U.S. regulators are pressing Waymo for answers after Texas officials reported 19 instances of its self-driving cars illegally passing stopped school buses, including cases that occurred after Waymo claimed to have deployed a software fix. Longtime Slashdot reader BrendaEM shares the report from Reuters: In a November 20 letter posted by NHTSA, the Austin Independent School District said five incidents occurred in November after Waymo said it had made software updates to resolve the issue and asked the company to halt operations around schools during pick-up and drop-off times until it could ensure the vehicles would not violate the law. "We cannot allow Waymo to continue endangering our students while it attempts to implement a fix," a lawyer for the school district wrote, citing one incident involving a Waymo that was "recorded driving past a stopped school bus only moments after a student crossed in front of the vehicle, and while the student was still in the road." The letter prompted NHTSA to ask Waymo on November 24 if it would comply with the request to cease self-driving operations during student pick-up and drop-off times, adding: "Was an appropriate software fix implemented or developed to mitigate this concern? And if so, does Waymo plan to file a recall for the fix?" The school district told Reuters on Thursday that Waymo refuses to halt operations around schools and said another incident involving a self-driving car and an actively loading school bus occurred on December 1, which "indicates that those programming changes did not resolve the issue or our concerns." In a statement, Waymo did not answer why it had refused to halt operations around Austin schools or answer if it would issue a recall. "We're deeply invested in safe interaction with school buses. We swiftly implemented software updates to address this and will continue to rapidly improve," Waymo said. NHTSA said in a letter to Waymo on Wednesday that it was demanding answers to a series of questions by January 20 about incidents involving school buses and details of software updates to address safety concerns.

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Ancient Slashdot user Alain Williams shares a report from Al Jazeera: The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has announced it filed a complaint against Microsoft, accusing the global tech giant of unlawfully processing data on behalf of the Israeli military and facilitating the killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. In the complaint, the council asked the Data Protection Commission -- the European Union's lead data regulator for the company -- to "urgently investigate" Microsoft Ireland's processing. "Microsoft's technology has put millions of Palestinians in danger. These are not abstract data-protection failures -- they are violations that have enabled real-world violence," Joe O'Brien, ICCL's executive director, said in a statement. "When EU infrastructure is used to enable surveillance and targeting, the Irish Data Protection Commission must step in -- and it must use its full powers to hold Microsoft to account." After months of complaints from rights groups and Microsoft whistleblowers, the company said in September it cancelled some services to the Israeli military over concerns that it was violating Microsoft's terms of service by using cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians.

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A light aircraft crashed in Gloucestershire after a 3D-printed plastic air-induction elbow softened from engine heat and collapsed, cutting power during final approach and causing the plane to undershoot the runway. Investigators say the part was made from "inappropriate material" and safety actions will be taken in the future regarding 3D printed parts. The BBC reports: Following an "uneventful local flight", the AAIB report said the pilot advanced the throttle on the final approach to the runway, and realized the engine had suffered a complete loss of power. "He managed to fly over a road and a line of bushes on the airfield boundary, but landed short and struck the instrument landing system before coming to rest at the side of the structure," the report read. It was revealed the part had been installed during a modification to the fuel system and collapsed due to its 3D-printed plastic material softening when exposed to heat from the engine. The Light Aircraft Association (LAA) said it now intends to take safety actions in response to the accident, including a "LAA Alert" regarding the use of 3D-printed parts that will be sent to inspectors.

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Russia has blocked Apple's FaceTime and the gaming platform Roblox as part of a broader crackdown on foreign tech platforms. CBC News reports: Both restrictions are part of an accelerating clampdown on foreign tech platforms: In the case of FaceTime, Russian authorities allege it is being used for criminal activity, while Roblox was accused of distributing extremist materials and "LGBT propaganda." The move follows restrictions against Google's YouTube, Meta's WhatsApp and the Telegram messaging service. Critics say the curbs amount to censorship and a tightening of state control over private communications. Russia says they are legitimate law enforcement measures. Russian authorities have this year launched a state-backed rival app called Max, which critics say could be used for surveillance -- allegations that state media have dismissed as false. Justifying its decision, the communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in an emailed statement: "According to law enforcement agencies, FaceTime is being used to organize and carry out terrorist attacks in the country, recruit perpetrators, and commit fraud and other crimes against Russian citizens." The watchdog did not cite evidence in support of the allegations.

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The EU has opened an antitrust investigation into Meta over a new WhatsApp policy that could block rival AI assistants from accessing the platform. Complaints from smaller AI developers triggered the probe, which could lead to fines of up to 10% of Meta's global revenue if the company is found to have abused its dominance. Reuters reports: EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the move was to prevent dominant firms from "abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors." She added interim measures could be imposed to block Meta's new WhatsApp AI policy rollout. "AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond," she said. "This is why we are investigating if Meta's new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space." A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims "baseless," adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a "strain on our systems that they were not designed to support," a reference to AI systems from other providers. "Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems."

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Longtime Slashdot reader williamyf writes: The Italian company Bending Spoons seems to be on an acquisitions spree. Their recent acquisitions of AOL and Vimeo are not yet finalized, yet on Dec. 2 they announced they are buying Eventbrite, a company specializing in publicizing and organizing local events, for just half a milliard USD. Bending Spoons' portfolio also includes other companies like Evernote and WeTransfer. Further reading: Private Equity Hipsters Are Coming For Your Favorite Apps (2024)

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joshuark shares a report from BleepingComputer: Microsoft has silently "mitigated" a high-severity Windows LNK vulnerability exploited by multiple state-backed and cybercrime hacking groups in zero-day attacks. Tracked as CVE-2025-9491, this security flaw allows attackers to hide malicious commands within Windows LNK files, which can be used to deploy malware and gain persistence on compromised devices. However, the attacks require user interaction to succeed, as they involve tricking potential victims into opening malicious Windows Shell Link (.lnk) files. Thus some element of social engineering, and user technically naive and gullibility such as thinking Windows is secure is required. [...] As Trend Micro threat analysts discovered in March 2025, the CVE-2025-9491 was already being widely exploited by 11 state-sponsored groups and cybercrime gangs, including Evil Corp, Bitter, APT37, APT43 (also known as Kimsuky), Mustang Panda, SideWinder, RedHotel, Konni, and others. Microsoft told BleepingComputer in March that it would "consider addressing" this zero-day flaw, even though it didn't "meet the bar for immediate servicing." ACROS Security CEO and 0patch co-founder Mitja Kolsek found, Microsoft has silently changed LNK files in the November updates in an apparent effort to mitigate the CVE-2025-9491 flaw. After installing last month's updates, users can now see all characters in the Target field when opening the Properties of LNK files, not just the first 260. As the movie the Ninth Gate stated: "silentium est aurum"

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A severe spike in global DRAM prices has pushed Samsung Semiconductor to refuse a long-term RAM order from its own sibling, Samsung Electronics. The move is forcing the smartphone division into short, expensive renegotiations, which will likely mean higher costs for consumer devices. PCWorld reports: Samsung subsidiaries are, naturally, going to look to Samsung Semiconductor first when they need parts. Such was reportedly the case for Samsung Electronics, in search of memory supplies for its newest smartphones as the company ramps up production for 2026 flagship designs. But with so much RAM hardware going into new "AI" data centers -- and those companies willing to pay top dollar for their hardware -- memory manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are prioritizing data center suppliers to maximize profits. The end result, according to a report from SE Daily spotted by SamMobile, is that Samsung Semiconductor rejected the original order for smartphone DRAM chips from Samsung Electronics' Mobile Experience division. The smartphone manufacturing arm of the company had hoped to nail down pricing and supply for another year. But reports say that due to "chipflation," the phone-making division must renegotiate quarterly, with a long-term supply deal rejected by its corporate sibling. A short-term deal, with higher prices, was reportedly hammered out.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Almost three in 10 GPs in the UK are using AI tools such as ChatGPT in consultations with patients, even though it could lead to them making mistakes and being sued, a study reveals. The rapid adoption of AI to ease workloads is happening alongside a "wild west" lack of regulation of the technology, which is leaving GPs unaware which tools are safe to use. That is the conclusion of research by the Nuffield Trust thinktank, based on a survey of 2,108 family doctors by the Royal College of GPs about AI and on focus groups of GPs. Ministers hope that AI can help reduce the delays patients face in seeing a GP. The study found that more and more GPs were using AI to produce summaries of appointments with patients, assisting their diagnosis of the patient's condition and routine administrative tasks. In all, 598 (28%) of the 2,108 survey respondents said they were already using AI. More male (33%) than female (25%) GPs have used it and far more use it in well-off than in poorer areas. It is moving quickly into more widespread use. However, large majorities of GPs, whether they use it or not, worry that practices that adopt it could face "professional liability and medico-legal issues," and "risks of clinical errors" and problems of "patient privacy and data security" as a result, the Nuffield Trust's report says. [...] In a blow to ministerial hopes, the survey also found that GPs use the time it saves them to recover from the stresses of their busy days rather than to see more patients. "While policymakers hope that this saved time will be used to offer more appointments, GPs reported using it primarily for self-care and rest, including reducing overtime working hours to prevent burnout," the report adds.

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Subaru owners are reporting full-screen SiriusXM pop-up ads appearing on their infotainment systems while driving -- sometimes even overriding Apple CarPlay. Subaru says the ads appear only twice a year, but frustrated drivers argue the practice is distracting, unsafe, and a sign of an industry trend that's likely to get worse. The Drive reports: At least one 2024 Crosstrek owner reported that the pop-up took over their screen even though they were using Apple CarPlay. To force-close an application that's in use, solely for the sake of in-car advertising, is especially egregious. [The following Subaru owner complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reiterate that point...] The Drive reached out to Subaru for comment on the marketing tactics. A company spokesperson responded, "We will discuss those messages in an upcoming meeting and will always consider customer feedback. This is the first we've heard of any issue. Those messages occur only twice a year, around Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, to alert customers that all channels are available to them for about two weeks." Reddit posts dating back as far as 2023 show owners complaining about in-car notifications.

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Apple's longtime human-interface chief Alan Dye is leaving to lead a new creative studio at Meta's Reality Labs, where he'll shape AI-driven design for devices like smart glasses and VR headsets. Dye will be replaced by Steve Lemay, who has had "a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999," according to a statement Apple CEO Tim Cook gave Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. TechCrunch reports: Shortly after the news broke of Dye's departure, Zuckerberg announced a new creative studio within Reality Labs that would be led by Dye. There, he'll be joined by Billy Sorrentino, another former Apple designer who led interface design across Reality Labs; Joshua To, who led interface design across Reality Labs; Meta's industrial design team, led by Pete Bristol; and its metaverse design and art teams led by Jason Rubin. Zuckerberg said the studio would "bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences." "Our idea is to treat intelligence as a new design material and imagine what becomes possible when it is abundant, capable, and human-centered," the Meta CEO wrote on Threads. "We plan to elevate design within Meta, and pull together a talented group with a combination of craft, creative vision, systems thinking, and deep experience building iconic products that bridge hardware and software."

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A London Assembly report warns that surging demand from "energy-hungry" data centers is straining the electricity grid and delaying new housing developments. With data-center electricity use expected to rise up to 600% by 2050, officials fear London's housing crisis could worsen without coordinated action. The BBC reports: According to the report (PDF) from the London Assembly Planning and Regeneration Committee, some new housing developments in west London were temporarily delayed after the electricity grid reached full capacity. The committee's chair James Small-Edwards said energy capacity had become a "real constraint" on housing and economic growth in the city. In 2022, the General London Assembly (GLA) began to investigate delays to housing developments in the boroughs of Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow - after it received reports that completed projects were being told they would have to "wait until 2037" to get a connection to the electricity grid. There were fears the boroughs may have to "pause new housing altogether" until the issue was resolved. But the GLA found short-term fixes with the National Grid and energy regulator Ofgem to ensure the "worst-case scenario" did not happen -- though several projects were still set back. The strains on parts of London's housing highlighted the need for "longer term planning" around grid capacity in the future, said the report.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Earlier this year, home goods maker Kohler launched a smart camera called the Dekoda that attaches to your toilet bowl, takes pictures of it, and analyzes the images to advise you on your gut health. Anticipating privacy fears, Kohler said on its website that the Dekoda's sensors only see down into the toilet, and claimed that all data is secured with "end-to-end encryption." The company's use of the expression "end-to-end encryption" is, however, wrong, as security researcher Simon Fondrie-Teitler pointed out in a blog post on Tuesday. By reading Kohler's privacy policy, it's clear that the company is referring to the type of encryption that secures data as it travels over the internet, known as TLS encryption -- the same that powers HTTPS websites. [...] The security researcher also pointed out that given Kohler can access customers' data on its servers, it's possible Kohler is using customers' bowl pictures to train AI. Citing another response from the company representative, the researcher was told that Kohler's "algorithms are trained on de-identified data only." A "privacy contact" from Kohler said that user data is "encrypted at rest, when it's stored on the user's mobile phone, toilet attachment, and on our systems." The company also said that, "data in transit is also encrypted end-to-end, as it travels between the user's devices and our systems, where it is decrypted and processed to provide our service."

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Nature has retracted a headline-grabbing climate-economics study after critics found flawed data that massively inflated its predicted global economic collapse. The New York Times reports: The decision came after a team of economists noticed problems with the data for one country, Uzbekistan, that significantly skewed the results. If Uzbekistan were excluded, they found, the damages would look similar to earlier research (PDF). Instead of a 62 percent decline in economic output by 2100 in a world where carbon emissions continue unabated, global output would be reduced by 23 percent. Of course, erasing more than 20 percent of the world's economic activity would still be a devastating blow to human welfare. The paper's detractors emphasize that climate change is a major threat, as recent meta analyses have found, and that more should be done to address it -- but, they say, unusual results should be treated skeptically. "Most people for the last decade have thought that a 20 percent reduction in 2100 was an insanely large number," said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at Stanford University who co-wrote the critique published in August. "So the fact that this paper is coming out saying 60 percent is off the chart."

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Slashdot readers jmurtari and schwit1 shares news that a Russian astronaut slated for the next Dragon mission to the ISS has been removed after being caught photographing proprietary SpaceX hardware. UNITED24 reports: Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev has been removed from the prime crew of SpaceX's Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station and replaced by fellow Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev after sources alleged he photographed confidential SpaceX materials in California in violation of U.S. export control rules, according to The Insider on December 2. The outlet reported that Trishkin also said NASA did not want the controversy around Artemyev to become public, while Artemyev was removed from training at SpaceX's Hawthorne California, facility last week after allegedly photographing SpaceX engines and other internal materials on his phone and taking them off-site.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge's Sean Hollister If you wrote off the Steam Frame as yet another VR headset few will want to wear, I guarantee you're not alone. But the Steam Frame isn't just a headset; it's a Trojan horse that contains the tech gamers need to play Steam games on the next Samsung Galaxy, the next Google Pixel, perhaps Arm gaming notebooks to come. I know, because I'm already using that tech on my Samsung Galaxy. There is no official Android version of Hollow Knight: Silksong, one of the best games of 2025, but that doesn't have to stop you anymore. Thanks to a stack of open-source technologies, including a compatibility layer called Proton and an emulator called Fex, games that were developed for x86-based Windows PCs can now run on Linux-based phones with the Arm processor architecture. With Proton, the Steam Deck could already do the Windows-to-Linux part; now, Fex is bridging x86 and Arm, too. This stack is what powers the Steam Frame's own ability to play Windows games, of course, and it was widely reported that Valve is using the open-source Fex emulator to make it happen. What wasn't widely reported: Valve is behind Fex itself. In an interview, Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the architects behind SteamOS and the Steam Deck, tells The Verge that Valve has been quietly funding almost all the open-source technologies required to play Windows games on Arm. And because they're open-source, Valve is effectively shepherding a future where Arm phones, laptops, and desktops could freely do the same. He says the company believes game developers shouldn't be wasting time porting games if there's a better way. Remember when the Steam Deck handheld showed that a decade of investment in Linux could make Windows gaming portable? Valve paid open-source developers to follow their passions to help achieve that result. Valve has been guiding the effort to bring games to Arm in much the same way: In 2016 and 2017, Griffais tells me, the company began recruiting and funding open-source developers to bring Windows games to Arm chips. Fex lead developer Ryan Houdek tells The Verge he chatted with Griffais himself at conferences those years and whipped up the first prototype in 2018. He tells me Valve pays enough that Fex is his full-time job. "I want to thank the people from Valve for being here from the start and allowing me to kickstart this project," he recently wrote.

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AT&T and Verizon are blocking T-Mobile's new "Switching Made Easy" tool that scans their customer accounts to recommend comparable plans. AT&T is also suing, alleging T-Mobile used bots to scrape over 100 fields of sensitive customer data. From The Mobile Report: According to a lawsuit, which AT&T has shared directly with us, T-Mobile updated the T-Life app's scraping abilities three separate times in an attempt to bypass AT&T's detection. Essentially, T-Mobile and AT&T have been in a game of cat and mouse. Not only that, but AT&T alleges that T-Mobile is intentionally hiding the fact that it's their scraper accessing an account, and essentially pretends to be an end user while doing so. Apparently, T-Mobile's scraping bot tries its best to appear as a generic web browser. AT&T sent T-Mobile a cease and desist letter on November 24th demanding T-Mobile stop the scraping process. T-Mobile responded two days later refusing, stating that the process was legal because "customers themselves ... log into their own wireless account." On November 26th, AT&T says they detected T-Mobile is no longer scraping the AT&T website, and instead asks users to upload a pdf of their bill or enter some info manually. They note, however, that at the time the app still appeared to scrape Verizon accounts. The lawsuit further explains that AT&T reached out to Apple with the claim that T-Mobile's T-Life app is also violating the App Store Review Guidelines. T-Mobile responded to this complaint as well, making similar claims that the scraping process does not violate those guidelines. [...] According to AT&T, the T-Life app collects way more information than is necessary for a simple carrier switch. The company alleges T-Mobile grabs over 100 separate bits of info from a customer's account, including info about other users on the account and other services not related to wireless service. It's also worth noting that, apparently, T-Mobile is storing this information, not just using it temporarily, even if the customer doesn't end up switching. T-Mobile has responded to our request for comment, and says that actually, AT&T is wrong about the facts, and Easy Switch is safe and secure...

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A federal judge has ordered OpenAI to hand over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT logs in its copyright battle with the New York Times and other outlets. Reuters reports: U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in a decision made public on Wednesday said that the 20 million logs were relevant to the outlets' claims and that handing them over would not risk violating users' privacy. The judge rejected OpenAI's privacy-related objections to an earlier order requiring the artificial intelligence startup to submit the records as evidence. "There are multiple layers of protection in this case precisely because of the highly sensitive and private nature of much of the discovery," Wang said. An OpenAI spokesperson on Wednesday cited an earlier blog post from the company's Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey, which said the Times' demand for the chat logs "disregards long-standing privacy protections" and "breaks with common-sense security practices." OpenAI has separately appealed Wang's order to the case's presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein. A group of newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital's MediaNews Group is also involved in the lawsuit. MediaNews Group executive editor Frank Pine said in a statement on Wednesday that OpenAI's leadership was "hallucinating when they thought they could get away with withholding evidence about how their business model relies on stealing from hardworking journalists."

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Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: [T]he Trump administration announced less stringent Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards in an effort to bring down the price of new vehicles. The administration says that rules put in place by the Biden administration broke the law by going beyond the requirements mandated by Congress when the CAFE program was started. The new regulations will require automakers to meet an average fuel-economy figure of 34.5 mpg across 2031-model-year vehicles, instead of the 50.4 mpg that would have been required under the previous regulations. sinij comments: "This is a much-needed move as they also recently closed a number of loopholes, such as the assumed fuel-savings credit for engine start-stop technology, that made it more difficult to meet these goals. More so, a recent string of engine and transmission failures from multiple manufacturers shows that meeting fleet standards came at a very significant cost of reduced reliability."

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404 Media's Claire Woodcock writes: As prices for streaming subscriptions continue to soar and finding movies to watch, new and old, is becoming harder as the number of streaming services continues to grow, people are turning to the unexpected last stronghold of physical media: the public library. Some libraries are now intentionally using iconic Blockbuster branding to recall the hours visitors once spent looking for something to rent on Friday and Saturday nights. John Scalzo, audiovisual collection librarian with a public library in western New York, says that despite an observed drop-off in DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra disc circulation in 2019, interest in physical media is coming back around. "People really seem to want physical media," Scalzo told 404 Media. Part of it has to do with consumer awareness: People know they're paying more for monthly subscriptions to streaming services and getting less. The same has been true for gaming. As the audiovisual selector with the Free Library of Philadelphia since 2024, Kris Langlais has been focused on building the library's video game collections to meet comparable interest in demand. Now that every branch library has a prominent video game collection, Langlais says that patrons who come for the games are reportedly expressing interest in more of what the library has to offer. "Librarians out in our branches are seeing a lot of young people who are really excited by these collections," Langlais told 404 Media. "Folks who are coming in just for the games are picking up program flyers and coming back for something like that." IP disputes are fueling the shift, too. The report notes how rights and licensing battles are making some films harder to access -- from titles that quietly slip out of commercial circulation, to streaming-only releases that never make it to disc, to entire shows vanishing during mergers like HBO Max-Discovery+. One prominent example is The People's Joker, which was briefly pulled from the Toronto International Film Festival over a conflict with Batman's rightsholders. Situations like that are pushing librarians to grab physical copies while they still can, before these works risk disappearing altogether.

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