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A demo of educational AI-powered tools by a Microsoft product manager (in March of 2024) showed "how AI has the possibility to transform various job sectors and the education system," according to one report. But that demo "includes a segment on Copilot in Excel that is likely to resonate with AI-wary software developers," writes long-time Slashdot theodp: The Copilot in Excel segment purports to show how even teachers who were too "afraid of" or "intimidated" to use Excel in the past can now just use natural language prompts to conduct Excel analysis. But Copilot advises the teacher there are no 'outliers' in the exam scores for their 17 students, whose test scores range from 27%-100%. (This is apparently due to Copilot's choice of an inappropriate outlier detection method for this size population and score range). Fittingly, the student whose 27% score is confidently-but-incorrectly deemed to be of no concern by Copilot is named after Michael Scott, the largely incompetent and unprofessional boss of The Office. (Microsoft also named the other exam takers after characters from The Office). The additional Copilot student score "analysis" touted by Microsoft in the demo is also less than impressive. It includes: 1. A vertical bar chart that fails to convey the test score distribution that a histogram would have (a rookie chart choice mistake), 2. A horizontal bar chart of student scores that only displays every other student's name and shows no score values (a rookie formatting error)... So, will teachers — like programmers — be spending a significant amount of time in the future reviewing, editing, and refining the outputs of their AI agent helpers? "Not only does it illustrate how the realities of AI assistants sometimes fall maddeningly short of the promises," argues the original submission. "The demo also shows how AI vendors and customers alike sometimes forget to review promotional AI content closely in all the AI excitement!"

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Off the southwest cost of Italy, a remotely operated submarine made "a significant and rare discovery," reports the Independent — a vast white coral reef that was 80 metres tall (262 feet) and 2 metres wide (6.56 feet) "containing important species and fossil traces." Often dubbed the "rainforests of the sea", coral reefs are of immense scientific interest due to their status as some of the planet's richest marine ecosystems, harbouring millions of species. They play a crucial role in sustaining marine life but are currently under considerable threat... hese impressive formations are composed of deep-water hard corals, commonly referred to as "white corals" because of their lack of colour, specifically identified as Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata species. The reef also contains black corals, solitary corals, sponges, and other ecologically important species, as well as fossil traces of oysters and ancient corals, the Italian Research Council said. It called them "true geological testimonies of a distant past." Mission leader Giorgio Castellan said the finding was "exceptional for Italian seas: bioconstructions of this kind, and of such magnitude, had never been observed in the Dohrn Canyon, and are rarely seen elsewhere in our Mediterranean". The discovery will help scientists understand the ecological role of deep coral habitats and their distribution, especially in the context of conservation and restoration efforts, he added. The undersea research was funded by the EU. Thanks to davidone (Slashdot reader #12,252) for sharing the article.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from The Wrap Tesla this weekend introduced a new "Tron: Ares" mode, giving drivers an opportunity to turn their on-screen vehicles into the glowing Light Cycles that have been a big part of the Disney franchise since 1982. The optional update started rolling out on Friday, as Tron: Ares debuted in theaters. Tesla announced the update on X: "The grid has expanded to your Tesla — Tron: Ares update rolling out now." The feature is activated in Tesla's Toybox "infotainment" system, and turns the driver's vehicle avatar into a red Light Cycle. For drivers who have the "ambient lighting" feature, the mode will also expand the theme throughout the cabin. There was also a sleek black Tesla Optimus robot at the premier of Tron: Ares. Ironically, the Hollywood Reporter writes that by box office figures, "Tron is in big trouble," selling fewer tickets than expected (despite the movie's $180 million pre-marketing budget). While Tron's audience reviews gave it an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, its score with critics is just 57%. The Los Angeles Times says the movie "has glowing style, but its storytelling doesn't compute." (Or, as the New York Times puts it, "Who needs logic when you have neon?")

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Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: German IT news outlet Heise reports [German-language article] that the northern most state Schleswig-Holstein has, after half a year of frantic data migration work, successfully migrated their MS Outlook mail and groupware setups to a FOSS solution using Open-Xchange and Thunderbird. Stakeholders consider the move a major success and milestone to digital sovereignty and saving costs. This move makes the state a pioneer in Germany. As a next major step Schleswig-Holstein plans to migrate their authorities and administrations desktop PCs to Linux.

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"California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the 'California Opt Me Out Act', which will require web browsers to include an easy, universal way for users to opt out of data collection and sales," reports the blog 9to5Mac: [The law] requires browsers to provide a clear, one-click mechanism for Californians to opt out of data sharing across websites. The bill reads: "A business shall not develop or maintain a browser that does not include functionality configurable by a consumer that enables the browser to send an opt-out preference signal to businesses with which the consumer interacts through the browser...." Californians will need patience, though, as the law doesn't take effect until January 1, 2027. Americans in some states — including California, Texas, Colorado, New Jersey and Maryland — "have the option to make those opt-out demands automatic whenever they surf the web," reports the Washington Post. "But they can only do so if they use small browsers that voluntarily offer that option, such as DuckDuckGo, Firefox and Brave. What's new in California's law is that all browsers must give people the same option." That means soon in California, just using Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari and Microsoft's Edge can command companies not to sell your data or pass it along for ad targeting... It's an imperfect but potent and simple way to flex privacy rights — and becomes even more powerful with another simple privacy measure in California. Starting on January 1, California residents can fill out an online form once to completely and repeatedly wipe their data from hundreds of data brokers that package your personal information for sale. But their article also suggests other ways readers can "try a one-click privacy option now." "[S]ome national companies respect one-click privacy opt-out requests from everyone... This happens automatically if you use DuckDuckGo and Brave. You need to change a setting with Firefox." "Download Privacy Badger: The software from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy advocacy group, works in the background to order websites not to sell information they're collecting about you." "Use Permission Slip from Consumer Reports. Give the app basic information, and it will help you do much of the legwork to tell companies not to sell your information or to delete it, if you have the right to do so."

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Independent: Bitcoin and Ethereum both saw record liquidations as investors reacted to fears over a trade war, which saw many crypto investors move their money to stablecoins or safer assets... Bitcoin fell by more than 10 per cent to below $110,000, before recovering to $113,096 on Saturday morning. The value of Ethereum slumped by 11.2 per cent to $3,878. Other cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Doge and Ada, fell around 19 per cent, 27 per cent, and 25 per cent in the last 24 hours, respectively. LiveMint shares some statistics from Bloomberg: Citing 24-hour data from Coinglass, the report noted that more than $19 billion has been wiped out in the "largest liquidation event in crypto history", which impacted more than 1.6 million traders. It added that more than $7 billion of those positions were sold in less than one hour of trading on October 10. According to data on CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency market cap has dived to $3.74 trillion from the record-high $4.30 trillion level, the previous day. Trading volumes as of the market close were recorded at $490.23 billion. Bitcoin retreated on Friday, as US-China trade tensions reignited, after racing to record highs earlier in the week as persistent rate-cut bets and signs of some cooling in geopolitical tensions helped boost risk. Bitcoin was trading at $105,505.4 on Friday, down 13.15% on the day.

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"Nvidia is investing billions in and selling chips to OpenAI, which is also buying chips from and earning stock in AMD," writes SFGate. "AMD sells processors to Oracle, which is building data centers with OpenAI — which also gets data center work from CoreWeave. And that company is partially owned by, yes, Nvidia. "Taken together, it's a doozy." There are other collaborations and rivalries and many other factors at play, but OpenAI is the many-tentacled octopus in the middle, spinning its achievement of ChatGPT into a blitz of speculative investments. "We are in a phase of the build-out where the entire industry's got to come together and everybody's going to do super well," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. "You'll see this on chips. You'll see this on data centers. You'll see this lower down the supply chain...." Some worry that the more closely companies intertwine, the more susceptible they are to creating a bubble, or a market not actually supported by real consumer demand. "You don't have to be a skeptic about AI technology's promise in general to see this announcement as a troubling signal about how self-referential the entire space has become," Bespoke Investment Group wrote in a note to clients, per CNBC. "If NVDA has to provide the capital that becomes its revenues in order to maintain growth, the whole ecosystem may be unsustainable..." Also, even with Nvidia's investment, AMD's shares and OpenAI's repeated fundraises, the ChatGPT-maker doesn't have the cash to meet all of these vast commitments. And if OpenAI's soaring projections about demand for AI computing don't bear out, there will be a lot of committed money — and a large share of the stock market — that would see its foundations topple. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the news.

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