The definition of the word "bot" is shifting to become an insult to someone you know is human, according to researchers who analyzed more than 22 million tweets. Researchers found this shift began around 2017, with left-leaning users more likely to accuse right-leaning users of being bots. "A potential explanation might be that media frequently reported about right-wing bot networks influencing major events like the [2016] US election," says Dennis Assenmacher at Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. "However, this is just speculation and would need confirmation." NewScientist reports: To investigate, Assenmacher and his colleagues looked at how users perceive what is a bot or not. They did so by looking at how the word "bot" was used on Twitter between 2007 and December 2022 (the social network changed its name to X in 2023, following its purchase by Elon Musk), analyzing the words that appeared next to it in more than 22 million English-language tweets. The team found that before 2017, the word was usually deployed alongside allegations of automated behavior of the type that would traditionally fit the definition of a bot, such as "software," "script" or "machine." After that date, the use shifted. "Now, the accusations have become more like an insult, dehumanizing people, insulting them, and using this as a technique to deny their intelligence and deny their right to participate in a conversation," says Assenmacher. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Eighteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media.

Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Covered last week on Phoronix was a new patch from Intel that with tuning to the P-State CPU frequency scaling driver was showing big wins for Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" performance and power efficiency. I was curious with the Intel claims posted for a couple benchmarks and thus over the weekend set out to run many Intel Meteor Lake benchmarks on this one-line kernel patch... The results are great for boosting the Linux performance of Intel Core ultra laptops with as much as 72% better performance. [...]

When looking at the CPU power consumption overall, for the wide variety of workloads tested it was just a slight uptick in power use and thus overall leading to slightly better power efficiency too. See all the data here. So this is quite a nice one-line Linux kernel patch for Meteor Lake and will hopefully be mainlined to the Linux kernel for Linux 6.11 if not squeezing it in as a "fix" for the current Linux 6.10 cycle. It's just too bad though that it took six months after launch for this tuned EPP value to be determined. Fresh benchmarks between Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen on the latest Linux software will be coming up soon on Phoronix.

A group of Israeli researchers explored the security of the Visual Studio Code marketplace and managed to "infect" over 100 organizations by trojanizing a copy of the popular 'Dracula Official theme to include risky code. Further research into the VSCode Marketplace found thousands of extensions with millions of installs. From a report: Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is a source code editor published by Microsoft and used by many professional software developers worldwide. Microsoft also operates an extensions market for the IDE, called the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, which offers add-ons that extend the application's functionality and provide more customization options. Previous reports have highlighted gaps in VSCode's security, allowing extension and publisher impersonation and extensions that steal developer authentication tokens. There have also been in-the-wild findings that were confirmed to be malicious.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A study claims to have proof of what some have suspected: return to office mandates are just back-channel layoffs and post-COVID work culture is making everyone miserable. HR software biz BambooHR surveyed more than 1,500 employees, a third of whom work in HR. The findings suggest the return to office movement has been a poorly-executed failure, but one particular figure stands out - a quarter of executives and a fifth of HR professionals hoped RTO mandates would result in staff leaving.

While that statistic essentially admits the quiet part out loud, there was some merit to that belief. People did quit when RTO mandates were enforced at many of the largest companies, but it wasn't enough, the study reports. More than a third (37 percent) of respondents in leadership roles believed their employers had undertaken layoffs in the past 12 months as a result of too few people quitting in protest of RTO mandates, the study found. Nearly the same number thought their management wanted employees back in the office to monitor them more closely. The end result has been the growth of a different office culture, one that's even more performative, suspicious, and divisive than before the COVID pandemic, the study concludes.

It was "a catastrophic IT failure," writes Computer Weekly. It was nearly two years ago that Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, "declared itself in financial distress" — effectively declaring bankruptcy — after the costs on an Oracle project costs ballooned from $25 million to around $125.5 million.

But Computer Weekly's investigation finds signs that the program board and its manager wanted to go live in April of 2022 "regardless of the state of the build, the level of testing undertaken and challenges faced by those working on the programme." One manager's notes "reveal concerns that the program manager and steering committee could not be swayed, which meant the system went live despite having known flaws." Computer Weekly has seen notes from a manager at BCC highlighting a number of discrepancies in the Birmingham City Council report to cabinet published in June 2023, 14 months after the Oracle system went into production. The report stated that some critical elements of the Oracle system were not functioning adequately, impacting day-to-day operations. The manager's comments reveal that this flaw in the implementation of the Oracle software was known before the system went live in April 2022... An insider at Birmingham City Council who has been closely involved in the project told Computer Weekly it went live "despite all the warnings telling them it wouldn't work"....

Since going live, the Oracle system effectively scrambled financial data, which meant the council had no clear picture of its overall finances. The insider said that by January 2023, Birmingham City Council could not produce an accurate account of its spending and budget for the next financial year: "There's no way that we could do our year-end accounts because the system didn't work."
A June 2023 report to cabinet "stated that due to issues with the council's bank reconciliation system, a significant number of transactions had to be manually allocated to accounts rather than automatically via the Oracle system," according to the article. But Computer Weekly has seen a 2019 presentation slide deck showing the council was already aware that Oracle's out-of-the-box bank reconciliation system "did not handle mixed debtor/non-debtor bank files. The workaround suggested was either a lot of manual intervention or a platform as a service (PaaS) offering from Evosys, the Oracle implementation partner contracted by BCC to build the new IT system."

The article ultimately concludes that "project management failures over a number of years contributed to the IT failure."

Announced during Microsoft's Xbox Games Showcase, Doom: The Dark Ages is id Software's next foray back into hell. [Also available for PS5 and PC.] Doom: The Dark Ages is a medieval spin on the Doom franchise, taking the Doom Slayer back to the beginning. It's coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, sometime in 2025.

Microsoft's first trailer for Doom: The Dark Ages shows the frenetic, precision gameplay we've come to expect from the franchise — there's a lot of blasting and shooting and a chainsaw. Oh, and the Doom Slayer can ride a dragon?
"Before he became a hero he was the super weapon of gods and kings," says the trailer (which showcases the game's crazy-good graphics...) The 2020 game Doom Eternal sold 3 million copies in its first month, according to Polygon, with its game director telling the site in 2021 that "our hero is somewhat timeless — I mean, literally, he's immortal. So we could tell all kinds of stories..."

Other upcoming Xbox games were revealed too. Engadget is excited about the reboot of the first-person shooter Perfect Dark (first released in 2000, but now set in the near future). There's also Gears of War: E-Day, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, State of Decay 3, and Assassin's Creed Shadows, according to Xbox.com — plus "the announcement of three new Xbox Series X|S console options." [Engadget notes it's the first time Microsoft has offered a cheaper all-digital Xbox Series X with no disc drive.] "And on top of all that, we also brought the gameplay reveal of a brand-new Call of Duty game with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6."

Meanwhile, Friday's Summer Game Fest 2024 featured Star Wars Outlaws footage (which according to GamesRadar takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, featuring not just card games with Lando Calrissian but also Jabba the Hutt and a frozen Han Solo.) Engadget covered all the announcements from Game Fest, including the upcoming game Mixtape, which Engadget calls a "reality-bending adventure" with "a killer '80s soundtrack" about three cusp-of-adulthood teenagers who "Skate. Party. Avoid the law. Make out. Sneak out. Hang out..." for Xbox/PS5/PC.

The BBC reports that British tech tycoon Mike Lynch "has been cleared of fraud charges he faced in the U.S. over the $11bn (£8.6bn) sale of his software firm to Hewlett-Packard in 2011." A jury in San Francisco found him not guilty on all counts in a stunning victory for Mr Lynch, who had been accused of inflating the value of Autonomy, his company, ahead of its sale. Mr Lynch, who faced more than 20 years in prison if convicted, had denied the charges and took the stand to defend himself.

In his testimony, he maintained he had focused on technology not accounting, distancing himself from other executives, including the company's former chief financial officer who was already successfully prosecuted for fraud... Mr Lynch made £500m from the sale. Just a year later, HP wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8bn. Years of legal battles followed. The company's chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was found guilty of fraud in 2018 and later sentenced to five years in prison...

Mr Lynch's team pushed the argument that HP had failed to properly vet the deal and mismanaged the takeover, while he testified he was uninvolved with the transactions being described.
Lynch's lawyers said the verdict "closes the book on a relentless 13-year effort to pin HP's well-documented ineptitude on Dr Lynch. Thankfully, the truth has finally prevailed."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the news.

America's Justice Department "indicted the creators of an application that helps people spend their bitcoins anonymously," writes Reason.com: They're accused of "conspiracy to commit money laundering." Why "conspiracy to commit" as opposed to just "money laundering"?

Because they didn't hold anyone else's money or do anything illegal with it. They provided a privacy tool that may have enabled other people to do illegal things with their bitcoin... What this tool does is offer what's known as a "coinjoin," a method for anonymizing bitcoin transactions by mixing them with other transactions, as the project's founder, Keonne Rodriguez, explained to Reason in 2022: "I think the best analogy for it is like smelting gold," he said. "You take your Bitcoin, you add it into [the conjoin protocol] Whirlpool, and Whirlpool smelts it into new pieces that are not associated to the original piece."
Reason argues that providing the tool isn't a crime, just like selling someone a kitchen knife isn't a crime: The government's decision to indict Rodriguez and his partner William Lonergan Hill is also an attack on free speech because all they did was write open-source code and make it widely available. "It is an issue of a chilling effect on free speech," attorney Jerry Brito, who heads up the cryptocurrency nonprofit Coin Center, told Reason after the U.S. Treasury went after the creators of another piece of anonymizing software...

The most important thing about bitcoin, and money like it, isn't its price. It's the check it places on the government's ability to devalue, censor, and surviel our money. Creators of open-source tools like Samourai Wallet should be celebrated, not threatened with a quarter-century in a federal prison.
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared the article...

Bruce66423 shares a report from The Independent: A potential disaster was narrowly avoided when a packed passenger plane took off just seconds before it was about to run out of runway because of a software glitch. The Boeing aircraft, operated by TUI, departed from Bristol Airport for Las Palmas, Gran Canaria on 9 March with 163 passengers on board when it struggled to take off. The 737-800 plane cleared runway nine with just 260 metres (853ft) of tarmac to spare at a height of 10ft. It then flew over the nearby A38 road at a height of just 30 metres (100ft) travelling at the speed of around 150kts (about 173mph). The A38 is a major A-class busy road, connecting South West England with the Midlands and the north.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), part of the Department for Transport, said the incident was the result of insufficient thrust being used during take-off. Pilots manually set the thrust level following a software glitch that Beoing was aware of before take-off. "A Boeing 737-800 completed a takeoff from Runway 09 at Bristol Airport with insufficient thrust to meet regulated performance," the AAIB report said. "The autothrottle (A/T) disengaged when the takeoff mode was selected, at the start of the takeoff roll, and subsequently the thrust manually set by the crew (84.5% N1 ) was less than the required takeoff thrust (92.8% N1 ). Neither pilot then noticed that the thrust was set incorrectly, and it was not picked up through the standard operating procedures (SOPs)."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After acquiring VMware, Broadcom swiftly enacted widespread changes that resulted in strong public backlash. A new survey of 300 director-level IT workers at companies that are customers of North American VMware provides insight into the customer reaction to Broadcom's overhaul. The survey released Thursday doesn't provide feedback from every VMware customer, but it's the first time we've seen responses from IT decision-makers working for companies paying for VMware products. It echos concerns expressed at the announcement of some of Broadcom's more controversial changes to VMware, like the end of perpetual licenses and growing costs. [...] Every person surveyed said that they expect VMware prices to rise under Broadcom. In a March "User Group Town Hall," attendees complained about "price rises of 500 and 600 percent," according to The Register. We heard in February from ServeTheHome that "smaller" cloud service providers were claiming to see costs grow tenfold. In this week's survey, 73 percent of respondents said they expect VMware prices to more than double. Twelve percent of respondents expect a price hike of 301 to 500 percent. Only 1 percent anticipate price hikes of 501 to 1,000 percent. "At this juncture post-acquisition, most larger enterprises seem to have a clear understanding of how their next procurement cycle with Broadcom will be impacted from a pricing and packaging standpoint," the report noted.

Further, 95 percent of survey respondents said they view Broadcom buying VMware as disruptive to their IT strategy, with 46 percent considering it extremely or very disruptive. Widespread concerns about cost and IT strategy help explain why 99 percent of the 300 respondents said they are concerned about Broadcom owning VMware, with 46 percent being "very concerned" and 30 percent "extremely concerned." Despite widespread anxiety over Broadcom's VMware, most of the respondents said they will likely stay with VMware either partially (43 percent of respondents) or fully (40 percent). A smaller percentage of respondents said they would move more workloads to the public cloud (38 percent) or a different hypervisor (34 percent) or move entirely to the public cloud (33 percent). This is with 69 percent of respondents having at least one contract expiring with VMware within the next 12 months. [...] Top reasons cited for considering abandoning VMware partially or totally were uncertainty about Broadcom's plans, concerns about support quality under Broadcom, and changes to relationships with channel partners (each named by 36 percent of respondents). Following closely was the shift to subscription licensing (34 percent), expected price bumps (33 percent), and personal negative experiences with Broadcom (33 percent). Broadcom's history with big buys like Symantec and CA Technologies also has 32 percent of people surveyed considering leaving VMware. "The emotional shock has started to metabolize inside of the Broadcom customer base, but it's metabolized in the form of strong commitment to mitigating the negative impacts of the Broadcom VMware acquisition," said Kyle Campos, CTPO for CloudBolt Software, the company that commissioned the study.

He warned that Broadcom could see backlash continue "for months and even years to come."

Microsoft says it's making its new Recall feature in Windows 11 that screenshots everything you do on your PC an opt-in feature and addressing various security concerns. From a report: The software giant first unveiled the Recall feature as part of its upcoming Copilot Plus PCs last month, but since then, privacy advocates and security experts have been warning that Recall could be a "disaster" for cybersecurity without changes. Thankfully, Microsoft has listened to the complaints and is making a number of changes before Copilot Plus PCs launch on June 18th. Microsoft had originally planned to turn Recall on by default, but the company now says it will offer the ability to disable the controversial AI-powered feature during the setup process of new Copilot Plus PCs. "If you don't proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default," says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri.

Apple will introduce a new app called Passwords next week, aiming to simplify website and software logins for users, according to Bloomberg. The app -- offered as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 -- will be unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10. Powered by iCloud Keychain, Passwords will generate and manage passwords, allowing imports from rival services, and support Vision Pro headset and Windows computers.

Some artists are jumping ship for the anti-AI portfolio app Cara after Meta began using Instagram content to train its AI models. Fast Company explains: The portfolio app bills itself as a platform that protects artists' images from being used to train AI, and only allowing AI content to be posted if it's clearly labeled. Based on the number of new users the Cara app has garnered over the past few days, there seems to be a need. Between May 31 and June 2, Cara's user base tripled from less than 100,000 to more than 300,000 profiles, skyrocketing to the top of the app store. [...] Cara is a social networking app for creatives, in which users can post images of their artwork, memes, or just their own text-based musings. It shares similarities with major social platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram on a few fronts. Users can access Cara through a mobile app or on a browser. Both options are free to use. The UI itself is like an arts-centric combination of X and Instagram. In fact, some UI elements seem like they were pulled directly from other social media sites. (It's not the most innovative approach, but it is strategic: as a new app, any barriers to potential adoption need to be low).

Cara doesn't train any AI models on its content, nor does it allow third parties to do so. According to Cara's FAQ page, the app aims to protect its users from AI scraping by automatically implementing "NoAI" tags on all of its posts. The website says these tags "are intended to tell AI scrapers not to scrape from Cara." Ultimately, they appear to be html metadata tags that politely ask bad actors not to get up to any funny business, and it's pretty unlikely that they hold any actual legal weight. Cara admits as much, too, warning its users that the tags aren't a "fully comprehensive solution and won't completely prevent dedicated scrapers." With that in mind, Cara assesses the "NoAI" tagging system as a "a necessary first step in building a space that is actually welcoming to artists -- one that respects them as creators and doesn't opt their work into unethical AI scraping without their consent."

In December, Cara launched another tool called Cara Glaze to defend its artists' work against scrapers. (Users can only use it a select number of times.) Glaze, developed by the SAND Lab at University of Chicago, makes it much more difficult for AI models to accurately understand and mimic an artist's personal style. The tool works by learning how AI bots perceive artwork, and then making a set of minimal changes that are invisible to the human eye but confusing to the AI model. The AI bot then has trouble "translating" the art style and generates warped recreations. In the future, Cara also plans to implement Nightshade, another University of Chicago software that helps protect artwork against AI scapers. Nightshade "poisons" AI training data by adding invisible pixels to artwork that can cause AI software to completely misunderstand the image. Beyond establishing shields against data mining, Cara also uses a third party service to detect and moderate any AI artwork that's posted to the site. Non-human artwork is forbidden, unless it's been properly labeled by the poster.

Adobe is facing backlash over new Terms of Service language amid its embrace of generative AI in products like Photoshop and customer experience software. The ToS, sent to Creative Cloud Suite users, doesn't mention AI explicitly but includes a reference to machine learning and a clause prohibiting AI model training on Adobe software. From a report: In particular, users have objected to Adobe's claims that it "may access, view, or listen to your Content through both automated and manual methods -- using techniques such as machine learning in order to improve our Services and Software and the user experience," which many took to be a tacit admission both of surveilling them and of training AI on their content, even confidential content for clients protected under non-disclosure agreements or confidentiality clauses/contracts between said Adobe users and clients.

A spokesperson for Adobe provided the following statement in response to VentureBeat's questions about the new ToS and vocal backlash: "This policy has been in place for many years. As part of our commitment to being transparent with our customers, we added clarifying examples earlier this year to our Terms of Use regarding when Adobe may access user content. Adobe accesses user content for a number of reasons, including the ability to deliver some of our most innovative cloud-based features, such as Photoshop Neural Filters and Remove Background in Adobe Express, as well as to take action against prohibited content. Adobe does not access, view or listen to content that is stored locally on any user's device."

When buying a new smartphone, it's important to consider the duration of software updates, as it impacts security and longevity. In a rare public commitment on Monday, thanks to the UK's new Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regulations, Apple said it guarantees a minimum of five years of security updates for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. "In other words, the iPhone 15 is officially guaranteed to receive security updates until September 22, 2028," reports Android Authority. From the report: This, as VP of Engineering for Android Security & Privacy at Google Dave Kleidermacher points out, means that Apple is no longer offering the best security update policy in the industry. Both Samsung and Google guarantee seven years of not just security updates but also Android OS updates for their respective flagship devices, which is two years longer than what Apple guarantees.

To Apple's credit, though, it has long provided more than five years of security updates for its various iPhone devices. Some iPhones have received security updates six or more years after the initial release, which is far more support than the vast majority of Android devices receive. So, while Samsung and Google currently beat Apple in terms of how long they're guaranteeing software support, that doesn't mean iPhone users can't keep their phones for just as long, if not longer. They'll just need to hope Apple doesn't cut off support after the five-year minimum.

Fans have noticed that, over the last few months, Sony quietly removed any mention of 8K on the PlayStation 5 boxes. "I have been endlessly bitching since the PS5 released about that 8k Badge," writes X user @DeathlyPrice. "It is false Advertising and Sony should be sued for it." Others shared their grievances via PlayStation Lifestyle and a Reddit thread. GameSpot reports: A FAQ on Sony's official site in 2020 stated that "PS5 is compatible with 8K displays at launch, and after a future system software update will be able to output resolutions up to 8K when content is available, with supported software." But to date, the only game that offers 8K resolution on PS5 is The Touryst, which looks more like Minecraft than a game with advanced visuals.

The reality is that 8K has not been widely adopted by video game developers, or even by filmmakers at this point. There are 8K televisions on the market, but it may be quite some time, if ever, before it becomes the standard for either gaming or entertainment.

In a column at Windows Central, a blog that focuses on Microsoft news, senior editor Zac Bowden discusses the backlash against Windows Recall, a new AI feature in Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs. While the feature is impressive, allowing users to search their entire Windows history, many are concerned about privacy and security. Bowden argues that Microsoft's history of questionable practices, such as ads and bloatware, has eroded user trust, making people skeptical of Recall's intentions. Additionally, the reported lack of encryption for Recall's data raises concerns about third-party access. Bowden argues that Microsoft could have averted the situation by testing the feature openly to address these issues early on and build trust with users. He adds: Users are describing the feature as literal spyware or malware, and droves of people are proclaiming they will proudly switch to Linux or Mac in the wake of it. Microsoft simply doesn't enjoy the same benefit of the doubt that other tech giants like Apple may have.

Had Apple announced a feature like Recall, there would have been much less backlash, as Apple has done a great job building loyalty and trust with its users, prioritizing polished software experiences, and positioning privacy as a high-level concern for the company.

Richard Speed reports via The Register: A study has found that software projects adopting Agile practices are 268 percent more likely to fail than those that do not. Even though the research commissioned by consultancy Engprax could be seen as a thinly veiled plug for Impact Engineering methodology, it feeds into the suspicion that the Agile Manifesto might not be all it's cracked up to be. The study's fieldwork was conducted between May 3 and May 7 with 600 software engineers (250 in the UK and 350 in the US) participating. One standout statistic was that projects with clear requirements documented before development started were 97 percent more likely to succeed. In comparison, one of the four pillars of the Agile Manifesto is "Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation."

According to the study, putting a specification in place before development begins can result in a 50 percent increase in success, and making sure the requirements are accurate to the real-world problem can lead to a 57 percent increase. Dr Junade Ali, author of Impact Engineering, said: "With 65 percent of projects adopting Agile practices failing to be delivered on time, it's time to question Agile's cult following. "Our research has shown that what matters when it comes to delivering high-quality software on time and within budget is a robust requirements engineering process and having the psychological safety to discuss and solve problems when they emerge, whilst taking steps to prevent developer burnout." [...] Projects where engineers felt they had the freedom to discuss and address problems were 87 percent more likely to succeed. Worryingly, workers in the UK were 13 percent less likely to feel they could discuss problems than those in the US, according to the study.

Google has acquired software virtualization company Cameyo to enhance ChromeOS's support for virtualized Windows apps. The acquisition follows a partnership between the two companies last year, which aimed to provide businesses with a seamless virtual application experience on ChromeOS devices. With Cameyo's technology, Google seeks to attract more enterprises to adopt ChromeOS by offering enhanced compatibility with legacy Windows applications while maintaining the simplicity and security of the ChromeOS ecosystem.

The companies didn't reveal the financial terms of the deal.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Popular app Bartender was quietly bought, and a shady certificate replacement, insertion of invasive telemetry, and a lack of transparent responses by the new owners has shaken confidence in the Mac community. Menu bar organization tool Bartender has been around for a long time. For most of its life, it had an excellent reputation, and a responsive developer who communicated clearly with users. That appears to have changed, recently. It all started with a quiet pair of app certificate shifts which went mostly unnoticed.

That is, until app monitoring service MacUpdater found out, and started asking questions. They posted a warning about the app, saying that "The company and developer behind Bartender was replaced in a silent and dubious matter." But, there's a lot more to the story than just that warning. CoreCode, the developer of MacUpdater, did a great deal of research on the new owners and the app situation prior to posting the warning. They detailed their discoveries in a Reddit thread on the matter. Research performed before the warning pointed out that blog entries on the Bartender website shifted to heavily search engine optimized content. This is in contrast to the prior informational entries previously posted by original developer Ben Surtees.