

Axios reports that Meta has acquired Moltbook, the viral, Reddit-like social network designed for AI agents. Humans are welcome, but only to observe. Axios reports: The deal brings Moltbook's creators -- Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr -- into Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), the unit run by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. Meta did not disclose Moltbook's purchase price. The deal is expected to close mid-March, Meta says, with the pair starting at MSL on March 16. When it launched in late Janua…

German publishers and advertising groups are urging regulators to fine Apple over its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) system, arguing it unfairly restricts access to advertising data while allowing Apple to remain the central gatekeeper -- without subjecting its own apps to the same restrictions. If Germany's antitrust authority does rule against Apple, the company could face fines of up to 10% of its global revenue. 9to5Mac reports: One of the countries investigating whether ATT is anticompeti…

Private equity firm EQT AB is reportedly exploring a sale of SUSE that could value the open-source Linux pioneer at up to $6 billion, roughly doubling the valuation since EQT took the company private in 2023. Reuters reports: EQT "has hired investment bank Arma Partners to sound out a group of private equity investors for a possible sale of the company, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters. The deliberations are at "an early stage and there is no certainty t…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, tens of thousands of game developers and producers will once again gather in San Francisco, as they have since 1988, for the weeklong Game Developers Conference. But this year's show will be missing many international developers who say they no longer feel comfortable traveling to the United States to attend, no matter how relevant the show is to their work and careers. Dozens of those developers who spoke to Ars in recent months…

The FBI is investigating a breach affecting systems tied to wiretapping and surveillance warrant data, after abnormal logs revealed possible unauthorized access to law-enforcement-sensitive information. "The FBI identified and addressed suspicious activities on FBI networks, and we have leveraged all technical capabilities to respond," a spokesperson for the bureau said. "We have nothing additional to provide." The Register reports: [W]hile the FBI declined to provide any additional information…

A startup called Reflect Orbital wants to launch thousands of mirror-bearing satellites to reflect sunlight onto Earth at night and "power solar farms after sunset, provide lighting for rescue workers and illuminate city streets, among other things," reports the New York Times. From the report: It is an idea seemingly out of a sci-fi movie, but the company, Reflect Orbital of Hawthorne, Calif., could soon receive permission to launch its first prototype satellite with a 60-foot-wide mirror. The…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Heise: Pay securely with an Android smartphone, completely without Google services: This is the plan being developed by the newly founded industry consortium led by the German Volla Systeme GmbH. It is an open-source alternative to Google Play Integrity. This proprietary interface decides on Android smartphones with Google Play services whether banking, government, or wallet apps are allowed to run on a smartphone. Obstacles and tips for paying with an A…

Samsung says it's thinking about bringing "vibe coding" to future Galaxy phones, allowing users to describe apps or interface changes in plain language and have AI generate the code. TechRadar interviewed Won-Joon Choi, Samsung's head of mobile experience, to learn more about the plans. Here's an excerpt from their report: As noted by Won-Joon Choi, the usefulness of vibe coding on smartphones is that it opens up the "possibility of customizing your smartphone experience in new ways, not just y…