Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
French electronic duo Air performs a Tiny Desk Concert. Setlist: Le Voyage de Pénélope, Cherry Blossom Girl, Highschool Lover, and Dirty Trip.
Fran Sans is a font based on the display type of SF’s MUNI light rail trains. The N-Judah was my train when I lived there, so I’m very familiar with that display typeface. (Great name too.)
India is weighing a proposal to mandate always-on satellite tracking in smartphones for precise government surveillance -- an idea strongly opposed by Apple, Google, Samsung, and industry groups. Reuters reports: For years, the [Prime Minister Narendra Modi's] administration has been concerned its agencies do not get precise locations when legal requests are made to telecom firms during investigations. Under the current system, the firms are limited to using cellular tower data that can only provide an estimated area location, which can be off by several meters.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance's Jio and Bharti Airtel, has proposed that precise user locations should only be provided if the government orders smartphone makers to activate A-GPS technology -- which uses satellite signals and cellular data -- according to a June internal federal IT ministry email. That would require location services to always be activated in smartphones with no option for users to disable them. Apple, Samsung, and Alphabet's Google have told New Delhi that should not be mandated, said three of the sources who have direct knowledge of the deliberations.
A measure to track device-level location has no precedent anywhere else in the world, lobbying group India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents both Apple and Google, wrote in a confidential July letter to the government, which was viewed by Reuters. "The A-GPS network service ... (is) not deployed or supported for location surveillance," said the letter, which added that the measure "would be a regulatory overreach." Earlier this week, Modi's government was forced to rescind an order requiring smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on all devices after public backlash and privacy concerns.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance's Jio and Bharti Airtel, has proposed that precise user locations should only be provided if the government orders smartphone makers to activate A-GPS technology -- which uses satellite signals and cellular data -- according to a June internal federal IT ministry email. That would require location services to always be activated in smartphones with no option for users to disable them. Apple, Samsung, and Alphabet's Google have told New Delhi that should not be mandated, said three of the sources who have direct knowledge of the deliberations.
A measure to track device-level location has no precedent anywhere else in the world, lobbying group India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents both Apple and Google, wrote in a confidential July letter to the government, which was viewed by Reuters. "The A-GPS network service ... (is) not deployed or supported for location surveillance," said the letter, which added that the measure "would be a regulatory overreach." Earlier this week, Modi's government was forced to rescind an order requiring smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on all devices after public backlash and privacy concerns.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement, accusing the AI startup of repackaging its paywalled reporting without permission. TechCrunch reports: The Times joins several media outlets suing Perplexity, including the Chicago Tribune, which also filed suit this week. The Times' suit claims that "Perplexity provides commercial products to its own users that substitute" for the outlet, "without permission or remuneration." [...] "While we believe in the ethical and responsible use and development of AI, we firmly object to Perplexity's unlicensed use of our content to develop and promote their products," Graham James, a spokesperson for The Times, said in a statement. "We will continue to work to hold companies accountable that refuse to recognize the value of our work."
Similar to the Tribune's suit, the Times takes issue with Perplexity's method for answering user queries by gathering information from websites and databases to generate responses via its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) products, like its chatbots and Comet browser AI assistant. "Perplexity then repackages the original content in written responses to users," the suit reads. "Those responses, or outputs, often are verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgments of the original content, including The Times's copyrighted works."
Or, as James put it in his statement, "RAG allows Perplexity to crawl the internet and steal content from behind our paywall and deliver it to its customers in real time. That content should only be accessible to our paying subscribers." The Times also claims Perplexity's search engine has hallucinated information and falsely attributed it to the outlet, which damages its brand. "Publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years, starting with radio, TV, the internet, social media, and now AI," Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity's head of communications, told TechCrunch. "Fortunately it's never worked, or we'd all be talking about this by telegraph."
Similar to the Tribune's suit, the Times takes issue with Perplexity's method for answering user queries by gathering information from websites and databases to generate responses via its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) products, like its chatbots and Comet browser AI assistant. "Perplexity then repackages the original content in written responses to users," the suit reads. "Those responses, or outputs, often are verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgments of the original content, including The Times's copyrighted works."
Or, as James put it in his statement, "RAG allows Perplexity to crawl the internet and steal content from behind our paywall and deliver it to its customers in real time. That content should only be accessible to our paying subscribers." The Times also claims Perplexity's search engine has hallucinated information and falsely attributed it to the outlet, which damages its brand. "Publishers have been suing new tech companies for a hundred years, starting with radio, TV, the internet, social media, and now AI," Jesse Dwyer, Perplexity's head of communications, told TechCrunch. "Fortunately it's never worked, or we'd all be talking about this by telegraph."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The post Tamron update the 150-500mm Firmware appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
TAMRON Firmware Update (Ver. 4)
150-500mm F/5-6.7 Di III VC VXD (Model A057)
For those of you that run one of the Tamron 150-500mm A057 lenses (Hey, that’s me!) the team have just released a firmware update that will help you with the following…
Want to know more about this lens? Pop over to the Tamron Australia website for the low down – or leave a question in the comments!
The post Tamron update the 150-500mm Firmware appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
Some within the CRM giant balked, but Benioff prevailed
ServiceNow’s dominant spot among IT service management (ITSM) platforms is facing its “most credible” threat to date, as longtime platform rival Salesforce has rolled out an AI agent-powered product that has won early plaudits from one of the largest credit unions in the US.…
ravalli1 has added a photo to the pool:
The vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis) has the largest cephalopod genome ever sequenced: more than 11 billion base pairs. That’s more than twice as large as the biggest squid genomes.
It’s technically not a squid: “The vampire squid is a fascinating twig tenaciously hanging onto the cephalopod family tree. It’s neither a squid nor an octopus (nor a vampire), but rather the last, lone remnant of an ancient lineage whose other members have long since vanished.”
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
HEERENVEEN (ANP) - Kjeld Nuis raakte bij de wereldbekerwedstrijd in Heerenveen zijn baanrecord op de 1500 meter, dat op 1.43,00 stond, kwijt aan Jordan Stolz. Die won in 1.42,55. Desondanks putte de olympisch en Nederlands kampioen hoop uit zijn tweede plaats met 1.43,31. "Ik ben maar één keer sneller geweest en dat is vijf jaar geleden", verwees hij naar het baanrecord. "Dat ik hiermee zilver pak achter een fenomeen, en de rest op afstand rijd, geeft zoveel zelfvertrouwen."
Voor Stolz had Nuis alle lof. "Hij heeft het eerlijk gestolen." Hij vertelde dat hij er rekening mee had gehouden dat zijn baanrecord eraan zou gaan. "Toen ik een dag eerder zag dat hij tegen Joep moest, wist ik het al. Omdat Jordan een racer is. Joep gaat 1100 meter voluit. Als Jordan dan meegaat en op snelheid is, dan gaat hij door. Hij heeft dat uithoudingsvermogen. Dan kan er wel eens een 'enge' tijd uitkomen en dat is precies gebeurd vandaag."
Nuis haalde er met het oog op het olympisch kwalificatietoernooi (OKT) bovendien vertrouwen uit dat hij een stuk beter was dan zijn Nederlandse 'concurrenten'. "Ik houd jongens ver achter me. Dat er een of andere raket uit Amerika me eraf rijdt, daar kan ik niets aan doen."
Andere planeet
"Er is er een beter, die leeft op een andere planeet", gaf de 36-jarige schaatser toe. Toch denkt hij te weten hoe hij ook op die planeet terecht moet komen. "Tot nu toe heb ik een constant seizoen en ik hoop dat ik nog twee kleine piekjes kan hebben", keek hij vooruit op het OKT en de Spelen.
Stolz zelf bleef bescheiden over zijn rit. "Het was een goede race, maar ik denk niet dat het wereldrecordwaardig was. Ik had een goede snelheid die ik dacht dat ik kon volhouden, maar Joep Wennemars lag iets voor me en dat vond ik niet leuk. Dus moest ik aanvallen."
BRUSSEL (ANP) - De Duitse regeringsleider Friedrich Merz erkent de Belgische bezorgdheid over de inzet van bevroren Russisch geld voor Oekraïne. Alle landen moeten hetzelfde risico dragen, zei de bondskanselier na overleg met de Belgische premier Bart De Wever en Europese Commissievoorzitter Ursula von der Leyen.
Merz heeft het in een verklaring over een zeer constructief gesprek, meldt de Vlaamse omroep VRT. Hij en Von der Leyen probeerden De Wever te overtuigen van het plan om Russische tegoeden, die in België worden beheerd, om te zetten naar een lening voor Oekraïne.
"Financiële steun aan Oekraïne is cruciaal voor de veiligheid van Europa. De specifieke bezorgdheid van België over het mogelijke gebruik van bevroren Russische tegoeden is onmiskenbaar en moet in elke denkbare oplossing worden aangepakt, zodat alle staten hetzelfde risico dragen", aldus Merz.
Het is de bedoeling uiterlijk tijdens de Europese top op 18 december een gezamenlijke oplossing te vinden.