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Nintendo Completely Sat Out the Video Game Graphics Wars. It's Winning Anyway.: Manny Fidel, reporting for Sherwood News: When you're immersed in a game like "Cyberpunk 2077," it's easy to get lost in its realism. As you run around the crowded streets of Night City, you notice the reflections of the city lights and neon signs in the puddles when it rains. Even the complexion and texture of a character's skin are enamoring. At full power, the game, created by CD Projekt Red, is a graphical marvel. It's also a symbol of a decades-long arms race between the biggest video game companies to make things look as real as possible. And then there are Nintendo games.Take 2022's "Pokemon Scarlet" and "Pokemon Violet" on the Nintendo Switch. Despite being the latest releases in a legendary franchise, in terms of its graphics they could've easily been published 15 years ago. It's a perfect example of how, sometimes to the frustration of gamers, Nintendo seemingly refuses to step into the present day. None of its flagship games really compete with the rest of the industry's optical experiences. The graphics of games like "Red Dead Redemption 2," "Starfield," and "The Last of Us: Part II" are decades ahead of Nintendo.But here's the thing: Nintendo doesn't have to catch up, nor does it want to. "Pokemon Scarlet" and "Pokemon Violet" sold 10 million copies during their launch weekend alone. According to IGN, Nintendo is responsible for three of the top five bestselling video game consoles of all time. Its characters -- Mario and Luigi, Link and Zelda, Pikachu and Ash -- have defined and are constantly redefining the industry. Nintendo is a money machine. It's been raking in more than $10 billion in revenue (more than 1.6 trillion yen) annually for the past several years, and its profits have grown sharply, topping out at about $3.3 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2024. For comparison, in its latest fiscal year, Sony's gaming division generated $29.1 billion of revenue and an operating profit of nearly $2 billion. Nintendo posted $11.4 billion of revenue and an operating profit of $3.6 billion.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

To Best China, Pentagon Must Shed 'the Same Old Mindsets': An anonymous reader shares a report: Pentagon officials say the U.S. stands at the precipice of a new golden age of defense innovation driven by upstart contractors, advances in technology and a world brimming with threats. The Defense Department's inability to make unorthodox bets, feed a vibrant industrial base and embrace readily available technologies has rendered it under-supplied, the target of dual-use evangelists and vulnerable to more nimble adversaries.Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a speech last week the department "cannot tolerate the same old mindsets" as it butts heads with Russia and China, while also invoking America's mass production overhaul during World War II. Heidi Shyu, the Pentagon's chief tech officer, separately called the clip of "nontraditional, venture-backed companies" entering the defense industry "unprecedented," adding: "They're nipping at the heels, I tell you. I have traditional defense contractors say, 'Hey, this isn't fair.'"Defense Innovation Unit director Doug Beck said the department is at a "positive tipping point." "We've been given the tools, and now it's about execution and delivery," Beck said. "I think we're well on our way out of the dark age." Hicks' declaration comes one year after she stuck her neck out for Replicator, meant to arm troops with thousands of drones and prove the Pentagon can be agile. That $1 billion gambit is on track, with more than 1,000 AeroVironment-made Switchblade 600 drones already in the pipeline, according to officials.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disney Says Disney+ TOS Means Man Can't Sue For Wife's Fatal Allergic Reaction: New submitter beamdriver writes: As is being reported in Newsday , Disney has asked a Florida court to dismiss a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the husband of a Carle Place physician who suffered a fatal allergic reaction after eating at a Disney Springs restaurant.The company cited legal language agreed to years earlier when Jeffrey Piccolo, widower of Kanokp*rn Tangsuan, 42, of Plainview, signed up for a one-month trial of the Disney+ streaming service that requires users to arbitrate all disputes with the company, records show.Kanokp*rn Tangsuan, died in October after dining with her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, at a restaurant in a section of the Walt Disney World Resort. Despite informing the waitstaff several times of her severe peanut and dairy allergies and receiving assurances that her meal would be allergen-free, she began having severe difficulty breathing shortly after dinner. She self-administered an epi-pen and was transported to a hospital, where she later died.A medical examiner attributed her death to anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nuts in her system, according to the suit.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple Finally Allows Spotify To Show Pricing Info To EU Users on iOS: An anonymous reader shares a report: After much back and forth earlier this year, Spotify on Wednesday says it's now received approval from Apple to display pricing information in its iOS app for users in the EU. The company is not opting into Apple's new business rules under the EU's Digital Markets Act, but rather is taking advantage of new antitrust guidelines imposed by the EU specifically for music streaming apps. Apple in March was fined by European regulators nearly $2 billion for breaching antitrust rules in the market. Spotify and Apple have also gone back and forth over an update to Spotify's app that would allow the music streamer to share pricing information with EU users.Now, Spotify says its app update has been approved, and it will be able to display the pricing for things like Spotify subscriptions and digital goods, including Spotify's more recently added collection of audiobooks. The latter includes the ability to show the pricing for subscription plans that include audiobook streaming, as well as "top off" hours users can buy to complete their audiobook listening and a la carte audiobook prices.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lawsuit Attacks Florida's Lab-Grown Meat Ban As Unconstitutional: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Florida's ban on cultivated meat is being challenged in federal court in a lawsuit that was filed yesterday. The case is being brought by the cultivated meat firm Upside Foods and the Institute of Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the legislation making the sale of cultivated meat illegal in Florida on May 1, and the bill came into effect on July 1. Alabama passed a similar bill banning cultivated meat that will come into effect from October 1. The case brought by Upside Foods and the IJ argues that Florida's ban is unconstitutional in three different ways. First, they argue, the ban violates theSupremacy Clause that gives federal law priority over state law in certain instances. The court case argues that the Florida ban violates two different provisions in the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Poultry Products Inspection Act.The legal complaint (PDF) also alleges that the ban violates theCommerce Clause, which gives the US Congress exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. The IJ argues that the Commerce Clause restricts states from enacting laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce, and that Florida's ban in its current form has the effect of discriminating against it. "Florida's law has nothing to do with protecting health and safety," said IJ senior attorney Paul Sherman in a press conference today. "It is a transparent example of economic protectionism." Sherman said that Upside Foods and the IJ would also apply for a preliminary injunction that would allow the company to sell cultivated meat in Florida while the legal challenge is still ongoing. The complaint says that Upside had planned to distribute its cultivated chicken at Art Basel in Miami in early December 2024. The company protested the Florida ban by holding a tasting of its chicken on June 27 in Miami, shortly before the ban came into effect. Sherman said that the Alabama ban was also "in our sights" but that the IJ had targeted the Florida law as it came into effect before the Alabama ban. "We're hoping we'll be able to get a quick ruling [in Florida] on a preliminary injunction there," and use that as a precedent to challenge the Alabama ban, he said. "Consumers should decide what kind of meat they want to buy and feed their families -- not politicians," said the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit focused on advancing alternative proteins and which is serving as a consulting consul in this case. "This lawsuit seeks to protect these consumer rights, along with the rights of companies to compete in a fair and open marketplace."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Valve Confirms SteamOS Will Support the Asus ROG Ally: Valve designer Lawrence Yang confirmed to The Verge that the company plans to support SteamOS on the rival Asus ROG Ally gaming handheld. From the report: A few days ago, some spotted an intriguing line in Valve's latest SteamOS release notes: "Added support for extra ROG Ally keys." We didn't know Valve was supporting any ROG Ally keys at all, let alone extras! Maybe Valve was just supporting those keys in the Steam desktop client on a Windows, where it offers a Steam Deck-like Big Picture Mode interface for any PC, and the line mistakenly made it into these patch notes? I asked to be safe. But no: this is indeed about Valve eventually supporting the ROG Ally and other rival handhelds!"The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS. The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS," Yang tells me. That doesn't mean Asus will officially bless Valve's installer or sell the Ally with SteamOS, of course. (Asus has told me there are many reasons why it ships with Windows; a big one is that Microsoft has dedicated validation teams that ensure its operating system works across many different hardware configurations and chips.) And it's not like Valve is suggesting it'll offer SteamOS for rival handhelds anytime soon, either. Valve is "making steady progress," Yang tells me, but it "isn't ready to run out of the box yet." Valve has announced plans for a general release of SteamOS 3 that can be installed on non-handheld PCs; however, Yang says it's not quite ready yet. As for turning Steam Decks into dual-booting Windows machines, here's what Yang said: "As for Windows, we're preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers for Steam Deck OLED available (you might have seen that we are prepping firmware for the Bluetooth driver). There's no update on the timing for dual boot support -- it's still a priority, but we haven't been able to get to it just yet."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New Research Reveals AI Lacks Independent Learning, Poses No Existential Threat: ZipNada writes: New research reveals that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT cannot learn independently or acquire new skills without explicit instructions, making them predictable and controllable. The study dispels fears of these models developing complex reasoning abilities, emphasizing that while LLMs can generate sophisticated language, they are unlikely to pose existential threats. However, the potential misuse of AI, such as generating fake news, still requires attention. The study, published today as part of the proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2024) -- the premier international conference in natural language processing -- reveals that LLMs have a superficial ability to follow instructions and excel at proficiency in language, however, they have no potential to master new skills without explicit instruction. This means they remain inherently controllable, predictable and safe. "The prevailing narrative that this type of AI is a threat to humanity prevents the widespread adoption and development of these technologies, and also diverts attention from the genuine issues that require our focus," said Dr Harish Tayyar Madabushi, computer scientist at the University of Bath and co-author of the new study on the 'emergent abilities' of LLMs.Professor Iryna Gurevych added: "... our results do not mean that AI is not a threat at all. Rather, we show that the purported emergence of complex thinking skills associated with specific threats is not supported by evidence and that we can control the learning process of LLMs very well after all. Future research should therefore focus on other risks posed by the models, such as their potential to be used to generate fake news."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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WHO To Scrap Weak PFAS Drinking Water Guidelines After Alleged Corruption: An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The World Health Organization (WHO) is poised to scrap controversial drinking water guidelines proposed for two toxic PFAS "forever chemicals." The move follows allegations that the process of developing the figures was corrupted by industry-linked researchers aiming to undercut strict new US PFAS limits and weaken standards in the developing world. Many independent scientists charged that the proposed WHO drinking water guidelines for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) were weak, did not fully protect human health, ignored credible research, and were far above limits set by regulators in the US and EU. The guidelines would have allowed far more PFAS in drinking water than what is allowed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.Though the earlier guidelines were drafts, and proposed rules all go through a revision process, the WHO is conducting an entirely new review of scientific literature and disbanded the panel of scientists who developed the draft guidelines. It established a new panel with fewer industry-linked scientists and more regulatory officials, moves that have not happened in other revisions, said Betsy Southerland, a former EPA manager in the agency's water division. "This is unprecedented, but the WHO got unprecedented criticism," Southerland said. The WHO told the Guardian in a statement that the moves are part of "an ongoing process" and will include guidelines for other PFAS compounds.Scientists critical of the limits charged that the WHO ignored high-quality research to create a sense of doubt about the science around PFAS. EPA and EU regulators carried out an exhaustive literature review to find all human and animal studies, and used the best of those papers to establish their limits, Southerland said. The WHO, however, ignored all human studies and determined most animal studies were "too flawed" to use, Southerland said. The organization concluded there was not enough research to set health-based guidelines, which she called a "shocking decision." "There is far more health data for these chemicals than has ever been available for any pollutant in the history of the WHO," Southerland said. Instead, the WHO largely based its guidelines on its review of technological research, but ignored most of those studies as well, Southerland said. The body concluded filtration systems could reliably remove PFOA and PFOS at 100ppt, even though US water utilities remove it below four ppt. The decisions bear industry's prints, researchers say.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Study Finds 94% of Business Spreadsheets Have Critical Errors: A recent study reveals that 94% of spreadsheets used in business decision-making contain errors, highlighting significant risks of financial and operational mistakes. Phys.org reports: Errors in spreadsheets can lead to poor decisions, resulting in financial losses, pricing mistakes, and operational problems in fields like health care and nuclear operations. "These mistakes can cause major issues in various sectors," adds Prof. Pak-Lok Poon, the lead author of the study. Spreadsheets are crucial tools in many fields, such as linear programming and neuroscience. However, with more people creating their own spreadsheets without formal training, the number of faulty spreadsheets has increased. "Many end-users lack proper software development training, leading to more errors," explains Prof. Poon.The research team reviewed studies from the past 35.5 years for journal articles and 10.5 years for conference papers, focusing on spreadsheet quality and related techniques across different fields. The study found that most research focuses on testing and fixing spreadsheets after they are created, rather than on early development stages like planning and design. This approach can be more costly and risky. Prof. Poon emphasizes the need for more focus on the early stages of spreadsheet development to prevent errors. The study suggests that adopting a life cycle approach to spreadsheet quality can help reduce errors. Addressing quality from the beginning can help businesses lower risks and improve the reliability of their decision-making tools. The study has been published in the journal Frontiers of Computer Science.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Texas Sues General Motors, Alleging Illegal Selling of Driver Data: In a press release today, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he has filed a lawsuit against General Motors, alleging the carmaker illegally collected and sold drivers' data to insurance companies without their consent or knowledge. CNN reports: In car models from 2015 and later, the Detroit-based car manufacturer allegedly used technology to "collect, record, analyze, and transmit highly detailed driving data about each time a driver used their vehicle," according to the AG's statement. General Motors sold this information to several other companies, including to at least two companies for the purpose of generating "Driving Scores" about GM's customers, the AG alleged. The suit said those two companies then sold these scores to insurance companies.Insurance companies can use data to see how many times people exceeded a speed limit or obeyed other traffic laws. Some insurance firms ask customers if they want to voluntarily opt-in to such programs, promising lower rates for safer drivers. But the attorney general's office claimed GM "deceived" its Texan customers by encouraging them to enroll in programs such as OnStar Smart Driver. But by agreeing to join these programs, customers also unknowingly agreed to the collection and sale of their data, the attorney general's office said. "Despite lengthy and convoluted disclosures, General Motors never informed its customers of its actual conduct -- the systematic collection and sale of their highly detailed driving data," the AG's office said in a statement. The filing can be read here (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot.