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From the smart-tuning department: Robotics and machine learning engineer Naveen Kul developed WattWise, a lightweight open-source CLI tool that monitors power usage via smart plugs and throttles system performance based on electricity pricing and peak hours. Tom's Hardware reports: The simple program, called WattWise, came about when Naveen built a dual-socket EPYC workstation with plans to add four GPUs. It's a power-intensive setup, so he wanted a way to monitor its power consumption using a Kasa smart plug. The enthusiast has released the monitoring portion of the project to the public now, but the portion that manages clocks and power will be released later. Unfortunately, the Kasa Smart app and the Home Assistant dashboard was inconvenient and couldn't do everything he desired. He already had a terminal window running monitoring tools like htop, nvtop, and nload, and decided to take matters into his own hands rather than dealing with yet another app.
Naveen built a terminal-based UI that shows power consumption data through Home Assistant and the TP-Link integration. The app monitors real-time power use, showing wattage and current, as well as providing historical consumption charts. More importantly, it is designed to automatically throttle CPU and GPU performance. Naveen's power provider uses Time-of-Use (ToU) pricing, so using a lot of power during peak hours can cost significantly more. The workstation can draw as much as 1400 watts at full load, but by reducing the CPU frequency from 3.7 GHz to 1.5 GHz, he's able to reduce consumption by about 225 watts. (No mention is made of GPU throttling, which could potentially allow for even higher power savings with a quad-GPU setup.)
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the scandal-hit department: NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit behind the annual novel-writing challenge, is shutting down after 20 years but will keep its websites online temporarily so users can retrieve their content. The Guardian reports: A 27-minute YouTube video posted the same day by the organization's interim executive director Kilby Blades explained that it had to close due to ongoing financial problems, which were compounded by reputational damage. In November 2023, several community members complained to the nonprofit's board, Blades said. They believed that staff had mishandled accusations made in May 2023 that a NaNoWriMo forum moderator was grooming children on a different website. The moderator was eventually removed, though this was for unrelated code of conduct violations and occurred "many weeks" after the initial complaints. In the wake of this, community members came forward with other complaints related to child safety on the NaNoWriMo sites.
The organization was also widely criticized last year over a statement on the use of artificial intelligence in creative writing. After stating that it did not support or explicitly condemn any approach to writing, including the use of AI, it said that the "categorical condemnation of artificial intelligence has classist and ableist undertones." It went on to say that "not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing," and that "not all brains have same abilities ... There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't 'see' the issues in their writing without help." "We hold no belief that people will stop writing 50,000 words in November," read Monday's email. "Many alternatives to NaNoWriMo popped up this year, and people did find each other. In so many ways, it's easier than it was when NaNoWriMo began in 1999 to find your writing tribe online."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the connecting-the-dots department: A joint investigation found that at least five popular VPN apps on the App Store and Google Play have ties to Qihoo 360, a Chinese company with military links. Apple has since removed two of the apps but has not confirmed the status of the remaining three, which 9to5Mac notes have "racked up more than a million downloads." The five apps in question are Turbo VPN, VPN Proxy Master, Thunder VPN, Snap VPN, and Signal Secure VPN (not associated with the Signal messaging app). The Financial Times reports: At least five free virtual private networks (VPNs) available through the US tech groups' app stores have links to Shanghai-listed Qihoo 360, according to a new report by research group Tech Transparency Project, as well as additional findings by the Financial Times. Qihoo, formally known as 360 Security Technology, was sanctioned by the US in 2020 for alleged Chinese military links. The US Department of Defense later added Qihoo to a list of Chinese military-affiliated companies [...] In recent recruitment listings, Guangzhou Lianchuang says its apps operate in more than 220 countries and that it has 10mn daily users. It is currently hiring for a position whose responsibilities include "monitoring and analyzing platform data." The right candidate will be "well-versed in American culture," the posting says.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the AI-is-everywhere department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it's launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT Edu plan. The new tier is aimed at higher education, and gives students, faculty, and other staff access to Anthropic's AI chatbot, Claude, with a few additional capabilities. One piece of Claude for Education is "Learning Mode," a new feature within Claude Projects to help students develop their own critical thinking skills, rather than simply obtain answers to questions. With Learning Mode enabled, Claude will ask questions to test understanding, highlight fundamental principles behind specific problems, and provide potentially useful templates for research papers, outlines, and study guides.
Anthropic says Claude for Education comes with its standard chat interface, as well as "enterprise-grade" security and privacy controls. In a press release shared with TechCrunch ahead of launch, Anthropic said university administrators can use Claude to analyze enrollment trends and automate repetitive email responses to common inquiries. Meanwhile, students can use Claude for Education in their studies, the company suggested, such as working through calculus problems with step-by-step guidance from the AI chatbot. To help universities integrate Claude into their systems, Anthropic says it's partnering with the company Instructure, which offers the popular education software platform Canvas. The AI startup is also teaming up with Internet2, a nonprofit organization that delivers cloud solutions for colleges.
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the where-it-all-began department: To mark Microsoft's 50th anniversary, Bill Gates has released the original Altair BASIC source code he co-wrote with Paul Allen, calling it the "coolest code" he's ever written and a symbol of the company's humble beginnings. Thurrott reports: "Before there was Office or Windows 95 or Xbox or AI, there was Altair BASIC," Bill Gates writes on his Gates Notes website. "In 1975, Paul Allen and I created Microsoft because we believed in our vision of a computer on every desk and in every home. Five decades later, Microsoft continues to innovate new ways to make life easier and work more productive. Making it 50 years is a huge accomplishment, and we couldn't have done it without incredible leaders like Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella, along with the many people who have worked at Microsoft over the years."
Today, Gates says that the 50th anniversary of Microsoft is "bittersweet," and that it feels like yesterday when he and Allen "hunched over the PDP-10 in Harvard's computer lab, writing the code that would become the first product of our new company." That code, he says, remains "the coolest code I've ever written to this day ... I still get a kick out of seeing it, even all these years later."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the cease-and-desist department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Europol has shut down one of the largest dark web pedophile networks in the world, prompting dozens of arrests worldwide and threatening that more are to follow. Launched in 2021, KidFlix allowed users to join for free to preview low-quality videos depicting child sex abuse materials (CSAM). To see higher-resolution videos, users had to earn credits by sending cryptocurrency payments, uploading CSAM, or "verifying video titles and descriptions and assigning categories to videos."
Europol seized the servers and found a total of 91,000 unique videos depicting child abuse, "many of which were previously unknown to law enforcement," the agency said in a press release. KidFlix going dark was the result of the biggest child sexual exploitation operation in Europol's history, the agency said. Operation Stream, as it was dubbed, was supported by law enforcement in more than 35 countries, including the United States. Nearly 1,400 suspected consumers of CSAM have been identified among 1.8 million global KidFlix users, and 79 have been arrested so far. According to Europol, 39 child victims were protected as a result of the sting, and more than 3,000 devices were seized.
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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the PSA department: Online scam operations across Southeast Asia are rapidly adapting to recent crackdowns, adopting AI and expanding globally despite the release of 7,000 trafficking victims from compounds along the Myanmar-Thailand border, experts say. These releases represent just a fraction of an estimated 100,000 people trapped in facilities run by criminal syndicates that rake in billions through investment schemes and romance scams targeting victims worldwide, CNN reports.
"Billions of dollars are being invested in these kinds of businesses," said Kannavee Suebsang, a Thai lawmaker leading efforts to free those held in scam centers. "They will not stop." Crime groups are exploiting AI to write scamming scripts and using deepfakes to create personas, while networks have expanded to Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific region, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. "This is a situation the region has never faced before," said John Wojcik, a UN organized crime analyst. "The evolving situation is trending towards something far more dangerous than scams alone."
Posted by from MMO Champion
April Fools 2025 - World of Warcraft Community Round-Up
Now that April Fools 2025 is over, we're having a look at the pranks, unexpected announcements, and clever mischief from the World of Warcraft community.
World of Warcraft 11.4.1 Patch Notes
World of Warcraft 11.4.1 Patch Notes have been revealed!
Player Housing Announcement Typo
It looks like there was a small typo in the "Player Housing" announcement. The actual feature? Playable Houses!
Magic Rooster Coming Soon to the Trading Post
MrGM has spotted the
Magic Rooster on the 11.1.5 PTR. The mount is set to appear in the next rotation of the Trading Post.
Raider.IO New Logo and Menu Update
Raider.IO has unveiled a new logo, along with some unexpected menu changes for the Raid and Mythic+ sections.
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If you have an old phone in a drawer, and you listen very carefully, you can occasionally hear the occasional tap of an emitted SIM card hitting the side of the drawer as the phone transmutes to a lower-end model. 
Fans faced a bit of sticker shock today when Nintendo revealed the Switch 2 would cost $450, especially with some new physical games set to cost as much as $90. But the price of upgrading to the Mario maker’s next console generation is set to get even worse after President Donald Trump announced a new wave of shockingl…
Today, during Nintendo’s big Switch 2 Direct, we got a bunch of trailers for upcoming games and finally learned that the new console will be launching June 5. But the real star of the show wasn’t a new Donkey Kong game or voice chat, it was a simple yet badass cow on a scooter built out of a boombox.
A Minecraft Movie comes out this weekend and early reviews are all over the place. Some are calling the gaming adaptation starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa a nonsensical disaster, while others think it’s not actually that bad. Microsoft’s Hollywood debut might feel like naked IP exploitation but it’s not necessarily…
On Wednesday, Nintendo held a big Direct dedicated to the upcoming Switch 2. The new console is set to launch on June 5 and will cost $450. And one of the launch games for the console is Mario Kart World, a big, sprawling kart racer that looks like a lot of fun. But uh, what the heck is Mario drinking in that can?
Battery life for gaming handhelds is always a challenge but the tradeoffs for the Switch 2 appear to be particularly brutal. Nintendo has confirmed that the next-gen device will run for anywhere from 2-6.5 hours on a single charge depending on what you’re playing. It ain’t great. In fact, it’s somehow even worse than…
The Nintendo Switch 2 launches on June 5 and at least one major retailer is bringing back an old-school midnight launch to help fans celebrate early. Best Buy will be opening stores at 12:01 a.m. ET for anyone who pre-ordered the console and launch games like Mario Kart World.
On April 2, Nintendo pulled back the curtain and revealed all about the Switch 2. The upcoming console is set to launch on June 5 and will cost $450. So what will be available to play on your fancy new Switch 2 later this year? We have a list that should prove useful!
