A new study counters the widely held belief that standing desks are [1]good for your health , discovering that it does not reduce the risk of diseases such as stroke and heart failure. In fact, it "found that being on your feet for more than two hours a day [2]may increase the risk of developing problems such as deep vein thrombosis and varicose veins ," reports The Guardian. The findings have been [3]published in the International Journal of Epidemiology . From the report:

> To establish if standing provided any health benefits, the researchers studied data from 83,013 adults who are part of the UK Biobank health records database. These people did not have heart disease at the start of the study and wore devices on their wrists to track movement. The team found that for every extra 30 minutes spent standing beyond two hours, the risk of circulatory disease increased by 11%. Standing was not found to reduce the risk of heart conditions such as stroke, heart failure and coronary heart disease, the researchers said.

"The key takeaway is that standing for too long will not offset an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and could be risky for some people in terms of circulatory health," said Dr Matthew Ahmadi, of the University of Sydney's faculty of medicine and health. "We found that standing more does not improve cardiovascular health over the long-term and increases the risk of circulatory issues."



[1] https://slashdot.org/story/15/07/06/1526226/ask-slashdot-have-you-tried-a-standing-desk

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/16/standing-desks-may-be-bad-for-your-health-study-suggests

[3] https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/53/6/dyae136/7822310?login=false

[1]wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek:

> Dane Stuckey, the former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of big data analytics and AI firm Palantir, has [2]joined OpenAI CISO . Stuckey served in senior security roles at Palantir for more than ten years, including 6 plus years as the company's CISO. In his new role, Stuckey said he would be working alongside Matt Knight, Head of Security at OpenAI.

"Security is germane to OpenAI's mission," said Stuckey in [3]a post on X. "It is critical we meet the highest standards for compliance, trust, and security to protect hundreds of millions of users of our products, enable democratic institutions to maximally benefit from these technologies, and drive the development of safe AGI for the world."

"I am so excited for this next chapter, and can't wait to help secure a future where AI benefits us all," Stuckey added.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~wiredmikey

[2] https://www.securityweek.com/dane-stuckey-joins-openai-as-ciso/

[3] https://x.com/cryps1s/status/1846325577906831728

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired:

> Real-time video deepfakes are a growing threat for governments, businesses, and individuals. Recently, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations mistakenly took a video call with someone pretending to be a Ukrainian official. An international engineering company lost millions of dollars earlier in 2024 when one employee was tricked by a deepfake video call. Also, romance scams targeting everyday individuals have employed similar techniques. "It's probably only a matter of months before we're going to start seeing an explosion of deepfake video, face-to-face fraud," says Ben Colman, CEO and cofounder at [1]Reality Defender . When it comes to video calls, especially in high-stakes situations, seeing should not be believing.

>

> The startup is laser-focused on partnering with business and government clients to [2]help thwart AI-powered deepfakes . Even with this core mission, Colman doesn't want his company to be seen as more broadly standing against artificial intelligence developments. "We're very pro-AI," he says. "We think that 99.999 percent of use cases are transformational -- for medicine, for productivity, for creativity -- but in these kinds of very, very small edge cases the risks are disproportionately bad." Reality Defender's plan for the real-time detector is to start with a plug-in for Zoom that can make active predictions about whether others on a video call are real or AI-powered impersonations. The company is currently working on benchmarking the tool to determine how accurately it discerns real video participants from fake ones. Unfortunately, it's not something you'll likely be able to try out soon. The new software feature will only be available in beta for some of the startup's clients.

>

> As Reality Defender works to improve the detection accuracy of its models, Colman says that access to more data is a critical challenge to overcome -- a common refrain from the current batch of AI-focused startups. He's hopeful more partnerships will fill in these gaps, and without specifics, hints at multiple new deals likely coming next year. After ElevenLabs was tied to a deepfake voice call of US president Joe Biden, the AI-audio startup [3]struck a deal with Reality Defender to mitigate potential misuse. [...] "We don't ask my 80-year-old mother to flag ransomware in an email," says Colman. "Because she's not a computer science expert." In the future, it's possible real-time video authentication, if AI detection continues to improve and shows to be reliably accurate, will be as taken for granted as that malware scanner quietly humming along in the background of your email inbox.



[1] https://www.realitydefender.com/

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/real-time-video-deepfake-scams-reality-defender/

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-18/elevenlabs-partners-with-reality-defender-to-combat-deepfake-audio

Apple is [1]enhancing its Business Connect tool , allowing companies to customize how they appear in emails, phone calls, and payment interfaces on iPhones. The Verge reports:

> Each registered business can confirm its info is accurate and add additional details like photos or special offers. Collecting verified, up-to-date business information could be useful for Apple if it ever launches its own search engine or inside features for Apple Intelligence instead of sending users to outside sources like Google, Yelp, or Meta. Branded Mail is a feature businesses can sign up for today before it starts rolling out to users later this year, potentially making emails easier to identify in a sea of unread messages.

>

> Additionally, if companies opt into Business Caller ID, Apple will display their name, logo, and department on an iPhone's inbound call screen. This feature should come in handy when you're trying to figure out whether the random number that's calling you is spam, or if it's a legitimate business. It will start rolling out next year. A smaller update coming to Apple's Tap to Pay service will let companies show their logo when accepting payments instead of just displaying a category icon.

You can read more about it in Apple's [2]press release .



[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24272053/apple-brands-stamp-emails-calls-iphone

[2] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/apple-expands-tools-to-help-businesses-connect-with-customers/

The parents of a Massachusetts student are suing his school after he was [1]penalized for using AI in a Social Studies project , claiming it was for research purposes only. The student received a detention and a lower grade, which his parents argue could harm his college prospects. The school is defending its AI policy and fighting to dismiss the case. The Register reports:

> "The Plaintiff Student will suffer irreparable harm that far outweighs any harm that may befall the Defendants," their filing [2]reads [PDF]. "He is applying to elite colleges and universities given his high level of academic and personal achievement. Early decision and early action applications in a highly competitive admissions process are imminent and start in earnest on October 1, 2024. Absent the grant of an injunction by this Court, the Student will suffer irreparable harm that is imminent."

>

> The school, however, is fighting back with a [3]motion to dismiss [PDF] the case. The school argues that RNH, along with his classmates, was given a copy of the student handbook in the Fall of last year, which specifically called out the use of AI by students. The class was also shown a presentation about the school's policy. Students should "not use AI tools during in-class examinations, processed writing assignments, homework or classwork unless explicitly permitted and instructed," the policy states. "RNH unequivocally used another author's language and thoughts, be it a digital and artificial author, without express permission to do so," the school argues. "Furthermore, he did not cite to his use of AI in his notes, scripts or in the project he submitted. Importantly, RNH's peers were not allowed to cut corners by using AI to craft their projects; thus, RNH acted 'unfairly in order to gain an advantage.'"



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/16/parents_sue_student_ai/

[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/10/15/ai_cheat.pdf

[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/10/15/dismiss.pdf

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:

> The code that runs Redbox DVD rental machines [1]has been dumped online , and, in the wake of the company's bankruptcy, a community of tinkerers and reverse engineers are probing the operating system to learn how it works. Naturally, one of the first things people did was make [2]one of the machines run Doom . As has been detailed in [3]several great articles [4]elsewhere , the end of Redbox has been a clusterfuck, with pharmacies, grocery stores, and other retailers stuck with very large, heavy, abandoned DVD rental kiosks. To many people's surprise, many of the kiosks remain operational even with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, which has led some people to " [5]liberate " DVDs from the abandoned kiosks. Reddit is full of posts by people who say they have [6]taken dozens of DVDs from kiosks all over the country. Free DVDs is one thing. But in recent days, people have realized that they can, in some cases, get free Redbox kiosks. In an August filing, Walgreens told the bankruptcy court that it has 5,400 abandoned kiosks at its stores, and that it is spending $184,000 a month keeping them powered. "Walgreens should not be required to continue to 'store' and power Redbox kiosks across the country without any form of payment," the company wrote. And so tinkerers and reverse engineers have begun asking stores whether they can take the devices off their hands. There are also posts on Reddit by contractors who are selling them, and I was able to find various Redbox DVD kiosks being advertised for sale on Facebook Marketplace. (There are far more listings on Facebook Marketplace from people who have obtained hundreds or thousands of Redbox DVDs and are now selling them.)

>

> Recently the operating system for Redbox kiosks was dumped online, and this community is now probing it to see how it works. In a thread on Mastodon, reverse engineer Foone Turing has been [7]posting some of her findings , which include the fact that Redbox machines contain a file that has "a complete list of titles ever rented, and the email addresses of the people who rented them, and where and when." She also found that the first six and last four digits of credit card information was logged. She said that the records on the particular unit that she was looking at contained 2,471 different transactions and had records on it dating back to 2015. Other reverse engineers have found that Redbox kiosks contained information about the physical locations of every other kiosk. The server that they communicated with is currently offline (because the company is bankrupt). But people have also been putting together information about what different error codes in the software mean (for example, the error code "0020BDT" would happen when an obstruction was detected in the machine). They have also found and dumped service manuals for different parts of the device and have found a few login passwords (one password is "US#1Choice4movierentals"). [...] There has also been discussion about how the machines could be modified to talk to a new server, or whether the operating system could be put on a DIY Redbox device. Another person [8]installed Minecraft on their Redbox. It is still very early days, but, with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, ironically these devices are being given new life.



[1] https://www.404media.co/tinkerers-are-taking-old-redbox-kiosks-home-and-reverse-engineering-them/

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1g2e2pt/rate_my_new_gaming_setup_doom/?ref=404media.co

[3] https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/redbox-vending-machine-kiosk-dvd-movies-4e285ee8?ref=404media.co

[4] https://sherwood.news/business/inside-redboxs-insane-bankruptcy/?ref=404media.co

[5] https://sherwood.news/business/inside-redboxs-insane-bankruptcy/?ref=404media.co

[6] https://reddit.com/r/redbox?ref=404media.co

[7] https://digipres.club/@foone/113313513964826090?ref=404media.co

[8] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F180hw6sasvcd1.png&ref=404media.co

Apple's [1]$3,499 Vision Pro is [2]struggling to attract major software-makers to develop apps for the device, a challenge that threatens to slow the progress of the company's biggest new product in a decade. WSJ:

> New apps released on the Vision Pro every month have slowed since its launch in January. Some of the most successful virtual-reality software developers have so far opted not to build apps for the headset. Without enough killer apps, certain users have found the device less useful and are opting to sell it. "It's a chicken-or-egg problem," said Bertrand Nepveu, who previously worked on the Vision Pro at Apple and is now an investor in this area at Triptyq Capital.

>

> Nepveu and app developers think Apple should fund app makers to give them an incentive to port over their existing apps from other headsets or to develop fresh content. This practice has become common in the industry, with headset leader Meta Platforms funding many developers and even buying several app makers. The social-media company is a formidable competitor to Apple, with a market share of all headsets reaching 74% in the second quarter this year, according to Counterpoint Research.



[1] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/23/06/05/1845237/apple-vision-pro-is-apples-new-ar-headset

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/apple-headset-stalls-struggles-to-attract-killer-apps-in-first-year/ar-AA1sblax

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> The big financial moments in life used to be marked with a flourish of a pen. Buying a house. A car. Breakfast. Not anymore. Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express dropped the requirement to sign for charges like restaurant checks in 2018. They don't look at our scribbles to verify identity or stop fraud. Taps, clicks and electronic signatures took over the heavy lifting for many everyday purchases -- and many contracts, loan applications and even Social Security forms. The John Hancock was written off as a relic useful mainly to inflate the value of sports memorabilia. But [1]signatures didn't die .

>

> We continue to be asked to sign with ink on paper or using fingers on touch screens at many restaurants, bars and other businesses. And people keep signing card receipts out of habit -- even when there is no blank space for it -- because it feels weird not to, payment networks and retail groups say. "Traditions have this odd way of sticking around," said Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores. Signatures had been used to verify identity and agree to financial terms for centuries. Banks kept records of customer signatures to check against, but the sheer number of transactions and advancements in technology eventually made that impractical.

>

> By the 1980s, charges could be processed electronically. Signatures were still used in cases of fraud or stolen cards. Banks could call merchants and ask them to present a signed receipt. Yet given how easy signatures are to forge, they proved limited as a fraud prevention tool. Now there are more sophisticated ways to determine whether cards are stolen or misused, according to Mark Nelsen, global head of consumer payments at Visa.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/credit-cards-don-t-require-signatures-so-why-do-we-still-sign/ar-AA1seIhl

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> Households on individual streets will be [1]targeted with personalised adverts under plans being rolled out by Channel 4. The channel is to use new technology which will allow brands to tailor who sees their advert by enabling them to select a demographic within a specific location down to street level. For example, someone watching Made in Chelsea on Channel 4's streaming service could be served an ad for a fashion brand in a local outlet to them if a particular fashion trend is being discussed.

>

> Advertisers can further optimise their campaign by selecting from 26 programme genres, as well as time of day and device the show is being watched on. It forms part of a wider update to Channel 4's streaming platform that the broadcaster hopes could boost revenues by as much as $13m. The company will launch a new private marketplace enabling brands to buy advertising space directly in real-time. This will allow advertisers to amend their campaigns to respond to events, whether that be real-world events such as local weather or developments in fictional storylines within TV shows. Channel 4's new ad targeting also includes more detailed data to track whether a viewer has made a purchase after seeing an ad, as well as new viewer profiles for brands to target.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/tv-ads-to-target-households-on-individual-streets/ar-AA1rRR6L

New research challenges assumptions about decision-making, revealing people tend to believe they have sufficient information [1]regardless of actual data at hand . A study by Gehlbach, Robinson, and Fletcher, [2]published earlier this month , found participants consistently overestimated their knowledge when given partial information on a hypothetical school merger scenario.

Nearly 90% favored merger when presented pro-merger facts, while only 25% did when given opposing data. However, opinions shifted when full information was provided, suggesting malleability of views despite initial overconfidence. Researchers caution this bias could be exploited in today's fractured media landscape, where partial or misleading information often circulates unchecked.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/people-think-they-already-know-everything-they-need-to-make-decisions/

[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0310216

AeroGarden, which sells Wi-Fi-connected indoor gardening systems, is going out of business on January 1. While Scotts Miracle-Gro has continued selling AeroGarden products after announcing the impending shutdown, the [1]future of the devices' companion app is uncertain .



[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/smart-gardening-firms-shutdown-a-reminder-of-internet-of-things-fickle-nature/

[1]smooth wombat writes:

> In 2013, James Howell's partner inadvertently threw out a hard drive along with other trash. Unknown to this person, this hard drive [2]contained approximately 8,000 bitcoins . For the past decade Howell has been petitioning the town council of Newport to [3]excavate the landfill in the hope of recovering the drive which would now hold approximately $647 million worth of cryptocurrency. Now he is suing the council in an attempt to force them [4]to let him excavate .

>

> Should the hard drive be recovered, Howells thinks there is an 80 percent chance that the coins on it would be retrievable. If it all works out, he has offered the council 10% of the recovered Bitcoin: $65 million worth. But, citing environmental concerns, the council has rejected his proposal to dig through over a decade's worth of garbage. The council issued a report wherein a spokesperson said, "The council has told Mr. Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area. The council is the only body authorized to carry out operations on the site."



[1] https://slashdot.org/~smooth+wombat

[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/12/12/0637228/hard-drive-with-7500-bitcoin-buried-in-landfill-can-it-be-dug-up

[3] https://slashdot.org/story/22/07/26/004237/bitcoin-dumpster-guy-has-a-wild-plan-to-rescue-millions-in-crypto-from-a-landfill

[4] https://www.vice.com/en/article/bitcoin-landfill-lawsuit/

In a rather critical analysis of the 2024 Economics Nobel, commentator Noah Smith has questioned the [1]prize's shift back to "big-think" theories . He argues that Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson's (the winner of the 2024 Economics Nobel) influential work on institutions and development, while intriguing, lacks robust empirical validation. From his blog:

> The science prizes rely very heavily on external validity to determine who gets the prize -- your theory or your invention has to work, basically. If it doesn't, you can be the biggest genius in the world, but you'll never get a Nobel. The physicist Ed Witten won a Fields Medal , which is even harder to get than a Nobel, for the math he invented for string theory. But he'll almost certainly never get a Physics Nobel, because string theory can't be empirically tested.

>

> The Econ Nobel is different. Traditionally, it's given to economists whose ideas are most influential within the economics profession . If a whole bunch of other economists do research that follows up on your research, or which uses theoretical or empirical techniques you pioneered, you get an Econ Nobel. Your theory doesn't have to be validated, your specific empirical findings can already have been overturned by the time the prize is awarded, but if you were influential, you get the prize.

>

> You could argue that this is appropriate for what Thomas Kuhn would call a "pre-paradigmatic" science -- a field that's still looking for a set of basic concepts and tools. But it's been 55 years since they started giving the prize, and that seems like an awfully long time for a field to still be tooling up. Meanwhile, making "influence within the economics profession" the criterion for successful research seems a little too much like a popularity contest. It's how you end up with prizes like the one in 2004, which was given to some macroeconomic theorists [2]whose theory said that recessions are caused by technological slowdowns and that mass unemployment is a voluntary vacation.

>

> In recent years, that looked like it might be changing. Often, the prize was given to empirical economists associated with the so-called "credibility revolution" -- basically, [3]quasi-experiments . Those cases include Goldin in 2023, Card/Angrist/Imbens in 2021, and Banerjee/Duflo/Kremer in 2019. And when it was given to theorists, they tended to be game theorists whose theories are very predictive of real-world outcomes -- Milgrom/Wilson in 2020, Hart/Holmstrom in 2016, Tirole in 2014, and Roth/Shapley in 2012. Even when the prize was given to macro -- a field where validity is much harder to establish -- it was given to economists whose theories have seen immediate application to pressing problems of the day, such as Bernanke/Diamond/Dybvig in 2022 and Nordhaus in 2018. In other words, the recent Nobels have made it seem like economics might be becoming more like a natural science , where practical applications and external validity are the ultimate arbiter of the value of research, rather than cultural influence within the economics profession. But this year's prize seems like a step away from that, and back toward the sort of big-think that used to be more popular in the prize's early years.



[1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/a-nobel-for-the-big-big-questions

[2] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/a-failed-economic-theory-of-everything

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-02/how-economics-went-from-philosophy-to-science

Digital River has [1]not paid numerous merchants since midsummer for software and digital products they sold through its MyCommerce platform. The Register:

> "After over 20 years of partnership with Digital River, Traction Software Ltd has been left feeling as though we've been 'rug pulled,'" Lee Midgley, managing director of Traction Software, told The Register. "For the past three months, we've experienced a complete halt in software sales revenue payments with no support, no direct contact, and only additional terms and conditions designed to delay resolution and extract more money from us.

>

> "Astonishingly, Digital River continued to take sales from our loyal customers until we removed them from the order system. It now appears they have no intention of making payments and may be entering a liquidation process under a new CEO who has been involved in similar situations before."

>

> The new CEO, Barry Kasoff, was first noted on the e-commerce biz website in August. Kasoff is also listed as the president of Realization Services, "a full-service strategic consulting firm specializing in turnaround management and value enhancement..." The privately-owned, Minnesota-based business appears to have laid off a significant number of employees, presumably the result of what its UK subsidiary describes as cost reduction initiatives implemented in late 2022.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/digital_river_runs_dry_hasnt/

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission adopted a final rule on Wednesday requiring businesses to make it as easy to [1]cancel subscriptions and memberships as it is to sign up, in the agency's last major rulemaking before the Nov. 5 election. From a report:

> The "click to cancel" rule requires retailers, gyms and other businesses to get consumers' consent for subscriptions, auto-renewals and free trials that convert to paid memberships. The cancellation method must be "at least as easy to use" as the sign up process. FTC Chair Lina Khan said in an interview that the rule is an overdue response to a rising number of consumer complaints about situations in which it is "extraordinarily easy to sign up for a subscription, but absurdly difficult to cancel."

>

> "Companies shouldn't be able to trick you into paying for subscriptions that you don't want," Khan said. The rule prohibits requiring consumers who signed up through an app or a website to go through a chat bot or agent to cancel. For in-person signups, companies must provide means to cancel by phone or online. "The pandemic brought to the surface just how businesses are making people jump through endless hoops," Khan said. Requiring in-person cancellations while the businesses themselves were closed "really highlighted the absurdity of these practices," she said.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ftc-takes-subscription-traps-with-click-cancel-rule-2024-10-16/

Amazon has unveiled its first color e-reader, [1]the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition , priced at $279.99. The 7-inch device, available for preorder with shipments starting October 30th, utilizes E Ink's Kaleido technology and a new display stack. Kevin Keith, head of Kindle products, claims the Colorsoft maintains Kindle's hallmark features while introducing color without compromising performance.

The e-reader boasts a 300ppi screen, enhanced LED pixels, and improved light distribution for vivid colors. It offers faster page turns and book openings compared to previous models. The color screen enhances the user interface, allowing for full-color book covers and a more vibrant standby display.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24271632/amazon-kindle-colorsoft-specs-price-hands-on

Amazon said on Wednesday it has signed three agreements on [1]developing the nuclear power technology called small modular reactors , becoming the latest big tech company to [2]push for new sources to meet surging electricity demand from data centers. From a report:

> Amazon said it will fund a feasibility study for an SMR project near a Northwest Energy site in Washington state. The SMR is planned to be developed by X-Energy. Financial details were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Amazon will have the right to purchase electricity from four modules. Energy Northwest, a consortium of state public utilities, will have the option to add up to eight 80 MW modules, resulting in a total capacity up to 960 MWs, or enough to power the equivalent of more than 770,000 U.S. homes. The additional power would be available to Amazon and utilities to power homes and businesses. "Our agreements will encourage the construction of new nuclear technologies that will generate energy for decades to come," said Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services. SMRs will have their components built in a factory to reduce construction costs. [...]

>

> Amazon said it is also leading a funding round for $500 million to support X-Energy's development of SMRs. Amazon and X-Energy aim to bring more than 5 gigawatts online in the United States by 2039, which the companies call the largest commercial deployment target of SMRs yet. Amazon also signed an agreement with Dominion Energy, opens new tab to explore the development of an SMR project near the utility's existing power station in Virginia. The about 300 megawatt project would help meet power needs in a region where demand is expected to jump 85% in 15 years, Dominion said.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazoncom-joins-push-nuclear-power-meet-data-center-demand-2024-10-16/

[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/07/1627216/big-tech-has-cozied-up-to-nuclear-energy

New submitter [1]king*jojo writes:

> The owners of WinAmp have [2]just deleted their entire repo one month after [3]uploading the source code to GitHub. Lots of source code, and quite possibly, not all of it theirs. The deletion happened soon after The Register enquired about the seeming inclusion of Shoutcast DNAS code and some Microsoft and Intel codecs.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~king*jojo

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/16/opensourcing_of_winamp_goes_badly/

[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/09/25/1854228/winamp-releases-source-code-asks-for-help-modernizing-the-player

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak:

> Korean game publisher Nexon is using the U.S. legal system to address online copyright infringement. The company obtained a DMCA subpoena that requires Discord to hand over the personal details of suspected pirates. While Discord has shared information in the past, it doesn't plan to cooperate any longer, [1]refusing to play the role of 'anti-piracy police '. [...] The messaging platform wrote that it is prepared to file a motion to quash the subpoena, if needed. It further urged Nexon to withdraw their demands, and cease sending any similar 'defective' subpoenas going forward. To support its stance, Discord made a list of twenty-two general objections and reservations. Among other things, the company wants to protect user privacy and their first amendment right to anonymous speech.

>

> "Discord objects to the Requests as infringing its users' decisions to remain anonymous, an aspect of their freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. The Requests improperly seek to unmask anonymous speakers and consequently compel disclosure of material protected by the First Amendment," it reads. This strongly-worded letter didn't have the desired result, however. Instead of backing off, Nexon doubled down, filing a [2]motion to compel (PDF) at a Texas federal court late last week. The game company refutes Discord's objections and asks the court to enter an order requiring Discord to produce the requested user data. Nexon says that it needs this information to protect its copyrights. "Discord's failure to cooperate discovery has impeded Nexon's ability to discover relevant, non-privileged information that will support its potential claims against the users who have provided access to the infringing material," Nexon writes. While the court has yet to rule on the matter, Discord is expected to file a formal motion to quash the subpoena in response, as indicated in its earlier communications.



[1] https://torrentfreak.com/discord-disputes-dmca-subpoena-demands-rejects-anti-piracy-partner-role-241015/

[2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.395421/gov.uscourts.txnd.395421.2.0.pdf

The University of Toronto is [1]constructing a 14-story building using mass timber , one of the largest and most recent projects to employ this innovative building technology. "Mass timber is an appealing alternative to energy-intensive concrete and steel, which together account for almost 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions," reports Knowable Magazine. "Though experts are still debating mass timber's role in fighting climate change, many are betting it's better for the environment than current approaches to construction. It relies on wood, after all, a renewable resource." From the report:

> Today, the tallest mass timber building is the 25-story Ascent skyscraper in Milwaukee, completed in 2022. As of that year, there were 84 mass timber buildings eight stories or higher either built or under construction worldwide, with another 55 proposed. Seventy percent of the existing and future buildings were in Europe, about 20 percent in North America and the rest in Australia and Asia, according to [2]a report (PDF) from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. When you include smaller buildings, at least 1,700 mass timber buildings had been constructed in the United States alone as of 2023. [...]

>

> In principle, mass timber is like plywood but on a much larger scale: The smaller pieces are layered and glued together under pressure in large specialized presses. Today, beams up to 50 meters long, usually made of what's called glue-laminated timber, or glulam, can replace steel elements. Panels up to 50 centimeters thick, typically cross-laminated timber, or CLT, replace concrete for walls and floors. These wood composites can be surprisingly strong -- stronger than steel by weight. But a mass timber element must be bulkier to achieve that same strength. As a building gets higher, the wooden supports must get thicker; at some point, they simply take up too much space. So for taller mass timber buildings, including the Ascent skyscraper, architects often turn to a combination of wood, steel and concrete.



[1] https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/technology/2024/sustainable-building-embraces-mass-timber-skyscrapers

[2] https://www.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/4530-Journal2022_IssueI_StateofTallTimber+TBIN.pdf