Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: In an announcement that stunned New Zealand's research community, the country's center-right coalition government said it would divert half of the NZ$75 million Marsden Fund, the nation's sole funding source for fundamental science, to "research with economic benefits." From a report: Moreover, the fund would no longer support any social sciences and humanities research, and the expert panels considering these proposals would be disbanded.

Universities New Zealand, which represents the nation's eight universities, called the planned disinvestment in social science and humanities "astonishing." It was among several academic groups and many scientists calling for the government to reverse the unexpected decision.

In announcing the change, Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins said the fund should focus on "core science" that supports economic growth and "a science sector that drives high-tech, high-productivity, high-value businesses and jobs."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the what-to-expect department: Intel's interim co-CEOs acknowledged that the company may be forced to sell its manufacturing operations if a new chipmaking technology slated for next year does not succeed. Reuters reports: Speaking at a Barclays investment banking conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Michelle Johnston Holthaus and David Zinsner - who were tapped as co-CEOs after the ouster of former CEO Pat Gelsinger last week - were asked if the company's continued combination of manufacturing and design was tied to the success of a new chipmaking technology called 18A due next year. Intel plans to use that technology to bring manufacturing of a flagship PC chip back in-house after being forced to outsource its biggest product to rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. "Pragmatically, do I think it makes sense that they're completely separated and there's no tie?" Holthaus said of the company's product and manufacturing divisions. "I don't think so. But someone will decide that."

Zinsner, also chief financial officer, outlined how Intel is already separating the finances and operations of this manufacturing division into a standalone subsidiary. Zinsner said Intel Foundry, as the division is known, is already run separately from Intel's other businesses and is setting up a separate operational board and business process software system. "That's going to happen," Zinsner said. "Does it ever fully separate? That's an open question for another day."
Posted by from MMO Champion
Heed the Call of Siren Isle Beginning December 17

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Prepare to dive into mystery and mayhem with the newest content update in The War Within™— Siren Isle. Explore an enigmatic outdoor zone, procure new items and rewards for you and your alternate characters, engage in new campaign chapters—Dalaran epilogue and Lingering Shadows prologue to Undermine(d)—and more!




New Zone to Explore

As raging tempests batter against Siren Isle, set off on an expedition to face off against a weekly rotation of adversaries while unraveling baffling new mysteries surrounding the abandoned Kul Tiran Azerite mine.

It's up to you, intrepid adventurer, to discover the fate of those who once lived and worked here. Explore alongside goblin, earthen, and Arathi expedition teams to learn more about the "singing crystal" at Siren Isle's heart.

While battling through enemies new and old with daring bravado, earn a new currency—Flame-Blessed Iron—to trade for items like mounts, pets, gear, and transmogs. It can also be used to open one of three Excavation sites on the island, presenting a face-off against a formidable foe to earn unique rewards.



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Siren Isle Content Update Notes 2024-12-12 16:55:02
Posted by from MMO Champion
Siren Isle Content Update Notes

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Prepare to dive into mystery and mayhem with the newest content update in The War Within— Siren Isle. Explore an enigmatic outdoor zone, procure new items and rewards for you and your alternate characters, engage in new campaign chapters—the Dalaran epilogue and Lingering Shadows prologue to Undermine(d)—and more!




ANSWER THE CALL OF SIREN ISLE

Explore alongside the goblin, earthen, and Arathi expedition teams to learn more about the "singing crystal" located at the heart of Siren Isle.

While battling through enemies new and old with daring bravado, earn a new currency—Flame-Blessed Iron—to trade for items like mounts, pets, gear, and transmogs. It can also be used to open one of three Excavation sites on the island, allowing players to kill a formidable foe and earn unique rewards.

A powerful new ring—Cyrce's Circlet—is available by completing the Siren Isle introductory quest line. By completing a series of quests, players can upgrade their ring over time to increase its item level and gain new powers to help them on Siren Isle.

Players can also earn Singing Citrines, which can be socketed in and out of Cyrce's Circlet. These Citrines can be mixed and matched to create powerful combinations, and the gems can be socketed and unsocketed as they see fit. [LEARN MORE]




ARATHI EAR CUSTOMIZATIONS FOR HUMANS AND KUL TIRAN



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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the would-you-look-at-that department: Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online "constantly," according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The report was based on a survey of 1,391 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024. The Associated Press reports: As in past years, YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers used -- 90% said they watched videos on the site, down slightly from 95% in 2022. Nearly three-quarters said they visit YouTube every day. There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63% of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67% and Snapchat slipped to 55% from 59%.

This small decline could be due to pandemic-era restrictions easing up and kids having more time to see friends in person, but it's not enough to be truly meaningful. X saw the biggest decline among teenage users. Only 17% of teenagers said they use X, down from 23% in 2022, the year Elon Musk bought the platform. Reddit held steady at 14%. About 6% of teenagers said they use Threads, Meta's answer to X that launched in 2023. [...]

Meta's messaging service WhatsApp was a rare exception in that it saw the number of teenage users increase, to 23% from 17% in 2022. Pew also asked kids how often they use various online platforms. Small but significant numbers said they are on them âoealmost constantly.â For YouTube, 15% reported constant use, for TikTok, 16% and for Snapchat, 13%.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the next-generation-of-personal-computing department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Besides phones and tablets, Android is available on smartwatches, TVs, and even cars. Google today announced Android XR as the next form factor the operating system is coming to. Google is using the catch-all term of extended reality (XR) to describe virtual (VR), mixed (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Android XR is for all device types, including headsets that offer video or optical see-through, screen-less "AI glasses," and AR glasses with displays. Going into Android XR, Google believes it has a proven track record of creating platforms. That is more than just making an operating system for themselves, but also catering to OEM partners, cultivating a developer ecosystem, and managing an app store.

[...] Google says Android XR is the first OS built from the ground up with Gemini. Google and Samsung are starting with the headset, which both consider a good starting point. Samsung has a developer kit called Project Moohan (or "infinity" in Korean) that is lightweight, has an external battery, and powered by the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2. Google imagines Android XR headsets as offering an infinite desktop for productivity. In this scenario, you're at a desk with a physical keyboard and mouse. A few partners already have this dev kit and more are being distributed to partners starting this week. Meanwhile, first-party apps like Chrome, YouTube, Google TV, Google Photos, and Google Maps are being optimized for Android XR.

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Google Unveils Gemini 2.0 2024-12-12 16:00:01
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the new-and-improved department: Google unveiled Gemini 2.0 yesterday, almost exactly one year after Google's initial Gemini launch. The new release offers enhanced multimodal capabilities like native image and audio output, real-time tool use, and advanced reasoning to enable agentic experiences, such as acting as a universal assistant or research companion. VentureBeat reports: During a recent press conference, Tulsee Doshi, director of product management for Gemini, outlined the system's enhanced capabilities while demonstrating real-time image generation and multilingual conversations. "Gemini 2.0 brings enhanced performance and new capabilities like native image and multilingual audio generation," Doshi explained. "It also has native intelligent tool use, which means that it can directly access Google products like search or even execute code."

The initial release centers on Gemini 2.0 Flash, an experimental version that Google claims operates at twice the speed of its predecessor while surpassing the capabilities of more powerful models. This represents a significant technical achievement, as previous speed improvements typically came at the cost of reduced functionality. Perhaps most significantly, Google introduced three prototype AI agents built on Gemini 2.0's architecture that demonstrate the company's vision for AI's future. Project Astra, an updated universal AI assistant, showcased its ability to maintain complex conversations across multiple languages while accessing Google tools and maintaining contextual memory of previous interactions. [...]

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the not-a-good-look department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware, written by Avram Piltch: Microsoft's Recall feature recently made its way back to Windows Insiders after having been pulled from test builds back in June, due to security and privacy concerns. The new version of Recall encrypts the screens it captures and, by default, it has a "Filter sensitive information," setting enabled, which is supposed to prevent it from recording any app or website that is showing credit card numbers, social security numbers, or other important financial / personal info. In my tests, however, this filter only worked in some situations (on two e-commerce sites), leaving a gaping hole in the protection it promises.

When I entered a credit card number and a random username / password into a Windows Notepad window, Recall captured it, despite the fact that I had text such as "Capital One Visa" right next to the numbers. Similarly, when I filled out a loan application PDF in Microsoft Edge, entering a social security number, name and DOB, Recall captured that. (Note that all info in these screenshots is made up). I also created my own HTML page with a web form that said, explicitly, "enter your credit card number below." The form had fields for Credit card type, number, CVC and expiration date. I thought this might trigger Recall to block it, but the software captured an image of my form filled out, complete with the credit card data. Recall did refuse to capture the credit card fields on the payment pages of Pimoroni and Adafruit. "So, when it came to real-world commerce sites that I visited, Recall got it right," adds Piltch. "However, what my experiment proves is that it's pretty much impossible for Microsoft's AI filter to identify every situation where sensitive information is on screen and avoid capturing it."
Posted by from MMO Champion
20th Anniversary Realms: Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair Now Live

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Who's ready to handle the heat? Players on new WoW Classic 20th Anniversary Edition Realms can now leap into the fire and face off against the Firelord, Ragnaros, in Molten Core and Onyxia in her lair. As a reminder, Anniversary Realms have no buff and debuff limits, so you can feel free to use every spell you can cast in a raid.






Molten Core

Zone: Burning Steppes

Level: 60

Bosses: 10

The Molten Core lies at the very bottom of Blackrock Depths. It is the heart of Blackrock Mountain and the exact spot where, long ago, in a desperate bid to turn the tide of the dwarven civil war, Emperor Thaurissan summoned the elemental Firelord, Ragnaros, into the world. Though the Firelord is incapable of straying far from the blazing Core, it is believed that his elemental minions command the Dark Iron dwarves, who are in the midst of creating armies out of living stone. The burning lake where Ragnaros lies sleeping acts as a rift connecting to the plane of fire, allowing the malicious elementals to pass through. Chief among Ragnaros’ agents is Majordomo Executus - for this cunning elemental is the only one capable of calling the Firelord from his slumber.

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the impressive-feats department: Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju made history by defeating China's Ding Liren to become the youngest world chess champion at 18, sealing a dramatic 7.5-6.5 victory in the 14-game match. The Guardian reports: The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh's 7.5-6.5 win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect of tiebreaker matches on Friday afternoon.

In doing so, Gukesh shattered the age record held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he toppled Anatoly Karpov in 1985. Gukesh admitted he didn't initially recognize Ding's rook move (55 Rf2??) as a blunder, saying it took a few seconds to spot that his opponent's bishop was trapped. He could barely conceal his excitement upon the discovery, while a devastated Ding could only bury his head in his hands. "When I realized it, it was probably the best moment of my life," said Gukesh, who brings home the $1.35 million winner's share of the $2.5 million prize fund along with the sport's most prestigious title.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the tough-luck department: Yahoo laid off around 25% of its cybersecurity team -- known as The Paranoids -- over the last year, TechCrunch has learned. From the report: Overall, the company has laid off or lost through attrition 40 to 50 people from a total of 200 employees in the cybersecurity team since the start of 2024, according to multiple current and former Yahoo employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. (Yahoo is TechCrunch's parent company.)

The Paranoids are not the only team affected by the layoffs. Valeri Liborski, who was appointed Yahoo's chief technology officer in September, sent an email this week to employees announcing changes across the broader technology unit, including enterprise productivity and core services. The email to staff, which was obtained by TechCrunch, said: "This was a very difficult decision and one I have not taken lightly."

The Paranoids' so-called red team, or offensive security team -- which conducts cyberattack simulations to identify weaknesses in the company's network before external hackers can -- was eliminated entirely this week, and there have been at least three rounds of layoffs impacting the cybersecurity team this year, according to the sources.
Posted by Brandon Morgan from Kotaku
As you explore the Zone, stumbling upon all manner of mutants and freelance Stalkers in search of mystery and money, you’ll inevitably eavesdrop on stories about stranger-than-usual anomalies—the stuff of legends. As it turns out, the Zone produces legendary artifacts in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl that…

< This article continues on their website >
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: An anonymous reader shares a report: Deep in the Canadian Arctic, scientists and entrepreneurs brave sub-zero temperatures, whipping winds and snowstorms to drill holes through the sea ice to pump out the seawater below and freeze it on the surface. The group from the UK start-up Real Ice is in Cambridge Bay, a tiny coastal village in Nunavut, to try to prove they can grow and restore Arctic sea ice.

Their ultimate plan is to thicken ice over more than 386,000 square miles of the Arctic -- an area more than twice the size of California -- with the aim of slowing down or even reversing summer ice loss and, in doing so, help to tackle the human-caused climate crisis. It's a bold plan, and one of many controversial geo-engineering proposals to save the planet's vulnerable polar regions that range from installing a giant underwater "curtain" to protect ice sheets, to sprinkling tiny glass beads to reflect away sunlight.

Some Arctic scientists and experts have criticized Real Ice's methods as unproven at scale, ecologically risky and a distraction from tackling the root cause of climate change: fossil fuels. But the company says its project is inspired by natural processes and offers a last chance to protect a disappearing ecosystem as the world fails to act swiftly on climate change.
Posted by Tony_Bacala from The Toyark


Hasbro revealed the latest Marvel Legends Spider-Man Retro Card wave at their last livestream of 2024 last week, and now the goods are ready for pre-order.  Spider-Man Unlimited, Francine Frye Electro, Chameleon, Agent Venom, Spider-Boy and Kaine will retail for ...

The post Marvel Legends Spider-Man Retro Card 2025 Wave 1 appeared first on The Toyark - News.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the up-next department: Apple's ambitious plan to create in-house components for its devices will include switching to a homegrown chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections starting next year, a move that will replace some parts currently provided by Broadcom. From a report: The chip, code-named Proxima, has been in development for several years and is now slated to go into the first products in 2025, according to people familiar with the matter. Like Apple's other in-house chips, Proxima will be produced by partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

The transition is separate from Apple's highly anticipated shift from Qualcomm cellular modems -- details of which Bloomberg News reported last week -- but the two parts will eventually work together. Apple's goal is to develop an end-to-end wireless approach that is tightly integrated with its other components and more energy-efficient, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the initiative hasn't been announced. Representatives for Cupertino, California-based Apple and Palo Alto, California-based Broadcom declined to comment.
Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
Balatro is about to have a big day, as the hugely popular roguelike card game is nominated in five different categories at tonight’s Game Awards. But that’s not all, as developer LocalThunk has announced a new collaboration update that brings cards based on eight different games to the fold. Not a bad reason to boot…

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Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
This is an emaciated zombie from the new 28 Years Later trailer. It looks sort of, kinda, maybe like an emaciated Cillian Murphy, the star of the first movie. It turns out that is not an emaciated Cillian Murphy, however. Instead, it’s an art dealer who sometimes models and happens to be very, very thin.

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Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
After a brief tease at the end of its most recent trailer, Overwatch 2 has finally revealed the specifics of its Avatar: The Last Airbender collaboration. The event includes six skins for different heroes based on characters from the beloved animated series, but most importantly, it gives one hero who has historically…

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Posted by Keith Nelson Jr from Kotaku
Director J.C. Chandor preemptively asked all of us to be nice to his Kraven the Hunter film, imploring us to forget the past failures of Sony’s Spider-Man Extended Universe. Unfortunately for that man, he not only made a movie that brings more attention to why these Spider-Man villain movies aren’t working, but the…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the tough-calls department: Social media giants confronted a familiar dilemma over user content moderation after murder suspect Luigi Mangione's arrest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO on Monday, highlighting the platforms' varied approaches to managing digital footprints of criminal suspects.

Meta quickly removed Mangione's Facebook and Instagram accounts under its "dangerous organizations and individuals" policy, while his account on X underwent a brief suspension before being reinstated with a premium subscription. LinkedIn maintained his profile, stating it did not violate platform policies. His Reddit account was suspended in line with the platform's policy on high-profile criminal suspects, while his Goodreads profile fluctuated between public and private status.

The New York Times adds: When someone goes from having a private life to getting public attention, online accounts they intended for a small circle of friends or acquaintances are scrutinized by curious strangers -- and journalists.

In some cases, these newly public figures or their loved ones can shut down the accounts or make them private. Others, like Mr. Mangione, who has been charged with murder, are cut off from their devices, leaving their digital lives open for the public's consumption. Either way, tech companies have discretion in what happens to the account and its content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects companies from legal liability for posts made by users.
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