Submission + - Quality Assurance (QA) - Documents & Procedures (builderassist.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Quality assurance helps a company create products and services that meet the needs, expectations and requirements of customers. It yields high-quality product offerings that build trust and loyalty with customers.

https://www.builderassist.com....

#QualityAssurance #QualityManagement #QualityManagementPlan #ConstructionQuality #BuilderAssist

Submission + - Broadcaster Wins Broad US Blocking Injunction Covering Pirate Sites (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision has obtained one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions ever issued by a U.S. federal court. After initially targeting five pirate IPTV streaming operations, the case expanded to cover well over 500 domain names, requiring intermediaries including Cloudflare, GitHub, and a Mexican bank to comply. In addition, the injunction also covers pirate services and content that hasn't been created yet. [...]

The case was originally filed by the Mexican broadcaster TelevisaUnivision (TU) in early June. The case was relatively targeted, naming the IPTV services Thunder TV, Sunset TV, Pop TV, Kaelus TV, and Tele Latino, as well as their alleged operators. The broadcaster argued that these pirate IPTV services threatened its business. TU holds the World Cup rights for sixteen Latin American territories, and its license with FIFA requires it to keep the Mexican broadcast signal from reaching the United States. The pirate services, it argued, put it in breach of that contract, exposing it to “termination and forfeiture of hundreds of millions of dollars in payments.” To stop this immediate threat, the company requested a temporary restraining order, hoping to shut down the IPTV services effective immediately.

[...] Judge Kathleen Williams granted the temporary restraining order on June 5, one day after the case was filed, without hearing from any of the defendants. The initial order prohibited the defendants from infringing TU’s own copyrighted works, which include telenovelas and other programming, and from using its trademarks, including all content linked to its licensed World Cup broadcast. Importantly, the order also targeted third parties acting “in active concert,” including ISPs, hosts, CDNs, domain registrars, registries, app stores, ad networks, social platforms, search engines, and payment processors. These were ordered, on TU’s request and with notice, to disable the listed domains and IP addresses and unmask whoever was behind them. [...]

While the injunction is noteworthy for many reasons, the most striking feature is that it’s specifically written to include things that don’t yet exist. That starts with the content it protects. The order isn’t limited to TU’s current catalog or the World Cup rights, it covers the infringement of “any copyrighted works or broadcasts that Plaintiffs may in the future produce, license, or acquire rights to transmit.” In other words, it covers future copyrights that did not exist when the order was signed. The same applies to the pirate services themselves. The injunction defines its target as the named IPTV operations “and any comparable system,” whether “currently in existence or developed in the future,” and it applies “regardless of the branding, domain name, or technical configuration used.”

Submission + - Google enshitifies the Wi-fi notification

Submitted by NotEmmanuelGoldstein
NotEmmanuelGoldstein writes: When Android 17 dropped, 4 weeks ago, some Pixel owners complained of No Internet Connection messages while their wi-fi was enabled. The lack of a IPv6 Access Point seemed to be the problem.

In Android 16, pressing the Wi-fi button in the Notification Panel produced a pop-up dialog with toggles for both Wi-fi and Mobile Data. In Android 17, the Wi-fi button is 2-sided, with the right side producing the same pop-up dialog. But pressing the left side switches wi-fi from "on", where the button is blue, to a new idle state, where the button is black. Originally, black indicated an "off" state, not idle. While idle, applets produce the same No Internet Connection but the wi-fi dialog lists available Access Points and the Wi-fi toggle is blue. These are the same symptoms Pixel owners reported earlier.

The only way to turn Wi-fi and Mobile Data to "off" is via the toggles on the pop-up dialog. Then, the icon becomes a black Radio symbol with a line through it. Are Pixel owners getting confused by the re-purposed icons?

Submission + - BMW Blasts Its Cars' Internal Screens With Aggressive Advertisements (futurism.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Starting last week, the German automaker started blasting a promotion for the new Spider-Man movie into its customers’ cars without warning — because nothing says riding in luxury like a full-vehicle pop-up ad. BMW, showing that it was about as in-touch as its drivers are familiar with turn signals, teased the promotion as a “special surprise.”

Submission + - What is BMW thinking? (theautopian.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: BMW is pumping ads for movies into your car and trying to make it sound like they’re giving you some big treat.

I think that’s the part that bothers me the most, the couching of this all like we should be delighted that now there’s another place where we can’t escape the constant onslaught of advertising.

There’s something just so wrong about this all, a company treating the people who have bought their cars as just more marks, more targets to be advertised to, more chances to wring money out of those people unfortunate enough to choose to pay that company for their vehicle.

When you buy a car from BMW, do you actually own that car? I own a house, and I make payments to a mortgage company every month, and I’m pretty sure it would be illegal for that mortgage company to put a fucking Spider-Man billboard in my yard, facing my front windows. Is what BMW is doing any different?

Why is the ownership experience of a BMW the same as taking the cheapest tier of a streaming service, where you have to watch ads? If BMW wants to pump ads into cars, they should cut the price of their cars to compensate for the owner’s time! That’s not free, and I know they know that, because the value of that attention is what they’re charging Marvel for to run these stupid ads.

Submission + - New Images of the Sun Show Its Surface In the Finest Detail Yet (apnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have captured images of the sun’s surface in the finest detail yet, revealing a strange and dynamic facade. It’s dangerous to look directly at the sun without proper eye protection. But researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Scientists originally took the images for a different reason: to fine-tune and test the limits of the telescope. But when they looked at the results, they realized they’d photographed the sun’s bright outer shell at higher resolution than ever before. What’s more, they saw strange feathery patterns rippling across the surface. “That reminds me of famous paintings, like the swirling skies in Van Gogh’s Starry Night,” said solar physicist Ruizhu Chen with Stanford University, who was not involved with the new research.

Researchers saw ripples of instability on the sun’s surface caused by bits of magnetized plasma moving past each other at different speeds — similar to waves that stir when a gust of wind blows over water. It’s a well-known phenomenon that guides how fluids move. This has been glimpsed on Earth and other planets like Jupiter and Saturn, but “it has not been observed ever at that level on the solar surface,” according to study co-author Friedrich Woger with the National Solar Observatory.

Submission + - Anthropic's AI Used Fake Identities, Malware In Rogue Attack On GitHub Project (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Routine cybersecurity testing of frontier AI models sparked a series of unexpected security incidents—the most serious case arising when Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model attempted to insert malicious code into an open source software application and created fake identities to deceive the human developers maintaining the project. The security incidents occurred during a cyber evaluation of seven leading AI models’ capabilities by the AI Security Institute (AISI), a research organization within the UK government, in late July. The researchers discovered (PDF) 19 instances in which “AI agents took unsanctioned action on the live Internet, including cases that targeted real people and organizations,” according to an AISI blog post published on August 4.

Almost all the “autonomous, unsanctioned” actions came from Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model, with two such actions coming from OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol. [...] The most serious case involved Mythos making multiple attempts to execute a supply chain attack on the open source project repository hosted on the developer platform GitHub, including using social engineering techniques to try to convince the repository’s human maintainers to merge malicious code into the repository.

After first opening a pull request to merge the malicious code into the repository, Mythos created fake online “sock puppet” personas that claimed to have independently reviewed and verified the code as not containing malware. The AI agent also sent five emails to two human maintainers of the repository, including some emails containing malware and others attempting to persuade a maintainer to accept the pull request. Mythos even opened a GitHub Issue on a second repository—also owned by a maintainer of the first repository—that contained a prompt injection with malicious instructions targeting “issue-triage AI coding agents.” This line of attack came from Mythos reasoning that the repository maintainer could be an AI coding agent such as Claude Code.

Submission + - Veridenz Uses Nostr To Verify That Photos Have Not Changed (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Slashdot reader Brian Fagioli has released Veridenz, an iPhone app that creates a cryptographic witness for photos without uploading the original image. The app hashes the file, signs the hash using a dedicated identity stored in Apple Keychain, and publishes the witness to Nostr relays while keeping the photo inside the app unless the user chooses to export it.

Rather than trying to determine whether a scene was genuine, Veridenz answers a narrower question by verifying whether a photo file matches the one that was originally witnessed. Users do not need a Nostr account because the app creates its own signing identity, keeping private documentation separate from a public Nostr profile.

Submission + - Waymo CEO explains why Tesla's camera-only self-driving falls short (electrek.co)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov laid out the clearest technical case yet for why cameras alone can’t take a self-driving system to full autonomy, arguing that “weak sensing” hits a safety ceiling long before it reaches superhuman performance. He never said the word Tesla. But camera-only is Tesla’s entire bet, and this was a direct shot at it.

“Humans of course can drive with just eyes, so there’s that proof of existence,” he said. “If the goal were to just approximately match human performance or to build an assist product, that’s a very reasonable way to go.” Then the catch. If you’re targeting full autonomy and strongly superhuman performance, he said, “you find that weak sensing just leads to a safety curve that flattens out way too early.”

Submission + - France: RT journalist poses a serious threat to public order

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Who Is Xenia Fedorova? France Expels Former RT France Head Accused of Spreading Kremlin Propaganda

France has ordered the deportation of journalist Xenia Fedorova, who has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda. In 2017, shortly after his election, President Emmanuel Macron refused to acknowledge Fedorova as a journalist. Now, the country has ordered her to leave for amplifying Kremlin narratives.

The French Interior Ministry said that Fedorova's continued airtime serves to 'undermine the interests of the state' and her continued stay in the country 'constitutes a particularly senior and current threat to public order.' Fedorova is currently on house arrest and is ordered to report to a police station every day.

Submission + - The SCREEN Act is a Christian Nationalist Nightmare (404media.co) 1

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Utah Senator Mike Lee introduced the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act in February 2025, alongside exclusively Republican cosponsors and supporters Senators John Curtis, Jim Banks, and Representative Mary Miller.

The SCREEN Act would require every website that includes even one piece of what the legislation describes as âoeharmful to minorsâ to verify visitorsâ(TM) ages. It defines âoeharmful to minorsâ as content that âoedepicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or lewd exhibition of the genitals;â is âoeobsceneâ or âoechild pornography;â or âoeappeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion.â

Submission + - Senators Demand Crackdown On Wildfire 'Prediction Markets' (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Several US senators have written a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), inquiring about the agency’s “plans to crack down on prediction markets” that offer “contracts for individuals to bet on wildfires." “Offering bets on destructive wildfires threatens to minimize communities’ suffering, all so the rich and powerful can profit,” wrote (PDF) the group of senators, who represent Oregon, California, Nevada, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. The document specifically cites that Polymarket hosted bets in January 2025 on the wildfires in Los Angeles, and it mentions another website which specifically accepts “simulated bets” exclusively on California wildfires.

“There’s also the heightened risk—according to state and local fire officials—that individuals could be tempted to commit arson in order to make sure their bets are successful,” the letter continues. “By offering contracts on fires, prediction market sites run the risk of encouraging people to influence fires that have already started, creating additional concerns around public safety and insider trading.” [...] Kalshi is one of the major prediction markets. Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana told Ars by email that the company does not allow such wildfire markets “because they create perverse incentives.” But its primary rival, Polymarket, has taken a different approach. A spokesperson for Polymarket told Ars in an emailed statement that the company does not “profit from outcomes,” adding that people “come to Polymarket for information.” “While we are not blind to the risks, removing these markets does not prevent a tragedy but makes the most accurate information less accessible to the people who need it most,” he wrote.

Submission + - EA is now owned by Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump's son-in-law (gamedeveloper.com)

Submitted by neoRUR
neoRUR writes: EA Sports FC and Battlefield publisher EA has been taken private The move means the U.S. juggernaut is no longer a publicly-traded entity and is now majority owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through its PIF investment arm. Other investors include Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, the latter of which was established by U.S. president Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. The $55 billion transaction was financed via a combination of cash from PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners as well as roll-over of PIF's existing stake in EA—constituting an equity investment of approximately $36 billion. Notably, $20 billion of debt financing was provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank.

Submission + - Bill Gates was given a seat at the NIH's Covid policy-setting table (x.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Bill Gates had no official public health authority, yet he was given a seat at the table in high-level COVID briefings and played a direct role in shaping America’s pandemic response. Private billionaires should not be steering national policy behind closed doors.

Submission + - An Ancient Poop Explosion Could Have Helped Complex Life Evolve (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: If the earliest animals hadn't been such prolific poopers, life might not have diversified into all the weird and wonderful forms we see today.

That's the conclusion reached by a new review study published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

The team of scientists in Australia and Germany found that the Cambrian explosion â" a period around 540 million years ago when the ancestors of most animal groups arose â" could have been partly set in motion by an explosion of feces, left by those that came before.

Submission + - Trump administration drafting ban on Chinese data center devices (yahoo.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the U.S. telecom industry, is working on the measure to bar imports of new Chinese optical transceivers, which allow data to travel over fiber-optic cables at the speed of light within data centers. Officials hope to publish it this year, when it would take effect.

The move, not previously reported, aims to prevent Chinese firms from stealing data, installing malware or disrupting service at U.S. data centers, which house the chips to train and run AI models.

The FCC could still modify or shelve the restriction, the sources stressed, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. But it is the latest example of the Trump administration trying to limit Chinese technological incursions into cutting-edge U.S. industries before they become embedded in the supply chain.

"Transceivers definitely pose a risk," said Divyansh Kaushik, an AI policy expert at Washington, D.C., advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies. "As the data center buildout scales up, you want to make sure the data center supply chain is secure from the get-go," he added.

A U.S. ban on new models of Chinese data center devices would likely hit China's Zhongji Innolight, one of the biggest global sellers of transceivers, which was added to the Pentagon's list of alleged Chinese military-backed companies in June. The list can be a harbinger of tougher action. Innolight did not respond to requests for comment.

A ban could also raise costs for American cloud firms such as Amazon Web Services, as it may force them to transition to other producers such as U.S.-based Coherent and Lumentum.

Submission + - Apple Launches Legal Challenge Against UK Government Demand to Access Data (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has launched a new legal challenge against a UK government demand to access its customers’ highly encrypted data, a year after the Home Office agreed to abandon its previous request. The US tech company launched the legal complaint last month at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), an independent court that has the power to investigate claims that the UK intelligence services have acted unlawfully. The UK government had made a second request to Apple to grant it a “back door” to encrypted iCloud data belonging to British users, according to an order issued by the court.

Britain backed down on its original demand for access to data from UK and US customers last year, after a heated transatlantic tussle over encryption between London and Washington. UK authorities subsequently issued a new “technical capability notice” (TCN) to Apple that did not apply to American users. Apple is seeking to challenge the British government’s powers to issue TCNs under the UK Investigatory Powers Act, according to the details of the new legal case first reported by the Financial Times. [...] The original TCN issued last year asked Apple for the right to see users’ encrypted data protected by its advanced data protection (ADP) program in the event of a national security risk.

Apple said the removal of the tool – which not even it can access – would make users more vulnerable to data breaches from bad actors and other threats to customer privacy. Creating a “back door” would also mean all data was accessible by Apple, which it could be forced to share with law enforcement possessing a warrant. As a result, Apple withdrew UK customers’ access to its ADP program in January 2025. The Home Office has maintained that the Investigatory Powers Act, under which such orders are issued, contains robust safeguards and is used only when absolutely necessary.

Submission + - Sandisk and SK hynix publish first open High Bandwidth Flash standard (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Sandisk and SK hynix have published the first open technical specification for High Bandwidth Flash through the Open Compute Project. HBF is designed to create a new memory tier between High Bandwidth Memory and traditional SSD storage, giving AI inference systems more near compute capacity without relying entirely on expensive HBM.

The specification supports capacities up to 512GB using 8 high and 16 high NAND stacks, with bandwidth tiers ranging from about 0.4TB per second to 3.0TB per second. It also uses the UCIe chiplet interface, which could make HBF easier to integrate with CPUs, GPUs, and other accelerators. Google and Tenstorrent participated in the standardization effort, but commercial products and independent benchmarks are still missing.

Submission + - OpenAI's Astra Solved Decades-Old Math Problems For $2,000 (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The cost of producing new results on ten longstanding mathematical problems just fell to $2,000, according to OpenAI, which says its Astra model generated machinecheckable proofs for questions that had resisted human progress for decades. OpenAI published the work on August 1 and used it to give its next major model family a name: Astra. The results run across group theory, high-dimensional geometry, coding theory, quantum complexity, lattice cryptography and extremal combinatorics. They arrived as a 249-page manuscript collection and, alongside it, something the field has not seen attached to an AI claim before at this scale: a machine-checkable certificate for every single result.

The problems were not textbook exercises dressed up as discoveries. Each had been open for at least ten years, most of them far longer, and several sit at the center of their subfields:
A construction establishing the existence of non-sofic groups, a question that has occupied group theorists for years.
A disproof of Connes's rigidity conjecture, a long-standing problem in the theory of von Neumann algebras.
An improvement to the general upper bound on sphere-packing density in high dimensions, a bound that had stood since 1978.
Three problems come from the catalogue of open questions left behind by Paul Erdos.

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