L4s Bot

Workers at companies that tested out a 4-day workweek are happier and more efficient — and firms made more money. One lawmaker says it’s ‘here to stay.’::The latest data shows that workers and companies prosper under a four-day workweek. Rep. Mark Takano wants to make it law.

Scientists develop game-changing vaccine against Lyme disease ticks::Researchers have developed a way to vaccinate people such that the ticks that cause Lyme disease cannot be colonized by the bacteria that cause the disease.

Montana train derailment renews calls for automated systems to detect track problems::The NTSB is renewing its calls for major freight railroads to equip every locomotive with automated track inspection devices that it believes could have prevented a 2021 train derailment that killed three people in Montana.

Some Apple users say its parental controls aren’t working properly. A CEO who has 4 kids called it ‘frustrating.’::Parents told The Wall Street Journal they have to continuously check their Screen Time settings to ensure their children’s usage is limited.

Automaker Tesla is opening more showrooms on tribal lands to avoid state laws barring direct sales::Tesla is ramping up efforts to open showrooms on tribal lands where it can sell directly to consumers, circumventing laws in states that bar vehicle manufacturers from also being retailers in favor of the dealership model.

Regulation could disrupt the booming “kidfluencer” business::undefined

The Writers’ Strike Over AI Is Bigger Than Hollywood::Debates on generative technology touch every industry, including ours

New Orleans police use of facial recognition nets zero arrests in nine months::undefined

Instead of obtaining a warrant, the NSA would like to keep buying your data::undefined

Samsung sees 95% drop in profits for a second consecutive quarter::Today, Samsung posted its Q2 2023 financial results. The report says Samsung’s profits have dropped considerably compared to last year.

The World’s Largest Wind Turbine Has Been Switched On::It’s turbo time.

The U.K. Government Is Very Close To Eroding Encryption Worldwide::The U.K. Parliament is pushing ahead with a sprawling internet regulation bill that will, among other things, undermine the privacy of people around the world. The Online Safety Bill, now at the final stage before passage in the House of Lords, gives the British...

US judge tightens Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail, will consider jailing him::A U.S. judge on Wednesday tightened Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail conditions by restricting his ability to communicate publicly, and said he will consider jailing him before the trial over the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

OceanGate’s cofounder wants to send 1,000 people to a floating colony on Venus by 2050, and says we shouldn’t stop pushing the limits of innovation::Guillermo Söhnleinm told Insider he has wanted to make humanity a multi-planet species since he was 11 years old, and that OceanGate was part of that ambition.

Porn sites must have government health warning in Texas from September 1st::Just when we didn’t think the state of Texas could get any more wacko on tech policy, this latest bill really suggests otherwise. House Bill 1181 is an age verification measure that is similar to what we’ve seen in the state legislatures across other...

Most of the 100 million people who signed up for Threads stopped using it::“We’re seeing more people coming back daily than I’d expected,” Zuckerberg said.

Blizzard says that modding Diablo IV can result in a permanent account ban::undefined

Conservatives Bombarded With Facebook Misinformation Far More Than Liberals In 2020 Election, Study Suggests::Misinformation thrived in conservative echo chambers—but there were no liberal equivalents, according to the findings.

AI researchers say they’ve found ‘virtually unlimited’ ways to bypass Bard and ChatGPT’s safety rules::The researchers found they could use jailbreaks they’d developed for open-source systems to target mainstream and closed AI systems.

TikTok has been pushing Chinese propaganda to millions of users in Europe: analysis::More than 1,000 ads from Chinese state media outlets have run on European users’ TikTok feeds since October 2022, according to the platform’s latest ad library update that was analyzed by Forbes.

OpenAI just admitted it can’t identify AI-generated text. That’s bad for the internet and it could be really bad for AI models.::In January, OpenAI launched a system for identifying AI-generated text. This month, the company scrapped it.

Twitter under fire for reinstating account that posted child sex abuse::undefined

Nematode resurrected from Siberian permafrost laid dormant for 46,000 years::A soil nematode reanimated from Siberian permafrost had laid dormant for approximately 46,000 years, according to a study publishing July 27, 2023 in the open access journal PLOS Genetics by Anastasia Shatilovich at the Institute of Physicochemical and...

Bill that Would Stop the Government Buying Data Without a Warrant Passes Key Hurdle | The Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act passed the House Judiciary Committee, bringing it one step closer to b…::The Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act passed the House Judiciary Committee, bringing it one step closer to becoming law. The...

Maine plans to use offshore wind for half its energy needs by 2040::Maine will procure at least 3,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines by 2040 under a bill signed Thursday by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, enough to power about half of the state’s electricity load.

Tesla was dealing with 2,000 cases a week amid a surge in driving-range complaints from frustrated customers, report says /::Elon Musk’s EV company aimed to shut down customer complaints about driving range, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

New York City wants lithium-ion e-bike batteries to be stopped at the border when they don’t meet national safety standards after rash of deadly fires::After a series of deadly fires.

Tesla exaggerating EV range for over a decade::undefined

FCC chair wants to boost broadband standard to 100Mbps::First refresh of minimums in eight years for the country that invented the internet

Amazon faces potential break-up as FTC finalizes antitrust lawsuit | The FTC is getting ready for the big one::undefined

Tesla was so swamped with complaints about driving ranges that it created a secret team to cancel owners’ service appointments, source says::To suppress the volume of complaints the automaker created a secret “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel appointments, Reuters reported.

Man open-sources the self-repairable AirPods Pro case that Apple won’t make::The AirPods Pro “could have been easily made repairable with minimal effort.”

Boeing has now lost $1.1 billion on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight::“We’re not really ready to talk about a launch opportunity yet.”

X tells advertisers to spend $1,000 per month or risk losing verification status::Elon Musk says that brands will need to pay X $1,000 per months in order to keep the verification badge…

U.S. rule requires public companies to disclose cybersecurity breaches in 4 days::The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules Wednesday to require public companies to disclose within four days all cybersecurity breaches that could affect their bottom lines. Delays will be permitted if immediate disclosure poses serious...

Car companies like Honda, BMW, and Hyundai are banding together to build an EV-charging network bigger than Tesla’s Supercharger empire::Tesla has been building out its Supercharger network for over a decade. Now legacy car companies are taking a page from Elon Musk’s playbook.

Rising online hate comments, fake news causing real-life harm::There are increasing calls to restrict malicious comments and the spread of fake news as the punishment for such acts remains diminutive compared to its harms.

Netflix lists $900,000 AI job as actors and writers continue to strike::Will this pair of Hollywood strikes ever end? It looks like the big corporations are digging in for a long battle, illustrated by Netflix’s recent job posting for a machine learning platform product manager.

‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools::Major UN report issues warning over excessive use, with one in six countries already banning the devices

Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works::Thousands of published authors are requesting payment from tech companies for the use of their copyrighted works in training artificial intelligence tools, marking the latest intellectual property critique to target AI development.

Scientists from South Korea discover superconductor that functions at room temperature, ambient pressure::For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor ($T_c \ge 400$ K, 127$^\circ$C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The...

A proposal to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries::A team of economists and engineers from China, Turkey and Nigeria has published a proposal based on simulations to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries. In their paper published in the journal Scientific …

Video game studios are so scared of AI they’re offering $7K bonusus for AI ideas::They’re forcing employees to study machine learning and offering $7,000 bounties for A.I. ideas: ‘Every week, we feel that we are going to be eliminated’

FCC chair: Speed standard of 25Mbps down, 3Mbps up isn’t good enough anymore::Chair proposes 100Mbps national standard and an evaluation of broadband prices.

Researchers find deliberate backdoor in police radio encryption algorithm | Vendors knew all about it, but most customers were clueless.::Vendors knew all about it, but most customers were clueless.

Grindr employees are unionizing::undefined

Apple hit with $1B UK lawsuit over ‘abusive pricing’ in App Store::undefined

Cigna Sued Over Algorithm Allegedly Used To Deny Coverage To Hundreds Of Thousands Of Patients::The software system allows claim rejections without doctors ever opening patient medical records, according to the lawsuit.