Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the battling-bots department: "We've officially entered the age of watching robots clobber each other in fighting rings," writes Vice.com.
A kick-boxing competition was staged Sunday in Hangzhou, China using four robots from Unitree Robotics, reports Futurism. (The robots were named "AI Strategist", "Silk Artisan", "Armored Mulan", and "Energy Guardian".) "However, the robots weren't acting autonomously just yet, as they were being remotely controlled by human operator teams."
Although those ringside human controllers used quick voice commands, according to the South China Morning Post:
Unlike typical remote-controlled toys, handling Unitree's G1 robots entails "a whole set of motion-control algorithms powered by large [artificial intelligence] models", said Liu Tai, deputy chief engineer at China Telecommunication Technology Labs, which is under research institute China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
More from Vice:
The G1 robots are just over 4 feet tall [130 cm] and weigh around 77 pounds [35 kg]. They wear gloves. They have headgear. They throw jabs, uppercuts, and surprisingly sharp kicks... One match even ended in a proper knockout when a robot stayed down for more than eight seconds. The fights ran three rounds and were scored based on clean hits to the head and torso, just like standard kickboxing...
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the war-of-the-talking-heads department: Thursday Anthropic's CEO/cofounder Dario Amodei again warned unemployed could spike 10 to 20% within the next five years as AI potentially eliminated half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.
But CNN's senior business writer dismisses that as "all part of the AI hype machine," pointing out that Amodei "didn't cite any research or evidence for that 50% estimate."
And that was just one of many of the wild claims he made that are increasingly part of a Silicon Valley script: AI will fix everything, but first it has to ruin everything. Why? Just trust us.
In this as-yet fictional world, "cancer is cured, the economy grows at 10% a year, the budget is balanced — and 20% of people don't have jobs," Amodei told Axios, repeating one of the industry's favorite unfalsifiable claims about a disease-free utopia on the horizon, courtesy of AI. But how will the US economy, in particular, grow so robustly when the jobless masses can't afford to buy anything? Amodei didn't say... Anyway. The point is, Amodei is a salesman, and it's in his interest to make his product appear inevitable and so powerful it's scary. Axios framed Amodei's economic prediction as a "white-collar bloodbath."
Even some AI optimists were put off by Amodei's stark characterization. "Someone needs to remind the CEO that at one point there were more than (2 million) secretaries. There were also separate employees to do in office dictation," wrote tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban on Bluesky. "They were the original white collar displacements. New companies with new jobs will come from AI and increase TOTAL employment."
Little of what Amodei told Axios was new, but it was calibrated to sound just outrageous enough to draw attention to Anthropic's work, days after it released a major model update to its Claude chatbot, one of the top rivals to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
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Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the change-in-the-weather department: "More than 200 climate and weather scientists from across the U.S. are taking part in a marathon livestream on YouTube," according to this report from Space.com. For 100 hours (that started Wednesday) they're sharing their scientific work and answering questions from viewers, "to prove the value of climate science," according to the article.
The event is being stated in protest of recent government funding cuts at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, and the National Science Foundation. (The event began with "scientists documenting their last few hours at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies as the office was shuttered.")
The marathon stream features mini-lectures, panels and question-and-answer sessions with hundreds of scientists, each speaking in their capacity as private citizens rather than on behalf of any institution. These include talks from former National Weather Service directors, Britney Schmidt, a groundbreaking glacier researcher, and legendary meteorologist John Morales.
In its first 30 hours, the stream got over 77,000 views.
Ultimately, the goal of the event is to give members of the public the chance to learn more about meteorology and climate science in an informal setting — and for free. "We really felt like the American public deserves to know what we do," Duffy said. However, many of the speakers and organizers also hope the transference of this knowledge will spur people to take action. The event's website features a link to 5 Calls, an organization that makes it easy for folks to contact their representatives in Congress about the importance of funding climate and weather research.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the supply-and-demand department: Artificial intelligence could soon outpace Bitcoin mining in energy consumption, according to Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam's Institute for Environmental Studies. His research estimates that by the end of 2025, AI could account for nearly half of all electricity used by data centers worldwide -- raising significant concerns about its impact on global climate goals.
"While companies like Google and Microsoft disclose total emissions, few provide transparency on how much of that is driven specifically by AI," notes DIGIT. To fill this gap, de Vries-Gao employed a triangulation method combining chip production data, corporate disclosures, and industry analyst estimates to map AI's growing energy footprint.
His analysis suggests that specialized AI hardware could consume between 46 and 82 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 -- comparable to the annual energy usage of countries like Switzerland. Drawing on supply chain data, the study estimates that millions of AI accelerators from NVIDIA and AMD were produced between 2023 and 2024, with a potential combined power demand exceeding 12 gigawatts (GW). A detailed explanation of his methodology is available in his commentary published in Joule.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the ambivalence-and-inertia department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A lack of action by big tech firms is enabling the "industrial scale theft" of premium video services, especially live sport, a new report says. The research by Enders Analysis accuses Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft of "ambivalence and inertia" over a problem it says costs broadcasters revenue and puts users at an increased risk of cyber-crime. Gareth Sutcliffe and Ollie Meir, who authored the research, described the Amazon Fire Stick -- which they argue is the device many people use to access illegal streams -- as "a piracy enabler." [...] The device plugs into TVs and gives the viewer thousands of options to watch programs from legitimate services including the BBC iPlayer and Netflix. They are also being used to access illegal streams, particularly of live sport.
In November last year, a Liverpool man who sold Fire Stick devices he reconfigured to allow people to illegally stream Premier League football matches was jailed. After uploading the unauthorized services on the Amazon product, he advertised them on Facebook. Another man from Liverpool was given a two-year suspended sentence last year after modifying fire sticks and selling them on Facebook and WhatsApp. According to data for the first quarter of this year, provided to Enders by Sky, 59% of people in UK who said they had watched pirated material in the last year while using a physical device said they had used a Amazon fire product. The Enders report says the fire stick enables "billions of dollars in piracy" overall. [...]
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the PSA department: Billions of stolen cookies are being sold on the dark web and Telegram, with over 1.2 billion containing session data that can grant cybercriminals access to accounts and systems without login credentials, bypassing MFA. The Register reports: More than 93.7 billion of them are currently available for criminals to buy online and of those, between 7-9 percent are active, on average, according to NordVPN's breakdown of stolen cookies by country. Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN, said: "Cookies may seem harmless, but in the wrong hands, they're digital keys to our most private information. What was designed to enhance convenience is now a growing vulnerability exploited by cybercriminals worldwide. Most people don't realize that a stolen cookie can be just as dangerous as a password, despite being so willing to accept cookies when visiting websites, just to get rid of the prompt at the bottom of the screen. However, once these are intercepted, a cookie can give hackers direct access to all sorts of accounts containing sensitive data, without any login required."
The vast majority of stolen cookies (90.25 percent) contain ID data, used to uniquely identify users and deliver targeted ads. They can also contain data such as names, home and email addresses, locations, passwords, phone numbers, and genders, although these data points are only present in around 0.5 percent of all stolen cookies. The risk of ruinous personal data exposure as a result of cookie theft is therefore pretty slim. Aside from ID cookies, the other statistically significant type of data that these can contain are details of users' sessions. Over 1.2 billion of these are still up for grabs (roughly 6 percent of the total), and these are generally seen as more of a concern.
Posted by from MMO Champion
Dastardly Duos World Event Start Time
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Dastardly Duos is a new event coming soon. Here’s the time that the event will become available: Time Zone Start Time Date
Pacific 8:00 a.m. June 3
Central 10:00 a.m. June 3
Eastern 11:00 a.m. June 3
Brazil 12:00 p.m. June 3
NDT 12:30 p.m. June 3
AWST 11:00 p.m. June 3
AEST 1:00 a.m. June 4
NZST 3:00 a.m. June 4
GMT 07:00 June 4
CEST 08:00 June 4
EEST 09:00 June 4
In Dastardly Duos, players can step up to take on ‘animatronic’ versions of past bosses, gain powerups, and strive for higher and higher scores (and bragging rights). You and your party will fight two (or more) bosses at a time to rack up your highest score.
There will be three hubs for Dastardly Duos that players can visit in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, and Dornogal. While Vinnie Sweets is running the show, you’ll need to speak with Xyggie Marou to queue for the fight in the Dastardly Dome. A visit with Wodin, the Troll-Servant vendor, will also get you access over the weeks to some additional powerups or items that can help you in the fight.
In case you missed it, check out this look at the lore behind the mayhem:
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the bold-updates department: BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: Microsoft just can't leave well enough alone. The company is now injecting formatting features into Notepad, a program that has long been appreciated for one thing -- its simplicity. You see, starting with version 11.2504.50.0, this update is rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels, and it adds bold text, italics, hyperlinks, lists, and even headers. Sadly, this isn't a joke. Notepad is actually being turned into a watered-down word processor, complete with a formatting toolbar and Markdown support. Users can even toggle between styled content and raw Markdown syntax. And while Microsoft is giving you the option to disable formatting or strip it all out, it's clear the direction of the app is changing.
Elden Ring Nightreign has plenty of hard boss fights, with some harder than others. And there’s one particular boss that you’re more than likely to have some trouble with. It’s called Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow.
If you’re stuck on a tricky boss fight or a challenging puzzle, or just want to make the most of your time with a new release, we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the tips we found most helpful this week.
From mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a tough-as-nails game that blends the beloved roguelike and soulslike genres into something fans of both should find appealing. However, unlike most games in either genre, this one’s inherently designed around working together in a group of three. So, you may be wondering if you can strike out…
In Elden Ring Nightreign, you’ll face off against difficult bosses called Nightlords. These appear on Day Three, after you’ve spent the first two days preparing. They’re your final challenge before completing your expedition.
They say it's probably safe to keep orbiting for a while, but if it stays on or starts flashing we might have to call someone. 
