Apple Asks Court To Halt App Store Rule Changes While It Appeals Apple asked a judge to halt an order forcing it to give up control over App Store payments while it appeals the decision. From a report: In a filing on Wednesday, Apple says the order contains "extraordinary intrusions" that could result in "grave irreparable harm" to the company. Last week, California District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple was in "willful violation" of a 2021 injunction issued as part of the Epic Games v. Apple case. As a result, the judge ordered Apple to stop collecting an up to 27 percent commission on purchases made outside the App Store, and said the company can no longer restrict how developers point users toward external purchases. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Apple+Asks+Court+To+Halt+App+Store+Rule+Changes+While+It+Appeals%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fapple.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F1536241%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F1536241%2Fapple-asks-court-to-halt-app-store-rule-changes-while-it-appeals%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
Zuckerberg's Grand Vision: Most of Your Friends Will Be AI Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aggressively promoting a future where AI becomes the dominant form of social interaction, claiming that AI friends, therapists, and business agents will soon outnumber human relationships. During a recent media blitz across multiple podcasts and a Stripe conference appearance, Zuckerberg cited statistics suggesting "the average American has fewer than three friends" while claiming people desire "meaningfully more, like 15 friends" -- positioning AI companions as the solution to this gap. The Meta founder's vision extends beyond casual interaction to therapeutic and commercial relationships, with personalized AI that "has a deep understanding of what's going on in this person's life." Meta has already deployed its AI across Instagram, Facebook, and Ray-Ban smart glasses, reaching nearly a billion monthly users. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Zuckerberg's+Grand+Vision%3A+Most+of+Your+Friends+Will+Be+AI%3A+https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F1329251%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F1329251%2Fzuckerbergs-grand-vision-most-of-your-friends-will-be-ai%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
Ghost Students Are Creating an 'Agonizing' Problem For California Colleges An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: When the pandemic upended the world of higher education, Robin Pugh, a professor at City College of San Francisco, began to see one puzzling problem in her online courses: Not everyone was a real student. Of the 40 students enrolled in her popular introduction to real estate course, Pugh said she'd normally drop three to five from her roster who don't start the course or make contact with her at the start of the semester. But during the current spring semester, Pugh said that number more than doubled when she had to cut 11 students. It's a strange new reality that has left her baffled. "It's really unclear to me, and beyond the scope of my knowledge, how this is really happening," she said. "Is it organized crime? Is it something else? Everybody has lots of theories." Some of the disengaged students in Pugh's courses are what administrators and cybersecurity experts say are "ghost students," and they've been a growing problem for community colleges, particularly since the shift to online instruction during the pandemic. These "ghost students" are artificially intelligent agents or bots that pose as real students in order to steal millions of dollars of financial aid that could otherwise go to actual humans. And as colleges grapple with the problem, Pugh and her colleagues have been tasked with a new and "frustrating" task of weeding out these bots and trying to decide who's a real person. The process, she said, takes her focus off teaching the real students. "I am very intentional about having individualized interaction with all of my students as early as possible," Pugh said. "That included making phone calls to people, sending email messages, just a lot of reaching out individually to find out 'Are you just overwhelmed at work and haven't gotten around to starting the class yet? Or are you not a real person?'" Financial aid fraud is not new, but it's been on the rise in California's community colleges, Cal Matters reported, with scammers stealing more than $10 million in 2024, more than double the amount in 2023. Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, the president of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and a professor at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, said the bots have been enrolling in courses since around early 2021. "It's been going on for quite some time," she said. "I think the reason that you're hearing more about it is that it's getting harder and harder to combat or to deal with." A spokesperson for the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office estimates that 0.21% of the system's financial aid was fraudulently disbursed. However, the office was unable to estimate the percentage of fraudulent attempts attributed to bots. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Ghost+Students+Are+Creating+an+'Agonizing'+Problem+For+California+Colleges%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F012245%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F012245%2Fghost-students-are-creating-an-agonizing-problem-for-california-colleges%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
Figma's Big AI Update Takes On Adobe, WordPress, and Canva At its Config 2025 event on Wednesday, Figma unveiled four new AI-powered tools -- Sites, Make, Buzz, and Draw, positioning itself as a full-stack design platform to rival Adobe, WordPress, and Canva. These tools enable users to build websites, generate code, create marketing content, and design vector graphics without leaving the Figma ecosystem. The Verge reports: Figma's first solution is Figma Sites, a website builder that integrates with Figma Design and allows creators to turn their projects into live, functional sites. Figma Sites provides presets for layouts, blocks, templates, and interactions that aim to make building websites less complex and time-consuming. Additional components like custom animations can also be added either using existing code or by prompting Site's AI tool to generate new interaction codes via text descriptions, such as "animate the text to fall into place like a feather." Figma Sites is rolling out in beta for users with full seat access to Figma products. Figma says that AI code generation will be available "in the coming weeks," and that a CMS that allows designers to manage site content will be launched "later this year." Figma Make is Figma's take on AI coding tools like Google's Gemini Code Assist and Microsoft's GitHub Copilot. The prompt-to-code Figma Make tool is powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.7 model and can build working prototypes and apps based on descriptions or existing designs, such as creating a functional music player that displays a disc that spins when new tracks are played. Specific elements of working design, like text formatting and font style, can be manually edited or adjusted using additional AI prompts. Make is rolling out in beta for full seat Figma users. Figma says it's "exploring integrations with third parties and design systems" for Figma Make and may apply the tool to other apps within its design platform. Figma Buzz is a marketing-focused design app that's rolling out in beta to all users, and makes it easier for teams to publish brand content, similar to Canva's product design platform. The tool allows Figma designers to create brand-approved templates, styles, and assets that can be used by marketers to quickly assemble emails, social media posts, advertising, and more. Figma Buzz includes generative AI tools for making and editing images using text prompts, and can source information from spreadsheets to bulk create thousands of image assets at once. Lastly, the Figma Draw vector design app is like a simplified version of Adobe Illustrator that creatives can use to make custom visuals without leaving the Figma platform. It includes a variety of brushes, texture effects, and vector editing tools to create or adjust scalable images and logos for product design projects. Figma Draw is generally available now for full seat users as a toggle in Figma Design, with some features accessible in Sites, Slides, and Buzz. It's not quite as expansive as Adobe's wider Creative Cloud ecosystem, but Figma Draw places the two companies in direct competition for the first time since Adobe killed its own XD product design platform. It also brings some new options to the creative software industry after Adobe failed to acquire Figma for $20 billion due to pressure from competition regulators. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Figma's+Big+AI+Update+Takes+On+Adobe%2C+WordPress%2C+and+Canva%3A+https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F0053214%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F08%2F0053214%2Ffigmas-big-ai-update-takes-on-adobe-wordpress-and-canva%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
AI of Dead Arizona Road Rage Victim Addresses Killer In Court An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Chris Pelkey was killed in a road rage shooting in Chandler, Arizona, in 2021. Three and a half years later, Pelkey appeared in an Arizona court to address his killer. Sort of. "To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances," says a video recording of Pelkey. "In another life, we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness, and a God who forgives. I always have, and I still do," Pelkey continues, wearing a grey baseball cap and sporting the same thick red and brown beard he wore in life. Pelkey was 37 years old, devoutly religious and an army combat veteran. Horcasitas shot Pelkey at a red light in 2021 after Pelkey exited his vehicle and walked back towards Horcasitas's car. Pelkey's appearance from beyond the grave was made possible by artificial intelligence in what could be the first use of AI to deliver a victim impact statement. Stacey Wales, Pelkey's sister, told local outlet ABC-15 that she had a recurring thought when gathering more than 40 impact statements from Chris's family and friends. "All I kept coming back to was, what would Chris say?" Wales said. [...] Wales and her husband fed an AI model videos and audio of Pelkey to try to come up with a rendering that would match the sentiments and thoughts of a still-alive Pelkey, something that Wales compared with a "Frankenstein of love" to local outlet Fox 10. Judge Todd Lang responded positively to the AI usage. Lang ultimately sentenced Horcasitas to 10 and a half years in prison on manslaughter charges. "I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness," Lang said. "I feel that that was genuine." Also in favor was Pelkey's brother John, who said that he felt "waves of healing" from seeing his brother's face, and believes that Chris would have forgiven his killer. "That was the man I knew," John said. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=AI+of+Dead+Arizona+Road+Rage+Victim+Addresses+Killer+In+Court%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F2029215%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F2029215%2Fai-of-dead-arizona-road-rage-victim-addresses-killer-in-court%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
Netflix Debuts Gen AI-Powered Search Tool, Tests Vertical Videos For Mobile Netflix has officially launched a new AI-powered search feature that uses OpenAI's ChatGPT to deliver a conversational content discovery experience, allowing users to describe what they're looking for in natural language. The streaming giant is also getting into short videos with a new vertical feed set to rival Instagram Reels and TikTok. TechCrunch reports: Users can enter their preferences using natural phrases like "I want something funny and upbeat" or even more detailed requests, such as "I want something scary, but not too scary, and maybe a little bit funny, but not haha funny." The feature is set to roll out this week to iOS users as an opt-in beta. Some subscribers in Australia and New Zealand have already had access to it, as reported by Bloomberg last month. [...] Additionally, at the tech and product event, the company mentioned plans to use generative AI to update title cards in subscribers' preferred languages. Other features revealed on Wednesday include a short-form video feed for mobile users and a redesign of its TV homepage. Netflix's new mobile-only vertical feed allows users to easily scroll through clips of its original titles. Within this feed, users can tap on buttons to watch the entire show or movie immediately, save it to their "My List," or share it with friends. Of note is that the clips are curated from the "Today's Top Picks for You" section rather than being chosen from Netflix's entire library. This approach makes it specifically tailored to each user, ultimately encouraging viewers to watch the full shows. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Netflix+Debuts+Gen+AI-Powered+Search+Tool%2C+Tests+Vertical+Videos+For+Mobile%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F197232%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F197232%2Fnetflix-debuts-gen-ai-powered-search-tool-tests-vertical-videos-for-mobile%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
Trump Will Rescind Biden-Era AI Chip Export Curbs According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration plans to revise a set of chip trade restrictions called the "AI diffusion" rule, which were scheduled to take effect on May 15. CNBC reports: The rule, which was proposed in the last days of the Biden administration, organizes countries into three different tiers, all of which have different restrictions on whether advanced AI chips like those made by Nvidia, AMD, and Intel can be shipped to the country without a license. Chipmakers including Nvidia and AMD have been against the rule. AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC on Wednesday that the U.S. should strike a balance between restricting access to chips for national security and providing access, which will boost the American chip industry. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said earlier this week that being locked out of the Chinese AI market would be a "tremendous loss." <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Trump+Will+Rescind+Biden-Era+AI+Chip+Export+Curbs%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F2018224%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F2018224%2Ftrump-will-rescind-biden-era-ai-chip-export-curbs%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
VMware Perpetual License Holders Receive Cease-And-Desist Letters From Broadcom An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Broadcom has been sending cease-and-desist letters to owners of VMware perpetual licenses with expired support contracts, Ars Technica has confirmed. Following its November 2023 acquisition of VMware, Broadcom ended VMware perpetual license sales. Users with perpetual licenses can still use the software they bought, but they are unable to renew support services unless they had a pre-existing contract enabling them to do so. The controversial move aims to push VMware users to buy subscriptions to VMware products bundled such that associated costs have increased by 300 percent or, in some cases, more. Some customers have opted to continue using VMware unsupported, often as they research alternatives, such as VMware rivals or devirtualization. Over the past weeks, some users running VMware unsupported have reported receiving cease-and-desist letters from Broadcom informing them that their contract with VMware and, thus, their right to receive support services, has expired. The letter [PDF], reviewed by Ars Technica and signed by Broadcom managing director Michael Brown, tells users that they are to stop using any maintenance releases/updates, minor releases, major releases/upgrades extensions, enhancements, patches, bug fixes, or security patches, save for zero-day security patches, issued since their support contract ended. The letter tells users that the implementation of any such updates "past the Expiration Date must be immediately removed/deinstalled," adding: "Any such use of Support past the Expiration Date constitutes a material breach of the Agreement with VMware and an infringement of VMware's intellectual property rights, potentially resulting in claims for enhanced damages and attorneys' fees." [...] The cease-and-desist letters also tell recipients that they could be subject to auditing: "Failure to comply with [post-expiration reporting] requirements may result in a breach of the Agreement by Customer[,] and VMware may exercise its right to audit Customer as well as any other available contractual or legal remedy." <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=VMware+Perpetual+License+Holders+Receive+Cease-And-Desist+Letters+From+Broadcom%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F1856255%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F1856255%2Fvmware-perpetual-license-holders-receive-cease-and-desist-letters-from-broadcom%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
Seagate Working To Develop a 100TB Hard Drive By 2030 Data storage firm Seagate is working to develop a 100-terabyte hard drive by 2030, touting blistering demand from data centers for the 70-year-old technology in the artificial intelligence boom. From a report: BS Teh, Seagate's chief commercial officer, told CNBC that the company is aiming to launch such a drive -- which would have about three times the capacity of the firm's top-of-the-line hard drives -- by 2030. The largest hard disk drive Seagate currently produces is the 36-terabyte Exos M model, which it launched in January. "You may be thinking, 'Who would need it?'" Teh said, referring to the idea of a 100-terabyte hard drive. "Well, plenty." He added: "I think there's definitely strong demand. This is a key enabler for the industry to be able to deliver the storage capacity that the market needs, because there's no other technology that's able to produce this capacity of storage technology to meet the growth that the market needs." <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Seagate+Working+To+Develop+a+100TB+Hard+Drive+By+2030%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F1734205%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F1734205%2Fseagate-working-to-develop-a-100tb-hard-drive-by-2030%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.
DEA Ends Body Camera Program The Drug Enforcement Administration has quietly ended its body camera program barely four years after it began, ProPublica reports, citing an internal email. From the report: On April 2, DEA headquarters emailed employees announcing that the program had been terminated effective the day before. The DEA has not publicly announced the policy change, but by early April, links to pages about body camera policies on the DEA's website were broken. The email said the agency made the change to be "consistent" with a Trump executive order rescinding the 2022 requirement that all federal law enforcement agents use body cameras. But at least two other federal law enforcement agencies within the Justice Department -- the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- are still requiring body cameras, according to their spokespeople. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=DEA+Ends+Body+Camera+Program%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F1525236%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F07%2F1525236%2Fdea-ends-body-camera-program%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a> at Slashdot.