Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the double-edged-sword department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Using AI can be a double-edged sword, according to new research from Duke University. While generative AI tools may boost productivity for some, they might also secretly damage your professional reputation. On Thursday, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study showing that employees who use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini at work face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from colleagues and managers. "Our findings reveal a dilemma for people considering adopting AI tools: Although AI can enhance productivity, its use carries social costs," write researchers Jessica A. Reif, Richard P. Larrick, and Jack B. Soll of Duke's Fuqua School of Business.
The Duke team conducted four experiments with over 4,400 participants to examine both anticipated and actual evaluations of AI tool users. Their findings, presented in a paper titled "Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI," reveal a consistent pattern of bias against those who receive help from AI. What made this penalty particularly concerning for the researchers was its consistency across demographics. They found that the social stigma against AI use wasn't limited to specific groups. "Testing a broad range of stimuli enabled us to examine whether the target's age, gender, or occupation qualifies the effect of receiving help from Al on these evaluations," the authors wrote in the paper. "We found that none of these target demographic attributes influences the effect of receiving Al help on perceptions of laziness, diligence, competence, independence, or self-assuredness. This suggests that the social stigmatization of AI use is not limited to its use among particular demographic groups. The result appears to be a general one."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the cutting-out-the-middleman department: Huawei has launched its first laptop running HarmonyOS instead of Windows, complete with AI features and support for over 2,000 mostly China-focused apps. The product is largely a result of U.S. sanctions that prevented U.S.-based companies like Google and Microsoft from doing business with Huawei, forcing the company to develop its own in-house solution. Liliputing reports: Early version of HarmonyOS were basically skinned version of Android, but over time Huawei has moved the two operating systems further apart and it now includes Huawei's own kernel, user interface, and other features. The version designed for laptops features a desktop-style operating system with a taskbar and dock on the bottom of the screen and support for multitasking by running multiple applications in movable, resizable windows.
Since this is 2025, of course Huawei's demos also heavily emphasize AI features: the company showed how Celia, its AI assistant, can summarize documents, help prepare presentation slides, and more. While the operating system won't support the millions of Windows applications that could run on older Huawei laptops, the company says that at launch it will support more than 2,000 applications including WPS Office (an alternative to Microsoft Office that's developed in China), and a range of Chinese social media applications.
Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Hotfixes - May 9, 2025
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Dungeons and Raids
Liberation of Undermine
Lentil Sprocket now sends players to a slightly different location for the X-Treme transit One Armed Bandit shortcut within the Gallagio.
Season of Discovery
Fixed an issue where the Corrupted Ashbringer questline could get soft locked if you died while inside of Mount Hyjal between quests.
Thisalee will allow you to go to Mount Hyjal after completing her quests, and will no longer allow you back into Mount Hyjal once you are finished there.
If you complete the quest “Falling Into Place” and did not accept the follow-up quest “A Difficult Path” before the Will of the Ashbringer despawned, talk to Rix Xizzix in Booty Bay to get a replacement. How this Goblin got the Inert Ashbringer in his possession? We don't know, but you're just glad he found it!
Paladin
Sunlight will now correctly benefit from the Scarlet Enclave Shockadin 6-set bonus.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the clout-chasing department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Schools across the US are warning parents about an Internet trend that has students purposefully trying to damage their school-issued Chromebooks so that they start smoking or catch fire. Various school districts, including some in Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington, have sent letters to parents warning about the trend that's largely taken off on TikTok. Per reports from school districts and videos that Ars Technica has reviewed online, the so-called Chromebook Challenge includes students sticking things into Chromebook ports to short-circuit the system. Students are using various easily accessible items to do this, including writing utensils, paper clips, gum wrappers, and pushpins.
The Chromebook challenge has caused chaos for US schools, leading to laptop fires that have forced school evacuations, early dismissals, and the summoning of first responders. Schools are also warning that damage to school property can result in disciplinary action and, in some states, legal action. In Plainville, Connecticut, a middle schooler allegedly "intentionally stuck scissors into a laptop, causing smoke to emit from it," Superintendent Brian Reas told local news station WFSB. The incident reportedly led to one student going to the hospital due to smoke inhalation and is suspected to be connected to the viral trend. "Although the investigation is ongoing, the student involved will be referred to juvenile court to face criminal charges," Reas said. TikTok recently banned the search term "Chromebook Challenge" and created a safety message that pops up when searching for the term. The social media company notes that the challenge is on other social media platforms, too.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the about-face department: According to The Information (paywalled), Meta is reportedly developing facial recognition capabilities for its Ray-Ban smart glasses -- technology it previously avoided due to privacy concerns. 404 Media's Joseph Cox writes: The move is an obvious about-face from Meta. It's also interesting to me because Meta's PR chewed my ass off when I dared to report in October that a pair of students took Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and combined them with off-the-shelf facial recognition technology. That tool, which the students called I-XRAY, captured a person's face, ran it through an easy to access facial recognition service called Pimeyes, then went a step further and pulled up information about the subject from across the web, including their home address and phone number.
When I contacted Meta for comment for that story, Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email he had one question for me. "That Pimeyes facial recognition technology could be used with ANY camera, correct? In other words, this isn't something that only is possible because of Meta Ray-Bans? If so, I think that's an important point to note in the piece," he wrote. This is true. But entirely misses the point of why the students created the tool with Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. They said themselves in a demonstration video they identified dozens of people without their knowledge. You do that by wearing a pair of glasses that look like any other. Meta's Ray-Ban's do have a light that turns on when it's recording, but according to the new report, Meta is questioning whether new versions of its glasses need this.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the PSA department: Just days after a radar and communications outage at Newark Liberty International Airport, the FAA confirmed a second incident on May 9 that disrupted radar and radio contact for 90 seconds due to a telecom failure at Philadelphia TRACON. "As of 12:30PM ET, FlightAware stats showed 292 total delays for flights into or out of Newark, which is also experiencing delays due to runway construction," reports The Verge. From the report: After the first outage on April 28th, an air traffic controller who had been on duty that day told CNN it "...was the most dangerous situation you could have." CNN reports that after a change made last July, the airport's radar and radio communication flows over a single data feed from a facility in New York, where controllers used to manage Newark's flights, to Philadelphia.
The FAA has announced a plan to replace the current copper connection with fiber, as well as adding "three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections between the New York-based STARS and the Philadelphia TRACON," and more air traffic controllers. Until those and other changes are made, the agency also said a new backup system is being deployed in Philadelphia, but it's unclear when that will be available.
NBC News reports the Friday outage affected a limited number of sectors, but it's another incident in the string of issues that have highlighted the problems with the airport's aging control system and lack of staffing. [...] A statement from the FAA said, "Frequent equipment and telecommunications outages can be stressful for controllers. Some controllers at the Philadelphia TRACON who work Newark arrivals and departures have taken time off to recover from the stress of multiple recent outages."
Posted by from MMO Champion
PAX East - Evolving Azeroth: Creating a Living World: Past, Present and Future
Some Blizzard members are live at PAX East for a special World of Warcraft panel, streaming now on the official PAX
Twitch and
YouTube channels.
The panel explores 20 years of world building and design that brought life to Azeroth. Associate Game Directors Jeremy Feasel and Paul Kubit, Associate Design Director Maria Hamilton, and Principal Game Designer Jesse Kurlancheek reflect on iconic moments like the opening of Ahn'Qiraj and offer a look at what's ahead, such as the player housing feature in Midnight, the upcoming expansion.
The team talked about what makes up a living world, recapping some examples of things that change in the world.
The player base isn't monolithic, there are people that enjoy just specific parts of the game (questing, PvP, PvE, etc)
Daily quests were built out for players that wanted to do quests, helping those players not run out of quests. It also helped the world feel more alive.
In Blade's Edge Mountains there was a bombing run quest and the cannons would fire back at you. The area would get really laggy on Sunday and Monday, because the cannons were shooting an invisible bunny that didn't despawn and they slowly built up over the week.
By Wrath of the Lich King, the team knew that there were going to be expansions in the future, lots of expansions.
The team realized that the world didn't change with you, despite all of your accomplishments. This led to creating phasing.
Phasing is super useful for showing progression in the world. Both for individual players and groups in the world.
The downside of phasing is you may not see your friends, or they may not see the same thing that you are seeing. It separates people, so the team is more careful with it.
Party Sync helps keep friends in the same phase.
< This article continues on their website >
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