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KDE's 'Plasma Login Manager' Stops Supporting FreeBSD - Because Systemd

Slashdot.org - 1 hour 18 min ago

KDE's "Plasma Login Manager" is apparently dropping support for FreeBSD, the Unix-like operating system, reports the blog It's FOSS. They cite a recently-accepted merge request from a KDE engineer to drop the code supporting FreeBSD, since the login manager relies on systemd/logind: systemd and logind look like hard dependencies of the login manager, which means the software is built to work exclusively with these components and cannot function without them... logind is a component of systemd that is responsible for user session management... This doesn't mean that KDE has abandoned the operating system altogether. FreeBSD users can still run the KDE Plasma desktop environment and continue using SDDM, the current login manager that works just fine on such systems. The article argues FreeBSD users "won't really care much for missing out on this as they have plenty of login manager options available."

Washington State May Mandate 'Firearm Blueprint Detection Algorithms' For 3D Printers

Slashdot.org - 2 hours 18 min ago

Adafruit managing director Phillip Torrone (also long-time Slashdot reader ptorrone ) writes: Washington State lawmakers are proposing bills (HB 2320 and HB 2321) that would require 3D printers and CNC machines to block certain designs using software-based "firearms blueprint detection algorithms." In practice, this means scanning every print file, comparing it against a government-maintained database, and preventing "skilled users" from bypassing the system. Supporters frame this as a response to untraceable "ghost guns," but even federal prosecutors admit the tools involved are ordinary manufacturing equipment. Critics warn the language is overbroad, technically unworkable, hostile to open source, and likely to push printing toward cloud-locked, subscription-based systems—while doing little to stop criminals.

Google Discover Replaces News Headlines With Sometimes Inaccurate AI-Generated Alternatives

Slashdot.org - 3 hours 18 min ago

An anonymous reader shared this report from The Verge: In early December, I brought you the news that Google has begun replacing Verge headlines, and those of our competitors, with AI clickbait nonsense in its content feed [which appears on the leftmost homescreen page of many Android phones and the Google app's homepage]. Google appeared to be backing away from the experiment, but now tells The Verge that its AI headlines in Google Discover are a feature, one that "performs well for user satisfaction." I once again see lots of misleading claims every time I check my phone... For example, Google's AI claimed last week that "US reverses foreign drone ban," citing and linking to this PCMag story for the news. That's not just false — PCMag took pains to explain that it's false in the story that Google links to...! What does the author of that PCMag story think? "It makes me feel icky," Jim Fisher tells me over the phone. "I'd encourage people to click on stories and read them, and not trust what Google is spoon-feeding them." He says Google should be using the headline that humans wrote, and if Google needs a summary, it can use the ones that publications already submit to help search engines parse our work. Google claims it's not rewriting headlines. It characterizes these new offerings as "trending topics," even though each "trending topic" presents itself as one of our stories, links to our stories, and uses our images, all without competent fact-checking to ensure the AI is getting them right... The AI is also no longer restricted to roughly four words per headline, so I no longer see nonsense headlines like "Microsoft developers using AI" or "AI tag debate heats." (Instead, I occasionally see tripe like "Fares: Need AAA & AA Games" or "Dispatch sold millions; few avoided romance.") But Google's AI has no clue what parts of these stories are new, relevant, significant, or true, and it can easily confuse one story for another. On December 26th, Google told me that "Steam Machine price & HDMI details emerge." They hadn't. On January 11th, Google proclaimed that "ASUS ROG Ally X arrives." (It arrived in 2024; the new Xbox Ally arrived months ago.) On January 20th, it wrote that "Glasses-free 3D tech wows," introducing readers to "New 3D tech called Immensity from Leia" — but linking to this TechRadar story about an entirely different company called Visual Semiconductor... Google declined our request for an interview to more fully explain the idea. The site Android Police spotted more inaccurate headlines in December: A story from 9to5Google, which was actually titled 'Don't buy a Qi2 25W wireless charger hoping for faster speeds — just get the 'slower' one instead' was retitled as 'Qi2 slows older Pixels.' Similarly, Ars Technica's 'Valve's Steam Machine looks like a console, but don't expect it to be priced like one' was changed to 'Steam Machine price revealed.' At the time, we believed that the inaccuracies were due to the feature being unstable and in early testing.... Now, Google has stopped calling Discover replacing human-written headlines as an "experiment." "Google buries a 'Generated with AI, which can make mistakes' message under the 'See more' button in the summary," reports 9to5Google, "making it look like this is the publisher's intended headline." While it is obvious that Google has refined this feature over the past couple of months, it doesn't take long to still find plenty of misleading headlines throughout Discover... Another article from NotebookCheck about an Anker power bank with a retractable cable was given a headline that's about another product entirely. A pair of headlines from Tom's Hardware and PCMag, meanwhile, show the two sides of using AI for this purpose. The Tom's Hardware headline, "Free GPU & Amazon Scams," isn't representative of the actual article, which is about someone who bought a GPU from Amazon, canceled their order, and the retailer shipped it anyway. There's nothing about "Amazon Scams" in the article.