The United States, United Kingdom and European Union have signed the first "legally binding" international AI treaty on Thursday, the Council of Europe human rights organization said. Called the AI Convention, the treaty promotes responsible innovation and addresses the risks AI may pose. Reuters reports: The AI Convention mainly focuses on the protection of human rights of people affected by AI systems and is separate from the EU AI Act, which entered into force last month. The EU's AI Act entails comprehensive regulations on the development, deployment, and use of AI systems within the EU internal market. The Council of Europe, founded in 1949, is an international organization distinct from the EU with a mandate to safeguard human rights; 46 countries are members, including all the 27 EU member states. An ad hoc committee in 2019 started examining the feasibility of an AI framework convention and a Committee on Artificial Intelligence was formed in 2022 which drafted and negotiated the text. The signatories can choose to adopt or maintain legislative, administrative or other measures to give effect to the provisions.

Francesca Fanucci, a legal expert at ECNL (European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stichting) who contributed to the treaty's drafting process alongside other civil society groups, told Reuters the agreement had been "watered down" into a broad set of principles. "The formulation of principles and obligations in this convention is so overbroad and fraught with caveats that it raises serious questions about their legal certainty and effective enforceability," she said. Fanucci highlighted exemptions on AI systems used for national security purposes, and limited scrutiny of private companies versus the public sector, as flaws. "This double standard is disappointing," she added.

Google's Android Earthquake Alerts System, initially launched in 2020, is now available in all 50 U.S. states and 6 territories. Droid Life reports: For users in California, Oregon and Washington, users will continue to have their alerts powered by the ShakeAlert system, utilizing traditional seismometers to detect earthquakes. For all out states and supported territories, "this expansion uses the built-in accelerometers in Android phones to bring another layer of preparedness and potentially life-saving information to people across every state," the company explained in a blog post.

Using the accelerometer to sense vibrations and an apparent earthquake, the system quickly analyzes the crowdsourced data to determine if an earthquake is occurring. Google says it has been working with many experts to continue the system's improvement. Depending on the severity of the earthquake, you'll get two types of notifications. A little pop up on your screen if it's pretty weak with light shaking or a complete screen takeover for moderate to extreme shaking. These are called Take Action alerts, complete with the classic drop, cover, and hold instructions.

AT&T has filed a lawsuit against Broadcom, alleging that Broadcom is refusing to honor an extended support agreement for VMware software unless AT&T purchases additional subscriptions it doesn't need. The company warns the consequences could risk massive outages for AT&T's customer support operations and critical federal services, including the U.S. President's office. The Register reports: A complaint [PDF] filed last week in the Supreme Court of New York State explains that AT&T holds perpetual licenses for VMware software and paid for support services under a contract that ends on September 8. The complaint also alleges that AT&T has an option to extend that support deal for two years -- provided it activates the option before the end of the current deal. AT&T's filing claims it exercised that option, but that Broadcom "is refusing to honor" the contract. Broadcom has apparently told AT&T it will continue to provide support if the comms giant "agrees to purchase scores of subscription services and software." AT&T counters that it "does not want or need" those subscriptions, because they:

- Would impose significant additional contractual and technological obligations on AT
- Would require AT&T to invest potentially millions to develop its network to accommodate the new software;
- May violate certain rights of first refusal that AT&T has granted to third parties;
- Would cost AT&T tens of millions more than the price of the support services alone.

[...] The complaint also suggests Broadcom's refusal to extend support creates enormous risk for US national security -- some of the ~8,600 servers that host AT&T's ~75,000 VMs "are dedicated to various national security and public safety agencies within the federal government as well as the Office of the President." Other VMs are relied upon by emergency responders, and still more "deliver services to millions of AT&T customers worldwide" according to the suit. Without support from Broadcom, AT&T claims it fears "widespread network outages that could cripple the operations of millions of AT&T customers worldwide" because it may not be able to fix VMware's software.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last month, Google's GameNGen AI model showed that generalized image diffusion techniques can be used to generate a passable, playable version of Doom. Now, researchers are using some similar techniques with a model called MarioVGG to see if an AI model can generate plausible video of Super Mario Bros. in response to user inputs. The results of the MarioVGG model -- available as a pre-print paper (PDF) published by the crypto-adjacent AI company Virtuals Protocol -- still display a lot of apparent glitches, and it's too slow for anything approaching real-time gameplay at the moment. But the results show how even a limited model can infer some impressive physics and gameplay dynamics just from studying a bit of video and input data. The researchers hope this represents a first step toward "producing and demonstrating a reliable and controllable video game generator," or possibly even "replacing game development and game engines completely using video generation models" in the future.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez has filed a lawsuit against Snap, accusing Snapchat of fostering and promoting illicit sexual material involving children, facilitating sextortion, and enabling trafficking of children, drugs, and guns. CNBC reports: The suit alleges that Snap "repeatedly made statements to the public regarding the safety and design of its platforms that it knew were untrue," or that were contradicted by the company's own internal findings. "Snap was specifically aware, but failed to warn children and parents, of 'rampant' and 'massive' sextortion on its platform -- a problem so grave that it drives children facing merciless and relentless blackmail demands or disclosure of intimate images to their families and friends to suicide," the suit says.

New Mexico's Department of Justice, which Torrez leads, in recent months conducted an investigation that found that there was a "vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap" and that there were more than 10,000 records related to SNAP and child sexual abuse material "in the last year alone," the department said. The suit alleges violations of New Mexico's unfair trade practices law.

Apple announced it is planning to bring its Find My service to South Korea in early 2025. Originally released in 2010, the Find My service has been unavailable in South Korea, making it the last country without access to Apple's tracking feature. AppleInsider reports: In July 2024, complaints from users in South Korea reached a point where they were finally petitioning the government to allow Apple's Find My feature to work. Any iPhone made for sale in South Korea had Find My permanently disabled, so it wouldn't work even when the owner was in a different country. Now in a statement on its Korean website, Apple has announced that it plans to bring Find My to the country shortly.

"Apple plans to introduce the 'Find My' network in Korea in the spring of 2025," says a brief statement (in translation). "Users in Korea will soon be able to use the Find My app to find their Apple devices and personal belongings with their personal information protected, and check the location of friends and family." [...] According to the user petition submitted to the National Assembly Petition website of South Korea, Apple has said that Find My is disabled "because of internal policy."

Uniswap Labs, the firm behind the world's most popular decentralized exchange, is under fire from a variety of regulators. From a report: If regulators want to throw a giant monkey wrench into the crypto economy, making people afraid to use Uniswap would be a great way to do it. Uniswap Labs today agreed to a $175,000 settlement with the CFTC, while some of its chief investors received subpoenas from the New York Department of Financial Services. The CFTC settlement concerned trading for various tokens that represent leveraged trades on leading crypto assets, such as bitcoin (BTC) and ETH. This all comes after the SEC previously served Uniswap Labs with a Wells Notice, which indicates that it's likely to take legal action.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon today announced a deal to acquire Frontier Communications, an Internet service provider with about 3 million customers in 25 states. Verizon said the all-cash transaction is valued at $20 billion. Verizon agreed to pay $9.6 billion and is taking on over $10 billion in debt (PDF) held by Frontier. Verizon said the deal is subject to regulatory approval and a vote by Frontier shareholders and is expected to be completed in 18 months.

"Under the terms of the agreement, Verizon will acquire Frontier for $38.50 per share in cash, representing a premium of 43.7 percent to Frontier's 90-Day volume-weighted average share price (VWAP) on September 3, 2024, the last trading day prior to media reports regarding a potential acquisition of Frontier," Verizon said. Assuming regulatory and shareholder approval, Verizon will be buying back a former portion of its network that it sold to Frontier eight years ago. In 2016, Frontier bought Verizon's FiOS and DSL operations in Florida, California, and Texas. The 2016 changeover was marred by technical problems that caused weeks of outages for tens of thousands of customers. "Frontier's 2.2 million fiber subscribers across 25 states will join Verizon's approximately 7.4 million FiOS connections in 9 states and Washington, D.C.," Verizon said. "In addition to Frontier's 7.2 million fiber locations, the company is committed to its plan to build out an additional 2.8 million fiber locations by the end of 2026."

OpenAI executives are considering premium subscriptions for advanced language models, including the reasoning-focused Strawberry and flagship Orion, with potential monthly prices ranging up to $2,000, The Information reported Thursday, citing a source.

The move reflects growing concerns about covering operational costs for ChatGPT, which currently generates approximately $2 billion annually from $20 monthly subscriptions, the report added. More sophisticated models like Strawberry and Orion may require additional computing power, potentially increasing expenses, the report added.

Visa said it plans to launch a dedicated service for bank transfers, skipping credit cards and the traditional direct debit process. From a report: Visa, which alongside Mastercard is one of the world's largest card networks, said Thursday it plans to launch a dedicated service for account-to-account (A2A) payments in Europe next year. Users will be able set up direct debits -- transactions that take funds directly from your bank account -- on merchants' e-commerce stores with just a few clicks. Visa said consumers will be able to monitor these payments more easily and raise any issues by clicking a button in their banking app, giving them a similar level of protection to when they use their cards.

The service should help people deal with problems like unauthorized auto-renewals of subscriptions, by making it easier for people to reverse direct debit transactions and get their money back, Visa said. It won't initially apply its A2A service to things like TV streaming services, gym memberships and food boxes, Visa added, but this is planned for the future. The product will initially launch in the U.K. in early 2025, with subsequent releases in the Nordic region and elsewhere in Europe later in 2025. [...] Static direct debits, for example, require advance notice of any changes to the amount taken, meaning you have to either cancel the direct debit and set up a new one or carry out a one-off transfer. With Visa A2A, consumers will be able to set up variable recurring payments (VRP), a new type of payment that allows people to make and manage recurring payments of varying amounts.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has released version 6.0 of the Bluetooth Core Specification, introducing several new features and enhancements. The update includes Bluetooth Channel Sounding, which brings true distance awareness to devices, potentially improving "Find My" solutions and digital key security.

Other additions include decision-based advertising filtering to improve scanning efficiency, and a monitoring advertisers feature to inform devices when other Bluetooth units move in and out of range. The specification also enhances the Isochronous Adaptation Layer to reduce latency in certain use cases. Version 6.0 expands the Link Layer Extended Feature Set to support a larger number of features, reflecting Bluetooth LE's growing sophistication. Additionally, it introduces negotiable frame spacing in connections and connected isochronous streams, moving away from the fixed 150 us value in previous versions.

Madrid City Hall said on Thursday it would ban all rental e-scooters from October because of the risk they pose to pedestrians, the latest city to make the move. From a report: "We are withdrawing authorization for companies hiring out scooters on the city's streets," the Spanish capital's conservative mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida wrote on X. "Our priority is the... safety of the people of Madrid," he said, adding that the measure would "take full effect in October." The three companies currently with licenses to rent out e-scooters on the streets of Madrid -- Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility -- will now have to remove their devices. These firms "did not comply with the conditions we imposed to guarantee the safety of pedestrians, particularly the elderly," the mayor said. Madrid City Hall criticized the firms for not using technology to prevent e-scooters from driving or parking in prohibited areas and lacking the appropriate accident insurance.

The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has formally opened an investigation into Ticketmaster's compliance with consumer protection law in relation to the sale of Oasis concert tickets. From a report: The CMA said on Thursday that it is investigating whether "Ticketmaster has engaged in unfair commercial practices which are prohibited under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008"; "People were given clear and timely information to explain that the tickets could be subject to so-called 'dynamic pricing' with prices changing depending on demand, and how this would operate, including the price they would pay for any tickets purchased"; and if "People were put under pressure to buy tickets within a short period of time -- at a higher price than they understood they would have to pay, potentially impacting their purchasing decisions." The CMA said that it will now engage with Ticketmaster and gather evidence to consider whether it thinks the company has broken consumer protection law.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Passport numbers for a group of Disney cruise line workers. Disney+ streaming revenue. Sales of Genie+ theme park passes. The trove of data from Disney that was leaked online by hackers earlier this summer includes a range of financial and strategy information that sheds light on the entertainment giant's operations, according to files viewed by The Wall Street Journal. It also includes personally identifiable information of some staff and customers.

The leaked files include granular details about revenue generated by such products as Disney+ and ESPN+; park pricing offers the company has modeled; and what appear to be login credentials for some of Disney's cloud infrastructure. (The Journal didn't attempt to access any Disney systems.) "We decline to comment on unverified information The Wall Street Journal has purportedly obtained as a result of a bad actor's illegal activity," a Disney spokesman said. Disney told investors in an August regulatory filing that it is investigating the unauthorized release of "over a terabyte of data" from one of its communications systems. It said the incident hadn't had a material impact on its operations or financial performance and doesn't expect that it will.

Data that a hacking entity calling itself Nullbulge released online spans more than 44 million messages from Disney's Slack workplace communications tool, upward of 18,800 spreadsheets and at least 13,000 PDFs, the Journal found. The scope of the material taken appears to be limited to public and private channels within Disney's Slack that one employee had access to. No private messages between executives appear to be included. Slack is only one online forum in which Disney employees communicate at work.

Federal investigators have indicted a North Carolina man over a scheme in which he allegedly used bot accounts and hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to earn more than $10 million in royalty payments from the major streaming services. RollingStone: The case is a landmark development in the still-developing music streaming market, with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York calling it the first criminal case involving artificially inflated music streaming. In the indictment, the prosecutors say that for the past seven years, North Carolina musician Michael Smith had been running a complex music streaming manipulation scheme to fraudulently profit off of billions of streams from bot accounts. "At a certain point in the charged time period, Smith estimated that he could use the Bot Accounts to generate approximately 661,440 streams per day, yielding annual royalties of $1,207,128," the prosecutors said in the indictment announcement.

Smith, 52, was charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy, totaling to a combined maximum of 60 years in prison if convicted. "Through his brazen fraud scheme, Smith stole millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately streamed," said Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. "Today, thanks to the work of the FBI and the career prosecutors of this Office, it's time for Smith to face the music."

Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing this week urged Germans to work harder to help restore the country's economy. From a report: "Investors are already doubting our ability to reform, but especially our ability and our will to perform," Sewing said at the Handelsblatt banking summit in Frankfurt. "More growth in Germany will come only if we also change our attitude to work; if we are prepared to work differently, but overall to work more and harder." Sewing said that EU citizens work about 34 hours a week on average compared with about 28 hours in Germany.

He argued that Germany should embrace longer work-weeks. "We won't manage it with an average of 28 hours per week and a pension at 63," he said. The euro area's biggest economy has been digesting a slate of negative economic data recently. For starters, the German economy contracted in the second quarter of the year, while at the start of the month, the manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI), a key indicator of industrial sentiment, flashed negative, marking over a year it's been in negative territory.

Discord has reduced the upload limit for free users from 25MB to 10MB per file, citing financial and operational reasons. "Every day, millions of files are uploaded to Discord and stored securely for your future access. Storage management is expensive, so we regularly review how people use Discord and their storage needs. In fact, our data shows that 99% of users stick to files smaller than 10MB," the company wrote in an updated support page. Dexerto reports: Discord increased its file-sharing limit to 25MB in April last year. Before that, the limit was set at 8MB for free users. While the new 10MB limit isn't terrible by comparison, it can still be frustrating for those who frequently share high-quality photos and videos. The messaging app is recommending those who want higher sharing limits use Nitro. "Unlike other platforms, we store your files for as long as you need them, so it is crucial that we manage our storage sustainably. If you need more upload capacity, Nitro Basic offers a 50MB limit, and Nitro gives you up to 500 MB, so you have options that fit your needs," the company said on its official support page.

For those who aren't aware, a Nitro Basic subscription costs $3 a month. Nitro users, who pay $10 a month, get to stream videos in 4K and use emojis in channels. In comparison, messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram offer a 2 GB file limit.

"Earth.com has an interesting article about the temporary "disappearance" of Saturn's rings in about six months," writes longtime Slashdot reader YVRGeek. From the report: Come March 2025, Saturn's majestic rings will become virtually invisible to earth-based observers. This phenomenon occurs due to the unique tilt of Saturn's axis, which will position the rings edge-on to our line of sight. [...] Saturn's axial tilt, which is the angle its axis leans compared to its orbit around the Sun, is about 27 degrees. As Saturn moves during its 29.5 year orbit around the Sun, this tilt means different parts of its rings and moons get sunlight at different angles, changing how they look. So, the rings are not really disappearing but rather playing a celestial game of hide and seek. At their reappearance, we can also enjoy an accentuated view of Saturn's moons.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media, written by Jason Koebler: I've been videochatting with Mixael Swan Laufer for about 30 minutes about an exciting discovery when he points out that to date, the best way he's been able to bring attention to his organization is "the old school method of me performing a bunch of federal felonies on stage in front of a bunch of people." I stop him and ask: "In this case, what are the felonies?" "Well, the list is pretty long," he said. Laufer is the chief spokesperson of Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, an anarchist collective that has spent the last few years teaching people how to make DIY versions of expensive pharmaceuticals at a tiny fraction of the cost.

Four Thieves Vinegar Collective call what they do "right to repair for your body." Laufer has become well known for handing out DIY pills and medicines at hacking conferences, which include, for example, courses of the abortion drug misoprostol that can be manufactured for 89 cents (normal cost: $160) and which has become increasingly difficult to obtain in some states following the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs. In our call, Laufer had just explained that Four Thieves' had made some miscalculations as part of its latest project, to create instructions for replicating sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), a miracle drug that cures hepatitis C, which he planned to explain and reveal at the DEF CON hacking conference. Unlike many other drugs that treat viruses, Sovaldi does not suppress hepatitis C, a virus that kills roughly 250,000 people around the world each year. It cures it. [...]

Crucially, unlike other medical freedom organizations, Four Thieves isn't suggesting people treat COVID with Ivermectin, isn't shilling random supplements, and doesn't have any sort of commercial arm at all. Instead, they are helping people to make their own, identical pirated versions of proven and tested pharmaceuticals by taking the precursor ingredients and performing the chemical reactions to make the medication themselves. "We don't invent anything, really," Laufer said. "We take things that are on the shelf and hijack them. We like to take something established, and be like 'This works, but you can't get it.' Well, here's a way to get it." A slide at his talk reads "Isn't this illegal? Yeah. Grow up." Four Thieves has developed a suite of open-source tools to help achieve its goal. The core tool, Chemhacktica, is a software platform that uses machine learning to map chemical pathways for synthesizing desired molecules. It suggests potential chemical reactions, identifies precursor materials, and checks their availability for purchase.

The other is Microlab, an open-source controlled lab reactor built from affordable, off-the-shelf components costing between $300 and $500. It uses Chemhacktica's suggested pathways to create medications, and detailed instructions for building and operating the Microlab are provided. Additionally, the company developed a drag-and-drop recipe system called Apothecarium that generates executable files for the Microlab, offering step-by-step guidance on producing specific medications.

Laufer told 404 Media: "I am of the firm belief that we are hitting a watershed where economics and morality are coming to a head, like, 'Look: intellectual property law is based off some ideas that came out of 1400s Venice. They're not applicable and they're being abused and people are dying every day because of it, and it's not OK.'"

Further reading: Meet the Anarchists Making Their Own Medicine (Motherboard; 2018)

Volvo now says it will push back its deadline to sell only electric vehicles by 2030, citing the need for stronger government support. "The new plans call for 90 to 100% of global sales to be electrified, including EVs and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs)," reports Electrek. "The other up to 10% will be "a limited number of hybrids" if needed. By 2025, Volvo expects 50 to 60% of sales to be electrified." From the report: Volvo was one of the first automakers to set a 100% EV sales goal by 2030. The announcement was made over three years ago in March 2021. The plan was to sell only fully electric cars while phasing out "any car in its global portfolio with an internal combustion engine, including hybrids." [...]

Volvo has already launched five all-electric models: the EX40, EC40, EX30, EM90, and the EX90. After delivering its first model in January, the Volvo EX30 is already the third best-selling EV in Europe. Another five EVs are in development. However, Volvo said the shift comes as the charging infrastructure rollout has been out slower than expected, and government incentives have been withdrawn. Volvo is calling for stronger and more stable government policies to support the transition to EVs.

Volvo also adjusted its CO2 reduction goal. The company aims to reduce CO2 emissions per car by 65% to 75% by 2030 (using 2018 as a baseline). That's down from the previous 75% reduction target. Next year, Volvo aims for a 30 to 35% reduction (with 2018 as a baseline), down from 40%. The company is still working with suppliers to cut CO2 emissions across its value chain. "We are resolute in our belief that our future is electric," said Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan. "An electric car provides a superior driving experience."

Despite this, "it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption," Rowan explained.