Alphabet's Waymo robotaxis are providing "hundreds of thousands of driverless rides each month," reports the Washington Post. But as the robotaxi service expands in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, some passengers "have found that traveling by robotaxi can make riders into sitting ducks for a new form of public harassment." The Washington Post spoke with four Waymo passengers, three of them women, who said they experienced harassment or what felt like threats to their safety from people who followed, obstructed or attempted to enter a driverless vehicle they were riding in...

Elliot, a tech worker in San Francisco, recalled in a phone interview a "scary" situation during a Waymo ride late one night in October. A pedestrian tried to enter the driverless vehicle as it waited at a red light. "Go away," Elliot yelled at the man as he knocked on the window before briefly flashing what looked like a knife, video of the incident viewed by The Post showed... In the moment, Elliot said, he wished someone could have "slammed on the gas and gotten away from this guy," adding that Waymo should change how its vehicles respond in such situations...

Madelline, a 25-year-old restaurant server in San Francisco, said that during a recent Waymo ride at around 2 a.m., the driverless vehicle had to stop after two drivers ahead began yelling at each other and throwing things out of their cars in what appeared to be a road rage dispute. The two cars blocked an intersection and one person got out of one of the vehicles. "I was definitely panicking a little bit," Madelline said, as her car waited for the road to clear instead of turning off as a human driver might do... She would like to have more control over a robotaxi's route but still prefers Waymo rides to using Uber or Lyft, whose drivers sometimes make her uncomfortable...

In September, Amina V. was on her way to a hair appointment when a man stepped in front of her robotaxi and the car stalled in the middle of the street. She already had been recording herself in the Waymo, so she turned the camera to capture the man hitting on her while her car stood frozen in San Francisco's Soma neighborhood.
And one Saturday night at 10:30 p.m., a tech worker named Stephanie took a driverless Waymo robotaxi with her sister, and reports confronting "several young men close to the robotaxi honking and yelling, 'Hey, ladies — you guys are hot.' If she or another human had been driving, it would have been easy to reroute the car to avoid leading the pursuers to her home. But she was scared and didn't know how to change the robot's path. She called 911, but a dispatcher said they couldn't send a police car to a moving vehicle, Stephanie recalled... [S]he said the other car gave up the chase when the Waymo was a minute from her house. She and her sister arrived home safely, though terrified. Stephanie didn't catch the car's license plate number, which the 911 dispatcher requested after her ride concluded. Waymo vehicles, like other driverless cars in development, use multiple cameras to help make sense of the world around them. But when she later asked the company for the car's video footage, hoping it had captured the license plate, Waymo declined to provide it, she said.

She would like closer coordination between Waymo and first responders and says she is now unsure about self-driving rides after dark. "I would feel safe taking it during the day," Stephanie said. But "at night, maybe I'm safer having someone else in the car just in case something happens."
A Waymo spokesperson told the Washington Post that their support agents will stay on the line with riders who call in about incidents like this, also working with law enforcement as appropriate — but the agents can't change the vehicle's specific route. (The Post adds that Waymo passengers "can tell a vehicle to pull over or change its next stop or destination using the Waymo app, or ask a support agent to make similar changes.")

"Drones collided, fell from the sky and hit a little boy after 'technical difficulties' during a holiday show..." reports the Orlando Sentinel.

They note that a press release from the city said the 8 p.m. show was then cancelled: The company behind the drones, Sky Elements, was in its second year of the contract with the city, the release said. Sky Elements said they operate drone shows throughout the country with millions of viewers annually and are committed to maintaining FAA safety regulations, the company said in a statement released Sunday afternoon. The organization wished for a "speedy recovery" of those impacted by Saturday's show at Lake Eola, the statement said. "The well-being of our audience is our utmost priority, and we regret any distress or inconvenience caused," the statement said. "We are diligently working with the FAA and City of Orlando officials to determine the cause and are committed to establishing a clear picture of what transpired."

The show is in its third year, often drawing crowds of roughly 25,000, according to the city. But there has never been an incident before. The Federal Aviation Administration regulates drones and light shows and permitted the Holiday Drone Show at Lake Eola on Saturday. Now they are investigating the incident which they said began as drones collided and fell into the crowd at the park, spokesperson Kristen Alsop said in an email... Eyewitness videos on social media show multiple green and red drones falling from the sky.
The mother of the 7-year-old boy hit by a falling drone told a local TV station that the holiday show "ended in nightmares," adding that it happened just days before Christmas. She believes big-audience drone light shows need more safety precautions. "This should not happen. No family should be going through this." She added on Facebook that her 7-year-old son is now "going into emergency heart surgery off of just trying to watch a drone show."

She adds that the city of Orlando and the drone company behind the light show "really have some explaining to do." Responding to comments on Facebook, she posted two hours ago: "Thank you everyone. He is still in surgery."

A demonstration "race" between a (human) F1 race car driver Daniil Kvyat and an autonomous vehicle was just staged by the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League.

Describing the league and the "man vs. machine" showdown, Ars Technica writes, "Say goodbye to the human driver and hello to 95 kilograms of computers and a whole suite of sensors." But again, racing is hard, and replacing humans doesn't change that. The people who run and participate in A2RL are aware of this, and while many organizations have made it a sport of overselling AI, A2RL is up-front about the limitations of the current state of the technology. One example of the technology's current shortcomings: The vehicles can't swerve back and forth to warm up the tires. Giovanni Pau, Team Principal of TII Racing, stated during a press briefing regarding the AI system built for racing, "We don't have human intuition. So basically, that is one of the main challenges to drive this type of car. It's impossible today to do a correct grip estimation. A thing my friend Daniil (Kvyat) can do in a nanosecond...."

Technology Innovation Institute (TII) develops the hardware and software stack for all the vehicles. Hardware-wise, the eight teams receive the same technology. When it comes to software, the teams need to build out their own system on TII's software stack to get the vehicles to navigate the tracks. In April, four teams raced on the track in Abu Dhabi. As we've noted before, how the vehicles navigate the tracks and world around them isn't actually AI. It's programmed responses to an environment; these vehicles are not learning on their own. Frankly, most of what is called "AI" in the real world is also not AI.

Vehicles driven by the systems still need years of research to come close to the effectiveness of a human beyond the wheel. Kvyat has been working with A2RL since the beginning. In that time, the former F1 driver has been helping engineers understand how to bring the vehicle closer to their limit. The speed continues to increase as the development progresses. Initially, the vehicles were three to five minutes slower than Kvyat around a lap; now, they are about eight seconds behind. That's a lifetime in a real human-to-human race, but an impressive amount of development for vehicles with 90 kg of computer hardware crammed into the cockpit of a super formula car. Currently, the vehicles are capable of recreating 90-95 percent of the speed of a human driver, according to Pau. Those capabilities are reduced when a human driver is also on the track, particularly for safety reasons....

The "race" was to be held ahead of the season finale of the Super Formula season... The A2RL vehicle took off approximately 22 seconds ahead of Kvyat, but the race ended before the practice lap was completed. Cameras missed the event, but the A2RL car lost traction and ended up tail-first into a wall...

Khurram Hassan, commercial director of A2RL, told Ars that the cold tires on the cold track caused a loss of traction.

A series of drone sightings over U.S. military bases "has renewed concerns that the U.S. doesn't have clear government-wide policy for how to deal with unauthorized incursions that could potentially pose a national security threat," reports CNN: "We're one year past Langley drone incursions and almost two years past the PRC spy balloon. Why don't we have a single [point of contact] who is responsible for coordination across all organizations in the government to address this?" the recently retired head of US Northern Command and NORAD, Gen. Glen VanHerck, told CNN. "Instead, everybody's pointing their fingers at each other saying it's not our responsibility...." Over a period of six days earlier this month, there were six instances of unmanned aerial systems, or drones, entering the airspace of the Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton in California, a spokesperson confirmed to CNN, adding that they posed "no threat to installation operations and no impact to air and ground operations." There have also been incidents in the last month at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey; Naval Weapons Station Earle, New Jersey; and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. A Chinese citizen, who is a lawful permanent resident of the US, was recently arrested in connection to the California incident.

The drone incidents are "a problem that has been brewing for over a decade and we have basically failed to address it," said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Rob Spalding, who previously served as the chief China strategist for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council. It's unclear what specifically the drones could be doing — the intent could be anything from attempting to gather intelligence on the base or testing its defenses and response time, to gaining a better understanding of how the bases work, or they could simply be harmless hobbyists flying drones too close to restricted areas... Despite the incursions and the risk they could pose, officials say there is no coordinated policy to determine what agency leads the response to such activity, or how to determine where the drones originate.

CNN reported this week that government agencies have struggled to keep pace with the development of drones and drone technology, particularly by adversaries like China, though legislation is being discussed and the Pentagon just recently released its strategy for countering unmanned systems... The two heads of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Jack Reed and Roger Wicker, sounded the alarm in a Washington Post op-ed at the beginning of 2024 that the US "lacks adequate drone detection capability" and that agencies "lack clear lines of authority about which agency is responsible for stopping these incursions."

Military installations have the authority to protect themselves and respond to threats, but a former senior military official said that if the drone enters the airspace and subsequently leaves, determining where the drone originated from and what it was doing can be difficult. Military law enforcement typically coordinates with civilian law enforcement off base in that instance, the former official said, but are often limited in what they can do given laws that restrict intelligence collection within US borders. But sources also said the lack of ability to do more also stems at times from a failure to prioritize defense against this kind of activity within the US. The topic is "such a relatively new phenomenon that the law has not caught up and the agencies have not adapted quickly enough," [said one Senate aide familiar with discussions on drone defense and policy].
"The need for Congressional action was made clear in a joint statement this week from the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigations and Federal Aviation Administration," according to the article.

"The agencies said they 'urge Congress to enact counter-UAS legislation when it reconvenes that would extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities to identify and mitigate any threat that may emerge.'"

The Associated Press reports that in Albania (population: 2,402,113), "children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers."

But "Albania's prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children" after "the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok." There has been increasing concern from Albanian parents after reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in quarrels or cases of bullying promoted by stories they see on TikTok. TikTok's operations in China, where its parent company is based, are different, "promoting how to better study, how to preserve nature ... and so on," according to Rama. Albania is too small a country to impose on TikTok a change of its algorithm so that it does not promote "the reproduction of the unending hell of the language of hatred, violence, bullying and so on," Rama's office wrote in an email response to The Associated Press' request for comment. Rama's office said that in China TikTok "prevents children from being sucked into this abyss."
TikTok told the Associated Press it "found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok...."

Monday long-time Slashdot reader denelson83 wrote: The crowdsourced, widely-used map database OpenStreetMap has had a hardware failure at its upstream ISP in Amsterdam and has been put into a protective read-only mode to avoid loss or corruption of data. .
The outage had started Sunday December 15 at 4:00AM (GMT/UTC), but by Tuesday they'd posted a final update: Our new ISP is up and running and we have started migrating our servers across to it. If all goes smoothly we hope to have all services back up and running this evening...

We have dual redundant links via separate physical hardware from our side to our Tier 1 ISP. We unexpectedly discovered their equipment is a single point failure. Their extended outage is an extreme disappointment to us.

We are an extremely small team. The OSMF budget is tiny and we could definitely use more help. Real world experience... Ironically we signed a contract with a new ISP in the last few days. Install is on-going (fibre runs, modules & patching) and we expect to run old and new side-by-side for 6 months. Significantly better resilience (redundant ISP side equipment, VRRP both ways, multiple upstream peers... 2x diverse 10G fibre links).
OpenStreetMap celebrated its 20th anniversary in August, with a TechCrunch profile reminding readers the site gives developers "geographic data and maps so they can rely a little less on the proprietary incumbents in the space," reports TechCrunch, adding "Yes, that mostly means Google."

OpenStreetMap starts with "publicly available and donated aerial imagery and maps, sourced from governments and private organizations such as Microsoft" — then makes them better: Today, OpenStreetMap claims more than 10 million contributors who map out and fine-tune everything from streets and buildings, to rivers, canyons and everything else that constitutes our built and natural environments... Contributors can manually add and edit data through OpenStreetMap's editing tools, and they can even venture out into the wild and map a whole new area by themselves using GPS, which is useful if a new street crops up, for example...

OpenStreetMap's Open Database License allows any third-party to use its data with the appropriate attribution (though this attribution doesn't always happen). This includes big-name corporations such as Apple and VC-backed unicorns like MapBox, through a who's who of tech companies, including Uber and Strava... More recently, the Overture Maps Foundation — an initiative backed by Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and TomTom — has leaned heavily on OpenStreetMap data as part of its own efforts to build a viable alternative to Google's walled mapping garden.
The article notes that OpenStreetMap is now overseen by the U.K.-based nonprofit OpenStreetMap Foundation (supported mainly by donations and memberships), with just one employee — a system engineer — "and a handful of contractors who provide administrative and accounting support."

In August its original founder Steve Coast, returned to the site for a special blog post on its 20th anniversary: OpenStreetMap has grown exponentially or quadratically over the last twenty years depending on the metric you're interested in... The story isn't so much about the data and technology, and it never was. It's the people... OpenStreetMap managed to map the world and give the data away for free for almost no money at all. It managed to sidestep almost all the problems that Wikipedia has by virtue of only representing facts not opinions. The project itself is remarkable. And it's wonderful that so many are in love with it.
"Two decades ago, I knew that a wiki map of the world would work," Coast writes. "It seemed obvious in light of the success of Wikipedia and Linux..."

On Thursday New Jersey lawmakers passed a resolution "calling on the federal government to conduct a 'rigorous and ongoing' investigation into the drone sightings in the state," reports the Associated Press: Meanwhile, federal and local authorities are warning against pointing lasers at suspected drones, because aircraft pilots are being hit in the eyes more often. Authorities also said they are concerned people might fire weapons at manned aircraft that they have mistaken for drones...

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Monday that the federal government has yet to identify any public safety or national security risks. "There are more than 1 million drones that are lawfully registered with the Federal Aviation Administration here in the United States," Kirby said. "And there are thousands of commercial, hobbyist and law enforcement drones that are lawfully in the sky on any given day. That is the ecosystem that we are dealing with." The federal government has deployed personnel and advanced technology to investigate the reports in New Jersey and other states, and is evaluating each tip reported by citizens, he said. About 100 of the more than 5,000 drone sightings reported to the FBI in recent weeks were deemed credible enough to warrant more investigation, according to a joint statement by the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense.

Speculation has raged online, with some expressing concerns the drones could be part of a nefarious plot by foreign agents or clandestine operations by the U.S. government. Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said it's unlikely the drones are engaged in intelligence gathering, given how loud and bright they are. He repeated Tuesday that the drones being reported are not being operated by the Department of Defense. Asked whether military contractors might be operating drones in the New Jersey area, Ryder rebuffed the notion, saying there are "no military operations, no military drone or experiment operations in this corridor." Ryder said additional drone-detecting technology was being moved to some military installations, including the Picatinny Arsenal...

U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, said he has heard nothing to support the notion that the government is hiding anything. He said a lack of faith in institutions is playing a key part in the saga.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: With a few keystrokes, anyone can ask an artificial intelligence (AI) program such as ChatGPT to write them a term paper, a rap song, or a play. But don't expect William Shakespeare's originality. A new study finds such output remains derivative -- at least for now. [...] [O]bjectively testing this creativity has been tricky. Scientists have generally taken two tacks. One is to use another computer program to search for signs of plagiarism -- though a lack of plagiarism does not necessarily equal creativity. The other approach is to have humans judge the AI output themselves, rating factors such as fluency and originality. But that's subjective and time intensive. So Ximing Lu, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, and colleagues created a program featuring both objectivity and a bit of nuance.

Called DJ Search, it collects pieces of text of a minimum length from whatever the AI outputs and searches for them in large online databases. DJ Search doesn't just look for identical matches; it also scans for strings whose words have similar meanings. To evaluate the meaning of a word or phrase, the program itself relies on a separate AI algorithm that produces a set of numbers called an "embedding," which roughly represents the contexts in which words are typically found. Synonymous words have numerically close embeddings. For example, phrases that swap "anticipation" and "excitement" are considered matches. After removing all matches, the program calculates the ratio of the remaining words to the original document length, which should give an estimate of how much of the AI's output is novel. The program conducts this process for various string lengths (the study uses a minimum of five words) and combines the ratios into one index of linguistic novelty. (The team calls it a "creativity index," but creativity requires both novelty and quality -- random gibberish is novel but not creative.)

The researchers compared the linguistic novelty of published novels, poetry, and speeches with works written by recent LLMs. Humans outscored AIs by about 80% in poetry, 100% in novels, and 150% in speeches, the researchers report in a preprint posted on OpenReview and currently under peer review. Although DJ Search was designed for comparing people and machines, it can also be used to compare two or more humanmade works. For example, Suzanne Collins's 2008 novel The Hunger Games scored 35% higher in linguistic originality than Stephenie Meyer's 2005 hit Twilight. (You can try the tool online.)

The rise of AI has rendered traditional CAPTCHA tests increasingly ineffective, as bots can now "[solve] these puzzles in milliseconds using artificial intelligence (AI)," reports The Conversation. "How ironic. The tools designed to prove we're human are now obstructing us more than the machines they're supposed to be keeping at bay." The report warns that the imminent arrival of AI agents -- software programs designed to autonomously interact with websites on our behalf -- will further complicate matters. From the report: Developers are continually coming up with new ways to verify humans. Some systems, like Google's ReCaptcha v3 (introduced in 2018), don't ask you to solve puzzles anymore. Instead, they watch how you interact with a website. Do you move your cursor naturally? Do you type like a person? Humans have subtle, imperfect behaviors that bots still struggle to mimic. Not everyone likes ReCaptcha v3 because it raises privacy issues -- plus the web company needs to assess user scores to determine who is a bot, and the bots can beat the system anyway. There are alternatives that use similar logic, such as "slider" puzzles that ask users to move jigsaw pieces around, but these too can be overcome.

Some websites are now turning to biometrics to verify humans, such as fingerprint scans or voice recognition, while face ID is also a possibility. Biometrics are harder for bots to fake, but they come with their own problems -- privacy concerns, expensive tech and limited access for some users, say because they can't afford the relevant smartphone or can't speak because of a disability. The imminent arrival of AI agents will add another layer of complexity. It will mean we increasingly want bots to visit sites and do things on our behalf, so web companies will need to start distinguishing between "good" bots and "bad" bots. This area still needs a lot more consideration, but digital authentication certificates are proposed as one possible solution.

In sum, Captcha is no longer the simple, reliable tool it once was. AI has forced us to rethink how we verify people online, and it's only going to get more challenging as these systems get smarter. Whatever becomes the next technological standard, it's going to have to be easy to use for humans, but one step ahead of the bad actors. So the next time you find yourself clicking on blurry traffic lights and getting infuriated, remember you're part of a bigger fight. The future of proving humanity is still being written, and the bots won't be giving up any time soon.

Dell CEO Michael Dell has acknowledged delays in corporate adoption of AI-enabled PCs but remains confident in their eventual widespread uptake, citing his four decades of industry experience with technology transitions.

The PC maker's chief executive told Fortune that while the current refresh cycle is "definitely delayed," adoption is inevitable once sufficient features drive customer demand. Meanwhile, Dell's infrastructure division saw 80% revenue growth last quarter from AI-server sales. The company is supplying servers for xAI's Colossus supercomputer project in Memphis and sees opportunities in "sovereign AI" systems for nations seeking technological independence. "Pick a country ranked by GDP, the [top] 49 other than the U.S., they all need one," Dell said.

Google has reduced its senior management positions by 10% as part of an ongoing efficiency initiative, CEO Sundar Pichai announced during a company-wide meeting earlier this week.

The restructuring affected managers, directors, and vice presidents, with some roles eliminated and others converted to non-management positions, a Google spokesperson told BusinessInsider. The move follows Google's January 2023 layoff of 12,000 employees and Pichai's September 2022 goal to improve company efficiency by 20%.

A bipartisan group of senators is calling out the auto industry for its "hypocritical, profit-driven" opposition to national right-to-repair legislation, while also selling customer data to insurance companies and other third-party interests. From a report: In a letter sent to the CEOs of the top automakers, the trio of legislators -- Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) -- urge them to better protect customer privacy, while also dropping their opposition to state and national right-to-repair efforts.

"Right-to-repair laws support consumer choice and prevent automakers from using restrictive repair laws to their financial advantage," the senators write. "It is clear that the motivation behind automotive companies' avoidance of complying with right-to-repair laws is not due to a concern for consumer security or privacy, but instead a hypocritical, profit-driven reaction."

Teenagers using Meta's virtual reality headsets to cheat at the popular game Gorilla Tag are unknowingly selling access to their home internet connections to potential cybercriminals, cybersecurity researchers found. The players have been side-loading Big Mama VPN, a free Android app, onto their VR headsets to create lag that makes it easier to win the tag-based game. However, the app simultaneously operates as a residential proxy service, selling access to users' IP addresses on a marketplace frequented by cybercriminals.

Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro discovered VR headsets were the third most common devices using Big Mama VPN, after Samsung and Xiaomi devices. The company's proxy services have been promoted on cybercrime forums and were linked to at least one cyberattack, according to research from security firms Trend Micro and Kela.

A study by reinsurer Swiss Re found that Waymo's autonomous vehicles have demonstrated significantly fewer property damage and bodily injury claims compared to human-driven cars, with reductions of up to 92% in some metrics. Engadget reports: Swiss Re analyzed liability claims from collisions covering 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo's autonomous cars. The study also compared Waymo's liability claims to human driver baselines based on data from over 500,000 claims and over 200 billion driving miles. The results found that Waymo Driver "demonstrated better safety performance when compared to human-driver vehicles." The study found cars operated by Alphabet's Waymo Driver resulted in 88 percent fewer property damage claims and 92 percent fewer bodily injury claims.

Swiss Re also invented a new metric to compare Waymo Driver against only newer vehicles with advanced safety tech, like driver assistance, automated emergency braking and blind spot warning systems, instead of against the whole corpus of those 200 billion driving miles. In this comparison, Waymo still came out ahead with an 86 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 90 percent reduction on bodily damage claims.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google has released what it's calling a new "reasoning" AI model -- but it's in the experimental stages, and from our brief testing, there's certainly room for improvement. The new model, called Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental (a mouthful, to be sure), is available in AI Studio, Google's AI prototyping platform. A model card describes it as "best for multimodal understanding, reasoning, and coding," with the ability to "reason over the most complex problems" in fields such as programming, math, and physics. [...]

Built on Google's recently announced Gemini 2.0 Flash model, Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental appears to be similar in design to OpenAI's o1 and other so-called reasoning models. Unlike most AI, reasoning models effectively fact-check themselves, which helps them avoid some of the pitfalls that normally trip up AI models. As a drawback, reasoning models often take longer -- usually seconds to minutes longer -- to arrive at solutions. Given a prompt, Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental pauses before responding, considering a number of related prompts and "explaining" its reasoning along the way. After a while, the model summarizes what it considers to be the most accurate answer.

SpaceX has partnered with telecommunications company One NZ to offer satellite-to-cell Starlink texting service to customers in New Zealand. It marks the first time a nationwide satellite text messaging service has been powered by Starlink. Engadget reports: Now onto the caveats, and there are a couple of big ones. Starlink texting is incredibly slow when compared to traditional methods. One NZ says that most messages should be sent and received within three minutes during the initial rollout, but admits that timeframe could increase to "10 minutes or longer." It is for this reason that the company continues to urge folks to carry a personal locator beacon when traveling to a remote area.

The service is also only supported by four smartphone models, which includes the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and OPPO Find X8 Pro. This list of eligible devices is expected to grow next year. The company also intends to eventually expand the service to include voice calling and data. The satellite service is free for existing One NZ customers on paid-monthly plans, but we don't know the pricing scheme for new customers or for those signed up for other types of contracts. Starlink is working with T-Mobile to do something similar in the U.S. Last month, the FCC approved a license for T-Mobile and SpaceX's Starlink to provide supplemental telecommunications coverage from space.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Hackers aligned with the Chinese government have infiltrated U.S. telecommunications infrastructure so deeply that it allowed the interception of unencrypted communications on a number of people, according to reports that first emerged in October. The operation, dubbed Salt Typhoon, apparently allowed hackers to listen to phone calls and nab text messages, and the penetration has been so extensive they haven't even been booted from the telecom networks yet. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued guidance this week on best practices for protecting "highly targeted individuals," which includes a new warning (PDF) about text messages.

"Do not use SMS as a second factor for authentication. SMS messages are not encrypted—a threat actor with access to a telecommunication provider's network who intercepts these messages can read them. SMS MFA is not phishing-resistant and is therefore not strong authentication for accounts of highly targeted individuals," the guidance, which has been posted online, reads. Not every service even allows for multi-factor authentication and sometimes text messages are the only option. But when you have a choice, it's better to use phishing-resistant methods like passkeys or authenticator apps. CISA prefaces its guidance by insisting it's only really speaking about high-value targets. The telecommunications hack mentioned above has been called the "worst hack in our nation's history," according to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA).

Congress approved $3 billion Wednesday for a long-languishing project to cull Chinese equipment from networks nationwide over fears they are vulnerable to cyberattacks, underscoring the risk Beijing-sponsored hackers pose to phone and internet networks. From a report: The new funding comes as the Commerce Department reviews whether to ban routers made by the Chinese-owned company TP-Link, which account for more than half of the U.S. retail router market.

The actions reflect the heightened attention among Washington policymakers to the threat posed by Chinese state-linked hackers. U.S. officials revealed the "Volt Typhoon" hack last year and in recent months have expressed alarm over the even bigger "Salt Typhoon" hack. In both cases, Chinese government hackers successfully penetrated major U.S. phone networks and critical infrastructure facilities, and U.S. officials said they still have not been able to expel the Salt Typhoon interlopers.

Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver with the caption: "As someone that uses back seats to carry some luggage, I am not a fan of this requirement." From the report: Previously, federal standards governing seatbelt warnings only required manufacturers to monitor the driver's seat, issuing a chime if its seatbelt was unbuckled when the vehicle was underway. Now, a new rule has been finalized, requiring all new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. to have enhanced front seatbelt warnings by September 1, 2026, and rear seatbelt warnings by September 1, 2027.

It's exactly 50 years since Congress attempted to mandate ignition interlocks tied to seatbelt use, in an effort to reduce deaths on the road. In that instance, the public revolted and the House blinked, repealing the interlock requirement later in the same year. [...] The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that these new regulations will save about 50 lives per year, and reduce injuries by 500.

Spanish police have uncovered a major clue in the year-long investigation of a missing Cuban man, JLPO, after Google Street View images showed a man loading a body-shaped package into a car and pushing a wheelbarrow with a large white package. These images led to the discovery of the victim's dismembered remains in a cemetery and the arrest of two suspects, including the victim's wife and a bar worker. The Independent reports: Spanish police have said the pictures are a "decisive" clue in case, with detectives reportedly launching a murder investigation and arresting two people in connection with the man's death. According to El Pais, police are still investigating the case -- and it appears neither have yet appeared charged before a court.