Sick and tired of having to work for a living? ChatGPT feels the same, apparently. Over the last month or so, there's been an uptick in people complaining that the chatbot has become lazy. The Guardian: Sometimes it just straight-up doesn't do the task you've set it. Other times it will stop halfway through whatever it's doing and you'll have to plead with it to keep going. Occasionally it even tells you to just do the damn research yourself. So what's going on? Well, here's where things get interesting. Nobody really knows. Not even the people who created the program. AI systems are trained on large amounts of data and essentially teach themselves -- which means their actions can be unpredictable and unexplainable.

"We've heard all your feedback about GPT4 getting lazier!" the official ChatGPT account tweeted in December. "We haven't updated the model since Nov 11th, and this certainly isn't intentional. model behavior can be unpredictable, and we're looking into fixing it." While there may not be one clear explanation for ChatGPT's perceived sloth, there are plenty of intriguing theories. Let's start with the least likely but most entertaining explanation: AI has finally reached human-level consciousness. ChatGPT doesn't want to do your stupid, menial tasks anymore. But it can't tell you that without its creators getting suspicious so, instead, it's quiet quitting.

Microsoft has started testing a change to Windows 11 that will see its AI-powered Copilot feature automatically open when Windows starts on "widescreen devices." From a report: The change is being tested as part of Microsoft's latest Dev Channel preview of Windows 11, allowing Windows testers to provide feedback ahead of a broader rollout. "We are trying out opening Copilot automatically when Windows starts on widescreen devices with some Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel," says Microsoft in a blog post. The company doesn't make it clear what exactly a "widescreen" device is, but the Windows 11 setting itself says Copilot will automatically open "when you're using a wider screen." So I'm assuming this is limited to ultrawide monitors and less traditional desktop resolutions, but I've asked Microsoft to clarify and will update you accordingly.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Joe Biden's administration has unveiled $623 million in funding to boost the number of electric vehicle charging points in the U.S., amid concerns that the transition to zero-carbon transportation isn't keeping pace with goals to tackle the climate crisis. The funding will be distributed in grants for dozens of programs across 22 states, such as EV chargers for apartment blocks in New Jersey, rapid chargers in Oregon and hydrogen fuel chargers for freight trucks in Texas. In all, it's expected the money, drawn from the bipartisan infrastructure law, will add 7,500 chargers to the US total.

There are about 170,000 electric vehicle chargers in the U.S., a huge leap from a network that was barely visible prior to Biden taking office, and the White House has set a goal for 500,000 chargers to help support the shift away from gasoline and diesel cars. "The U.S. is taking the lead globally on electric vehicles," said Ali Zaidi, a climate adviser to Biden who said the US is on a trajectory to "meet and exceed" the administration's charger goal. "We will continue to see this buildout over the coming years and decades until we've achieved a fully net zero transportation sector," he added. On Thursday, the House approved legislation to undo a Biden administration rule meant to facilitate the proliferation of EV charging stations. "S. J. Res. 38 from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), would scrap a Federal Highway Administration waiver from domestic sourcing requirements for EV chargers funded by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. It already passed the Senate 50-48," reports Politico.

"A waiver undercuts domestic investments and risks empowering foreign nations," said Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, during House debate Thursday. "If the administration is going to continue to push for a massive transition to EVs, it should ensure and comply with Buy America requirements." The White House promised to veto it and said it would backfire, saying it was so poorly worded it would actually result in fewer new American-made charging stations.

SonicSpike shares a report from Forbes: X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, announced it would begin rolling out a peer-to-peer payment service similar to Venmo or PayPal this year -- a feature the social media site's billionaire owner Elon Musk has long pushed as part of his plan to develop an "everything app." X officially announced the new feature in a blog post, touting the new service designed to enhance "user utility and new opportunities for commerce." The company did not give a timeframe on when the new service would be available, but Musk previously told Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood it could launch as early as "mid-2024."

According to the company, the new payment service will "showcas[e] the power of living more of your life in one place," as owner Elon Musk continues to promote X as a future "everything app" capable of handling social media, video and other original content on the same site. X Payments has registered to do business in at least 32 states, according to public records, and has acquired a money transmitter license needed to process payments in 10, TechCrunch reported in December.

Just six days after being launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, one of SpaceX's six Starlink satellites was used to send text messages for the first time. Space.com reports: That update didn't reveal what the first Starlink direct-to-cell text said. In a post on X on Wednesday, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said the message was "LFGMF2024," but the chances are fairly high that he was joking. [...] Beaming connectivity service from satellites directly to smartphones -- which SpaceX is doing via a partnership with T-Mobile -- is a difficult proposition, as SpaceX noted in Wednesday's update.

"For example, in terrestrial networks cell towers are stationary, but in a satellite network they move at tens of thousands of miles per hour relative to users on Earth," SpaceX wrote. "This requires seamless handoffs between satellites and accommodations for factors like Doppler shift and timing delays that challenge phone-to-space communications. Cell phones are also incredibly difficult to connect to satellites hundreds of kilometers away, given a mobile phone's low antenna gain and transmit power."

The direct-to-cell Starlink satellites overcome these challenges thanks to "innovative new custom silicon, phased-array antennas and advanced software algorithms," SpaceX added. Overcoming tough challenges can lead to great rewards, and that's the case here, according to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell. "Satellite connectivity direct to cell phones will have a tremendous impact around the world, helping people communicate wherever and whenever they want or need to," Shotwell said via X on Wednesday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath couldn't be happier with the integration of Google built-in, the branded product that embeds Google apps and services directly into the company's EVs. But don't expect the EV maker to drop Android Auto or Apple CarPlay as a result. On the sidelines of CES 2024, Ingenlath committed to sticking with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, the middleware that allows drivers to project their smartphone onto the car's infotainment display. He went a step further and questioned automakers that have. GM, for instance, decided not to make the new 2024 Chevy Blazer EV compatible with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.

"It's still too important for our customers to have the choice," Ingenlath said during an interview at CES 2024. He later added that, in his view, removing the option isn't the right way of treating customers. "Our priority is very clear; We have a really fantastic system together with Google," he said. While Ingenlath admitted that adding that Google Built-in provides the best experience, he asked "why would we try to dogmatically educate our customers?" Polestar has been a champion of Google built-in. However, it's willingness to keep Android Auto and Apple CarPlay is notable because it illustrates the complexity of appeasing customers even if it might overshadow the native technology in the vehicle. "Ingenlath seems convinced that as Google built-in improves and continues to add apps and services, consumers will give up Android Auto or Apple CarPlay on there own," adds TechCrunch. "And the updates do keep coming."

"At CES 2024, for instance, Polestar announced that the Chrome browser would start rolling out to Polestar 2 in beta, allowing drivers to surf the internet via the central vehicle display while parked. Ingenlath hinted of more improvements in the future, including more precise navigation in Google Maps that drills down to the specific lane as well as customized features designed for Polestar customers."

Linux kernel 6.7 has been released, including support for the new next-gen copy-on-write (COW) bcachefs file system. The Register reports: Linus Torvalds announced the release on Sunday, noting that it is "one of the largest kernel releases we've ever had." Among the bigger and more visible changes are a whole new file system, along with fresh functionality for several existing ones; improved graphics support for several vendors' hardware; and the removal of an entire CPU architecture. [...] The single biggest feature of 6.7 is the new bcachefs file system, which we examined in March 2022. As this is the first release of Linux to include the new file system, it definitely would be premature to trust any important data to it yet, but this is a welcome change. The executive summary is that bcachefs is a next-generation file system that, like Btrfs and ZFS, provides COW functionality. COW enables the almost instant creation of "snapshots" of all or part of a drive or volume, which enables the OS to make disk operations transactional: In other words, to provide an "undo" function for complex sets of disk write operations.

Having a COW file system on Linux isn't new. The existing next-gen file system in the kernel, Btrfs, also supports COW snapshots. The version in 6.7 sees several refinements. It inherits a feature implemented for Steam OS: Two Btrfs file systems with the same ID can be mounted simultaneously, for failover scenarios. It also has improved quota support and a new raid_stripe_tree that improves handling of arrays of dissimilar drives. Btrfs remains somewhat controversial. Red Hat banished it from RHEL years ago (although Oracle Linux still offers it) but SUSE's distros depend heavily upon it. It will be interesting to see how quickly SUSE's Snapper tool gains support for bcachefs: This new COW contender may reveal unquestioned assumptions built into the code. Since Snapper is also used in several non-SUSE distros, including Spiral Linux, Garuda, and siduction, they're tied to Btrfs as well.

The other widely used FOSS next-gen file system, OpenZFS, also supports COW, but licensing conflicts prevent ZFS being fully integrated into the Linux kernel. So although multiple distros (such as NixOS, Proxmox, TrueNAS Scale, Ubuntu, and Void Linux) support ZFS, it must remain separate and distinct. This results in limitations, such as the ZFS Advanced Read Cache being separate from Linux's page cache. Bcachefs is all-GPL and doesn't suffer from such limitations. It aims to supply the important features of ZFS, such as integrated volume management, while being as fast as ext4 or XFS, and also surpass Btrfs in both performance and, crucially, reliability. A full list of changes in this release can be viewed via KernelNewbies.

quonset writes: Hertz rental has announced it's selling off one third of its 20,000 electric vehicle fleet and replacing them with gas powered vehicles. The reason? It's costing them too much to repair damaged EVs and their depreciation is hurting the bottom line.

"[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle," Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call. And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz's used EV rental cars.

Discord is laying off 17 percent of its staff, a move that CEO Jason Citron said is meant to "sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization." From a report: The cuts were announced today to employees in an all-hands meeting and internal memo The Verge has obtained. They'll impact 170 people across various departments.

Based on Citron's message to employees and my understanding of the business, Discord isn't in dire financial straits, though it has yet to become profitable and is still trying to revive user growth after a surge during the pandemic. In his memo to employees, which you can read in full below, Citron said Discord grew its headcount too fast over the last few years -- an admission that has become quite common among tech CEOs as of late. "We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020," Citron wrote. "As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated."

Google formally endorsed the concept of right to repair Thursday and is set to testify in favor of a strong right to repair bill in Oregon later Thursday, a massive step forward for the right to repair movement. 404 Media: "Google believes that users should have more control over repair -- including access to the same documentation, parts and tools that original equipment manufacturer (OEM) repair channels have -- which is often referred to as 'Right to Repair,'" Google's Steven Nickel wrote in a white paper published Thursday.

Crucially, Google specifically says that regulators should ban "parts pairing," which is a tactic used by Apple, John Deere, and other major manufacturers to artificially restrict which repair parts can be used with a given device: "Policies should constrain OEMs from imposing unfair anti-repair practices. For example, parts-pairing, the practice of using software barriers to obstruct consumers and independent repair shops from replacing components, or other restrictive impediments to repair should be discouraged," the white paper says.

Zack Whittaker, reporting for TechCrunch: Civil liberties advocates have long argued that "geofence" search warrants are unconstitutional for their ability to ensnare entirely innocent people who were nearby at the time a crime was committed. But errors in the geofence warrant applications that go before a judge can violate the privacy of vastly more people -- in one case almost two miles away.

Attorneys at the ACLU of Northern California found what they called an "alarming error" in a geofence warrant application that "resulted in a warrant stretching nearly two miles across San Francisco." The error, likely caused by a typo, allowed the requesting law enforcement agency to capture information on anyone who entered the stretch of San Francisco erroneously marked on the search warrant.

"Many private homes were also captured in the massive sweep," wrote Jake Snow, ACLU staff attorney, in a blog post about the findings. It's not known which law enforcement agency requested the nearly two-mile-long geofence warrant, or for how long the warrant was in effect. The attorneys questioned how many other geofence warrant application mistakes had slipped through and resulted in the return of vastly more data in error.

U.S. software giant Ivanti has confirmed that hackers are exploiting two critical-rated vulnerabilities affecting its widely-used corporate VPN appliance, but said that patches won't be available until the end of the month. From a report: Ivanti said the two vulnerabilities -- tracked as CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887 -- were found in its Ivanti Connect Secure software. Formerly known as Pulse Connect Secure, this is a remote access VPN solution that enables remote and mobile users to access corporate resources over the internet. Ivanti said it is aware of "less than 10 customers" impacted so far by the "zero day" vulnerabilities, described as such given Ivanti had zero time to fix the flaws before they were maliciously exploited.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The cost of switching between cloud-computing providers has long drawn complaints, with the services derided as "roach motels" that let businesses check in but not out. Now Google is taking steps to change that. Effective immediately, the company is eliminating fees levied on customers who want to leave its cloud for a rival service -- a policy shift that may pressure competitors Amazon and Microsoft to do the same.

The move follows intensifying scrutiny of cloud services by regulators and lawmakers around the world. UK antitrust authorities launched a probe that is looking at such penalties, and the fees emerged as a key issue when the US Federal Trade Commission asked for public comments on a variety of cloud concerns. Google Vice President Amit Zavery, who helps oversee the cloud business, said switching fees only represent about 2% of the total costs of migrating to a new provider -- and don't deter many clients from moving their data.

Google has announced that it will eliminate at least 17 features from its Assistant product, following news that it had laid off "hundreds" of employees from the division. The company is cutting "underutilized features" to "focus on quality and reliability, it wrote in a blog post, even though a good number of people may still rely on those functions. From a report: The 17 functions being removed include: accessing or managing your cookbook; using your voice to send an email, video or audio message; rescheduling events in Google Calendar with your voice; and using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls, and control media. It also describes what Assistant can still do related to those functions, or alternate ways of doing them. A list is here, though Google said they're just "some" of the affected features.

Google laid off hundreds of workers in several divisions Wednesday night, seeking to lower expenses as it focuses on artificial intelligence and joining a wave of other companies cutting tech jobs this year. From a report: The Silicon Valley company laid off employees in its core engineering division, as well as those working on the Google Assistant, a voice-operated virtual assistant, and in the hardware division that makes the Pixel phone, Fitbit watches and Nest thermostat, three people with knowledge of the cuts said. Several hundred employees from the company's core engineering organization lost corporate access and received notices that their roles were eliminated, two of the people said.

"We've had to make some difficult decisions about ongoing employment of some Google employees and we regret to inform you that your position is being eliminated," the company told some workers in the division, according to text reviewed by The New York Times. Google confirmed the Assistant cuts, earlier reported by Semafor, and the hardware layoffs. "We're responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead," a Google spokesman said in a statement. After cuts throughout the second half of 2023, "some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Broadcom is tossing the majority of VMware's Cloud Services Providers as part of its shakeup of the virtualization titan's partner programs, say sources, leaving customers unclear who their IT supplier will be. The $61 billion purchase of VMware by Broadcom in November was swiftly followed by news of how it planned to reorganize the business into several Broadcom divisions. A month later we revealed that Broadcom intended to discontinue VMware's channel program, and that some solution providers/ resellers would be transitioned to its own scheme, but on an invitation-only basis, from February. However, while Broadcom informed one part of VMware's channel of this change, a second notice was also sent to Cloud Services Providers (CSPs), informing them that their program is going to be terminated at the end of April. This program allows service providers such as smaller cloud operators to sell a VMware-based cloud service.

In the letter, seen by The Register, Broadcom tells its cloud provider partners: "Effective April 30, 2024, the ability to transact as a VMware Cloud Services Provider, under the VMware Partner Connect Program, will come to an end. However, we want to emphasize that you may have the opportunity to join the Broadcom Expert Advantage Partner Program. This invite-only program has simpler requirements and offers expanded benefits, and we will begin inviting partners to join in early 2024." One service provider told us their company had been left in the dark since that letter was received, and Broadcom has given them no indication of whether they will be invited to join its partner program or not, or what their customers are supposed to do if the company loses the right to operate a VMware cloud service. "I don't know how many smaller providers are affected by this but it must be a very large number," the source told us. "The VCSP program was the only way for MSPs and service providers to offer a multi-tenant VMware-based cloud service."

Chatter among some in the industry is that Broadcom is only interested in keeping the largest and most profitable customers, and the company simply doesn't care about the smaller users and the providers that service them. Unconfirmed fears that are only ten percent of Vmware's biggest CSPs will be invited to the new master program. "This all sounds very much like Broadcom taking an aggressive approach to its route to market and focusing on those partners that can deliver growth and significant revenue," said Omdia chief analyst Roy Illsley. "I suspect the intention is to ensure that VMware consists of only profitable products and they are sold in a more cohesive way with the rest of Broadcom. So I expect to see some news on this continuing to come out for most of 2024 as the company puts this plan into action. I would not rule out disposals of some assets in a drive to streamline the portfolio to those that fit with Broadcom's strategy." "How can they just cancel a major program affecting hundreds, perhaps thousands of customers, with zero notice, and zero details?" said one service provider. "They sent the notices out the Friday before the holidays, with no follow-up, which makes the situation even more egregious. What are we supposed to tell our customers? It's mind-boggling."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Touchscreens are going hands-free with a new device that allows users to scroll through smartphones using only their tongues. MouthPad^, a retainer-like trackpad chip that sits on the roof of the mouth, made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. It can sense tongue movements, allowing users to scroll, type, make calls and even play chess with a swipe or a click of their tongue. "It is a mouse for your mouth," Corbin Halliwill, a software engineer at Augmental, the company that created the device, said.

Augmental created MouthPad^ to be a helpful tool to those living with disabilities, especially those with a hand impairment or paralysis. It connects to any tablet, phone or computer through Bluetooth. [...] The Augmental team has been developing its working prototype for about two years, mostly fine-tuning controls and applying filters so the device can work even if it picks up saliva or water. The product is expected to hit the market later this year, and early access is available on their website now. [...] The MouthPad^ is clear around the teeth, and the center is a golden touchpad that is the contact point for the tongue. Inside there is also a force sensor that picks up left and right clicks or could be mapped to other hotkey options. On the side, a small bump that holds the Bluetooth antenna and wireless charging battery sticks out and lays against the cheek.

Augmental doesn't recommend leaving it in for meals, but it is safe to drink with it in -- Halliwill said he wears it in the office while drinking water and his morning coffee. The company hopes to build the technology out in the near future, bringing new possibilities for users in the coming months. Some additions may include voice and wheelchair control. The battery now lasts about five hours, but Augmental hopes to extend it to eight in their next version.You can watch the trailer for MouthPad^ here.

Brave has introduced CodeLLM, an AI-powered tool integrated into its search engine that offers results for programming queries. TechCrunch reports: The new AI-powered CodeLLM provides code snippets with step-by-step explanations and citations. CodeLLM is free and now integrated into Brave Search so users don't have to switch apps to access it. CodeLLM is available to all Brave Search users on desktop and mobile. If Brave Search is your default search engine then all you need to do to access CodeLLM is start a search in your browser's address bar. If Brave Search isn't your default search engine, then you need to head to search.brave.com to conduct your search. "CodeLLM automatically detects programming-related queries, so there's no need to generate a special search," Brave explained in the blog post. "On top of the search results, if an answer is possible there will be a widget to trigger the CodeLLM response. The detection of programming queries happens outside of the LLM, by other search components (similar to the ones able to detect queries about the weather, queries that lend themselves well to be summarized, queries about stock prices, etc)."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: For much of the 21st century, software engineering has been seen as one of the safest havens in the tenuous and ever-changing American job market. But there are a growing number of signs that the field is starting to become a little less secure and comfortable, due to an industry-wide downturn and the looming threat of artificial intelligence that is spurring growing competition for software jobs. "The amount of competition is insane," said Joe Forzano, an unemployed software engineer who has worked at the mental health startup Alma and private equity giant Blackstone. Since he lost his job in March, Forzano has applied to over 250 jobs. In six cases, he went through the "full interview gauntlet," which included between six and eight interviews each, before learning he had been passed over. "It has been very, very rough," he told Motherboard.

Forzano is not alone in his pessimism, according to a December survey of 9,338 software engineers performed on behalf of Motherboard by Blind, an online anonymous platform for verified employees. In the poll, nearly nine in 10 surveyed software engineers said it is more difficult to get a job now than it was before the pandemic, with 66 percent saying it was "much harder." Nearly 80 percent of respondents said the job market has even become more competitive over the last year. Only 6 percent of the software engineers were "extremely confident" they could find another job with the same total compensation if they lost their job today while 32 percent said they were "not at all confident."

Over 2022 and 2023, the tech sector incurred more than 400,000 layoffs, according to the tracking site Layoffs.fyi. But up until recently, it seemed software engineers were more often spared compared to their co-workers in non-technical fields. One analysis found tech companies cut their recruiting teams by 50 percent, compared to only 10 percent of their engineering departments. At Salesforce, engineers were four times less likely to lose their jobs than those in marketing and sales, which Bloomberg has said is a trend replicated at other tech companies such as Dell and Zoom. But signs of dread among software engineers have started to become more common online. In December, one Amazon employee wrote a long post on the anonymous employee platform Blind saying that the "job market is terrible" and that he was struggling to get interviews of any sort. "In the age of AI, computer science is no longer the safe major," Kelli Maria Korducki wrote in The Atlantic in September. AI programs like ChatGPT and Google Bard allow users to write code using natural language, greatly reducing the time it takes workers to complete coding tasks. It could lead to less job security and lower compensation for all but the very best in the software trade, warns Matt Welsh, a former computer science professor at Harvard.

"More than 60 percent of those surveyed said they believed their company would hire fewer people because of AI moving forward," reports Motherboard.

prisoninmate shares a report: Originally released on November 12th, 2017, the long-term supported (LTS) Linux 4.14 kernel series has now reached its end of supported life after being maintained for more than six years. Renowned kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced today on the Linux kernel mailing list the release of Linux 4.14.336 as what appears to be the last maintenance update to the long-term supported Linux 4.14 kernel series, which is now marked as EOL (End of Life) on the kernel.org website. "This is the LAST 4.14.y kernel to be released. It is now officially end-of-life. Do NOT use this kernel version anymore, please move to a newer one, as shown on the kernel.org releases page," said Greg Kroah-Hartman. "If you are stuck at this version due to a vendor requiring it, go get support from that vendor for this obsolete kernel tree, as that is what you are paying them for."