Waymo is rolling out robotaxi rides that use freeways across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix for the first time -- "a critical expansion for the company that it says will reduce ride times by up to 50%," reports TechCrunch. From the report: That stat could help attract a whole new group of users who need to travel between the many towns and suburbs within the greater San Francisco Bay Area or quicken commutes across the sprawling Los Angeles and Phoenix metro areas. Using freeways is also essential for Waymo to offer rides to and from the San Francisco Airport, a location the company is currently testing in. The service won't be offered to all Waymo riders at first, the company said. Waymo riders who want to experience freeway rides can note their preference in the Waymo app. Once the rider hails a ride, they may be matched with a freeway trip, according to the company. The company's robotaxi routes will now stretch to San Jose, an expansion that will create a unified 260-mile service area across the Peninsula, according to Waymo. The company said it will also begin curbside drop off and pick up service at the San Jose Mineta International Airport. It already offers curbside service to the Sky Harbor Phoenix International Airport.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Anthropic announced plans Wednesday to spend $50 billion on a U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out, starting with custom data centers in Texas and New York. The facilities, which will be designed to support the company's rapid enterprise growth and its long-term research agenda, will be developed in partnership with Fluidstack. Fluidstack is an AI cloud platform that supplies large-scale graphics processing unit, or GPU, clusters to clients like Meta, Midjourney and Mistral. Additional sites are expected to follow, with the first locations going live in 2026. The project is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and more than 2,000 construction roles. The investment positions Anthropic as a major domestic player in physical AI infrastructure at a moment when policymakers are increasingly focused on U.S.-based compute capacity and technological sovereignty. "We're getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren't possible before. Realizing that potential requires infrastructure that can support continued development at the frontier," said CEO Dario Amodei. "These sites will help us build more capable AI systems that can drive those breakthroughs, while creating American jobs."

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Longtime Slashdot reader hadleyburg writes: For a user with an Android phone and who's happy to stick within the Google ecosystem, an Android tablet might seem like the more obvious choice over an iPad. Of course, iPads are a lot more popular, and asking about Android tablets is likely to invite advice about sticking with what everyone else has. The Slashdot community on the other hand -- being a discerning and thoughtful crowd -- might have some experience in this area and be willing to share the pros and cons they have found. The use case is someone not requiring any heavy usage -- no video editing or gaming -- just email, browsing, YouTube, video calls, and that sort of thing.

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Valve is ready to rejoin the VR hardware race with the Steam Frame, a lightweight standalone SteamOS headset that can run games locally or stream wirelessly from a PC using new "foveated streaming" tech. It's set to launch in early 2026. Ars Technica reports: Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 16 GB of RAM, the Steam Frame sports a 2160 x 2160 resolution display per eye at an "up to 110 degrees" field-of-view and up to 144 Hz. That's all roughly in line with 2023's Meta Quest 3, which runs on the slightly less performant Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor. Valve's new headset will be available in models sporting 256GB and 1TB or internal storage, both with the option for expansion via a microSD card slot. Pricing details have not yet been revealed publicly. The Steam Frame's inside-out tracking cameras mean you won't have to set up the awkward external base stations that were necessary for previous SteamVR headsets (including the Index). But that also means old SteamVR controllers won't work with the new hardware. Instead, included Steam Frame controllers will track your hand movements, provide haptic feedback, and offer "input parity with a traditional game pad" through the usual buttons and control sticks. For those who want to bring desktop GPU power to their VR experience, the Steam Frame will be able to connect wirelessly to a PC using an included 6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E adapter. That streaming will be enhanced by what Valve is calling "foveated rendering" technology, which sends the highest-resolution video stream to where your eyes are directly focused (as tracked by two internal cameras). That will help Steam Frame streaming establish a "fast, direct, low-latency link" to the machine, Valve said, though the company has yet to respond to questions about just how much additional wireless latency users can expect. Further reading: Valve Enters the Console Wars

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI asked a federal judge in New York on Wednesday to reverse an order that required it to turn over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT chat logs amid a copyright infringement lawsuit by the New York Times and other news outlets, saying it would expose users' private conversations. The artificial intelligence company argued that turning over the logs would disclose confidential user information and that "99.99%" of the transcripts have nothing to do with the copyright infringement allegations in the case. "To be clear: anyone in the world who has used ChatGPT in the past three years must now face the possibility that their personal conversations will be handed over to The Times to sift through at will in a speculative fishing expedition," the company said in a court filing (PDF). The news outlets argued that the logs were necessary to determine whether ChatGPT reproduced their copyrighted content and to rebut OpenAI's assertion that they "hacked" the chatbot's responses to manufacture evidence. The lawsuit claims OpenAI misused their articles to train ChatGPT to respond to user prompts. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang said in her order to produce the chats that users' privacy would be protected by the company's "exhaustive de-identification" and other safeguards. OpenAI has a Friday deadline to produce the transcripts.

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OpenAI today released GPT-5.1, an update to its flagship model line. The update includes two versions: GPT-5.1 Instant, which OpenAI says adds adaptive reasoning capabilities and improved instruction following, and GPT-5.1 Thinking, which adjusts its processing time based on query complexity. The Thinking model responds roughly twice as fast on simple tasks and twice as slow on complex problems compared to its predecessor. The company began rolling out both models to paid subscribers and plans to extend access to free users in coming days. OpenAI added three personality presets -- Professional, Candid, and Quirky -- to its existing customization options. The previous GPT-5 models will remain available through a legacy dropdown menu for three months.

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Valve has unveiled a new Steam Machine console, taking a second shot at living room gaming a decade after its 2015 Steam Machine initiative failed. The 6-inch cube runs Linux-based SteamOS but plays Windows games through Proton, a compatibility layer built on Wine that translates Microsoft graphical APIs. Valve spent over a decade working on SteamOS and ways to run Windows games on Linux after the original Steam Machines failed. The device promises six times the performance of the Steam Deck handheld using AMD's 2022-2023 technology. In an interaction with The Verge, Valve demonstrated Cyberpunk 2077 running at settings comparable to PS5 Pro or beyond on a 4K television. The console updates games in the background and includes automatic HDMI television control that Valve tested against a warehouse of home entertainment equipment. The system navigates entirely through gamepad controls and resumes games instantly from sleep mode. Valve said pricing will be "comparable to a PC with similar specs" rather than subsidized like traditional consoles. PCs with similar GPUs have cost roughly $1,000 or more. Linux currently plays Windows games better than Windows in side-by-side tests.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft employs various schemes to stop Edge users from switching to Chrome, and the latest includes financial rewards for sticking with the browser. As spotted by Windows Latest, select users who search on Bing within Microsoft Edge for a link to download Google Chrome are now shown an offer to stay with the browser. It gives users 1,300 Microsoft Rewards points, which can be redeemed for gift cards (examples include Amazon, Roblox, and Spotify) or donated to one of over 2 million nonprofits.

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The US is set to make its final penny. The Philadelphia Mint will strike its last batch of one-cent coins on Thursday, after more than 230 years of production. From a report: The coins will remain in circulation but the phase-out has already prompted businesses to start adjusting prices, as they say pennies are becoming harder to find. The government says the move will save money, or as President Donald Trump put it in February when he first announced the plans: "Rip the waste out of our great nation's budget, even if it's a penny at a time." Pennies, which honour Civil War president Abraham Lincoln and are made of copper-plated zinc, today cost nearly four cents each to make -- more than twice the cost of a decade ago, according to the Treasury Department. It estimates the decision to end production will save about $56 million a year. Officials have argued that the rise of electronic transactions is making the penny, which first went into production in 1793, increasingly moot. The Treasury Department estimates that about 300 billion of the coins will remain in circulation, "far exceeding the amount needed for commerce."

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The University of California, San Diego has documented a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering freshmen over the past five years, according to a report [PDF] released this month by the campus's Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of students whose math skills fall below middle-school level increased nearly thirtyfold, from roughly 30 to 921 students. These students now represent one in eight members of the entering cohort. The Mathematics Department redesigned its remedial program this year to focus entirely on elementary and middle school content after discovering students struggled with basic fractions and could not perform arithmetic operations taught in grades one through eight. The deterioration extends beyond mathematics. Nearly one in five domestic freshmen required remedial writing instruction in 2024, returning to pre-pandemic levels after a brief decline. Faculty across disciplines report students increasingly struggle to engage with longer and complex texts. The decline coincided with multiple disrupting factors. The COVID-19 pandemic forced remote learning starting in spring 2020. The UC system eliminated SAT and ACT requirements in 2021. High school grade inflation accelerated during this period, leaving transcripts unreliable as indicators of actual preparation. UC San Diego simultaneously doubled its enrollment from under-resourced high schools designated LCFF+, admitting more such students than any other UC campus between 2022 and 2024. The working group concluded that admitting large numbers of underprepared students risks harming those students while straining limited instructional resources. The report recommends developing predictive models to identify at-risk applicants and calls for the UC system to reconsider standardized testing requirements.

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Apple said Wednesday that European Union developers pocketed the savings from mandated commission reductions rather than lowering prices for consumers. The iPhone maker commissioned Analysis Group to study pricing behavior [PDF] after the Digital Markets Act forced Apple to cut its App Store fees from up to 30% to an average of 20%. The research examined 41 million transactions across 21,000 products between March and September 2024, generating 403 million euros in sales. Developers maintained or raised prices on nine out of 10 products. Non-EU developers captured 86% of the 20.1 million euros in reduced commissions. Price cuts occurred on 9% of products, but the study attributed these to normal pricing patterns unrelated to the fee reduction. Apple argued the regulation creates barriers for innovators and exposes consumers to risks without delivering promised benefits.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Synopsys will lay off about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 2,000 employees, as the chip-design software maker looks to redirect investment towards growth opportunities, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The move comes after the company completed its $35 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of engineering design firm Ansys earlier this year and missed analysts' estimates for third-quarter revenue in September.

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Amazon is rolling out a tougher approach to combat illegal streaming, with the United States-based tech company aiming to block apps loaded onto all its Fire TV Stick devices that are identified as providing pirated content. From a report: Exclusive data provided to The Athletic from researchers YouGov Sport highlighted that approximately 4.7 million UK adults watched illegal streams in the UK over the past six months, with 31% using Fire Stick (this has become a catch-all term for plug-in devices, even if not made by Amazon) and other IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) devices. It is now the second-most popular method behind websites (42%). Amazon launched a new Fire TV Stick last month -- the 4K Select, which is plugged into a TV to facilitate streaming via the internet -- that it insists will be less of a breeding ground for piracy. It comprises enhanced security measures -- via a new Vega operating system -- and only apps available in Amazon's app store will be available for customers to download. Amazon insists the clampdown will apply to the new and old devices, but registered developers will still be able to use Fire Sticks for legitimate purposes.

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After acquiring software virtualization company Cameyo last year, Google has relaunched a version of the service that makes it easier for Windows-based organizations to migrate over to ChromeOS. From a report: Now called "Cameyo by Google," the Virtual App Delivery (VAD) solution allows users to run legacy Windows apps in the Chrome browser or as web apps, preventing organizations from being tied to Microsoft's operating system. Google says the new Cameyo experience is more efficient than switching between separate virtual desktop environments, allowing users to stream the specific apps they need instead of virtualizing the entire desktop. That allows Windows-based programs like Excel and AutoCAD to run side-by-side with Chrome and other web apps, giving businesses the flexibility to use a mix of Microsoft and Google services.

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Sonder, a short-term rental company and former Airbnb rival, abruptly went out of business after Marriott ended its licensing deal on Nov. 9 -- leaving guests scrambling as they were told to vacate their rooms immediately. From a report: Paul Strack, 63, visiting Boston from Little Rock, Arkansas, told CBS News he received an email from Marriott on Sunday about his Sonder stay, but he initially mistook it for a scam. The email said that Marriott's agreement with Sonder had ended, and that "we are unable to continue your reservation beyond today." "[W]e are kindly requesting that you check out of the property as soon as you are able," the email read, according to a copy obtained by CBS News. Because he had mistaken it for spam, he ignored it. But on Monday, after exploring Boston and returning to the family's accommodation at the end of the day, Strack found his room's door wide open and his family's belongings packed up and left in a hallway. [...] Sonder on Monday said it would wind down operations immediately, and that it expects to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy to liquidate its U.S. assets. The company describes itself as a global operator of "premium, design-forward apartments and intimate boutique hotels serving the modern traveler" that has faced financial challenges related to its agreement with Marriott, which the hotel chain terminated on Sunday.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Costing tens of thousands of dollars each, Nvidia's pioneering AI chips make up a hefty chunk of the $400 billion that Big Tech plans to invest this year -- a bill expected to hit $3 trillion by 2029. But unlike 19th-century railroads, or the Dotcom boom's fiber-optic cables, the GPUs fueling today's AI mania are short-lived assets with a shelf life of perhaps five years. As with your iPhone, this stuff tends to lose value and may need upgrading soon because Nvidia and its rivals aim to keep launching better models. Customers like OpenAI will have to deploy them to stay competitive. So while it's comforting that the companies spending most wildly have mountains of cash to throw around (OpenAI aside), the brief useful life of the chips and the generous accounting assumptions underpinning all of this investment are less consoling. Michael Burry, who made his name betting against US housing and who's recently turned to the AI boom, waded in this week, warning on X that hyperscalers -- industry jargon for the giant companies building gargantuan data centers -- are underestimating depreciation. Far from being a one-off outlay, there's a danger of AI capex becoming a huge recurring expense. That's great for Nvidia and co., but not necessarily for hyperscalers such as Google and Microsoft. Some face a depreciation tsunami that's forcing them to be extra vigilant about controlling other costs. Amazon has plans to eliminate roughly 14,000 jobs. And while Wall Street is used to financing fast-depreciating assets such as aircraft and autos, it's worrying that private credit funds are increasingly using GPUs as collateral to finance loans. This includes lending to more speculative startups known as neoclouds, who offer GPUs for rent. Microsoft alone has signed more than $60 billion of neocloud deals.

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Researchers from four universities have released a study revealing that AI models remain easily detectable in social media conversations despite optimization attempts. The team tested nine language models across Twitter/X, Bluesky and Reddit, developing classifiers that identified AI-generated replies at 70 to 80% accuracy rates. Overly polite emotional tone served as the most persistent indicator. The models consistently produced lower toxicity scores than authentic human posts across all three platforms. Instruction-tuned models performed worse than their base counterparts at mimicking humans, and the 70-billion-parameter Llama 3.1 showed no advantage over smaller 8-billion-parameter versions. The researchers found a fundamental tension: models optimized to avoid detection strayed further from actual human responses semantically.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ryanair is trying to force users to download its mobile app by eliminating paper boarding passes, starting on November 12. As announced in February and subsequently delayed from earlier start dates, Europe's biggest airline is moving to digital-only boarding passes, meaning customers will no longer be able to print physical ones. In order to access their boarding passes, Ryanair flyers will have to download Ryanair's app. "Almost 100 percent of passengers have smartphones, and we want to move everybody onto that smartphone technology," Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said recently on The Independent's daily travel podcast. Customers are encouraged to check in online via Ryanair's website or app before getting to the airport. People who don't check in online before getting to the airport will have to pay the airport a check-in fee. "There'll be some teething problems," O'Leary said of the move.

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According to the Financial Times (paywalled), Meta's Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, a deep-learning pioneer and Turing Award winner, is reportedly leaving the company to launch his own startup. Reuters reports: The owner of Facebook and Instagram has significantly increased its investments in artificial intelligence, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg reorganizing the company's AI initiatives under Superintelligence Labs. Zuckerberg hired Alexandr Wang, former CEO of data-labeling startup Scale AI to lead the new AI effort. As a result, LeCun, who had reported to chief product officer Chris Cox, is now reporting to Wang, the report said. The company began investing in AI in 2013 by launching Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit and recruiting LeCun, who is a known skeptic of the large language model path to superintelligence. LeCun is also a Silver Professor of data science, computer science, neural science and electrical and computer engineering at New York University, according to his LinkedIn page. He is known for his work in deep learning and the invention of the convolutional neural network, which is widely used for image, video and speech recognition.

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New submitter UsRanger175 shares a report from Space.com: The sun erupted in spectacular fashion this morning (Nov. 11), unleashing a major X5.1-class solar flare, the strongest of 2025 so far and the most intense since October 2024. The eruption peaked at 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) from sunspot AR4274, which has been bursting with activity in recent days. The blast triggered strong (R3-level) radio blackouts across Africa and Europe, disrupting high-frequency radio communications on the sunlit side of Earth. This outburst is the latest in a series of intense flares from AR4274, which also produced an X1.7 flare on Nov. 9 and an X1.2 on Nov. 10. Those flares were accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that could combine and impact Earth overnight tonight, possibly triggering strong (G3) geomagnetic storm conditions and widespread auroras, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. The CME released today could also join the party as it speeds toward Earth at 4.4 million mph. NOAA predicts the CME could impact Earth around midday on Nov. 12. With this third CME added to the mix, it's possible that we could experience severe (G4) geomagnetic storm conditions.

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