A free built-in VPN is coming to Firefox on Tuesday, Mozilla announced this week: Free VPNs can sometimes mean sketchy arrangements that end up compromising your privacy, but ours is built from our data principles and commitment to be the world's most trusted browser. It routes your browser traffic through a proxy to hide your IP address and location while you browse, giving you stronger privacy and protection online with no extra downloads. Users will have 50 gigabytes of data monthly in the U.S., France, Germany and U.K. to start. Available in Firefox 149 starting March 24.

We also recently shared that Firefox is the first browser to ship Sanitizer API, a new web security standard that blocks attacks before they reach you [for untrusted HTML XSS vulnerabilities].
"The roadmap for Firefox this year is the most exciting one we've developed in quite a while," says Firefox head Ajit Varma. "We're improving the fundamentals like speed and performance. We're also launching innovative new open standards in Gecko to ensure the future of the web is open, diverse, and not controlled by a single engine.

"At the same time we're prioritizing features that give users real power, choice and strong privacy protections, built in a way that only Firefox can. And as always, we'll keep listening, inviting users to help shape what comes next and giving them more reasons to love Firefox."

Two new features coming next week:

• Split View puts two webpages side by side in one window, making it easy to compare, copy and multitask without bouncing between tabs. Rolling out in Firefox 149 on March 24.

• Tab Notes let you add notes to any tab, another tool to help with multitasking and picking up where you left off. Available in Firefox Labs 149 starting March 24.

And Firefox also released a video this week introducing their new mascot Kit.

schwit1 shares a report from the BBC: A French officer has reportedly revealed the location of an aircraft carrier deployed towards the Middle East after publicly registering a run on sports app Strava. French news outlet Le Monde first reported the officer, referred to as Arthur, logged a 35-minute run on the app while exercising on the deck of aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle on 13 March. He used a smartwatch to record his run and upload the activity to the app, the paper said, creating a map that showed his location. [...] The location of the vessel was said by Le Monde to have been northwest of Cyprus, around 100km (62 miles) from the Turkish coast, with satellite images capturing the carrier and its escort. A representative from the French Armed Forces said the officer's behavior "does not comply with current guidelines," which "sailors are regularly made aware of."

BrianFagioli writes: Microsoft says it is finally listening to user complaints about Windows 11, promising a series of changes focused on performance, reliability, and reducing everyday annoyances. In a message to Windows Insiders, the company outlined plans to bring back long requested features like taskbar repositioning, cut down on intrusive AI integrations, and give users more control over updates. File Explorer is also getting attention, with promised improvements to speed, stability, and general responsiveness.

The bigger picture here is less about new features and more about fixing what already exists. Microsoft is talking about fewer forced restarts, quieter notifications, and a more predictable experience overall, along with improvements to Windows Subsystem for Linux for developers. While the roadmap sounds reasonable, users have heard similar promises before, so the real test will be whether these changes actually show up in day to day use.

Longtime Slashdot reader SchroedingersCat writes: Chuck Norris, known for his roles in action films and as Texas Ranger Cordell Walker on the TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger," passed away on March 19, leaving behind a legacy of inspiring millions around the world. He was 86.

He became Internet phenomenon after "Chuck Norris Facts" went viral online with such wildly hyperbolic statements as, "Chuck Norris had a staring contest with the sun -- and won," and, "When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he doesn't push himself up, he pushes the Earth down."

His death was announced by his family through his official Instagram account, but no further details were immediately available. He was hospitalized earlier that day in Hawaii after experiencing a medical emergency, the family said.

BrianFagioli writes: Opera GX has officially landed on Linux, bringing its gamer-focused browser experience to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE-based systems. The browser includes GX Control for limiting RAM and network usage, a Hot Tabs Killer to shut down resource-heavy tabs, and built-in sidebar integrations for Discord and Twitch. Opera says this is not just a one-off port, but a long-term effort with ongoing updates and community engagement. "PC gaming has long been associated with a single dominant platform, but that's changing," says Maciej Kocemba, Product Director at Opera GX. "Bringing GX to Linux users -- who are renowned for the control they like to exert over their tools -- means gamers and developers can manage browser resources, customize their setup, and keep their system performing exactly the way they want."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: A lobbying trade body for smaller cloud providers is asking the European Commission to impose interim measures blocking Broadcom from terminating the VMware Cloud Service Provider program, calling the decision a death sentence for some tech suppliers and an illegal squeeze on customer choice. As The Reg revealed in January, Broadcom shuttered the scheme, a move sources claimed affects hundreds of CSPs across Europe and curtails options for enterprises buying VMware software and services. The Cloud Infrastructure Service Provider in Europe (CISPE) trade group, representing nearly 50 tech suppliers, filed the complaint today with the EC Directorates-General, accusing Broadcom of bully-boy tactics, and calling for authorities to halt what it terms as "ongoing abuse."

Francisco Mingorance, CISPE secretary general, said of the complaint: "Businesses -- both cloud providers and their customers -- are being irreparably damaged by Broadcom's unfair actions, which we believe are illegal. "After imposing outrageous and unjustified price hikes immediately following the acquisition of VMware, Broadcom is now applying the 'coup de grace'. We need urgent intervention to force them to change. The only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them." CISPE claims that, since Broadcom completed its $69 billion takeover of VMware in October 2023, prices have risen tenfold, payment is demanded upfront, products are bundled regardless of customer need, and minimum commitments are based on potential rather than actual consumption.

The VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program officially closed in January and all transactions must be complete by March 31. After that date, only a select group of suppliers will be able to sell VMware subscriptions -- either standalone or as part of a broader service. Across Europe, we're told this equates to hundreds of businesses losing their authorization. For some, the loss of VCSP status effectively destroys their market. Those whose operations were built around VMware must now hand customers to another authorized supplier or begin the costly migration to an alternative platform. Broadcom said in a statement responding to the complaint: "Broadcom strongly disagrees with the allegations by CISPE, an organization funded by hyperscalers, which misrepresent the realities of the market. We continue to be committed to investing significantly in our European VMware Cloud Service Provider partners... helping them offer alternatives to the hyperscalers and meet the evolving needs of European businesses and organizations."

Cloudflare's CEO predicts AI-driven bot traffic will surpass human internet traffic by 2027, as AI agents generate vastly more web requests than people. "If a human were doing a task -- let's say you were shopping for a digital camera -- and you might go to five websites. Your agent or the bot that's doing that will often go to 1,000 times the number of sites that an actual human would visit," Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in an interview at SXSW this week. "So it might go to 5,000 sites. And that's real traffic, and that's real load, which everyone is having to deal with and take into account." TechCrunch reports: Before the generative AI era, the internet was only about 20% bot traffic, with Google's web crawler being the largest, according to Prince, whose infrastructure and security company is used by one-fifth of all websites. But beyond some other reputable crawlers, the only other bots were those used by scammers and bad actors. "With the rise of generative AI, and its just insatiable need for data, we're seeing a rise where we suspect that, in 2027, the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic that's online," Prince said.

The executive also noted that this change to the web would require the development of new technologies, like sandboxes for AI agents that can be spun up on the fly and then torn down when their task has finished. These could come into play when consumers ask AI agents to perform certain tasks on their behalf, like planning a vacation. "What we're trying to think about is, how do we actually build that underlying infrastructure where you can -- as easily as you open a new tab in your browser -- you can actually spin up new code, which can then run and service the agents that are out there," Prince said. He imagines there will soon be a time when millions of these "sandboxes" for agents would be created every second. "I think the thing that people don't appreciate about AI is it's a platform shift," Prince said. "AI is another platform shift ... the way that you're going to consume information is completely different."

The UK regulator Ofcom fined 4chan nearly $700,000 (520,000 pounds) for failing to implement age checks and address illegal content risks under the Online Safety Act, but the platform mocked the penalty and signaled it won't pay. A lawyer representing the company responded with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster, writing in a follow-up post on X: "In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment." The BBC reports: The fines also include 50,000 pounds for failing to assess the risk of illegal material being published and a further 20,000 pounds for failing to set out how it protects users from criminal content. 4Chan has refused to pay all previous fines from Ofcom. "Companies -- wherever they're based -- are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different," said Ofcom's Suzanne Cater. "The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we'll take robust enforcement action against firms that fall short."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google is planning big changes for Android in 2026 aimed at combating malware across the entire device ecosystem. Starting in September, Google will begin restricting application sideloading with its developer verification program, but not everyone is on board. Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat tells Ars that the company has been listening to feedback, and the result is the newly unveiled advanced flow, which will allow power users to skip app verification. With its new limits on sideloading, Android phones will only install apps that come from verified developers. To verify, devs releasing apps outside of Google Play will have to provide identification, upload a copy of their signing keys, and pay a $25 fee. It all seems rather onerous for people who just want to make apps without Google's intervention.

Apps that come from unverified developers won't be installable on Android phones -- unless you use the new advanced flow, which will be buried in the developer settings. When sideloading apps today, Android phones alert the user to the "unknown sources" toggle in the settings, and there's a flow to help you turn it on. The verification bypass is different and will not be revealed to users. You have to know where this is and proactively turn it on yourself, and it's not a quick process. [...] The actual legwork to activate this feature only takes a few seconds, but the 24-hour countdown makes it something you cannot do spur of the moment.

But why 24 hours? According to Samat, this is designed to combat the rising use of high-pressure social engineering attacks, in which the scammer convinces the victim they have to install an app immediately to avoid severe consequences. "In that 24-hour period, we think it becomes much harder for attackers to persist their attack," said Samat. "In that time, you can probably find out that your loved one isn't really being held in jail or that your bank account isn't really under attack." But for people who are sure they don't want Google's verification system to get in the way of sideloading any old APK they come across, they don't have to wait until they encounter an unverified app to get started. You only have to select the "indefinitely" option once on a phone, and you can turn dev options off again afterward. "For a lot of people in the world, their phone is their only computer, and it stores some of their most private information," Samat said. "Over the years, we've evolved the platform to keep it open while also keeping it safe. And I want to emphasize, if the platform isn't safe, people aren't going to use it, and that's a lose-lose situation for everyone, including developers."

Meta is partially reversing its decision to drop VR support for Horizon Worlds, keeping VR access for existing Unity-based games while shifting future development to a new flatscreen-focused Horizon Engine. UploadVR reports: If you somehow missed it, on Tuesday Meta officially announced that its Horizon Worlds "metaverse" platform would drop VR support in June, meaning it would only be available as a flatscreen experience for the web and smartphones. But now, in an "ask me anything" session on his Instagram page, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says the company has decided to "keep Horizon Worlds working in VR for existing games to support the fans who've reached out."

Bosworth says this specifically applies to worlds developed with the Horizon Unity runtime, suggesting it applies to those built inside VR or with the Horizon Desktop Editor, but not those built for the new Horizon Engine with Horizon Studio. The picture painted here is of a clean technical break, with the legacy Unity version of Horizon Worlds continuing to support VR, and the new Horizon Engine focusing fully on flatscreen. This VR support will continue through the Horizon Worlds VR app, which Bosworth says will stay on Quest's store "for the foreseeable future".

Specific worlds will not be recommended by the operating system, though, and nor will they be seen in the storefront. Horizon Worlds will be just another app on the store. As for the reason behind not supporting VR in Horizon Engine, Bosworth repeated the explanation he's been giving for two months now -- "because that's where most of the consumer and creator energy already was, and so we're leaning into that."

Trevor Milton, the pardoned founder of Nikola, is seeking $1 billion for AI-powered autonomous planes through a new venture called SyberJet. The Tech Buzz reports: "Autonomous planes will be 10 times harder than Nikola ever was," Milton told the Wall Street Journal in a rare interview. It's a remarkable admission from someone whose last venture collapsed under the weight of securities fraud charges after he overstated the capabilities of Nikola's electric and hydrogen-powered trucks. Milton was convicted in 2022 on three counts of fraud for misleading investors about Nikola's technology, including staging a video that made it appear a truck prototype was driving under its own power when it was actually rolling downhill. The conviction sent him to prison and turned Nikola into a cautionary tale about startup hype culture. His pardon, which came earlier this year, sparked immediate controversy in venture capital and legal circles.

Now he's betting that AI and autonomous aviation represent a clean slate. SyberJet appears focused on developing artificial intelligence systems capable of piloting aircraft without human intervention - a technical challenge that's stumped even well-funded players like Boeing and Airbus. [...] Milton hasn't detailed SyberJet's technical approach or revealed who's backing the venture. The company's website remains sparse, and aviation industry sources say they haven't seen concrete demonstrations of the technology. That opacity echoes the early days of Nikola, when Milton made sweeping claims about revolutionary trucks that existed mostly in renderings and promotional videos. If you need a quick refresher on the Nikola saga, here's a timeline of key events:

June, 2016: Nikola Motor Receives Over 7,000 Preorders Worth Over $2.3 Billion For Its Electric Truck
December, 2016: Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles
February, 2020: Nikola Motors Unveils Hybrid Fuel-Cell Concept Truck With 600-Mile Range
June, 2020: Nikola Founder Exaggerated the Capability of His Debut Truck
September, 2020: Nikola Motors Accused of Massive Fraud, Ocean of Lies
September, 2020: Nikola Admits Prototype Was Rolling Downhill In Promo Video
September, 2020: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Steps Down as Chairman in Battle With Short Seller
October, 2020: Nikola Stock Falls 14 Percent After CEO Downplays Badger Truck Plans
November, 2020: Nikola Stock Plunges As Company Cancels Badger Pickup Truck
July, 2021: Nikola Founder Trevor Milton Indicted on Three Counts of Fraud
December, 2021: EV Startup Nikola Agrees To $125 Million Settlement
September, 2022: Nikola Founder Lied To Investors About Tech, Prosecutor Says in Fraud Trial

Cloudflare is appealing a 14.2 million-euro fine from Italy for refusing to comply with its "Piracy Shield" law, which requires blocking access to websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service within 30 minutes. The company argues the system lacks oversight, risks widespread overblocking, and could undermine core Internet infrastructure. Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports: Piracy Shield is "a misguided Italian regulatory scheme designed to protect large rightsholder interests at the expense of the broader Internet," Cloudflare said in a blog post this week. "After Cloudflare resisted registering for Piracy Shield and challenged it in court, the Italian communications regulator, AGCOM, fined Cloudflare... We appealed that fine on March 8, and we continue to challenge the legality of Piracy Shield itself." Cloudflare called the fine of 14.2 million euros ($16.4 million) "staggering." AGCOM issued the penalty in January 2026, saying Cloudflare flouted requirements to disable DNS resolution of domain names and routing of traffic to IP addresses reported by copyright holders.

Cloudflare had previously resisted a blocking order it received in February 2025, arguing that it would require installing a filter on DNS requests that would raise latency and negatively affect DNS resolution for sites that aren't subject to the dispute over piracy. Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince said that censoring the 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would force the firm "not just to censor the content in Italy but globally."

Piracy Shield was designed to combat pirated streams of live sports events, requiring network operators to block domain names and IP addresses within 30 minutes of receiving a copyright notification. Cloudflare said the fine should have been capped at 140,000 euros ($161,000), or 2 percent of its Italian earnings, but that "AGCOM calculated the fine based on our global revenue, resulting in a penalty nearly 100 times higher than the legal limit."

Despite its complaints about the size of the fine, Cloudflare said the principles at stake "are even larger" than the financial penalty. "Piracy Shield is an unsupervised electronic portal through which an unidentified set of Italian media companies can submit websites and IP addresses that online service providers registered with Piracy Shield are then required to block within 30 minutes," Cloudflare said. Cloudflare is pushing for the law to be struck down, arguing that it is "incompatible with EU law, most notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires that any content restriction be proportionate and subject to strict procedural safeguards."

In addition to appealing the fine, Cloudflare says it will continue to challenge Piracy Shield in Italian courts, engage with EU officials, and seek full access to AGCOM's Piracy Shield records.

With today's latest Stitch updates, Google is trying to make "vibe design" happen, reports The Verge's Jay Peters. The AI-native design platform encourages users to describe goals, feelings, or inspiration in "natural language," rather than starting with traditional blueprints.

In a blog post, Google Labs Product Manager Rustin Banks says that Stitch can turn those inputs into interactive prototypes, automatically map user flows, and support real-time iteration. It introduces voice capabilities that allow users to "speak directly to [the] canvas" for feedback or changes. Tools like DESIGN.md also help users create reusable design systems across various projects.

Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: Users of Samsung PCs are reporting the inability to access the C: drive after the Windows 11 February update. The bug seems to be in connection with the Samsung Galaxy Connect app, which allows Samsung phones and tablets to connect to Windows machines. [A previous stable version of the app has been re-released to prevent this problem from spreading.] This parody explains the situation with humor. The issue stems from update KB5077181 and is impacting Samsung PCs running Windows 11 25H2 or 24H2. Microsoft and Samsung have confirmed the issue and published a workaround, but as PCWorld notes, it will take some time. The workaround "requires removing the Samsung application, then asking Windows to repair the drive permissions and assigning a new owner, then restoring the Windows default permissions, including patching in some custom code that Microsoft wrote."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Britain plans to consider requiring labels on AI-generated content to protect consumers from disinformation and deepfakes, the government said on Wednesday, as it outlined other areas of focus to tackle the evolving global challenge. Technology minister Liz Kendall stressed the need to strike the right balance between protecting the creative industries and allowing the AI sector to innovate, saying in a statement that the government would take time to "get this right."

The next phase of the government's work on copyright and AI would also look at the harms posed by digital replicas without consent, ways for creators to control their work online and support for independent creative organizations, she said. [...] Louise Popple, a copyright expert at law firm Taylor Wessing, noted that the government had not ruled out a broad exception that would allow AI developers to train on copyright works. "That's a subtle difference of approach and could be interpreted to mean that everything is still up for grabs" she said. "It feels very much like the hard issues are being kicked down the road by the government."

In 2024, Britain proposed easing copyright rules to let developers train models on lawfully accessed material, with creators able to reserve their rights. On Wednesday, Kendall said that having engaged with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions and academics, the government had concluded it "no longer has a preferred option." "We will help creatives control how their work is used. This sits at the heart of our ambition for creatives – including independent and smaller creative organizations -- to be paid fairly," she said.

Meta is shutting down its VR social platform Horizon Worlds, which was once a key piece of the pivot to the metaverse. The company said the app will be taken off the Quest store at the end of March, and fully removed from Quest headsets by June 15. After that date, it will shift to a standalone "mobile-only experience." CNBC reports: The shift for Horizon Worlds, which was once a central part of the company's push into virtual reality, comes weeks after Meta cut over 1,000 employees from Reality Labs, the unit responsible for the metaverse. [...] The social platform has never drawn more than a couple hundred thousand active users a month, CNBC previously reported.

The virtual 3D social network where avatars could interact and play games with other users officially launched in late 2021. It operated exclusively on the Quest VR platform until Meta launched a mobile app version in September 2023. The mobile version of Horizon Worlds was built to provide an entry point for users without VR headsets, functioning similarly to Roblox.

Longtime Slashdot reader internet-redstar writes: Nearly a trillion dollars has been wiped from software stocks in 2026, with hedge funds making billions shorting Salesforce, HubSpot, and Atlassian. At FOSDEM 2026, cURL maintainer Daniel Stenberg shut down his bug bounty program after AI-generated slop overwhelmed his team. A new article on HackerNoon argues that most commercial SaaS could inevitably become OpenSource, not out of ideology but economics. The author points to Proxmox replacing VMware at enterprise scale and startups like Holosign replicating DocuSign at $19/month flat as evidence. The catch, the article claims, is that maintainers who refuse to embrace AI tools risk being forked, or simply replicated from scratch, by those who do.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Musi, a free music streaming app that had tens of millions of iPhone downloads and garnered plenty of controversy over its method of acquiring music, has lost an attempt to get back on Apple's App Store. A federal judge dismissed Musi's lawsuit against Apple with prejudice and sanctioned Musi's lawyers for "mak[ing] up facts to fill the perceived gaps in Musi's case."

Musi built a streaming service without striking its own deals with copyright holders. It did so by playing music from YouTube, writing in its 2024 lawsuit against Apple that "the Musi app plays or displays content based on the user's own interactions with YouTube and enhances the user experience via Musi's proprietary technology." Musi's app displayed its own ads but let users remove them for a one-time fee of $5.99. Musi claimed it complied with YouTube's terms, but Apple removed it from the App Store in September 2024. Musi does not offer an Android app. Musi alleged that Apple delisted its app based on "unsubstantiated" intellectual property claims from YouTube and that Apple violated its own Developer Program License Agreement (DPLA) by delisting the app.

Musi was handed a resounding defeat yesterday in two rulings from US District Judge Eumi Lee in the Northern District of California. Lee found that Apple can remove apps "with or without cause," as stipulated in the developer agreement. Lee wrote (PDF): "The plain language of the DPLA governs because it is clear and explicit: Apple may 'cease marketing, offering, and allowing download by end-users of the [Musi app] at any time, with or without cause, by providing notice of termination.' Based on this language, Apple had the right to cease offering the Musi app without cause if Apple provided notice to Musi. The complaint alleges, and Musi does not dispute, that Apple gave Musi the required notice. Therefore, Apple's decision to remove the Musi app from the App Store did not breach the DPLA."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media, written by Jason Koebler: Over the last few months, various academics and AI companies have attempted to predict how artificial intelligence is going to impact the labor market. These studies, including a high-profile paper published by Anthropic earlier this month, largely try to take the things AI is good at, or could be good at, and match them to existing job categories and job tasks. But the papers ignore some of the most impactful and most common uses of AI today: AI porn and AI slop.

Anthropic's paper, called "Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence," essentially attempts to find 1:1 correlations between tasks that people do today at their jobs and things people are using Claude for. The researchers also try to predict if a job's tasks "are theoretically possible with AI," which resulted in this chart, which has gone somewhat viral and was included in a newsletter by MSNOW's Phillip Bump and threaded about by tech journalist Christopher Mims. (Because everything is terrible, the research is now also feeding into a gambling website where you can see the apparent odds of having your job replaced by AI.) In his thread, Mims makes the case that the "theoretical capability" of AI to do different jobs in different sectors is totally made up, and that this chart basically means nothing. Mims makes a good and fair observation: The nature of the many, many studies that attempt to predict which people are going to lose their jobs to AI are all flawed because the inputs must be guessed, to some degree.

But I believe most of these studies are flawed in a deeper way: They do not take into account how people are actually using AI, though Anthropic claims that that is exactly what it is doing. "We introduce a new measure of AI displacement risk, observed exposure, that combines theoretical LLM capability and real-world usage data, weighting automated (rather than augmentative) and work-related uses more heavily," the researchers write. This is based in part on the "Anthropic Economic Index," which was introduced in an extremely long paper published in January that tries to catalog all the high-minded uses of AI in specific work-related contexts. These uses include "Complete humanities and social science academic assignments across multiple disciplines," "Draft and revise professional workplace correspondence and business communications," and "Build, debug, and customize web applications and websites." Not included in any of Anthropic's research are extremely popular uses of AI such as "create AI porn" and "create AI slop and spam." These uses are destroying discoverability on the internet, cause cascading societal and economic harms. "Anthropic's research continues a time-honored tradition by AI companies who want to highlight the 'good' uses of AI that show up in their marketing materials while ignoring the world-destroying applications that people actually use it for," argues Koebler. "Meanwhile, as we have repeatedly shown, huge parts of social media websites and Google search results have been overtaken by AI slop. Chatbots themselves have killed traffic to lots of websites that were once able to rely on ad revenue to employ people, so on and so forth..."

"This is all to say that these studies about the economic impacts of AI are ignoring a hugely important piece of context: AI is eating and breaking the internet and social media," writes Koebler, in closing. "We are moving from a many-to-many publishing environment that created untold millions of jobs and businesses towards a system where AI tools can easily overwhelm human-created websites, businesses, art, writing, videos, and human activity on the internet. What's happening may be too chaotic, messy, and unpleasant for AI companies to want to reckon with, but to ignore it entirely is malpractice."

Kyle Orland writes via Ars Technica: Since deep-learning super-sampling (DLSS) launched on 2018's RTX 2080 cards, gamers have been generally bullish on the technology as a way to effectively use machine-learning upscaling techniques to increase resolutions or juice frame rates in games. With yesterday's tease of the upcoming DLSS 5, though, Nvidia has crossed a line from mere upscaling into complete lighting and texture overhauls influenced by "generative AI." The result is a bland, uncanny gloss that has received an instant and overwhelmingly negative reaction from large swaths of gamers and the industry at large.

While previous DLSS releases rendered upscaled frames or created entirely new ones to smooth out gaps, Nvidia calls DLSS 5 -- which it plans to launch in Autumn -- "a real-time neural rendering model" that can "deliver a new level of photoreal computer graphics previously only achieved in Hollywood visual effects." Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said explicitly that the technology melds "generative AI" with "handcrafted rendering" for "a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression."

Unlike existing generative video models, which Nvidia notes are "difficult to precisely control and often lack predictability," DLSS 5 uses a game's internal color and motion vectors "to infuse the scene with photoreal lighting and materials that are anchored to source 3D content and consistent from frame to frame." That underlying game data helps the system "understand complex scene semantics such as characters, hair, fabric and translucent skin, along with environmental lighting conditions like front-lit, back-lit or overcast," the company says. Nvidia's announcement video and detailed Digital Foundry breakdown can be found at their respective links.

"Reactions have compared the effect to air-brushed pornography, 'yassified, looks-maxed freaks,' or those uncanny, unavoidable Evony ads," writes Orland. "Others have noted how DLSS 5 seems to mangle the intended art direction by dampening shadows in favor of a homogenized look."

Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell said the technology seems designed "for when you absolutely, positively, don't want any art direction in your gaming experience."

Gunfire Games Senior Concept Artist Jeff Talbot added that "in every shot the art direction was taken away for the senseless addition of 'details.' Each DLSS 5 shot looked worse and had less character than the original. This is just a garbage AI Filter."

DLSS 5's "AI dogshit is actually depressing," said New Blood Interactive founder and CEO Dave Oshry, adding that future generations "won't even know this looks 'bad' or 'wrong' because to them it'll be normal."