APELDOORN (ANP) - Het aantal autodiefstallen is in de eerste helft van dit jaar flink gestegen. Volgens nieuwe cijfers van de Stichting Verzekeringsbureau Voertuigcriminaliteit (VbV) gaan criminelen steeds geraffineerder te werk. Ook verdwijnen er vaker auto's naar Afrikaanse landen.

In totaal telt de organisatie, die voor Nederlandse schadeverzekeraars werkt aan bestrijding van voertuigcriminaliteit, 3645 gestolen personenauto's. Dat is ruim 20 procent meer dan in de eerste zes maanden van vorig jaar. Vooral in Eindhoven werd er veel gestolen.

De Toyota RAV4 was daarbij het gewildste doelwit van criminelen, met 232 gestolen exemplaren. Opvallend is ook de verviervoudiging van het aantal diefstallen van de Kia Sportage, van 19 naar 82 exemplaren.

Ghana

Edwin Karelsen, directeur van Stichting VbV, zegt dat criminelen die veel gestolen modellen vaak in containers laden en per schip naar een land als Ghana vervoeren. De containers zouden amper worden gecontroleerd en in Afrika zijn deze hybrides populair, ook omdat de levering van onderdelen van die wagens daar geen probleem is.

Autodieven hebben volgens hem ook speciale apparatuur ontwikkeld om de wagens snel te kunnen stelen. Dan gaat het bijvoorbeeld om een apparaatje dat ze met een stekker in de koplamp steken om de auto te kunnen starten.

Duurdere auto's

De cijfers laten ook zien dat criminelen zich steeds meer op duurdere auto's richten. De gemiddelde financiële schade per gestolen personenauto is 30 procent opgelopen naar 17.500 euro. De totale schadelast steeg met 60 procent tot 64 miljoen euro.

Ook het aantal gestolen lichte bedrijfsauto's nam met 10 procent toe, naar 915 voertuigen. Daarbij was de Mercedes-Benz Sprinter het vaakst het doelwit. Het aantal bromfietsdiefstallen nam daarentegen circa 5 procent af. Puur in aantallen kwam deze vorm van diefstal wel het vaakst voor, namelijk 4813 keer.

Terughalen lastig

Stichting VbV zet zich er ook voor in om gestolen auto's terug te vinden. Daarbij wordt onder meer gebruikgemaakt van zogenoemde telematica in de voertuigen, waardoor de fabrikant van afstand kan zien waar een voertuig zich bevindt.

"Zo zien we nu nog 227 gestolen auto's in Ghana rondrijden", legt Karelsen uit. Het terughalen van de wagens uit Afrika kan volgens hem wel lastig en kostbaar zijn. Van de meer dan 7000 voertuigen die dit jaar zijn teruggevonden, werd 90 procent gelukkig binnen Nederland aangetroffen. Buiten Nederland doken de voertuigen ook veel op in Duitsland, België, Bulgarije en Polen.

Three-seater from Baidu delivers itself, follows directions, then finds its way home

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Een geparkeerde auto op de Rhijnauwensingel in Rotterdam-IJsselmonde is in de nacht van donderdag op vrijdag in brand gevlogen. De brandweer heeft het vuur geblust. Er is niemand gewond geraakt.

Aan de Kerkweg in Zwijndrecht is in de nacht van donderdag op vrijdag een explosief afgegaan. Daarbij is aan de voorkant van het huis één van de ramen gesprongen.

Vanochtend is er een afwisseling van bewolking en zon. Vanmiddag wordt het vrij zonnig en stijgt de temperatuur naar 22 tot 25 graden

Werk zat, maar wie gaat het doen? Al jaren gaat het over personeelstekorten, en doen werkgevers er van alles aan om vacatures te vervullen. Maar het is tijd voor een bredere blik: welk werk willen en kunnen we in Nederland blijven doen? En hoe organiseren we dat slimmer?

Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity. A randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers. The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Pop Music Contrapositives

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Straight Arrow News: Hollywood video game performers ended their nearly year-long strike Wednesday with new protections against the use of digital replicas of their voices or appearances. If those replicas are used, actors must be paid at rates comparable to in-person work. The SAG-AFTRA union demanded stronger pay and better working conditions. Among their top concerns was the potential for artificial intelligence to replace human actors without compensation or consent.

Under a deal announced in a media release, studios such as Activision and Electronic Arts are now required to obtain written consent from performers before creating digital replicas of their work. Actors have the right to suspend their consent for AI-generated material if another strike occurs. "This deal delivers historic wage increases, industry-leading AI protections and enhanced health and safety measures for performers," Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, said in the release. The full list of studios includes Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions and WB Games.

SAG-AFTRA members approved the contract by a vote of 95.04% to 4.96%, according to the announcement. The agreement includes a wage increase of more than 15%, with additional 3% raises in November 2025, 2026 and 2027. The contract expires in October 2028. [...] The video game strike, which started in July 2024, did not shut down production like the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike in 2023. Hollywood actors went on strike for 118 days, from July 14 to November 9, 2023, halting nearly all scripted television and film work. That strike, which centered on streaming residuals and AI concerns, prevented actors from engaging in promotional work, such as attending premieres and posting on social media. In contrast, video game performers were allowed to work during their strike, but only with companies that had signed interim agreements addressing concerns related to AI. More than 160 companies signed on, according to The Associated Press. Still, the year took a toll.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a report from Gizmodo: YouTube is inundated with AI-generated slop, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Instead of cutting down on the total number of slop channels, the platform is planning to update its policies to cut out some of the worst offenders making money off "spam." At the same time, it's still full steam ahead adding tools to make sure your feeds are full of mass-produced brainrot.

In an update to its support page posted last week, YouTube said it will modify guidelines for its Partner Program, which lets some creators with enough views make money off their videos. The video platform said it requires YouTubers to create "original" and "authentic" content, but now it will "better identify mass-produced and repetitious content." The changes will take place on July 15. The company didn't advertise whether this change is related to AI, but the timing can't be overlooked considering how more people are noticing the rampant proliferation of slop content flowing onto the platform every day.

The AI "revolution" has resulted in a landslide of trash content that has mired most creative platforms. Alphabet-owned YouTube has been especially bad recently, with multiple channels dedicated exclusively to pumping out legions of fake and often misleading videos into the sludge-filled sewer that has become users' YouTube feeds. AI slop has become so prolific it has infected most social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Last month, John Oliver on "Last Week Tonight" specifically highlighted several YouTube channels that crafted obviously fake stories made to show White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a good light. These channels and similar accounts across social media pump out these quick AI-generated videos to make a quick buck off YouTube's Partner Program.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Qantas has confirmed that 5.7 million customers have been impacted by a recent data breach through a third-party platform used by its contact center. The breach, attributed to the Scattered Spider threat group, exposed various personal details but did not include passwords, financial, or passport data. BleepingComputer reports: In a new update today, Qantas has confirmed that the threat actors stole data for approximately 5.7 million customers, with varying types of data exposed in the breach:

4 million customer records are limited to name, email address and Qantas Frequent Flyer details. Of this:
- 1.2 million customer records contained name and email address.
- 2.8 million customer records contained name, email address and Qantas Frequent Flyer number. The majority of these also had tier included. A smaller subset of these had points balance and status credits included.

Of the remaining 1.7 million customers, their records included a combination of some of the data fields above and one or more of the following:
- Address - 1.3 million. This is a combination of residential addresses and business addresses including hotels for misplaced baggage delivery.
- Date of birth - 1.1 million
- Phone number (mobile, landline and/or business) - 900,000
- Gender - 400,000. This is separate to other gender identifiers like name and salutation.
- Meal preferences - 10,000

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

De val van Srebrenica is vandaag 30 jaar geleden. Correspondent Mark Middel liep mee in een herdenkingsmars door het getraumatiseerde gebied.

John from Brisbane has added a photo to the pool:

Sitting on the beach at Golden Beach in Caloundra, the ever eroding top of sand island Bribie is in the background. The sea behind the boat is Pumicestone Passage that separates Bribie Island, very narrowly in some places from the mainland.

Australians call these small craft Tinnies as in made from tin! But in reality they would be made from an alloy of steel or perhaps aluminium etc!

uchi uchi has added a photo to the pool:

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uchi uchi has added a photo to the pool:

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