Most companies are starting to figure out how AI will change the way they do business. Chegg is trying to avoid becoming its first major victim. WSJ: The online education company was for many years the go-to source for students who wanted help with their homework, or a potential tool for plagiarism. The shift to virtual learning during the pandemic sent subscriptions and its stock price to record highs. Then came ChatGPT. Suddenly students had a free alternative to the answers Chegg spent years developing with thousands of contractors in India. Instead of "Chegging" the solution, they began canceling their subscriptions and plugging questions into chatbots. Since ChatGPT's launch, Chegg has lost more than half a million subscribers who pay up to $19.95 a month for prewritten answers to textbook questions and on-demand help from experts. Its stock is down 99% from early 2021, erasing some $14.5 billion of market value. Bond traders have doubts the company will continue bringing in enough cash to pay its debts.

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The year 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record after an extended streak of exceptionally high monthly global mean temperatures, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has announced.

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AI companies like OpenAI are seeking to overcome unexpected delays and challenges in the pursuit of ever-large language models by developing training techniques that use more human-like ways for algorithms to "think." From a report: A dozenAI scientists, researchers and investors told Reuters they believe that these techniques, which are behind OpenAI's recently released o1 model, could reshape the AI arms race, and have implications for the types of resources that AI companies have an insatiable demand for, from energy to types of chips. After the release of the viral ChatGPT chatbot two years ago, technology companies, whose valuations have benefited greatly from the AI boom, have publicly maintained that "scaling up" current models through adding more data and computing power will consistently lead to improved AI models. But now, some of the most prominent AI scientists are speaking out on the limitations of this "bigger is better" philosophy. Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of AI labs Safe Superintelligence (SSI) and OpenAI, told Reuters recently that results from scaling up pre-training -- the phase of training an AI model that uses a vast amount of unlabeled data to understand language patterns and structures -- have plateaued. Sutskever is widely credited as an early advocate of achieving massive leaps in generative AI advancement through t he use of more data and computing power in pre-training, which eventually created ChatGPT. Sutskever left OpenAI earlier this year to found SSI. The Information, reporting over the weekend that Orion, OpenAI's newest model, isn't drastically better than its previous model nor is it better at many tasks: The Orion situation could test a core assumption of the AI field, known as scaling laws: that LLMs would continue to improve at the same pace as long as they had more data to learn from and additional computing power to facilitate that training process. In response to the recent challenge to training-based scaling laws posed by slowing GPT improvements, the industry appears to be shifting its effort to improving models after their initial training, potentially yielding a different type of scaling law. Some CEOs, including Meta Platforms' Mark Zuckerberg, have said that in a worst-case scenario, there would still be a lot of room to build consumer and enterprise products on top of the current technology even if it doesn't improve.

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A new article at Reason.com argues that U.S. courts "are coming for digital libraries." In September, a federal appeals court dealt a major blow to the Internet Archive — one of the largest online repositories of free books, media, and software — in a copyright case with significant implications for publishers, libraries, and readers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that found the Internet Archive's huge, digitized lending library of copyrighted books was not covered by the "fair use" doctrine and infringed on the rights of publishers. Agreeing with the Archive's interpretation of fair use "would significantly narrow — if not entirely eviscerate — copyright owners' exclusive right to prepare derivative works," the 2nd Circuit ruled. "Were we to approve [Internet Archive's] use of the works, there would be little reason for consumers or libraries to pay publishers for content they could access for free." Others disagree, according to some links shared in a recent email from the Internet Archive. Public Knowledge CEO Chris Lewis argues the court's logic renders the fair use doctrine "almost unusuable". And that's just the beginning... This decision harms libraries. It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. It leaves local communities' reading habits at the mercy of curatorial decisions made by four dominant publishing companies thousands of miles away. It steers Americans away from one of the few remaining bastions of privacy protection and funnels them into a surveillance ecosystem that, like Big Tech, becomes more dangerous with each passing data breach. But lawyer/librarian Kyle K. Courtney writes that the case "is specific only to the parties, and does not impact the other existing versions of controlled digital lending." Additionally, this decision is limited to the 2nd Circuit and is not binding anywhere else — in other words, it does not apply to the 47 states outside the 2nd Circuit's jurisdiction. In talking with colleagues in the U.S. this week and last, many are continuing their programs because they believe their digital loaning programs fall outside the scope of this ruling... Moreover, the court's opinion focuses on digital books that the court said "are commercially available for sale or license in any electronic text format." Therefore, there remains a significant number of materials in library collections that have not made the jump to digital, nor are likely to, meaning that there is no ebook market to harm — nor is one likely to emerge for certain works, such as those that are no longer commercially viable... This case represents just one instance in an ongoing conversation about library lending in the digital age, and the possibility of appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court means the final outcome is far from settled. Some more quotes from links shared by Internet Archive: "It was clear that the only reason all the big publishers sued the Internet Archive was to put another nail in the coffin of libraries and push to keep this ebook licensing scheme grift going. Now the courts have helped." — TechDirt "The case against the Internet Archive is not just a story about the ruination of an online library, but a grander narrative of our times: how money facilitates the transference of knowledge away from the public, back towards the few." — blogger Hannah Williams Thanks to Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the news.

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On its 20th anniversary, Firefox "is still going strong, and it is a better browser today than it ever was," according to TechCrunch. In an interview, Mozilla's interim CEO says one of the first things they did when was to "unlock a bunch of money towards Firefox product development... I've been in enough places where people tend to forget about the core business, and they stop investing in it, because they get distracted by shiny things — and then they regret it." "Firefox is incredibly important, and it is our core. We've actually put more investment into it this year and into connecting with our communities, into bringing out and testing features that are positive and creating good experiences for folks. That's been a huge priority for me and for the company this year, and it's showing up in the results." She acknowledged that Mozilla doesn't have the device distribution that benefits many of Firefox's competitors, especially on mobile, but she did note that the Digital Marks Act (DMA) in Europe — which means Apple, for example, has to provide a browser choice screen on iOS — is working. "With the DMA, even though the implementation hasn't been outstanding, we're seeing a real shift. When people have the choice to choose Firefox, they're choosing Firefox," she said... To kick-start some of this growth, Mozilla is looking at reaching new, and younger, users. Chambers noted that Mozilla is running a number of marketing campaigns to make people aware of Firefox, especially those who are only now starting to make their first browser choices. With them, she believes, Mozilla's messaging around privacy lands especially well. In a future where browsers include AI agents that take actions on behalf of users, there might be more confidence in a browser designed for privacy and transparency, the interim CEO points out — as part of their larger mission. "What I love about Firefox is that it really provides users with an alternative choice of a browser that is just genuinely designed for them. "We have, from its very inception and throughout, really wanted to create a browser that prioritizes people over profit, prioritizes privacy over anything else, and to have that option, the choice."

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Renew Home says they're building a "virtual power plant" in Texas by "enabling homes to easily reduce and shift the timing of energy use." Thursday they announced a 10-year project distributing hundreds of thousands of smart thermostats to customers of Texas-based power utility NRG Energy, starting next spring. (Bloomberg calls them "AI-enabled thermostats that use Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud technology.") The ultimate goal? "Create a nearly 1-gigawatt, AI-powered virtual power plant" — equivalent to 1.9 million solar panels, enough to power about 200,000 homes during peak demand. One NRG executive touted the move as "cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions that will bolster grid resilience and contribute to a more sustainable future." [Residential virtual power plants] work by aggregating numerous, small-scale distributed energy resources like HVAC systems controlled by smart thermostats and home batteries and coordinating them to balance supply and demand... NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including professional installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG's retail electricity providers and plans. These advanced thermostats make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner... Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the virtual power plant, expanding energy savings opportunities for customers... Through the use of Google Cloud's data, analytics, and AI technology, NRG will be able to do things like better predict weather conditions, forecast wind and solar generation output, and create predictive pricing models, allowing for more efficient production and ultimately ensuring the home energy experience is seamless for customers. Google Cloud will also offer "its AI and machine learning to determine the best time to cool or heat homes," reports Bloomberg, "based on a household's energy usage patterns and ambient temperatures." It was less than a year ago that Renew Home was formed when Google spun off the load-shifting service for its "Google Nest" thermostats, which merged with load-shift management startup OhmConnect. Bloomberg describes this week's announcement as "Three of the biggest names in US home energy automation... coming together to offer some relief to the beleaguered Texas electrical grid." But they point out that 1 gigawatt is roughly 1% of the record summer demand seen in Texas this year. Still, "The entire industry has been built to serve the peak load on the hottest day of the year," said Rasesh Patel, president of NRG's consumer unit. "This allows us to be a lot more smarter about demand in shaving the peak."

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Wednesday Cuba was hit by a major hurricane which took down its entire power grid again, this time for about 24 hours, according to CNN: Videos of the aftermath showed power infrastructure turned into a mangled mess and power poles down on streets. Hundreds of technicians were mobilized Thursday to reestablish power connections, according to state media... Operations at two electrical plants were partially restored and parts of eastern and central Cuba had electricity back up by Thursday afternoon, state media reported... The country's power grid has collapsed multiple times, including when Hurricane Oscar hit in October and killed at least 7 people. In the capital of Havana, where 2 million people live, power had been restored to less than 20% of the city by late Friday afternoon, . "Authorities had not yet given an estimate for when power would be fully restored..." Then tonight, CNN reported: A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of eastern Cuba on Sunday, causing material damage in several regions as the island continues to recover from widespread blackouts and the impact of two hurricanes over the past few weeks. The earthquake was reported about 39 km (24 miles) south of Bartolomé Masó before noon local time, about an hour after a 5.9 magnitude quake rocked the area, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. "There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said, adding that authorities are evaluating the situation to start recovery efforts.

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When a volcano erupted in 1980 about 70 miles from Portland, "lava incinerated anything living for miles around," remembers an announcement from the University of California at Riverside. But "As an experiment, scientists later dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours. "The benefits from that single day were undeniable — and still visible 40 years later." Once the blistering blast of ash and debris cooled, scientists theorized that, by digging up beneficial bacteria and fungi, gophers might be able to help regenerate lost plant and animal life on the mountain. Two years after the eruption, they tested this theory. "They're often considered pests, but we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur," said UC Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen. They were right. But the scientists did not expect the benefits of this experiment would still be visible in the soil today, in 2024. A paper out this week in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes details an enduring change in the communities of fungi and bacteria where gophers had been, versus nearby land where they were never introduced. "In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction," said Allen. "Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?" In 1983, Allen and Utah State University's James McMahon helicoptered to an area where the lava had turned the land into collapsing slabs of porous pumice. At that time, there were only about a dozen plants that had learned to live on these slabs. A few seeds had been dropped by birds, but the resulting seedlings struggled. After scientists dropped a few local gophers on two pumice plots for a day, the land exploded again with new life. Six years post-experiment, there were 40,000 plants thriving on the gopher plots. The untouched land remained mostly barren. All this was possible because of what isn't always visible to the naked eye. Mycorrhizal fungi penetrate into plant root cells to exchange nutrients and resources. They can help protect plants from pathogens in the soil, and critically, by providing nutrients in barren places, they help plants establish themselves and survive. Mycorrhizal fungi also helped an old-growth forest survive, accoridng to the researchers — even after volcano ash had caused them to drop their needles...

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When a volcano erupted in 1980 about 70 miles from Portland, "lava incinerated anything living for miles around," remembers an announcement from the University of California at Riverside. But "As an experiment, scientists later dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours. "The benefits from that single day were undeniable — and still visible 40 years later." Once the blistering blast of ash and debris cooled, scientists theorized that, by digging up beneficial bacteria and fungi, gophers might be able to help regenerate lost plant and animal life on the mountain. Two years after the eruption, they tested this theory. "They're often considered pests, but we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur," said UC Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen. They were right. But the scientists did not expect the benefits of this experiment would still be visible in the soil today, in 2024. A paper out this week in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes details an enduring change in the communities of fungi and bacteria where gophers had been, versus nearby land where they were never introduced. "In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction," said Allen. "Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?" In 1983, Allen and Utah State University's James McMahon helicoptered to an area where the lava had turned the land into collapsing slabs of porous pumice. At that time, there were only about a dozen plants that had learned to live on these slabs. A few seeds had been dropped by birds, but the resulting seedlings struggled. After scientists dropped a few local gophers on two pumice plots for a day, the land exploded again with new life. Six years post-experiment, there were 40,000 plants thriving on the gopher plots. The untouched land remained mostly barren. All this was possible because of what isn't always visible to the naked eye. Mycorrhizal fungi penetrate into plant root cells to exchange nutrients and resources. They can help protect plants from pathogens in the soil, and critically, by providing nutrients in barren places, they help plants establish themselves and survive. Mycorrhizal fungi also helped an old-growth forest survive, accoridng to the researchers — even after volcano ash had caused them to drop their needles...

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Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis writes: Despite its impressive output, a recent study from MIT suggests generative AI doesn't have a coherent understanding of the world. While the best-performing large language models have surprising capabilities that make it seem like the models are implicitly learning some general truths about the world, that isn't necessarily the case. The recent paper showed that Large Language Models and game-playing AI implicitly model the world, but the models are flawed and incomplete. An example study showed that a popular type of generative AI model accurately provided turn-by-turn driving directions in New York City, without having formed an accurate internal map of the city. Though the model can still navigate effectively, when the researchers closed some streets and added detours, its performance plummeted. And when they dug deeper, the researchers found that the New York maps the model implicitly generated had many nonexistent streets curving between the grid and connecting far away intersections.

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Long-time Slashdot reader DesScorp writes: The Washingtonian magazine reports that yet another company is ending most remote work for its employees. The Post's previous policy from 2022 until now had been 3 days in office, 2 days remote. The employee union for the paper, the Washington Post Guild, will oppose the mandate. The union sent members a defiant email, according to the article. "Guild leadership sees this for what it is: a change that stands to further disrupt our work than to improve our productivity or collaboration." Managers will have to return beginning February 3, 2025, and all other employees will be expected in the office beginning June 2 [according to a memo from publisher Will Lewis]. "I want that great office energy for us every day," Lewis writes. "I am reliably informed that is how it used to be here before Covid, and it's important we get this back."

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"Java application security would be enhanced through two proposals aimed at resisting quantum computing attacks," reports InfoWorld, "one plan involving digital signatures and the other key encapsulation." The two proposals reside in the OpenJDK JEP (JDK Enhancement Proposal) index. The Quantum-Resistant Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm proposal calls for enhancing the security of Java applications by providing an implementation of the quantum-resistant module-latticed-based digital signature algorithm (ML-DSA). ML-DSA would secure against future quantum computing attacks by using digital signatures to detect unauthorized modifications to data and to authenticate the identity of signatories. ML-DSA was standardized by the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in FIPS 204. The Quantum-Resistant Module-Lattice-Based Key Encapsulation Mechanism proposal calls for enhancing application security by providing an implementation of the quantum-resistant module-lattice-based key encapsulation mechanism (ML-KEM). KEMs are used to secure symmetric keys over insecure communication channels using public key cryptography. ML-KEM is designed to be secure against future quantum computing attacks and was standardized by NIST in FIPS 203.

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Slashdot reader sciencehabit shared this report from Science magazine: Elephants love showering to cool off, and most do so by sucking water into their trunks and spitting it over their bodies. But an elderly pachyderm named Mary has perfected the technique by using a hose as a showerhead, much in the way humans do. The behavior is a remarkable example of sophisticated tool use in the animal kingdom. But the story doesn't end there. Mary's long, luxurious baths have drawn so much attention that an envious elephant at the Berlin Zoo has figured out how to shut the water off on her supersoaking rival—a type of sabotage rarely seen among animals. Both behaviors, reported today in Current Biology, further cement elephants as complex thinkers, says Lucy Bates, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Portsmouth not involved in the study. The work, she says, 'suggests problem solving or even 'insight.''

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Salesforce "plans to hire more than 1,000 workers to sell its new generative AI agent product," reports Bloomberg: The hiring surge is aimed at capitalizing on "amazing momentum" for the new artificial intelligence product, Chief Executive Marc Benioff said in a message. "Agentforce became available just two weeks ago and we're already hearing incredible feedback from our customers." The top seller of customer relations management software, Salesforce pivoted its AI strategy this year to focus on agents — tools that can complete tasks such as customer support or sales development without human supervision. It launched the product, dubbed Agentforce, last month, with initial pricing of about $2 per agent conversation.

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The Free Software Foundation turns forty on October 4, 2025 "and we will end our thirties on a high note!" they announced this week: We wish we were celebrating the achievement of software freedom for all computer users, but we're not there yet. Until our mission becomes reality and we can retire, instead, we are celebrating forty years of activism, and all that we have achieved. Since our founding in 1985, we laid out many stepping stones on the road to software freedom, and we're eager to continue building the road ahead. We will celebrate our fortieth in the spirit of bringing the international free software community together, discussing what we can do next to make the world freer, and celebrating how far we've come. We're aiming for a libre planet! Sounds familiar? Instead of hosting one LibrePlanet conference in 2025, we're planning a jam-packed anniversary year, filled with several new and exciting activities! We'll begin the anniversary year with an unprecedented memorabilia auction, starting as a silent auction on March 17, and culminating in a virtual live auction on March 23. By moving out of the FSF office, we got to sort through all the fun and historically important memorabilia and selected the best ones. This is your chance to get your very own personal souvenir of the FSF, from original GNU art to a famous katana and the very same VT220 that was standing on the FSF's front desk, and which people used to display ASCII art or to play free software games. Let's claim the month of May as libre planet (or libre local) month! We're inviting free software supporters like you anywhere in the world, to organize an in-person community meetup in your area to bring people together. We're setting up a small fund for these local gatherings, can send stickers, flyers, ideas and tips, and you can invite an FSF staff member to give a talk or workshop during your event and of course, we'll help promote it... Then, on the actual birthday of the FSF on October 4, 2025, there will be a big celebration in Boston, MA, and the entire free software community is invited... These are just some of the big ticket items we have worked out, but there is more! Keep an eye out on the FSF's pages, we'll be posting exact information on everything upcoming. They're looking for volunteers — and they also suggest organizing a community meetup in your area. Plus, there's also an FSF Anniversary Logo Contest. "We would like to source the fortieth anniversary logo design directly from a free software supporter. Everyone is welcome to submit a design (or even multiple designs) no matter your previous experience in design." The winning design "will be chosen by the community and ultimately immortalized in the history of the FSF," according to the announcement — displayed on the FSF homepage, printed on all celebration materials, "and possibly even stamped on some merchandise." But of course, the contest's requirements include respecting everyone's freedoms: - The logo must be produced using exclusively free software editing tools, such as GIMP, Krita, or Inkscape; - Any fonts used in the design must be under the SIL Open Font license or another free license... "The final logo will be released under CC BY, attributed to the FSF."

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NASA hopes to stimulate in-space manufacturing through a multi-year "laser beam welding collaboration" with Ohio State University. The project "seeks to understand the physical processes of welding on the lunar surface," according to NASA.gov, "such as investigating the effects of laser beam welding in a combined vacuum and reduced gravity environment." The goal is to increase the capabilities of manufacturing in space to potentially assemble large structures or make repairs on the Moon, which will inform humanity's next giant leap of sending astronauts to Mars and beyond. "For a long time, we've used fasteners, rivets, or other mechanical means to keep structures that we assemble together in space," said Andrew O'Connor, a Marshall materials scientist who is helping coordinate the collaborative effort and is NASA's technical lead for the project. "But we're starting to realize that if we really want strong joints and if we want structures to stay together when assembled on the lunar surface, we may need in-space welding." The ability to weld structures in space would also eliminate the need to transport rivets and other materials, reducing payloads for space travel. That means learning how welds will perform in space. To turn the effort into reality, researchers are gathering data on welding under simulated space conditions, such as temperature and heat transfer in a vacuum; the size and shape of the molten area under a laser beam; how the weld cross-section looks after it solidifies; and how mechanical properties change for welds performed in environmental conditions mimicking the lunar surface. "Once you leave Earth, it becomes more difficult to test how the weld performs, so we are leveraging both experiments and computer modeling to predict welding in space while we're still on the ground," said O'Connor. In August 2024, a joint team from Ohio State's Welding Engineering and Multidisciplinary Capstone Programs and Marshall's Materials & Processes Laboratory performed high-powered fiber laser beam welding aboard a commercial aircraft that simulated reduced gravity. The aircraft performed parabolic flight maneuvers that began in level flight, pulled up to add 8,000 feet in altitude, and pushed over at the top of a parabolic arc, resulting in approximately 20 seconds of reduced gravity to the passengers and experiments. While floating in this weightless environment, team members performed laser welding experiments in a simulated environment similar to that of both low Earth orbit and lunar gravity. Analysis of data collected by a network of sensors during the tests will help researchers understand the effects of space environments on the welding process and welded material. They performed that laser-beam welding in a vacuum chamber during the parabolic flight (on a Boeing 727), according to the article — and successfully completed 69 out of 70 welds in microgravity and lunar gravity conditions. "The last time NASA performed welding in space was during the Skylab mission in 1973... "Practical welding and joining methods and allied processes, including additive manufacturing, will be required to develop the in-space economy."

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Nathan Sobo "joined GitHub in late 2011 to build the Atom text editor," according to an online biography, "and he led the Atom team until 2018." Max Brunsfeld joined the Atom team in 2013, and "While driving Atom towards its 1.0 launch during the day, Max spent nights and weekends building Tree-sitter, a blazing-fast and expressive incremental parsing framework that currently powers all code analysis at GitHub." Last year they teamed up with Antonio Scandurra (another Atom alumnus) to launch a new startup called Zed (which in 2023 raised $10 million, according to TechCrunch). And today the open source blog It's FOSS checks in on their open-source code editor — "Zed Editor". Mainly written in Rust, it supports running in CLI, diagnosing project-wide errors, split panes, and markdown previews: By default, any added content is treated as plain text. I used the language switcher to change it to Rust so that I would get proper syntax highlighting, indentation, error detection, and other useful language-specific functions. The switch highlighted all the Rust elements correctly, and I then focused on Zed Editor's user interface. The overall feel of the editor was minimal, with all the important options being laid out nicely. [Its status bar] had some interesting panels. The first one I checked was the Terminal Panel, which, as the name suggests, lets you run commands, scripts, and facilitates interaction with system files or processes directly from within the editor. I then moved to the Assistant Panel, which is home to various large language models that can be integrated into Zed Editor. There are options like Anthropic, GitHub Copilot Chat, Ollama, OpenAI, and Google AI... The Zed Editor team has also recently introduced Zed AI in collaboration with Anthropic for assisting with coding, allowing for code generation, advanced context-powered interactions, and more... The real-time collaboration features on Zed Editor are quite appealing too. To check them out, I had to log in with my GitHub account. After logging in, the Collab Panel opened up, and I could see many channels from the official Zed community. I could chat with others, add collaborators to existing projects, join a call with the option to share my screen and track other collaborators' cursors, add new contacts, and carry out many other collaborative tasks. One can also use extensions and themes to extend what Zed Editor can do. There are some nice pre-installed themes as well.

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"The Rust trademark policy has been updated and a new draft is available to view," announced the Rust Foundation this week. The last proposed trademark policy (in April of 2023) was criticized by open source advocate Bruce Perens in The Register as "far awry of fair use which is legally permitted." The Rust Foundation says this new version has "incorporated a number of suggestions from the Rust community," in a blog post that summarizes the feedback and enumerates specific ways it's been addressed: 1. We primarily plan to lean on community reports for enforcement and have no intention of spending our limited resources policing the work of small creators. 2. We have removed the non-legal language summary and instead have clarified wording throughout as best we can while keeping the policy valid. 3. The Rust trademark does not cover use of the word "Rust" in general and instead pertains to its use in relevant technical settings. 4. We have updated the logo usage policy. Color modifications are allowed. 5. The non-endorsement rule is about managing perception of official affiliation with the Foundation and Rust Project, and is thus subjective. 6. We removed restrictions on the use of "Rust" and "Cargo" in package names. The crates prefixes "rust-" and "cargo-" are no longer reserved to the Rust Project. 7. We will usually allow the community to use the marks on limited merchandise (more details in the updated draft).... [T]he central purpose of these updates is to empower all Rustaceans to engage with the Rust language ecosystem more confidently. As a final step in this process, we invite you to review the updated policy and share any blocking concerns you might have... Thank you to everyone who weighed in with helpful suggestions on the initial trademark policy draft we shared. The level of engagement and passion within the Rust community is inspiring to all of us at the Rust Foundation. The tech news site Heise Online writes "It is noticeable that the language is much clearer and dispenses with a lot of legal jargon," in a piece which argues the new draft "should calm the waves and create clarity." The new draft is not only formulated more simply, but is also significantly shorter. Some restrictions have been softened in the new rules or have disappeared completely... Meanwhile, the Foundation has also adapted its logo so that it is clear which logo stands for the programming language and which for the Foundation. The use of the name Rust is explicitly permitted to identify projects that are either written in the programming language or are compatible with it... Before the new trademark rules come into force, the Rust Foundation is collecting feedback on the current draft. The web form is open until November 20, 2024.

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Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper than lithium-ion batteries — and they're also more environmentally friendly. And "In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States," reports the Washington Post, with a new factory planned to manufacture them "in the same way as lithium-ion batteries, just with different ingredients. Instead of using expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt, these will be made of sodium, iron and manganese..." Last month, sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy announced it would open a "gigafactory" in North Carolina that would produce 24 gigawatt hours of batteries annually, enough energy to charge 24,000 electric vehicles. But sodium-ion batteries are still early in their development compared with lithium-ion, and they have yet to hit the market on a massive scale. "It's unlikely sodium-ion could displace lithium-ion anytime soon," said Keith Beers, polymer science and materials chemistry principal engineer at technical consultancy firm Exponent... The biggest limitation of sodium-ion batteries is their weight. Sodium weighs nearly three times as much as lithium, and it cannot store the same amount of energy. As a result, sodium-ion batteries tend to be larger. Jens Peters, an economics professor at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, said the energy density could be improved over time in sodium-ion batteries. But, he added, "what we found out so far in our assessments is that it is not a game changer." Sodium-ion batteries are touted to be the environmentally friendly alternative to their lithium-ion counterparts, thanks to their raw materials. Sodium, iron and manganese are all abundant elements on the planet, so they require less energy to extract and cost less... Sodium-ion batteries also last longer than lithium-ion ones because they can withstand more charge cycles, said Wendell Brooks, co-CEO of Natron Energy. "Our product can have millions of cycles," said Brooks, "where lithium-ion would have three to five thousand cycles and wear out a lot faster...." Sodium-ion batteries aren't the best fit for smartphones or electric vehicles, which need to store lots of energy. However, one advantage is their low cost. And they could be a good candidate in situations where the size of the battery isn't a concern, like energy storage. "When something is built out to support grid or backup storage, it doesn't need to be very dense. It's staying put," Beers said. Natron will invest nearly $1.4 billion in the factory "to meet the rapidly expanding demand for critical power, industrial and grid energy storage solutions," according to their announcement. "Natron's high-performance sodium-ion batteries outperform lithium-ion batteries in power density and recharging speed, do not require lithium, cobalt, copper, or nickel, and are non-flammable... Natron's batteries are the only UL-listed sodium-ion batteries on the market today, and will be delivered to a wide range of customer end markets in the industrial power space, including data centers, mobility, EV fast charging, microgrids, and telecom, among others."

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On Tuesday Massachusetts voted to become the first state to allow gig-working drivers to join labor unions, reports WBUR: Since these gig workers are classified as independent contractors, federal law allowing employees the right to unionize does not apply to them. With the passage of this ballot initiative, Massachusetts is the first state to give ride-hailing drivers the ability to collectively bargain over working conditions. Supporters have said the ballot measure "could provide a model for other states to let Uber and Lyft drivers unionize," reports Reuters, "and inspire efforts to organize them around the United States." Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president of 32BJ SEIU, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, that had spearheaded a campaign to pass the proposal, said its approval shows that Massachusetts voters want drivers to have a meaningful check against the growing power of app-based companies... The Massachusetts vote was the latest front in a years-long battle in the United States over whether ride-share drivers should be considered to be independent contractors or employees entitled to benefits and wage protections. Studies have shown that using contractors can cost companies as much as 30% less than employees. Drivers for Uber and Lyft, including approximately 70,000 in Massachusetts, do not have the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act... Under the Massachusetts measure, drivers can form a union after collecting signatures from at least 25% of active drivers in Massachusetts, and companies can form associations to allow them to jointly negotiate with the union during state-supervised talks. But the Boston Globe points out that the measure " divided labor advocates in Massachusetts, some of whom worry it would in fact be a step backward in the lengthy fight to boost the rights of gig workers." Those concerns led the state's largest labor organization, the AFL-CIO, to remain neutral. But two unions backing the effort, the SEIU 32BJ and the International Association of Machinists, say allowing drivers to unionize, even if not as full employees, will help provide urgently needed worker protections and better pay and safety standards.

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