Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the ongoing-protection department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Today, open-source software powers the world. It didn't have to be that way. The Open Invention Network's (OIN) origins are rooted in a turbulent era for open source. In the mid-2000s, Linux faced existential threats from copyright and patent litigation. Besides, the infamous SCO lawsuit and Microsoft's claims that Linux infringed on hundreds of its patents cast a shadow over the ecosystem. Business leaders became worried. While SCO's attacks petered out, patent trolls -- formally known as Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) -- were increasing their attacks. So, open-source friendly industry giants, including IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony, formed the Open Invention Network (OIN) to create a bulwark against patent threats targeting Linux and open-source technologies. Founded in 2005, the Open Invention Network (OIN) has evolved into a global community comprising over 4,000 participants, ranging from startups to multinational corporations, collectively holding more than three million patents and patent applications.
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the not-too-shabby department: In a blog post yesterday, Master I-ranked human GeoGuessr player Sam Patterson said that OpenAI's o3 model outscored him in a head-to-head match, "correctly identifying all five countries and twice landing within a few hundred meters." Geoguessing is a game -- most popularly known through the platform GeoGuessr -- where players are dropped into a random location in Google Street View and must figure out where in the world they are using only visual clues from the environment. With the release of its newest AI models, o3 and o4-mini, OpenAI now does a surprisingly good job of analyzing uploaded images to determine their locations using nothing but subtle visual clues.
"Even when I embedded fake GPS coordinates in the image EXIF, the model ignored the spoof and still pinpointed the real locations, showing its performance comes from visual reasoning and on-the-fly web sleuthing -- not hidden metadata," says Patterson. From the post: I notice that it often does a lot of unnecessary and repetitive cropping, and will sometimes spend way too much time on something unimportant. A human is very good at knowing what matters, and o3 is less knowledgeable about what things it should focus on. It got distracted by advertising multiple times. However, most of what it says about things like signs and road lines appears to be accurate, or at least close enough to truth that they meaningfully add up. Given the end result of these excellent guesses, it seems to arrive at the guesses from that information.
If it's using other information to arrive at the guess, then it's not metadata from the files, but instead web search. It seems likely that in the Austria round, the web search was meaningful, since it mentioned the website named the town itself. It appeared less meaningful in the Ireland round. It was still very capable in the rounds without search.
So to put a bow on this:
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the tough-news department: Electronic Arts (EA) has laid off around 300 employees across multiple departments, including about 100 at Respawn Entertainment. IGN reports: IGN understands that these wider cuts largely impacted EA's Experiences team, which includes groups such as EA's Fan Care team and various others working on customer support and marketing, though other EA departments saw reductions as well. As with other cuts at EA, those impacted will be given the opportunity to apply for other roles internally prior to being let go.
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other of which was, per Bloomberg's reporting, a new Titanfall game. "As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we've made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth," an EA spokesperson said in an official statement. "We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by helping affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition."
Posted by from MMO Champion
The Trading Post May 2025 - Rewards Preview
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
May’s Trading Post will bring you joy with new pets to add to your collection and more. This month, welcome Weechi the customizable pet to your collection. You can dress this adorable little buddy in several available costumes.
Visit T&W** (Tawney and Wilder) just outside the Mage District in Stormwind or the Zen’shiri Trading Post next to Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar to check out all the latest items*** they have available. Players can also visit the Trading Post in the capital city of Dornogal (The Foregrounds) on the Isle of Dorn, where representatives of both Tawney and Wilder and the Zen’shiri Trading Post are open for business.
Check Out What's in Stock for May
Mounts and Pets
Spring Harvesthog
“The Spring Harvesthog is at its most energetic in the early morning. It will spend most of its day snuffling for food or bellowing out calls for other harvesthogs.”
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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the side-effects department: A new study [PDF] reveals AI-generated code frequently references non-existent third-party libraries, creating opportunities for supply-chain attacks. Researchers analyzed 576,000 code samples from 16 popular large language models and found 19.7% of package dependencies -- 440,445 in total -- were "hallucinated."
These non-existent dependencies exacerbate dependency confusion attacks, where malicious packages with identical names to legitimate ones can infiltrate software. Open source models hallucinated at nearly 22%, compared to 5% for commercial models. "Once the attacker publishes a package under the hallucinated name, containing some malicious code, they rely on the model suggesting that name to unsuspecting users," said lead researcher Joseph Spracklen. Alarmingly, 43% of hallucinations repeated across multiple queries, making them predictable targets.
Posted by from MMO Champion
Mythic Dungeon International Returns May 2!
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Start your timers and prepare to watch the most resilient runs yet—the Mythic Dungeon International returns! Watch the live broadcast starting May 2!
Spread the word and gather at the Gallagio—it’s time to watch Azeroth’s most daunting dungeoneers redefine reality and shatter world records! The premiere dungeon competition has returned in the latest season of The War Within and has followed our competitors into the depths of the Undermine.
Season 2 of the Mythic Dungeon International marks the start of a new competitive era for our PvE programming as we transition away from speedrunning and head toward a pushing format. As such, “The Great Push” will now be the primary format for our premiere PvE competition, with further twists such as a new Spec Variety rule in Season 2. Tune in to each stage of the competition and watch as world records are shattered and champions are crowned, starting with the Groups Stage!
For three weeks, hopeful heroes will compete in the MDI Groups for gold, glory, and their spot in the Global Finals! Eight teams will compete each weekend to discover their limits and push as high as possible in the assigned Mythic+ Keystones. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the highest-stakes competition yet— the Global Finals. With $300,000 and the Championship title up for grabs, these teams will surely bring their best to the weekend!
Details
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Posted by from MMO Champion
Gallagio Loyalty Rewards Club Fixes are Now Live - April 29
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
During maintenance today, we made changes to correct the Gallagio Loyalty Rewards Club bug that resulted in some players exceeding the current intended cap of Renown level 9.
With fixes that are now live:
Renown
All players who were above the Gallagio Loyalty Rewards Club current Renown level cap of 9 have been reduced to 9.
To address the inconsistent advantage this issue provided to many players, all players who had any progress on the Gallagio Loyalty Rewards Club Renown track have been advanced to level 9.
The raid buff Loyal Customer and the movement speed buff Time is Money have been removed from all characters, and the relevant quests can be recompleted from Paula Piranha in The Incontinental Hotel.
Any obtained Furious Flarendo and Darkfuse Compactor mounts will be unusable to players until they reach the appropriate levels of the Rewards Club.
The High Roller title and Hero’s Path teleportation spell will be unusable to players until they reach the appropriate level of the Rewards Club.
Please note: Renown quests need to be re-completed from Paula Piranha. You may need to delete your existing Gallagio Loyalty Card: Silver (in your bags) in order for the first quest in the chain to become completable.
Thank you very much for your patience and understanding!
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