A chain of 30 U.S. newspapers including the Sacramento Bee, the Miami Herald and the Idaho Statesman "has started to use a new AI tool that can summarize traditional articles and spit out different versions for different audiences," reports the New York Times.

And the chain's reporters "are not happy about it."

Journalists in many of the company's newsrooms are now withholding their bylines from articles created by the new tool, meaning that those articles will run with a generic credit rather than a reporter's name, as is customary. They are also labeled AI-assisted. "We don't want to put our bylines on stories we did not actually write even if they're based on our work," said Ariane Lange, an investigative reporter at the Sacramento Bee and the vice chair of the Sacramento Bee News Guild. "That in itself feels like a lie."

The reporters' byline strike is one of the sharpest conflicts yet between journalists and their companies over the use of AI. Related debates are playing out in newsrooms across the country, as publishers experiment with new AI tools to streamline work that used to take hours, and some even use it to write full articles... [E]xecutives have promoted the tool internally as a way to increase the number of articles published and ultimately gain new subscribers... [Eric Nelson, the vice president of local news] said using reporters' bylines on the AI-generated articles was a way to show "authority" on Google so the search engine would rank the articles higher in the results. He also said the company was experimenting with feeding in reporters' notes to create articles. "Journalists who embrace and experiment with this tool are going to win," Nelson said in the meeting. "Journalists who are defiant will fall behind"....

McClatchy's public AI policy states that the company uses AI tools to summarize articles to "help readers quickly understand the main points of a single story or catch up on multiple stories about a larger topic," and that editors review the output before publication.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

America's school districts "spent billions on technology during the pandemic," reports the Washington Post.

"But now some states are limiting in-school screen time because of concerns about its impact on children."


Nationwide [U.S.] schools invested at least $15 billion and possibly as much as $35 billion from federal pandemic relief funds on laptops, learning software and other technology between 2020 and 2024, according to an estimate by the Edunomics Lab, an education think tank. By last school year, 88% of public schools reported in a federal survey they had given every child a laptop, tablet or similar device.

Now, some states and school districts are walking back their technology use following pressure from parents who claim too much in-school screen time has zapped children's attention spans and left them worse off academically. At least a dozen states introduced or adopted policies this year that attempt to regulate screen time in schools — from prescribing limits to allowing families to opt out of virtual instruction... In Missouri, a bill would require every school district in that state to come up with a screen time policy is making its way through the state legislature. "Ed tech is just big tech in a sweater vest," said Missouri state Rep. Tricia Byrnes (R), who introduced the legislation and blames what she described as the overuse of technology for middling test scores...

Complicating the issue is research that shows students do not see any academic gains when provided with laptops. A meta-analysis of studies on reading comprehension suggests paper-based texts are better than digital-based reading... A body of research has established that excessive or unstructured screen time can have detrimental effects on children, including harming language development, weakening social skills and triggering anxiety and depression. But the effects of school-issued devices and in-school usage on children's development are less understood, said Tiffany Munzer, a developmental behavioral pediatrician and digital media researcher at the University of Michigan. Some studies report that high-quality digital tools can support students' learning goals, Munzer said. But "a lot of the apps that are marketed as educational ... are not actually educational and contain a lot of commercialized content."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ajpscs has added a photo to the pool:

the SQUARE
TOKYO DAY WALK
INTERACTIVE
© ajpscs

ajpscs posted a photo:

the SQUARE
TOKYO DAY WALK
INTERACTIVE
© ajpscs

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

This building was erected in 1887 as a mission church of St John’s in an area deemed to be a spiritual 'no man's land'. At the time of the rebuilding of St John's (1887) in Halifax Street,
the Reverend Frederic Slaney Poole decided to put any superfluous materials and fittings to good use by erecting a mission church. He explained in 'A Pastoral Letter' to his parishioners in 1886 that it was only because of the 'circumstances of the colony' at the time that the Mission Church was re-erected from the old St John's Church. South Australia at this time was caught in a depression period which continued through almost to the end of the nineteenth
century.

It is a severely detailed Gothic building, well constructed of brick, with a bell tower which is a
noteworthy feature.
Environmentally this building is perhaps anachronistic in its present surrounds, being isolated from its historical context in an area of commercial uses. Built to serve a former poor, residential area, this building recalls the earlier residential nature and character of this part of the city.

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Angas Street, Adelaide CBD

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Chancery Lane, Adelaide CBD

Op zoek naar een mooi optrekje inclusief ruime tuin? Dan is het huis dat schrijfster Annie M.G. Schmidt liet bouwen misschien iets voor jou. Het huis staat aan de Bonfut in Berkel en Rodenrijs en kan voor een schamele 1,3 miljoen euro van jou zijn.

Een auto is zaterdagmiddag rond 14.40 uur in een sloot naast de A29 bij Klaaswaal beland. Het voertuig kwam op de zijkant terecht.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - Het housefestival Music On in Amsterdam gaat dit weekeinde definitief niet door. De gemeente heeft zaterdag op het laatste moment de vergunning voor het feest ingetrokken. De organisator spande een kort geding aan om het besluit terug te laten draaien, maar de rechter heeft dat afgewezen. De reden daarvoor is nog niet bekend.

Het festival is met 20.000 bezoekers uitverkocht. Het zou zaterdag om 12.00 uur zijn begonnen in het Meerpark in de wijk Watergraafsmeer. Dat mocht niet doorgaan omdat de Omgevingsdienst van de gemeente een negatief advies had gegeven over de tentconstructies op het terrein. Daardoor kan de veiligheid van de aanwezigen volgens de gemeente niet gegarandeerd worden.

Het is niet bekend of bezoekers hun geld terugkrijgen.