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Requesting concise answers from AI chatbots significantly increases their tendency to hallucinate, according to new research from Paris-based AI testing company Giskard. The study found that leading models -- including OpenAI's GPT-4o, Mistral Large, and Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet -- sacrifice factual accuracy when instructed to keep responses short. "When forced to keep it short, models consistently choose brevity over accuracy," Giskard researchers noted, explaining that models lack sufficient "space" to acknowledge false premises and offer proper rebuttals. Even seemingly innocuous prompts like "be concise" can undermine a model's ability to debunk misinformation.

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Google has launched the AI Futures Fund, a new initiative to invest in AI startups that are building with the latest tools from Google DeepMind. TechCrunch reports: The fund will back startups from seed to late stage and will offer varying degrees of support, including allowing founders to have early access to Google AI models from DeepMind, the ability to work with Google experts from DeepMind and Google Labs, and Google Cloud credits. Some startups will also have the opportunity to receive direct investment from Google. "The AI Futures Fund doesn't follow a batch or cohort model," a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch. "Instead, we consider opportunities on a rolling basis -- there's no fixed application window or deadline. When we come across companies that align with the fund's thesis, we may choose to invest. We're not announcing a specific fund size at this time, and check sizes vary based on the company's stage and needs -- typically early to mid-stage, with flexibility for later-stage opportunities as well." Startups can apply here.

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Philips has launched a new initiative called "Philips Fixables," offering free, officially drafted 3D-printable replacement parts to encourage self-repair and sustainability. The program is initially available in the Czech Republic but aims to expand over time. Tom's Hardware reports: This is a new idea, so only one component is available right now for download. The piece happens to be a 3mm comb for one of their shavers, but Philips assures there will be more components made available for more of their devices over time. This isn't the release of a grand library of parts by any means, but it does showcase a shift in supporting communities in search of businesses that support repairable hardware. [...] The official Philips Fixables web page has a link for anyone in the general public to submit a request to add a specific component. Philips will notify customers with a download link if the component they suggested is able to be shared to Philips Fixables. It's not clear what sort of turnaround time to expect for these requests and whether there are limitations on what components will be made available. According to Philips, consumers must adhere to the recommended print settings for their components to get the best results. This is the only way to ensure the replacement part is sturdy enough to stand in for a repair. Compromising on fill space for time could make or break your user experience, for example, but if done correctly, a replacement 3D print can be a useful long term solution. You can check out the files over at Printables.com.

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The new owners of VPN provider VPNSecure have drawn ire after canceling lifetime subscriptions. From a report: The owners told customers that they didn't know about the lifetime subscriptions when they bought VPNSecure, and they cannot honor the purchases.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Countries are meeting at the United Nations on Monday to revive efforts to regulate the kinds of AI-controlled autonomous weapons increasingly used in modern warfare, as experts warn time is running out to put guardrails on new lethal technology. Autonomous and artificial intelligence-assisted weapons systems are already playing a greater role in conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza. And rising defence spending worldwide promises to provide a further boost for burgeoning AI-assisted military technology. Progress towards establishing global rules governing their development and use, however, has not kept pace. And internationally binding standards remain virtually non-existent. Since 2014, countries that are part of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) have been meeting in Geneva to discuss a potential ban fully autonomous systems that operate without meaningful human control and regulate others. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has set a 2026 deadline for states to establish clear rules on AI weapon use. But human rights groups warn that consensus among governments is lacking. Alexander Kmentt, head of arms control at Austria's foreign ministry, said that must quickly change. "Time is really running out to put in some guardrails so that the nightmare scenarios that some of the most noted experts are warning of don't come to pass," he told Reuters. Monday's gathering of the U.N. General Assembly in New York will be the body's first meeting dedicated to autonomous weapons. Though not legally binding, diplomatic officials want the consultations to ramp up pressure on military powers that are resisting regulation due to concerns the rules could dull the technology's battlefield advantages. Campaign groups hope the meeting, which will also address critical issues not covered by the CCW, including ethical and human rights concerns and the use of autonomous weapons by non-state actors, will push states to agree on a legal instrument. They view it as a crucial litmus test on whether countries are able to bridge divisions ahead of the next round of CCW talks in September. "This issue needs clarification through a legally binding treaty. The technology is moving so fast," said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International's Researcher on Military, Security and Policing. "The idea that you wouldn't want to rule out the delegation of life or death decisions ... to a machine seems extraordinary." In 2023, 164 states signed a 2023 U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the international community to urgently address the risks posed by autonomous weapons.

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Google is updating its iconic 'G' logo for the first time in 10 years, replacing the four solid color sections with a smooth gradient transition from red to yellow to green to blue. "This modernization feels inline with the Gemini gradient, while AI Mode in Search uses something similar for a shortcut," notes 9to5Google. The update has already rolled out to the Google Search app on iOS and is in beta for Android. From the report: It's a subtle change that you might not immediately notice, especially if the main place you see it is on your homescreen. It will be even less noticeable as a tiny browser favicon. It does not appear that Google is refreshing its main six-letter logo today, while it's unclear whether any other product logos are changing. In theory, some of the company's four-color logos, like Chrome or Maps, could pretty easily start bleeding in their sections.

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Ticketmaster will now show full ticket prices upfront -- fees included. "The company announced the 'All In Prices' initiative on Monday as part of its efforts to comply with the Federal Trade Commission's ban on junk fees, which goes into effect on May 12th," notes The Verge. From the report: Now, when you're shopping for tickets, Ticketmaster will display a ticket's full price, alongside a dropdown menu that you can select to see how much you're paying for the "Face Value" of a ticket and the service fee. You still won't see local taxes or delivery fees until checkout. Ticketmaster says it has made some improvements to its queue as well, by offering real-time updates about ticket availability and when wait times are expected to last more than 30 minutes. It also allows customers to see exactly how many people are ahead of them in the queue.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last Thursday, white smoke emerged from a chimney at the Sistine Chapel, signaling that cardinals had elected a new pope. That's a rare event in itself, but one of the many unprecedented aspects of the election of Chicago-born Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV is one of the main reasons he chose his papal name: artificial intelligence. On Saturday, the new pope gave his first address to the College of Cardinals, explaining his name choice as a continuation of Pope Francis' concerns about technological transformation. "Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV," he said during the address. "There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution." In his address, Leo XIV explicitly described "artificial intelligence" developments as "another industrial revolution," positioning himself to address this technological shift as his namesake had done over a century ago. As the head of an ancient religious organization that spans millennia, the pope's talk about AI creates a somewhat head-spinning juxtaposition, but Leo XIV isn't the first pope to focus on defending human dignity in the age of AI. Pope Francis, who died in April, first established AI as a Vatican priority, as we reported in August 2023 when he warned during his 2023 World Day of Peace message that AI should not allow "violence and discrimination to take root." In January of this year, Francis further elaborated on his warnings about AI with reference to a "shadow of evil" that potentially looms over the field in a document called "Antiqua et Nova" (meaning "the old and the new"). "Like any product of human creativity, AI can be directed toward positive or negative ends," Francis said in January. "When used in ways that respect human dignity and promote the well-being of individuals and communities, it can contribute positively to the human vocation. Yet, as in all areas where humans are called to make decisions, the shadow of evil also looms here. Where human freedom allows for the possibility of choosing what is wrong, the moral evaluation of this technology will need to take into account how it is directed and used." [...] Just as mechanization disrupted traditional labor in the 1890s, artificial intelligence now potentially threatens employment patterns and human dignity in ways that Pope Leo XIV believes demand similar moral leadership from the church. "In our own day," Leo XIV concluded in his formal address on Saturday, "the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor."

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Apple is planning to use AI technology to address a frequent source of customer frustration: the iPhone's battery life. From a report: The company is planning an AI-powered battery management mode for iOS 19, an iPhone software update due in September, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The enhancement will analyze how a person uses their device and make adjustments to conserve energy, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the service hasn't been announced. To create the technology -- part of the Apple Intelligence platform -- the company is using battery data it has collected from users' devices to understand trends and make predictions for when it should lower the power draw of certain applications or features. There also will be a lock-screen indicator showing how long it will take to charge up the device, said the people.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: A new report claims that Nvidia has recently raised the official prices of nearly all of its products to combat the impact of tariffs and surging manufacturing costs on its business, with gaming graphics cards receiving a 5 to 10% hike while AI GPUs see up to a 15% increase. As reported by Digitimes Taiwan, Nvidia is facing "multiple crises," including a $5.5 billion hit to its quarterly earnings over export restrictions on AI chips, including a ban on sales of its H20 chips to China. Digitimes reports that CEO Jensen Huang has been "shuttling back and forth" between the US and China to minimize the impact of tariffs, and that "in order to maintain stable profitability," Nvidia has reportedly recently raised official prices for almost all its products, allowing its partners to increase prices accordingly.

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Chegg said on Monday it would lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees, to cut costs and streamline its operations as students increasingly turn to AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT over traditional edtech platforms. From a report: The company, an online education firm that offers textbook rentals, homework help and tutoring, has been grappling with a decline in web traffic for months and warned that the trend would likely worsen before improving. Google's expansion of AI Overviews is keeping web traffic confined within its search ecosystem while gradually shifting searches to its Gemini AI platform, Chegg said, adding that other AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic were courting academics with free access to subscriptions. As part of the restructuring announced on Monday, Chegg will also shut its U.S. and Canada offices by the end of the year and aim to reduce its marketing, product development efforts and general and administrative expenses.

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Version:next-20250512 (linux-next) Released:2025-05-12

Version:6.15-rc6 (mainline) Released:2025-05-11 Source:linux-6.15-rc6.tar.gz Patch:full (incremental)

joshuark shares a report from Axios: Bill Gates, once the richest man in the world, vowed to give away "virtually all" of his wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next two decades. Then, the foundation will close its doors on Dec. 31, 2045. [...] Gates wrote in a Thursday Gates Notes essay that the original plan was to sunset the foundation several decades after he and his then-wife died. Now, Gates believes that a "shorter timeline" is feasible. Gates pledged three "key aspirations" to guide the foundation's funding over the next two decades, which center on promoting child and maternal health and fighting infectious diseases and poverty. He emphasized that progress is not possible without government cooperation, as the U.S. and other nations slash their foreign aid budgets. "The reality is, we will not eradicate polio without funding from the United States," Gates wrote. It's unclear whether the world's richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people," Gates wrote. He added, "But the one thing we can guarantee is that, in all of our work, the Gates Foundation will support efforts to help people and countries pull themselves out of poverty."

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Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Earth.com: McDermitt Caldera in Oregon is attracting attention for what could be one of the largest lithium deposits ever identified in the United States. Many view it as a potential boost for domestic battery production, while local communities voice concern over the impact on wildlife and cultural sites. The excitement stems from estimates that value the deposit at about $1.5 trillion. Some geologists say these ancient volcanic sediments could contain between 20 and 40 million metric tons of lithium. The study is published in the journal Minerals.

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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."

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Elizabeth Holmes has lost her bid to have the appeal of her 2022 fraud conviction reheard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as her final option. She and former Theranos executive Sunny Balwani remain liable for $452 million in restitution, while Holmes continues serving her 11-year sentence. CNBC reports: The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied Holmes' request for a rehearing before the original three-judge panel that upheld her conviction. At the same time, the court said no judge on the circuit court had asked for a vote on whether to have the full court rehear the appeal. Holmes, 41, was sentenced in January 2023 to 11 years and 3 months in prison after being found guilty of four counts of wire fraud in January 2022. She was found guilty of deceiving investors about the capabilities of Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003. The company crumbled after a Wall Street Journal story outlined the firm's struggles and shut down in 2018.

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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.

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Mexico has filed a lawsuit against Google for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America" for U.S. users on Google Maps, following a Republican-led House vote on Thursday to codify the name change. President Claudia Sheinbaum argues the U.S. only has authority to rename its portion of the continental shelf and warned of legal action unless Google reversed the change. The Guardian reports: "All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with," Sheinbaum said. "The US government only calls the portion of the US continental shelf the Gulf of America, not the entire gulf, because it wouldn't have the authority to name the entire gulf," she added. In response to Trump, Sheinbaum has cheekily suggested calling the United States "America Mexicana" -- Mexican America, pointing to a map dating back to before 1848, when one-third of her country was seized by the United States.

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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.

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