AT&T plans to invest more than $250 billion over the next five years to expand U.S. telecom infrastructure for the AI age. The company says it will also hire thousands of technicians while partnering with AST SpaceMobile to extend coverage to remote areas. Reuters reports: Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and connected devices has prompted telecom operators to invest heavily in fiber and 5G networks as they also seek to fend off intensifying competition from cable broadband providers. AT&T, which has about 110,000 employees in the U.S., said the new hires will help build and maintain its infrastructure. The outlay includes capital expenditure and other spending, the company said.

The spending will focus on expanding its fiber and wireless networks, including accelerating deployment of fiber broadband, 5G home internet and satellite connectivity to extend coverage across urban, suburban and rural areas. [...] AT&T is also working with satellite partner AST SpaceMobile to expand connectivity to remote regions where traditional network infrastructure is difficult to deploy. The company said it would continue spending on the FirstNet network built for first responders and bolster investment in network security and artificial intelligence-driven threat detection.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Since 1999, Slashdot has been covering the annual Ig Nobel prize ceremonies -- which honor real scientific research into strange or surprising subjects. "After 35 years in Boston, the annual prize ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland, this year and will continue to be held in a European city for the foreseeable future," reports Ars Technica. "The reason: concerns about the safety of international travelers, who are increasingly reluctant to travel to the U.S. to participate."

"During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country," Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of The Annals of Improbable Research magazine, told The Associated Press. "We cannot in good conscience ask the new winners, or the international journalists who cover the event, to travel to the U.S. this year." It comes on the heels of our recent story that many international game developers are opting to skip this year's weeklong Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, citing similar concerns. Ars Technica reports: Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honor "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." As the motto implies, the research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn't mean it's devoid of scientific merit. The unapologetically campy awards ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures, in which experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and again in just seven words.

Traditionally, the awards ceremony and related Ig Nobel events have taken place in Boston at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University. However, four of last year's 10 winners opted to skip the ceremony rather than travel to the U.S., and the situation has not improved. [...] [T]his year, the Ig Nobel organizers are joining forces with the ETH Domain and the University of Zurich for hosting duties. "Switzerland has nurtured many unexpected good things -- Albert Einstein's physics, the world economy, and the cuckoo clock leap to mind -- and is again helping the world appreciate improbable people and ideas," Abraham said.

The Ig Nobels will not be returning to the U.S. any time soon. Instead, the plan is for Zurich to host every second year; every odd-numbered year, the ceremony will be hosted by a different European city. Abraham likened the arrangement to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI is reportedly backing away from expanding its AI data center partnership with Oracle because newer generations of Nvidia GPUs may arrive before the facility is even operational. CNBC reports: Artificial intelligence chips are getting upgraded more quickly than data centers can be built, a market reality that exposes a key risk to the AI trade and Oracle's debt-fueled expansion. OpenAI is no longer planning to expand its partnership with Oracle in Abilene, Texas, home to the Stargate data center, because it wants clusters with newer generations of Nvidia graphics processing units, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The current Abilene site is expected to use Nvidia's Blackwell processors, and the power isn't projected to come online for a year. By then, OpenAI is hoping to have expanded access to Nvidia's next-generation chips in bigger clusters elsewhere, said the person, who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. In a post on X, Oracle called the reports "false and incorrect." However, it only said existing projects are on track and didn't address expansion plans.

CNBC notes: "Oracle secured the site, ordered the hardware, and spent billions of dollars on construction and staff, with the expectation of going bigger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Around 1897, the French director Georges Méliès made a silent short film that, until last month, hadn’t been publicly viewable for more than a century. “Gugusse et l’Automate,” or “Gugusse and the Automaton,” is a 45-second slapstick piece featuring a magician and a Pierrot-styled robot as they duke it out.

Méliès is best known for “A Trip to the Moon,” a short film from 1902 that famously features astromoners landing their capsule into the eye of the moon. The director’s work is widely regarded as some of the first within fantasy and science fiction, with “Gugusse et l’Automate” being a long-lost addition to his canon.

This film resurfaced recently when Bill McFarland drove from his Grand Rapids, Michigan-home to the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, with a cache of reels that once belonged to his great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee. Passed down through the family, this collection was part of Frisbee’s traveling showbusiness, in which he packed up his horse and buggy in western Pennsylvania and traveled to nearby towns to screen these early “moving pictures” accompanied by music from a phonograph.

According to the library, McFarland’s copy of “Gugusse et l’Automate” is “a duplicate at least three times removed from the original. Library technicians spent more than a week scanning and stabilizing it onto a digital format, so that it can now be seen by anyone online—in 4K, no less.”

The collection also contained Méliès’ “The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match” and parts of Thomas Edison’s “The Burning Stable.” See more of conservators’ unraveling process on Instagram. (via Kottke)

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Lost for More Than a Century, the First ‘Sci-Fi’ Film Ever Made Resurfaces appeared first on Colossal.

Could steal sensitive personal and financial data

After a whopper of a Patch Tuesday last month, with six Microsoft flaws exploited as zero-days, March didn't exactly roar in like a lion. Just two of the 83 Microsoft CVEs released on Tuesday are listed as publicly known, and none is under active exploitation, which we're sure is a welcome change to sysadmins.…

E-souk disputes report linking 'Gen-AI assisted changes' to recent high-impact incidents

Amazon's weekly operations meeting today reportedly focused on recent service outages and on the role that code changes attributed to generative AI may have played. However, the company is downplaying the possibility of problems with AI.…

​“Moet je zien joh, heel ziek dit”, zegt Jerno (21) uit Culemborg uit het niets in de groepschat met zijn vrienden. Hij stuurt een link door naar een NOS-artikel over het nieuws dat Russische hackers de WhatsApp- en Signal-accounts van ambtenaren zijn binnengedrongen. “Volgens mij hebben ze mij ook te grazen genomen hoor, zaterdagnacht, toen jullie dachten dat ik al die dronken appjes stuurde. En ik ben niet eens een ambtenaar, kun je nagaan.”

Jerno wijst op de grote hoeveelheid berichten die hij in de nacht van zaterdag op zondag naar zijn vrienden stuurde. Daarin schreef hij onder meer in een lang bericht vol spelfouten dat hij bang is dat hij nooit meer liefde vindt en dat hij denkt dat Fenna het met hem heeft uitgemaakt omdat hij niet mannelijk genoeg is. Daarna stuurde hij een audiobericht waarin hij het lied ‘Altijd vrijgezel’ van Gerard Joling meezong. “Zo zie je maar hoe ver Rusland al is met AI”, concludeert Jerno nu. Hij leest de berichten nog eens terug, en ziet een hele reeks verwijderde appjes. “Nou ja, dat is dan wel weer netjes van die Russen.”

Jerno stuurt vandaag ook een bericht naar zijn ex Fenna, die hij al maanden niet had gesproken, totdat hij haar zaterdagnacht uit het niets meerdere Suzan & Freek-nummers doorstuurde met als begeleidende tekst ‘wij????’ Daarna volgde nog een lange reeks appjes. Hij legt haar uit dat “de Russen hem te pakken hebben genomen.”

“Volgens mij hebben ze ook nog m’n Instagram-account gehackt, anders snap ik niet hoe ze kunnen weten dat je nieuwe vriend Davey heet. Motherfuckers. Ik hoop dat het niet vaker voorkomt, maar ik kan niks garanderen, want dit is al de derde keer deze maand. Eikels.”

​​​

&''

Supervage, progessieve, experimentele space opera met invloeden van jazz, death en psychedelische metal. En ja joh, tuurlijk een nummer (Stratocumulus Evergaol) van een half uur, want waarom ook niet? Supervette cover art trouwens, past er uitstekend bij. Cryptic Shift, mensen, vette shit!

The good news for Liverpool is that the situation is salvageable, when it really might not have been. The bad news is that they were distinctly second best for the first three quarters of the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.

Nobody who saw their second half collapse away to Juventus in the play-off round could be confident Galatasaray are a team capable of squeezing the life out of the second leg. There is a nervousness about them at the back, a persistent sense of misfortune about to strike, but going forward they are breezy, quick and fun. Their only regret will be that, having taken an early lead through the former Wolves midfielder Mario Lemina, they did not add a second goal to give them more to defend at Anfield.

Continue reading...

Kay Ivey commutes sentence of Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton, saying death penalty would be unfair as he did not fire the fatal shot

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

The governor of Alabama commuted the death sentence of a 75-year-old inmate who was set to be executed this week, even though he was not in the building when the victim of the murder he was sentenced for was killed.

Kay Ivey, the Republican governor of the state, reduced Charles “Sonny” Burton’s sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole this week. The move marks the second time the governor has granted clemency of a death row inmate since she took office in 2017.

Burton was sentenced to death for the 1991 shooting death of a customer, Doug Battle, during a store robbery. However, another man, Derrick DeBruce, shot Battle after Burton had left the store.

DeBruce’s death sentence was reduced on appeal to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Ivey said in a statement that she could not fairly administer the death penalty to Burton when the man who actually killed Battle was allowed to live.

“I firmly believe that the death penalty is just punishment for society’s most heinous offenders, as shown by the 25 executions I have presided over as governor. In order to ensure the continued viability of the death penalty, however, I also believe that a government’s most consequential action must be administered fairly and proportionately,” she said.

Continue reading...

Opening statements begin in Miami trial of four men accused in the 2021 killing of Jovenel Moïse

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

Greed, arrogance and power were the driving forces behind four men charged in the US for the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse , prosecutors told a court on Tuesday during opening statements.

Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys began presenting opening statements in the trial in Miami for Arcangel Pretel Ortíz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages. They are charged with conspiring in South Florida to kidnap or kill Haiti’s former leader. Moïse’s assassination led to unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation, where gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered.

Continue reading...

Darren Jones says £1.8bn project likely to cover only vehicle tax payments and right-to-work checks initially

Britain’s £1.8bn digital ID scheme will only be available for a handful of uses by the next election, including paying vehicle tax and right-to-work checks, the minister in charge of the project has said.

Darren Jones, the prime minister’s chief secretary, said on Tuesday he eventually wanted the app to be used for everything from claiming benefits to proving the right to vote, but that most of this would not happen until the next parliament.

Continue reading...

American Express and Blackbird cut ties with restaurant after René Redzepi accused of abusing his staff

After allegations emerged this week that René Redzepi had abused his staff at Noma, once considered the world’s best restaurant, sponsors on Tuesday announced they would end their support for the chef’s upcoming events in Los Angeles.

The New York Times reported that American Express and the hospitality company Blackbird have cut ties with Noma ahead of the Copenhagen restaurant’s four-month pop-up in LA, which was set to kick off this week.

Continue reading...

Tehran has enough material to make at least 10 nuclear warheads but extracting it would be very risky, say experts

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads.

Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”.

Continue reading...

De verkiezingen van de gemeenteraad staan weer voor de deur. Rijnmond legde al kieslijsten in onze regio naast elkaar en selecteerde zeven opvallende weetjes.

Everyone knows Yuri Gagarin was the first person to go to space. What this article presupposes is…maybe he wasn’t? It all boils down to what your definition of space is.

Gulls are often seen as intruders in our daily lives. But researchers are discovering what really motivates them—and strategies to keep them away from your lunch. Why do gulls steal our food? Scientists experimented with French fries to find out.

DIW (Do It Wow) specializes in high-end print finishing and custom packaging solutions. For their latest sample box we developed a design object that invites people to experience the possibilities of print first-hand. The message printed on the outer box sets the tone: "Sink into the box". Inside the outer box you will find six carefully curated samples that immerse you in the world of finishing techniques and special papers: hot foil, embossing, spot varnish, and more. Each piece highlights a different technique and demonstrates the precision and craft behind DIWs work. To emphasize the quality and flexibility of their production, we developed a custom lettering system. Each box features a unique letter, while additional custom characters appear across the text throughout the set ? creating a typographic system that reflects the individuality and adaptability of DIW's printing capabilities. An invitation to sink into the possibilities of print.

De Europarlementariërs botsten met hun voormalige fractie, de Europese Volkspartij (EVP), nadat zij samen met elf andere fractieleden een spreekverbod van een halfjaar opgelegd kregen.