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The world's tallest mountain is getting taller. Mount Everest, also known as Chomolungma, has grown about 15 to 50 meters (50 to 164 feet) higher over the past 89,000 years than expected, according to a modeling study released Monday. From a report: The culprit is a nearby river eroding and pushing down land, causing the ground under Mount Everest to rebound and lift. "It's a new additional component of uplift of Mount Everest," said Matthew Fox, study co-author and geologist at University College London. He expects this spurt of Everest and its surrounding peaks to continue for millions of years. He added "the biggest impact is probably on the climbers that have to climb another 20 meters or so to the top." The additional height may also lead to the growth of more ice at the higher elevations. Mount Everest, part of the Himalayan mountain range, towers along the Nepal-Tibet border at around 8,850 meters (29,000 feet) high. Not only is it the tallest worldwide, it leaves its surrounding peaks in the dust -- rising around 250 meters above the next tallest mountain in the Himalayas, the 8,611-meter (28,251-foot) K2 mountain. But what could cause Everest's anomalous height compared to its neighbors? These extra meters on Mount Everest can be chalked up to a relatively rare "river capture event" from 89,000 years ago, according to the authors' computer models. During such an event, one river changes it course, interacts with another and steals its water, Fox said. In this case, the team said the Arun river network -- about 75 kilometers east of Mount Everest -- stole water from a river flowing north of Everest. Fox said the capture could have been initiated by a dramatic flood, which rerouted the water to a new drainage network. Today, the Arun River is a main tributary to the Kosi River to the south.

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Microsoft has unveiled new features for its Copilot AI assistant, including screen analysis and voice interaction capabilities. Copilot Vision, available to Copilot Pro subscribers, can analyze web content in Microsoft Edge and answer queries about on-screen information. The company said processed data is immediately deleted and not used for model training. A new Think Deeper function aims to tackle complex problems using advanced reasoning models. Copilot Voice introduces synthetic speech output and voice input in select English-speaking countries. Microsoft also announced personalization features, leveraging user history to tailor Copilot recommendations. This functionality will be limited initially, with the company evaluating options for European Economic Area users due to regulatory considerations.

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A Russian criminal gang secretly conducted cyberattacks and espionage operations against NATO allies on the orders of the Kremlin's intelligence services, according to the UK's National Crime Agency. From a report: Evil Corp., which includes a man who gained notoriety for driving a Lamborghini luxury sports car, launched the hacks prior to 2019, the NCA said in statement on Tuesday. The gang has been accused of using malicious software to extort millions of dollars from hundreds of banks and financial institutions in more than 40 countries. In December 2019, the US government sanctioned Evil and accused its alleged leader, Maksim Yakubets, of providing "direct assistance" to the Russian state, including by "acquiring confidential documents." The NCA's statement on Tuesday provides new detail on the work Yakubets and other members allegedly carried out to aid the Kremlin's geopolitical aims. The exact nature of the hacks against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies wasn't immediately clear.

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Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has unveiled a plan to address the fallout from the company's botched app release in May 2024. The audio equipment maker aims to overhaul its software development practices and rebuild customer trust after the controversial update sparked widespread criticism, The Verge reports. The company will extend warranties by one year for select products and implement more rigorous testing processes, including an expanded beta program. Sonos has also pledged to introduce major app changes gradually and create an opt-in system for experimental features. To improve internal accountability, Sonos will appoint a "quality ombudsperson" to escalate concerns and report to leadership. The firm also plans to establish a customer advisory board for pre-launch feedback. Executive bonuses will be tied to app quality improvements and regaining customer confidence.

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One concern that has often been expressed about the Rust language is that there is only one compiler for it. That makes it hard to say what the standard version of the language is and restricts the architectures that can be targeted by Rust code to those that the available compiler supports. Adding a Rust frontend to GCC would do much to address those concerns; at the 2024 GNU Tools Cauldron, Pierre-Emmanuel Patry gave an update on the state of that work and what its objectives are.

Security updates have been issued by Debian (debian-security-support, nghttp2, and sqlite3), Oracle (cups-filters, kernel, and osbuild-composer), SUSE (openssl-3), and Ubuntu (bubblewrap, flatpak and python2.7, python3.5).

Vertical Bridge has acquired the rights to lease and operate over 6,000 wireless towers from Verizon for $3.3 billion as part of a 10-year agreement, with potential extensions of up to 50 years. Capacity Media reports: "Upon the completion of this transaction, these assets, together with our existing portfolio which includes thousands of young, purpose-built towers, enhance Vertical Bridge's position as a fast, friendly, and flexible colocation partner to the wireless industry," said Ron Bizick, President and CEO of Vertical Bridge. Terms of the deal provide Verizon access to additional space on the towers for future use. The US carrier said its latest deal with Vertical Bridge supports existing efforts to drive tower-related costs. "As the nation's largest mobility provider, we are well positioned with greater financial flexibility to invest in our business, return value to our shareholders and make the nation's best network even better for customers," said Hans Vestberg, chair and CEO of Verizon. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2024, subject to closing conditions. Earlier this month, Verizon announced a deal to acquire Frontier Communications for $9.6 billion.

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Russian authorities are considering a ban on Discord, citing unspecified legal violations. According to the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant, the ban may happen "in the coming days." PC Gamer reports: The opening salvo has already been fired. The Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor has issued five separate rulings relating to Discord since September 20, which can all now be used as justification for an upcoming ban. Say what you will about authoritarian regimes, but they love their bureaucracy. Kommersant quotes an anonymous official source as saying the ban is being considered for violations of Russian law: needless to say, these violations have not been detailed, nor are likely to be. Russian users have also complained about periodic outages on Discord over September, with many resorting to VPNs, and both the web and mobile versions of the platform affected. Should the ban become a reality, the big losers will be Russian players and developers, with no obvious domestic replacement. "The problem is that for Russian developers, communication with the community, including the international one, and technical support are implemented through Discord," said Vasily Ovchinnikov, head of Russia's Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry. Today, a Moscow court fined Discord 3.5 million roubles ($37,675) for, apparently, failing to restrict access to banned information.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers, caused by climate change. Part of the area affected will be beneath the Matterhorn, one of Europe's tallest mountains, and close to a number of popular ski resorts. Large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are determined by glacier ridgelines or areas of perpetual snow, but melting glaciers have caused these natural boundaries to shift, leading to both countries seeking to rectify the border. Switzerland officially approved the agreement on the change on Friday, but Italy is yet to do the same. This follows a draft agreement by a joint Swiss-Italian commission back in May 2023. Statistics published last September showed that Switzerland's glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second biggest loss ever after 2022's record melt of 6%. An annual report is issued each year by the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), which attributed the record losses to consecutive very warm summers, and 2022 winter's very low snowfall. Researchers say that if these weather patterns continue, the thaw will only accelerate. On Friday, Switzerland said that the redefined borders had been drawn up in accordance with the economic interests of both parties. It is thought that clarifying the borders will help both countries determine which is responsible for the upkeep of specific natural areas. Swiss-Italian boundaries will be changed in the region of Plateau Rosa, the Carrel refuge and Gobba di Rollin -- all are near the Matterhorn and popular ski resorts including Zermatt. The exact border changes will be implemented and the agreement published once both countries have signed it. Switzerland says that the approval process for signing the agreement is under way in Italy.

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Google has obtained (PDF) a default judgment against two men who abused its DMCA takedown system to falsely target 117,000 URLs of competitors' online stores. With none of the defendants showing up in court, a California federal court sided with the search engine. Through an injunction, the men are now prohibited from sending false takedown notices and creating new Google accounts. TorrentFreak reports: Last November, Google decided to take action against the rampant DMCA abuse. In a lawsuit filed at a federal court in California, it accused Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien of sending over 100,000 fraudulent takedown requests. Many of these notices were allegedly filed against third-party T-shirt shops. [...] Following the complaint, the defendants, who are believed to reside in Vietnam, were summoned via their Gmail accounts and SMS. However, the pair remained quiet and didn't respond in court. Without the defendants representing themselves, Google requested a default judgment. According to the tech giant, it's clear that the duo violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law. Google said that, absent a default judgment, the defendants would continue to harm consumers and third-party businesses. These actions, in turn, will damage Google's reputation as a search engine. In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim recommended granting Google's motion for default judgment. The recommendation included an injunction that prevents the two men from abusing Google's services going forward. However, the District Judge had the final say. Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila adopted the recommendations, issuing a default judgment in favor of Google. The order confirms that defendants Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law. In typical copyrights-related verdicts, most attention is paid to the monetary damages, but not here. While Google could have requested millions of dollars in compensation, it didn't request a penny. Google's primary goal was to put an end to the abusive behavior, not to seek financial compensation. Therefore, the company asked for an injunction to prohibit the defendants from sending false takedowns going forward. This includes a ban on registering any new Google accounts. The request ticked all the boxes and, without a word from the defendants, Judge Davila granted the default judgment as well as the associated injunction.

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Cerebras Systems, an AI chip startup, filed (PDF) for an IPO and plans to trade under the ticker "CBRS" on Nasdaq. CNBC reports: Cerebras competes with Nvidia, whose graphics processing units are the industry's choice for training and running AI models. Cerebras says on its website that its WSE-3 chip comes with more cores and memory than Nvidia's popular H100. It's also a physically larger chip. In addition to selling chips, Cerebras offers cloud-based services that rely on its own computing clusters. [...] In addition to Nvidia, Cerebras cites AMD, Intel, Microsoft and Google as competitors, "as well as internally developed custom application-specific integrated circuits and a variety of private companies." Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company makes the Cerebras chips. Cerebrus warned investors that any possible supply chain disruptions may hurt the company. Cerebras was founded in 2016 and is based in Sunnyvale, California. Andrew Feldman, the startup's co-founder and CEO, sold server startup SeaMicro to AMD for $355 million in 2012. The company said in 2021 that it was valued at over $4 billion in a $250 million funding round.In May, G42 committed to purchasing $1.43 billion in orders from Cerebras before March 2025, according to the filing. G42 currently owns under 5% of Cerebras' Class A shares, and the firm has an option to purchase more depending on how much Cerebras product it buys.

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Amazon Prime is launching a new Shark Tank-style competition show where contestants pitch products to a panel of celebrity investors and a live audience called "The 100." If a product wins audience approval, it gets featured in Amazon's Buy It Now Store, accessible via QR codes during episodes. The show, called Buy It Now and hosted by JB Smoove, premieres on October 30, 2024. You can watch a trailer for it on YouTube. The Verge reports: The company announced the show earlier this year but has now released a trailer showing what it will look like. Contestants pitch their ideas to the audience. If the crowd votes for them, then the panelists pick which ones will show up on Amazon's Buy It Now Store: a new storefront launching alongside the show that viewers can reach using a QR code that shows up during episodes. One presenter per episode will get a $20,000 prize, too. Apart from Smoove -- who you may remember from Curb Your Enthusiasm and Harley -- the show will feature "a star-studded rotating panel of celebrity panelists," including Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson, Tabitha Brown, Tony Hawk, and Christian Siriano. It will also include three Amazon executives, and Ring founder and current CEO of Door.com (formerly Latch) Jamie Siminoff will serve as the "resident judge and entrepreneurial panelist." Oh, and those panelists will be selling their own products on that Buy It Now Store.

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The Arch Linux team has announced a collaboration with Valve, working to support critical infrastructure projects like a build service and secure signing enclave for the Arch Linux distribution. Tom's Hardware reports: If you're familiar with Valve and Steam Deck, you may already know that the Deck uses SteamOS 3, which is built on top of Arch Linux. Thanks to the Arch Linux base and Valve's development of the Proton compatibility layer for playing Windows games on Linux, we now have a far improved Linux gaming scene, especially on Valve's Steam Deck and Deck OLED handhelds. While Valve's specific reasons for picking Arch Linux for Steam Deck remain unknown, it's pretty easy to guess why it was picked. Mainly, it's a particularly lightweight distribution maintained since March 2002, which lends itself well to gaming with minimal performance overhead. A more intensive Linux distribution may not have been the ideal base for SteamOS 3, which is targeted at handhelds like Steam Deck first. As primary Arch Linux developer Levente Polyak discloses in the announcement post, "Valve is generously providing backing for two critical projects that will have a huge impact on our distribution: a build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave. By supporting work on a freelance basis for these topics, Valve enables us to work on them without being limited solely by the free time of our volunteers." Polyak continues, "This opportunity allows us to address some of the biggest outstanding challenges we have been facing for a while. The collaboration will speed up the progress that would otherwise take much longer for us to achieve, and will ultimately unblock us from finally pursuing some of our planned endeavors [...] We believe this collaboration will greatly benefit Arch Linux, and are looking forward to share further development on the mailing list as work progresses."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Raspberry Pi, the company that sells tiny, cheap, single-board computers, is releasing an add-on that is going to open up several use cases -- and yes, because it's 2024, there's an AI angle. Called the Raspberry Pi AI Camera, this image sensor comes with on-board AI processing and is going to cost $70. In more technical terms, the AI Camera is based on a Sony image sensor (the IMX500) paired with a RP2040, Raspberry Pi's own microcontroller chip with on-chip SRAM. Like the rest of the line-up, the RP2040 follows Raspberry Pi's overall philosophy -- it is inexpensive yet efficient. In other words, AI startups aren't going to replace their Nvidia GPUs with RP2040 chips for inference. But when you pair it with an image sensor, you get an extension module that can capture images and process those images through common neural network models. As an added benefit, on-board processing on the camera module means that the host Raspberry Pi isn't affected by visual data processing. The Raspberry Pi remains free to perform other operations -- you don't need to add a separate accelerator. The new module is compatible with all Raspberry Pi computers. This isn't Raspberry Pi's first camera module. The company still sells the Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3, a simple 12-megapixel image sensor from Sony (IMX708) mounted on a small add-on board that you can pair with a Raspberry Pi with a ribbon cable. As Raspberry Pi promises to keep production running for many years, the Camera Module 3 will remain available for around $25. The AI Camera is the same size as the Camera Module 3 (25mm x 24mm) but slightly thicker due to the structure of the optical sensor. It comes pre-loaded with the MobileNet-SSD model, an object detection model that can run in realtime.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it has fined Cruise $1.5 million for failing to disclose that a pedestrian was seriously injured by one of its driverless vehicles in San Francisco last year. The Verge reports: Last October, a Cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian and then dragged her 20 feet after she was initially struck by a human driver in a hit-and-run incident. In the aftermath, Cruise disclosed that its vehicle had struck a pedestrian but omitted details about the victim being dragged. As a result, the California Department of Motor Vehicles pulled the GM-backed company's permit to operate self-driving cars in the state, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into the incident. Today, NHTSA announced the $1.5 million penalty as part of a broader consent order with Cruise that includes additional requirements around safety and disclosure. The company submitted several "incomplete reports" under the agency's Standing General Order, which requires crash reports to be filed within a certain period of time, depending on their severity. In its first report to NHTSA, filed one day after the incident, Cruise failed to disclose "that the Cruise vehicle had dragged the pedestrian," the consent order reads. The company also filed an additional report 10 days later in which it also failed to disclose the dragging incident. "It is vitally important for companies developing automated driving systems to prioritize safety and transparency from the start," NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said. "NHTSA is using its enforcement authority to ensure operators and manufacturers comply with all legal obligations and work to protect all road users." After its permit was suspended, Cruise hired a law firm to conduct an investigation into what went wrong. The firm's report concluded that the company had tried to send a 45-second video to regulators that showed its vehicle dragging the victim but was hampered by "internet connectivity issues." Also, Cruise employees failed to point out the dragging incident in subsequent conversations with regulators.

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Apple has withdrawn from discussions to invest in OpenAI's $6.5 billion funding round, though reasons for the decision remain unclear. The company still plans to proceed with integrating ChatGPT into Siri. MacRumors reports: The development comes just a month after WSJ reported that Apple was considering an investment in OpenAI as part of a fundraising effort that could value the AI company at over $100 billion. The high valuation reflects the intense competition in the artificial intelligence sector that OpenAI helped ignite with ChatGPT's launch in late 2022. While Apple has stepped away, other major tech companies remain involved. Microsoft, which has already invested $13 billion in OpenAI, is expected to contribute about $1 billion to this latest round. Nvidia is also reportedly in talks to participate. OpenAI's transition into a for-profit structure may have factored into Apple's decision. Last week, Reuters reported on OpenAI's plan to restructure its core business into a for-profit benefit corporation that will no longer be controlled by its non-profit board. "Chief executive Sam Altman will also receive equity for the first time in the for-profit company, which could be worth $150 billion after the restructuring as it also tries to remove the cap on returns for investors," reported Reuters.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: It will soon be illegal for public and private universities in California to consider an applicant's relationship to alumni or donors when deciding whether to admit them. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a ban on the practice known as legacy admissions, a change that will affect prestigious institutions including Stanford University and the University of Southern California. California's law, which will take effect Sept. 1, 2025, is the nation's fifth legacy admissions ban, but only the second that will apply to private colleges. "In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work," Newsom said in a statement. "The California Dream shouldn't be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we're opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly." Like other states, California won't financially penalize violators, but it will post the names of violators on the state Department of Justice's website. California will also add to data reporting requirements that it implemented in 2022, when private colleges had to start sharing the percentage of admitted students who were related to donors and alumni. Schools that run afoul of the new law will also have to report more granular demographic information about their incoming classes to the state, including the race and income of enrolled students as well as their participation in athletics. [...] Public universities in California won't be affected by the change. California State University does not consider legacy or donor ties, and the University of California system stopped doing so in 1998, two years after California voters banned race-conscious admissions through a statewide ballot measure.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand. He points to several moves by Mazda as reasons for his anger toward them. However, it turns out that customers might still have a workaround. Previously, the Japanese carmaker offered connected services, that included several features such as remote start, without the need for a subscription. At the time, the company informed customers that these services would eventually transition to a paid model. It's important to clarify that there are two very different types of remote start we're talking about here. The first type is the one many people are familiar with where you use the key fob to start the vehicle. The second method involves using another device like a smartphone to start the car. In the latter, connected services do the heavy lifting. What is wild is that Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda's subscription fees.

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More American workers are seeing their compensation tied to performance metrics, a shift from traditional fixed salaries. A 2024 survey by Alexander Group found 28% of over 300 companies are incorporating incentive pay into new roles, extending a practice once limited to sales and executive positions. Employers argue this model boosts productivity, while some workers report earning less than expected, WSJ reported Monday.

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