LinkedIn's engagement-driven algorithm systematically elevates shallow, meaningless content over substantive professional discourse, according to a new analysis that highlights how major platforms prioritize user retention metrics over content quality. Entrepreneur and product executive Elliot Smith describes encountering a "seemingly endless stream of posts that are over fluffed, over produced and ultimately say nothing" that he categorizes as "toxic mediocrity." Smith argues the platform's reward system creates a destructive cycle where "comments, likes and other engagement" signal user activity to LinkedIn's algorithm, which then promotes similar vapid content. "LinkedIn wants you on LinkedIn," Smith writes, noting the Microsoft-owned platform correlates engagement with ad clicks and premium conversions. Smith recommends professionals focus on substantive work rather than platform gaming, arguing "nothing you post there is going to change your career."

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Starting September 1st, Russia will require all smartphones and tablets sold in the country to come with MAX, a state-backed messaging app seen as a rival to WhatsApp and Telegram. Critics say the app could be used to track users. Reuters reports: The Russian government said in a statement that MAX, which will be integrated with government services, would be on a list of mandatory pre-installed apps on all "gadgets," including mobile phones and tablets, sold in Russia from September 1. State media says accusations from Kremlin critics that MAX is a spying app are false and that it has fewer permissions to access user data than rivals WhatsApp and Telegram. It will also be mandatory that from September 1, Russia's domestic app store, RuStore, which is pre-installed on all Android devices, will be pre-installed on Apple devices. A Russian-language TV app called LIME HD TV, which allows people to watch state TV channels for free, will be pre-installed on all smart TVs sold in Russia from January 1, the government added. [...] MAX said this week that 18 million users had downloaded its app, parts of which are still in a testing phase. Russia's interior ministry said on Wednesday that MAX was safer than foreign rivals, but that it had arrested a suspect in the first fraud case using the new messenger.

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Reviewers are more likely to approve a manuscript if their own work is cited in subsequent versions than are reviewers who are not cited, according to an analysis of 18,400 articles from four open-access publications. From a report: The study, which is yet to be peer reviewed, was posted online as a preprint earlier this month. The study was inspired by anecdotes from authors who cited articles only because reviewers asked them to, says study author Adrian Barnett, who researches peer review and meta-research at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Sometimes, these requests are fine, he says. But if reviewers ask for too many citations or the reason to cite their work is not justified, the peer-review process can become transactional, says Barnett. Citations increase a researcher's h-index, a metric reflecting the impact of their publications.

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Google's Android 16 QPR2 beta 1 is rolling out with new customization features, including the ability to force dark mode and icon themes on apps that don't support them. The update also adds enhanced parental controls, better data migration, PDF editing, and Bluetooth audio sharing, with a full release expected in December. The Verge reports: The beta includes a new dark theme option that will "intelligently invert the UI of apps that appear light despite users having selected the dark theme" when enabled, according to Google's announcement, forcibly making apps that don't natively support the feature to appear darker. Google says this is "largely intended as an accessibility feature" for users with low vision or photosensitivity, and will also automatically darken app splash screens and adjust status bar colors to match the darker theming. Another feature will allow users to forcibly apply themed icon colors to apps that don't natively support them. Android's icon theming currently only works if app developers have provided a monochrome version of their app icon that can be adjusted, which is annoying for users who want to apply a consistent aesthetic across their entire home page. Auto-themed app icons spare developers from adding this capability manually, removing the hassle for users to customize their phone's theme. The full list of features in the QPR2 beta 1 update can be found on the Android developers' blog.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Jay Blahnik was a fitness superstar with a book and nearly two decades of work with Nike before he was hired in 2013 to work on the Apple Watch. He became known inside Apple as the creator of the watch's signature fitness feature: three circular bands that people could complete through the day by exercising, standing and burning calories. Marketed with the tagline "Close Your Rings," the concept helped galvanize sales of Apple's first breakout product after Steve Jobs's death. But along the way, Mr. Blahnik created a toxic work environment (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), said nine current and former employees who worked with or for Mr. Blahnik and spoke about personnel issues on the condition of anonymity. They said Mr. Blahnik, 57, who leads a roughly 100-person division as vice president for fitness technologies, could be verbally abusive, manipulative and inappropriate. His behavior contributed to decisions by more than 10 workers to seek extended mental health or medical leaves of absence since 2022, about 10 percent of the team, these people said. When confronted with Mr. Blahnik's behavior, Apple moved to protect him after an internal investigation. The company settled one complaint alleging sexual harassment by Mr. Blahnik and is fighting a lawsuit by an employee, Mandana Mofidi, who said he had bullied her. Mr. Blahnik stayed in his job after company officials said their investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing, according to interviews and Ms. Mofidi's lawsuit, which she filed against Mr. Blahnik and Apple last year in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The tension inside Mr. Blahnik's division speaks to workplace dysfunction at the heart of one of Apple's signature health initiatives. These employees said the company was more willing to protect a star executive than address the concerns of rank-and-file workers.

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Google is rolling out AI Mode in Search to 180 countries, expanding beyond the US, UK, and India, with even more countries being added soon. The search giant is also expanding its AI Mode's agentic capabilities, so you can now use natural language to find restaurant reservations. Engadget reports: Google says you can ask about getting a dinner reservation with conditions such as group size, date, location and your preference of cuisine, all of which be taken into consideration when AI Mode pulls in its results from across the web. Suggestions will be presented in list form with the available reservation slots. It'll also provide a link to the booking page you need. Google also plans to add local service appointments and event ticketing capabilities soon, with Ticketmaster and StubHub among its partners. AI Mode leverages Google's web-browsing AI agent Project Mariner' its direct partners on Search and resources like Knowledge Graph and Google Maps when prompted to find you somewhere to eat. It has partnered with the likes of OpenTable, Resy and Tock to incorporate as many restaurants as possible and streamline the booking process. Right now, this feature is exclusive to those subscribed to the wildly expensive Google AI Ultra plan in the US, and can be accessed through its Labs platform. If you opt into the AI Mode experiment it can also remember your previous conversations and searches to give you results that more closely match your preferences.

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Light pollution extends the active hours of birds worldwide by nearly an hour, fundamentally altering the natural rhythms of over 500 species across multiple continents. Analysis of 60 million bird call recordings reveals that artificial lighting causes birds to begin vocalizing 20 minutes earlier each morning and continue 30 minutes later each evening. The effect varies significantly by species anatomy and behavior. Birds with proportionally larger eyes experience the strongest responses, with American Robins in highly illuminated areas beginning their songs up to two hours before sunrise. Species nesting in tree cavities or enclosed spaces show minimal changes, as opaque barriers shield them from artificial light. The research, drawing from BirdWeather devices deployed globally by birdwatchers, is the largest analysis of light pollution's biological impacts to date.

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Denmark's PostNord will end centuries of letter delivery as digitalization and high postage costs make physical mail nearly obsolete. The BBC reports: The steep decline in letter volumes has been driven largely by digitalization, and PostNord announced in March that it will cease letter services at the end of the year. It will bring to an end four centuries of letter deliveries by the state-owned operation. A third of its workforce is being let go, as it sheds 2,200 positions in its loss-making letter arm. Instead it will focus on its profitable parcel business, creating 700 new roles. "Danes hardly receive any letters anymore. It's been going down for years and years," says Kim Pedersen, chief of PostNord Denmark. "They're receiving one letter a month on average, it's not a lot." "On the contrary, Danes love to shop online," he adds. "Global e-commerce is growing significantly, and we are moving with it." Fifteen years ago, PostNord operated several enormous letter-sorting facilities, but now there's just one on the western outskirts of Copenhagen. Since 2000, the volume of letters the business handles has declined by more than 90%, from around 1.4 billion to 110 million last year, and it continues to fall rapidly. As PostNord prepares to cease letter deliveries, 1,500 of its red post boxes are being removed from Danish streets. However, few locals in the capital appear to use them much. From email and cashless mobile payments, to digital health cards carried by smartphone, there's an app for almost everything in Denmark - and it's one of the world's most digitalized nations, second only to South Korea, according to the OECD's 2023 Digital Government Index. The Danish government has embraced a "digital by default" policy, and for more than a decade correspondence with the public has been carried out electronically. "We are facing this natural evolution of a digitalized society, earlier than maybe some other countries," Mr Pedersen explains. "In Denmark, we are maybe five or 10 years ahead." The high cost of sending a letter in Denmark is also a contributing factor behind its decline. In 2024, a new law opened up the postal market to private competition and took away its exemption from the country's 25% rate of VAT, so the price of a PostNord stamp jumped to 29 Danish krone ($4.55) per letter. "That made [volumes] drop even further faster," Mr Pedersen points out. The report notes that private firm DAO will take over nationwide letter deliveries in Denmark after PostNord exits. However, concerns remain that elderly citizens and rural residents may struggle with fewer post boxes and reduced service quality. Both the advocacy group DaneAge and the 3F Postal Union warn the transition could disproportionately affect vulnerable populations.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As banks around the world prepare to replace many thousands of workers with AI, Australia's biggest bank is scrambling to rehire 45 workers after allegedly lying about chatbots besting staff by handling higher call volumes. In a statement Thursday flagged by Bloomberg, Australia's main financial services union, the Finance Sector Union (FSU), claimed a "massive win" for 45 union members whom the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) had replaced with an AI-powered "voice bot." The FSU noted that some of these workers had been with CBA for decades. Those workers in particular were shocked when CBA announced last month that their jobs had become redundant. At that time, CBA claimed that launching the chatbot supposedly "led to a reduction in call volumes" by 2,000 a week, FSU said. But "this was an outright lie," fired workers told FSU. Instead, call volumes had been increasing at the time they were dismissed, with CBA supposedly "scrambling" -- offering staff overtime and redirecting management to join workers answering phones to keep up. To uncover the truth, FSU escalated the dispute to a fair work tribunal, where the union accused CBA of failing to explain how workers' roles were ruled redundant. The union also alleged that CBA was hiring for similar roles in India, Bloomberg noted, which made it appear that CBA had perhaps used the chatbot to cover up a shady pivot to outsource jobs. While the dispute was being weighed, CBA admitted that "they didn't properly consider that an increase in calls" happening while staff was being fired "would continue over a number of months," FSU said. "This error meant the roles were not redundant," CBA confirmed at the tribunal. Now, CBA has apologized to the fired workers. A spokesperson told Bloomberg that they can choose to come back to their prior roles, seek another position, or leave the firm with an exit payment. "We have apologized to the employees concerned and acknowledge we should have been more thorough in our assessment of the roles required," CBA's spokesperson told Bloomberg. The FSU said that "the damage has already been done." These employees "have had to endure the stress and worry of facing redundancy" and were "suddenly confronted with the prospect of being unable to pay their bills." FSU warned that CBA's flip-flopping on AI serves as a "stark reminder to all of us that we can never trust employers to do the right thing by workers, and change can happen at any time and impact any one of us."

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Cisco, the San Jose-based technology giant, has announced another round of layoffs affecting Bay Area workers, marking a familiar pattern of reporting skyrocketing revenue followed by drastic job cuts. From a report: According to Aug. 13 WARN filings with California's Employment Development Department, the company will eliminate 221 positions across its Milpitas and San Francisco offices. WARN documents are generally required by the state in the event of mass layoffs. Employees were notified of the layoffs on Aug. 14 and their terminations will be effective Oct. 13. The most cuts, affecting 157 jobs, largely in software engineering roles, were at Cisco's Milpitas office at 560 McCarthy Blvd. Cisco's San Francisco office at 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd. will cut 64 positions, according to the filing. The filings came the same day Cisco released its fourth-quarter earnings, which reported $14.7 billion in revenue, an 8% increase from the same quarter last year. Revenue for the 2025 fiscal year was $56.7 billion, up 5% from the previous year.

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Gaming handhelds are becoming the industry's new battleground as Microsoft launches its ROG Xbox Ally devices October 16, chasing Nintendo Switch 2's record-breaking 5.8 million units sold in seven weeks. The ASUS-manufactured handhelds run full Windows 11 with a gaming-optimized interface, accessing Xbox Game Pass, Steam, Battle.net, and other PC storefronts without platform lockdown. Two models arrive at launch: the standard Xbox Ally with AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor and the premium Xbox Ally X featuring Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, 24GB RAM, 1TB storage, and 80Wh battery. Microsoft's Handheld Compatibility Program pre-verifies thousands of PC games for portable play. Pricing remains unannounced.

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Phone manufacturers rarely acknowledge that IP68 water resistance degrades over time, but Google has broken that silence with advertising disclaimers for its Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The fine print explicitly warns that water and dust protection "will diminish or be lost over time due to normal wear and tear, device repair, disassembly or damage." The company further notes that liquid damage voids warranties despite IP68 certification at manufacture.

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Solar panels in space could cut Europe's terrestrial renewable energy needs by 80% by 2050, a study has found. The Guardian: Using a detailed computer model of the continent's future power grid, the researchers found that a system of space-based panels designed by Nasa could reduce the cost of the whole European power system by as much as 15%. It could also cut battery use by more than two-thirds. The study, led by researchers at King's College London, is the first to assess the possible impact of space solar energy on Europe. The space-based solar power (SBSP) panels that yielded the positive results uses a heliostat design. The design, which the system imitates, uses mirror-like reflectors to collect sunlight in orbit. The sunlight is then transmitted to stations on Earth and converted to electricity before it is delivered to an energy grid. The computer model of the continent's power grid spans 33 countries, and simulates electricity demand, generation and storage to identify the lowest-cost option to meet Europe's electricity needs.

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A federal appeals court rejected T-Mobile's attempt to overturn $92 million in fines for selling customer location information to third-party firms. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission last year fined T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon, saying the carriers illegally shared access to customers' location information without consent and did not take reasonable measures to protect that sensitive data against unauthorized disclosure. The fines relate to sharing of real-time location data that was revealed in 2018, but it took years for the FCC to finalize the penalties. The three carriers appealed the rulings in three different courts, and the first major decision was handed down Friday. A three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously against T-Mobile and its subsidiary Sprint. "Every cell phone is a tracking device," the ruling begins. "To receive service, a cell phone must periodically connect with the nearest tower in a wireless carrier's network. Each time it does, it sends the carrier a record of the phone's location and, by extension, the location of the customer who owns it. Over time, this information becomes an exhaustive history of a customer's whereabouts and 'provides an intimate window into [that] person's life.'"

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The era of software without embedded AI assistants is increasingly ending as Adobe launches Acrobat Studio, adding collaborative AI workspaces to the 32-year-old PDF format. The new platform allows users to upload multiple documents into "PDF spaces" where personalized chatbot assistants parse and answer questions about their contents. Adobe began integrating generative AI into Acrobat last year and now positions this release as the format's biggest transformation since its 1993 debut. The shift arrives amid growing user fatigue with AI features proliferating across everyday applications -- a Pew Research Center report found US adults more concerned than excited about AI's impact on their lives. Adobe's move cements 2025 as the year generative AI became inescapable in essential software, fundamentally altering how users interact with documents that once replicated the familiarity of paper.

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President Donald Trump says his administration will not approve solar or wind power projects, even as electricity demand is outpacing the supply in some parts of the U.S. From a report: "We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar," Trump, who has complained in the past that solar takes up too much land, posted on Truth Social. "The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!" The president's comment comes after the administration tightened federal permitting for renewables last month. The permitting process is now centralized in Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's office. Renewable companies fear that projects will no longer receive permits that were once normal course of business.

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A complete shutdown of encrypted web traffic isolated China from the global internet for 74 minutes Wednesday morning, blocking citizens from accessing foreign websites and disrupting international business operations that depend on secure connections to offshore servers. The Great Firewall began injecting forged TCP RST+ACK packets to terminate all connections on port 443 at 00:34 Beijing time on August 20, according to activist group Great Firewall Report. The standard HTTPS port carries most modern web traffic, meaning Chinese users lost access to virtually all foreign-hosted websites while companies including Apple and Tesla couldn't connect to servers powering their basic services. The blocking device didn't match known Great Firewall hardware fingerprints, suggesting Beijing either deployed new censorship equipment or experienced a configuration error. No significant events requiring information blackout occurred during the outage window. Pakistan's internet traffic dropped significantly hours before China's incident, potentially connected through shared firewall technology.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Adweek: Meta wanted advertisers to believe its ecommerce ad product, Shops ads, was outperforming the competition, per a whistleblower complaint filed in a U.K. court. The former employee alleges the social media giant artificially inflated return on ad spend (ROAS) by counting shipping fees as revenue, subsidizing bids in ad auctions, and applying undisclosed discounts. The complaint, viewed by ADWEEK, was filed with the London Central Employment Tribunal on Wednesday (August 20) by Samujjal Purkayastha, a former product manager on Meta's Shops ads team. The document claims Meta artificially inflated performance metrics to push brands toward its fledgling ecommerce ad product. The company's motivation, the complaint says, was in part to combat Apple's 2021 privacy changes that cut the troves of iOS tracking information that had long powered Meta's ad machine. Meta's former chief financial officer (CFO), David Wehner, said the changes would cost "on the order of $10 billion" in losses during the company's Q4 2021 earnings call. User purchases on Facebook or Instagram Shops pages would provide more first-party data, however. Purkayastha, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2020 as a product manager on the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Applied Research team, was reassigned to the Shops Ads team in March 2022 and remained at the company until Feb. 19, 2025, when he was terminated. He alleged that during internal reviews in early 2024, Meta data scientists found the return on ad spend (ROAS) from Shops ads had been inflated between 17% and 19%. This discrepancy stemmed from Meta counting shipping fees and taxes as part of a sale, even though that money never went to merchants, he alleged. The company's other ad products exclude those figures, in line with competitors like Google, the complaint reads. Without including the fees and taxes, Shops ads performed no better than Meta's traditional ads, Purkayastha claimed. "This was significant," the complaint reads. "In addition to the ROAS performance metric being overstated by nearly a fifth, it meant that, rather than having exceeded our primary target, the Shops Ads team had in fact missed it once the figure was reduced to take account of the artificial inflation." Purkayastha raised these concerns with senior leadership in multiple meetings between 2022 and 2024, and is now seeking interim relief through his employment tribunal filing to have his former position reinstated. A Meta spokesperson told ADWEEK the company is "actively defending these proceedings," adding that "allegations related to the integrity of our advertising practices are without merit and we have full confidence in our performance review processes."

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Longtime Slashdot reader Xesdeeni writes: I received an email indicating Intuit will not support Windows 10 for the desktop versions of TurboTax starting this tax year. Laughably, they say "security is a top priority for us" before adding: "To use TurboTax Desktop software for tax year 2025, your computer will need to run on Microsoft Windows 11 [or] TurboTax Online." I'm just paranoid enough to use the desktop version, since at least it limits what they see to the forms they send to the IRS -- rather than everything. Even if I was willing to endure the added burden of printing and mailing the forms, this would be the end of that, since I'm out on Windows 11 for the reasons you already know. Here's what they sent: Hi there, We're reaching out to provide an update on TurboTax Desktop software for tax year 2025. After October 14, 2025, Microsoft will no longer provide software updates, technical assistance, or security fixes for Windows 10 operating system. Because security is a top priority for us, TurboTax Desktop software for tax year 2025 onwards will not be compatible with Windows 10 operating system. To use TurboTax Desktop software for tax year 2025, your computer will need to run on Microsoft Windows 11 operating system. You can also consider switching to TurboTax Online, which will work on any supported browser (available December 2025). For more resources and additional information about this change, go to this help article: How does the end of support for Windows 10 affect my TurboTax Desktop experience? Thanks for being part of the TurboTax family. Warm regards, The TurboTax Team Xesdeeni comments: "I've wanted a Linux offering for years now and only kept Windows for such limited products as this. I guess I can completely punt it now."

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Google, TVA, and Kairos Power are teaming up to power data centers with advanced nuclear energy through a collaboration in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The project aims to deliver 50 MW of nuclear energy by 2030. From a blog post: Today we announced the first deployment of Kairos Power's advanced nuclear reactor -- the Hermes 2 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee -- through a new power purchase agreement (PPA) between Kairos Power and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Marking the first purchase of electricity from an advanced GEN IV reactor by a U.S. utility, this agreement will enable 50 megawatts (MW) of nuclear energy on TVA's grid that powers our data centers in Montgomery County, Tennessee and Jackson County, Alabama. Last October, we began a long-term collaboration with Kairos Power to unlock up to 500 MW of nuclear power for the U.S. electricity system through multiple deployments of their small modular reactor. With this next step, we are creating a three-party solution where energy customers, utilities, and technology developers work together to advance new technologies that can help meet the world's growing energy needs with reliable, affordable capacity. Here's how it works: TVA will purchase electricity from Kairos Power's Hermes 2 plant, scheduled to begin operations in 2030. In this initial phase of the collaboration, we will procure clean energy attributes from the plant through TVA to help power our data centers in the region with locally sourced clean energy, every hour of every day.

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