In May Chess.com "quietly launched" a free educational poker site named Gambit, reports The Verge, where players can learn the game and improve an Elo-like rating without risking real money. And next Chess.com will expand into more classic games, including go, backgammon, and mahjong:

Like Gambit, Chess.com is developing Elo-style rating systems for these games, as well. [Chess.com's chief growth officer, Albert Cheng] didn't say when the new sites will launch but that "development is moving quite rapidly" on them, using the same playbook he used for Gambit... He and one other employee took Gambit from prototype to launch within a year, partly with help from AI, mainly for coding tasks. "I think the biggest advantage that it's provided is essentially being able to read our existing codebase and our design system and apply consistent patterns to how we develop Chess.com over to a different platform and do so quickly," Cheng said.... "Just because code is easier to write doesn't mean that you just let it run on its own, but it certainly is a superpower in getting things off the ground."

Cheng also said the version of Gambit that's live at the time of writing has "zero or close to zero" AI-created assets, which were used in early prototypes.


According to Cheng, without help from AI, getting another site up and running would have required a bigger team or "would have been a lot more disruptive to the status quo of building and growing Chess." Now that a "small, scrappy" team can get a new platform off the ground much faster, it's opened the door for Chess.com to dip into more games, starting with poker.

The poker site already has 75,000 members, according to a blog post Friday — and they've already played nearly 20 million hands and completed 100,000 lessons. The site is now holding a daily poker tournament, and on Monday will broadcast the event with live commentary on their Twitch and YouTube channels.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's already happened — at least on Google Maps.

Google's online maps reflect name changes in official government sources, Google posted Saturday. So when the U.S. Geographic Names Information System formally changed the name for "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America," Google also renamed it "Lake America" — for visitors from the U.S.

"Those in Canada will continue to see 'Lake Ontario'," Google said.

And people from every other country in the world... "will see both names." Though here's how it will be written...


Lake Ontario (Lake America)


"These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now."


Meanwhile, NPR reports that Ontario's Premier posted a billboard reading "Lake Ontario — Now and Always" on Canada's side of the lake (repeating the message in French). And The Daily Beast reports Google move has also drawn some criticism online:



"Hey you gave one of the Great Lakes the wrong name; pretty embarrassing mistake so you might want to fix that," one user wrote on X...

MapQuest has said it will not be changing the name, and instead launched a new tool that allows users to rename it themselves to whatever they want.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

America's public education system has become "an avenue for multitrillion-dollar companies to enact their agendas," argues a NewYork Times reporter who's covered that tech industry influence for over 10 years. Big tech companies "advocate for new laws to require schools to teach industry-aligned subjects. They sit on committees that help shape learning standards for public school students..."


The reporter concludes that "Silicon Valley's efforts to capture the attention of education professionals and provide student training materials can also double as marketing or indoctrination."
They enable some of the most powerful corporations on the planet to spin rosy technology stories for administrators, teachers and students, giving them a sanitized view of industry practices and product risks. Many parents would likely object if, say, Exxon Mobil wrote their children's environmental science curriculum. Or if Purdue Pharma trained their children's biology teachers. Yet, over the last decade, schools have often embraced the technology industry in similar ways with few questions asked.

The article excerpts the soon-to-be-released book " Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools," with the reporter adding more thoughts on LinkedIn:


Every few years, Silicon Valley has urged American public schools to quickly adopt the latest technology or teach the latest tech subject: Big Data analytics; laptops for every child; algorithm-driven math and reading apps; compter programming; virtual reality. And each time the urgent arguments sounded remarkably similar: if schools just adopted the latest tech tool, or taught the latest tech subject, it would democratize learning for every child and equip students with valuable career skills.
Despite good intentions, "today we know some of those classroom tech drives did not exactly pan out as advertised."

Now some of the same companies that urged schools to provide laptops and coding lessons are employing similar arguments to urge schools to quickly adopt A.I. tools. I've spent years covering Chromebooks and student chatbot use. And I'm troubled by our collective amnesia around school tech.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader theodp for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ScienceDaily reports:

A microchip about the size of a grain of rice can generate a highly organized "rainbow" of light, a capability that could eventually support faster, higher-capacity 6G communications and extremely precise timing for quantum technologies. Physicists at Loughborough University, working with an international research team, demonstrated a system that produces a series of precisely spaced light frequencies. Those optical frequencies can then be converted into multiple high-frequency electromagnetic signals known as millimeter waves.

Millimeter waves are attracting growing interest for future communications because they can provide considerably more bandwidth, giving networks more room to transmit data. A major obstacle, however, has been producing these signals with the precision and stability required for advanced applications... "They could ultimately contribute to faster, higher capacity 6G networks," [said Dr. Luke Peters, of Loughborough University's Emergent Photonics Research Centre], "but the potential goes far beyond communications. These frequencies could also be used in radar systems as well as spectroscopy and astronomical instruments, helping scientists study materials and make extremely precise measurements of the universe.
"These applications are still some way off, and there are challenges to overcome before the technology can be used in real-world systems — but our latest work has tackled a major one..." A microcomb generates an extremely precise set of light frequencies arranged somewhat like the colors in a rainbow, although the light itself is invisible to the human eye. A specialized antenna can then convert those optical frequencies into millimeter waves. Earlier research demonstrated that microcombs could produce a single precise millimeter wave frequency. Generating many frequencies simultaneously could be far more useful because each could potentially serve as a separate channel for transmitting information at the same time. Achieving that, however, requires a microcomb with exceptional stability and signal quality.
In a new Nature Communications paper, the Loughborough led researchers report a system capable of doing exactly that.

Their system connects its chip-based microresonator to a much larger loop of optical fiber where laser light continuously travels through both parts of the system, according to the article.

"The team is now investigating how the microcomb system could eventually move from a laboratory experiment into practical technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Social

Zit je net lekker van fly-overs in het café te genieten, hebben de Amerikanen weer bommetjes laten vallen bij fly-overs in oorlogstijd. De eerste Amerikaanse aanval op Iran in een maand: twee lanceerinstallaties zijn aangevallen op het eiland Larak, ten noorden van de Straat van Hormuz. De Amerikaanse legerwoordvoerder Tim Hawkins: "Eerder vandaag hebben Amerikaanse troepen twee Iraanse lanceerinstallaties op het eiland Larak aangevallen. Er werden troepen van de Islamitische Revolutionaire Garde waargenomen die zich voorbereidden om raketten met zeemijnen af ​​te vuren in de Straat van Hormuz." Surprise, maar de Iraniërs zijn nijdig en zweren wraak. En het ging net zo goed met die Straat van Hormuz!

Social

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

BertvB posted a photo:

A magical and serene early morning landscape captured in the Overloonsche Duinen near Overloon, Netherlands.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide, January 1969

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

NEW YORK (ANP) - Daniil Medvedev staat in de tweede ronde van de US Open. De als zevende geplaatste Rus was in drie sets te sterk voor de Fransman Hugo Gaston: 6-4 6-2 6-4. De wedstrijd was na twee uur en achttien minuten afgelopen.

De 30-jarige Medvedev speelt in de volgende ronde tegen de Amerikaan Sebastian Gorzny of de Belg Raphael Collignon.

Medvedev won de US Open in 2021. De 25-jarige Gaston staat op de 91e positie van de wereldranglijst.

WASHINGTON (ANP) - De Amerikaanse president Donald Trump heeft toezichthouders op de communicatiesector opgeroepen een prominente journaliste van de zender NBC News te "straffen". In een bericht op Truth Social viel hij Kristen Welker aan, omdat ze had gezegd dat de president "wisselende resultaten" heeft geboekt met zijn steun aan politieke kandidaten tijdens voorverkiezingen.

Bij de recente voorverkiezingen binnen de Republikeinse Partij werden diverse door Trump gesteunde kandidaten verslagen. Zelf houdt hij vol dat de uitslagen in 98 tot 100 procent van de gevallen in zijn voordeel uitvielen, ook in zijn post op Truth Social van zondag.

In die post schreef Trump dat Welker "vanwege deze opzettelijke onjuistheid bij de FCC zal worden aangegeven voor een berisping of straf". De Federal Communications Commission (FCC) verleent licenties voor radio- en televisiefrequenties en houdt toezicht daarop.

In juni brak Trump abrupt een interview met Welker af toen hij geïrriteerd raakte door haar vragen, met name over de oorlog tegen Iran.

PORTSMOUTH (ANP/AFP) - In de Straat van Hormuz is opnieuw een tanker aangevallen, meldt de Britse maritieme scheepvaartmonitor UKMTO op X. Het schip zou voor de kust van Oman door een "onbekend projectiel" zijn geraakt.

Het incident zou zaterdag twaalf zeemijl ten noorden van de stad Khasab hebben plaatsgevonden. Er zijn nog geen berichten over gewonden of milieuschade, aldus UKMTO. Wie voor de aanval verantwoordelijk was, is tot nu toe onduidelijk. Eerder deze week meldde de monitor ook al een aanval op een olietanker voor de kust van Oman.

Iran belemmert het scheepvaartverkeer door de zeestraat met dreigementen en aanvallen op schepen. De Straat van Hormuz is een belangrijke doorgang voor het transport van olie, gas en meststoffen uit de landen aan de Perzische Golf.

Tegelijkertijd handhaaft de Amerikaanse marine een actieve zeeblokkade van Iraanse havens. Volgens Amerikaanse media, waaronder de zender CNBC, hebben de VS sinds medio juli zeker 75 schepen onderschept die de blokkade wilden doorbreken.

braart has added a photo to the pool:

Location: Suspended 40 meters (131 feet) above Fairhaven Beach along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria.
Design: An architectural marvel built atop a single giant concrete-and-steel stilt, offering a 200-degree view of the Bass Strait.

braart has added a photo to the pool:

A feature of the Bass Coast Rail Trail, the wooden trestle Kilcunda Bridge spans 91 metres across Bourne Creek, offering Bass Strait and beach views

Fear of Vladimir Putin going fully rogue has paralysed the West for long enough, writes Radek Sikorski.

Pulp Fiction

Sparta heeft beet en gaat zich maandag versterken met Cedric Hatenboer. De geboren Rotterdammer komt over van Anderlecht, dat hem afgelopen half jaar al verhuurde aan Telstar.

Sparta heeft beet en gaat zich maandag versterken met Cedric Hatenboer. De geboren Rotterdammer komt over van Anderlecht, dat hem afgelopen half jaar al verhuurde aan Telstar.