Slashdot

Starting today, unsolicited telemarking calls are banned in France unless consumers explicitly consent to them. Companies that violate the law can face fines of up to 375,000 euros per call, though existing customers can still be contacted with related offers. Le Monde reports: The government says the law is a response to years of consumer complaints. Authorities estimate that about three-quarters of people in France receive at least one unsolicited sales call every week, and many receive more.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks the liver, figures show. The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030. Taking antiviral tablets for 8 to 12 weeks can cure more than 95% of cases. Initiatives including A&E blood tests, GP registra…

Ancient Slashdot reader Alain Williams shares a report from The Guardian: Mark Zuckerberg has faced questions over why a small cruise ship in south-east Alaska rescued a stranded skiff and its crew when his 387ft superyacht had been closer. The Silicon Valley billionaire's yacht, worth a reported $300 million, is said to have "repeatedly" declined to assist when a nearby boat called for help last week. Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, was not on board at the time,…

Longtime Slashdot reader DF5JT writes: On July 26, I posted a single announcement in r/backgammon: GNU Backgammon for Android, GPLv3, the first standalone backgammon engine on F-Droid. Reddit's spam filter removed the post and permanently banned my 11-year, 30,000-karma account -- the result is publicly visible at reddit.com/user/OE1FEU. To this day, Reddit has given no reason whatsoever, although Article 17 of the EU's Digital Services Act makes a statement of reasons mandatory. The only appea…

alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Robotics companies promise that video-camera-toting security robots can deter and detect crime. But many companies are rethinking the approach after a trail of canceled contracts and questions about whether the artificial intelligence-powered bots are meeting the needs of businesses and local governments. Proof News found evidence of at least 21 security robot deployments since 2015. We contacted contract holders and combed news articles and det…

An anonymous reader shares a report from The Conversation, written by Hatim Sharif, a civil and environmental engineer who has "spent more than two decades staring at maps" and spatial data. Sharif finds one connection especially fascinating: the link between spatial reasoning and why taxi drivers seem to have lower rates of Alzheimer's. From the report: Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer's disease. That was the surprising result …

A routine security assessment found that cameras aboard Royal Navy Kraken unmanned surface vessels were sending "heartbeat" signals to an IP address in China. "A thorough investigation found no evidence of MoD data or systems being accessed, compromised or transmitted externally," said a Ministry of Defense spokesperson. "Our assurance and testing processes are designed to identify and address potential vulnerabilities early, and we continue to undertake routine security activity across our sys…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Ceva Logistics, one of the world's largest shipping and logistics giants, has been hacked. Several companies that rely on Ceva for shipping their products to their customers say that their personal information was also stolen in the breach. The cyberattack on Ceva is affecting at least eight warehouses across Europe used for shipping goods across the continent, the company told TechCrunch. Industry news site FreightWaves reports that the hack…

Valve is continuing to broaden SteamOS support beyond its own hardware, with the latest beta adding "initial gamepad support" for a few recent gaming handhelds and improving compatibility for a few others. Ars Technica reports: Those newly supported handhelds include MSI's Claw 8 EX AI+, the extremely expensive, extremely powerful handheld built around Intel's Arc G3 processor that launched this summer. While SteamOS has long included beta support for "other AMD powered handhelds," Valve has on…

Aptoide has become the first third-party Android app store available directly through Google Play in the U.S. "The change is a direct result of Google's litigation with Epic, which saw a judge rule in 2024 that the Play Store would have to open up to third-party stores," notes The Verge. The change makes rival storefronts far easier to discover and install, potentially opening the door for Epic, Amazon, Samsung, Microsoft and others to distribute their own app stores through Google's store. Fro…

Nvidia is working with Wall Street heavyweights on a potential $500 billion financing package for AI infrastructure (source paywalled; alternative source). The consortium includes BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR. The Financial Times reports: The partnership underscores Nvidia's growing efforts to raise capital for itself and its clients to continue assembling the chips, power production and data centres at the heart of the AI boom. …

Meta has released Muse Glimmer, a slimmed-down open-weight AI model designed to run locally on a single GPU for agent tasks such as scheduling, file management, coding, and tool use. The release is based on Meta's closed Muse Spark 1.2 model and appears to be aimed at attracting developers who want capable AI agents without relying entirely on cloud-hosted services. Engadget reports: Facebook said that it's making the "weights" that AI systems use to choose responses available to everyone on Hu…

Taiwan deliberately throttled mobile internet across the Taichung area during its annual Han Kuang war games, "simulating communication disruption in the event of a Chinese attack or natural disaster," reports Reuters. The drill accompanied air-raid exercises and military rehearsals aimed at defending strategically important areas such as the Penghu Islands. From the report: Democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has long lived with the threat of a Chinese inva…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News & Headlines: Andrew asked his personal assistant to book him a spot in one of his gym's coveted morning classes. It was a task he thought was well suited to this particular assistant because the booking form was online and because his assistant was not a person -- it was artificial intelligence (AI). But Andrew was shocked by what happened next. His AI assistant found a way to book the gym class months further in advance than the gym allowed, th…

Paramount is making commitments to major theater chains to release 30 films annually for three years if its Warner Bros. deal goes through. According to Deadline, the written commitment was sent to "at least one of the top two circuits" (specifically Regal but AMC may have also received a written commitment) and includes "an exclusive 45-day theatrical window and a 90-day window to streaming." From the report: When it comes to the big chains, it matters for them to be on the right side of histo…