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LibreOffice Says Its UI Is Way Better Than Microsoft Office's
darwinmac writes: While many users choose Microsoft Office over LibreOffice because of its support for the proprietary formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx), others prefer Office for its "better" ribbon interface. These users often criticize LibreOffice for having a "clunky" UI instead of the "standard" ribbon interface you would find in Word, Excel, and other Office apps.
Now, Neowin reports that LibreOffice is fighting back, arguing that its UI is actually superior because it is customizable, with several modes such as the classic toolbar interface, an Office-inspired ribbon layout, a sidebar-focused design, and more. Furthermore, it argues that there is no evidence that the ribbon offers "superior usability" over other interface modes. LibreOffice says in a blog post: Incidentally, the characterization of ribbon-style interfaces as "modern" or "standard," used by several users, is not based on any objective usability parameter or design principle, but is the result of Microsoft's dominance in the market and the huge investments made when the ribbon was introduced in Office 2007 as a new paradigm for productivity software. The idea that "modern" equals "similar to a ribbon" is a normalization effect: the Microsoft interface has become a benchmark because of its ubiquity, not because of its proven advantages in terms of usability. Added to this is the fact that many users evaluate office software through the lens of familiarity with Microsoft Office and consider deviation from it as a problem rather than a design choice. Before this, LibreOffice had also criticized its competitor OnlyOffice, accusing it of being "fake open source" because it believes OnlyOffice is working with Microsoft to lock users into the Office ecosystem by prioritizing the formats mentioned earlier instead of LibreOffice's own OpenDocument Format (ODF).
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AMD DPTCi Driver Posted For Linux To Better Enhance Ryzen Gaming Handhelds - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
Meta's AI Display Glasses Reportedly Share Intimate Videos With Human Moderators
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Users of Meta's AI smart glasses in Europe may be unknowingly sharing intimate video and sensitive financial information with moderators outside of the bloc, according to a report from Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet released last week. Employees in Kenya doing AI "annotation" told the journalists that they've seen people nude, using the toilet and engaging in sexual activity, along with credit card numbers and other sensitive information.
With Meta's Ray-Ban Display and other glasses with AI capabilities, users can record what they're looking at or get answers to questions via a Meta AI assistant. If a wearer wants to make use of that AI, though, they must agree to Meta's terms of service that allow any data captured to be reviewed by humans. That's because Meta's large language models (LLMs) often require people to annotate visual data so that the AI can understand it and build its training models.
This data can end up in places like Nairobi, Kenya, often moderated by underpaid workers. Such actions are subject to Europe's GDPR rules that require transparency about how personal data is processed, according to a data protection lawyer cited in the report. However, Svenska Dagbladet's reporters said they needed to jump through some hoops to see Meta's privacy policy for its wearable products. That policy states that either humans or automated systems may review sensitive data, and puts the onus on the user to not share sensitive information.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OpenAI Amends Pentagon Deal As Sam Altman Admits It Looks 'Sloppy'
OpenAI is amending its Pentagon contract after CEO Sam Altman acknowledged it appeared "opportunistic and sloppy." On Monday night, Altman said the company would explicitly restrict its technology from being used by intelligence agencies and for mass domestic surveillance. The Guardian reports: OpenAI, which has more than 900 million users of ChatGPT, made the deal almost immediately after the Pentagon's existing AI contractor, Anthropic, was dropped. [...] The deal prompted an online backlash against OpenAI, with users of X and Reddit encouraging a "delete ChatGPT" campaign. One post read: "You're now training a war machine. Let's see proof of cancellation."
In a message to employees reposted on X, the OpenAI CEO said the original deal announced on Friday had been struck too quickly after Anthropic was dropped. "We shouldn't have rushed to get this out on Friday," Altman wrote. "The issues are super complex, and demand clear communication. We were genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy." Upon announcing the deal, OpenAI had said the contract had "more guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic's."
[...] However, observers including OpenAI's former head of policy research, Miles Brundage, have queried how OpenAI has managed to secure a deal that assuages ethical concerns Anthropic believed were insurmountable. Posting on X, he wrote: "OpenAI employees' default assumption here should unfortunately be that OpenAI caved + framed it as not caving, and screwed Anthropic while framing it as helping them." Brundage added: "To be clear, OAI is a complex org, and I think many people involved in this worked hard for what they consider a fair outcome. Some others I do not trust at all, particularly as it relates to dealings with government and politics."
In his X post, he also wrote that he would "rather go to jail" than follow an unconstitutional order from the government. "We want to work through democratic processes," Brundage wrote. "It should be the government making the key decisions about society. We want to have a voice, and a seat at the table where we can share our expertise, and to fight for principles of liberty."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Help find your lost luggage with Google’s Find HubHelp find your lost luggage with Google’s Find HubProduct Manager, Android
Find your lost luggage faster. A new Find Hub network feature lets you securely share an item's live location with airlines.Find your lost luggage faster. A new Find Hub network feature lets you securely share an item's live location with airlines.
Categories: Technology
March Pixel Drop: New personalization and AI toolsMarch Pixel Drop: New personalization and AI toolsDirector
March Pixel Drop is here with new ways to use Circle to Search, safety features on Watch, dining suggestions from Magic Cue and more!March Pixel Drop is here with new ways to use Circle to Search, safety features on Watch, dining suggestions from Magic Cue and more!
Categories: Technology
New on Android: Find friends, lost luggage and great appsNew on Android: Find friends, lost luggage and great appsDirector, Product Management
Find friends without leaving the chat, recover lost bags by sharing tracker tag links, explore new apps via bite-sized videos, and more.Find friends without leaving the chat, recover lost bags by sharing tracker tag links, explore new apps via bite-sized videos, and more.
Categories: Technology
Accenture Acquires Ookla, Downdetector As Part of $1.2 Billion Deal
Accenture is acquiring Downdetector parent company Ookla from Ziff Davis in a $1.2 billion deal to bolster its network analytics and visibility tools for telecoms, hyperscalers, and enterprises. "The deal, which will transfer all of Ziff Davis's Connectivity division to Accenture, includes Ookla's Speedtest, Ekahau, and RootMetrics," notes The Register reports: "Modern networks have evolved from simple infrastructure into business-critical platforms," said Accenture CEO Julie Sweet in a canned statement. "Without the ability to measure performance, organizations cannot optimize experience, revenue, or security." Ookla is meant to let them do just that.
Data captured at the network and device layer are used to enhance fraud prevention in banking, smart homes monitoring, and traffic optimization in retail, Accenture said. Ookla's platform, which lets user's test their own connectivity speed, captures more than 1,000 attributes per test, and provides the foundation for those analytics, Accenture said.
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India's Top Court Angry After Junior Judge Cites Fake AI-Generated Orders
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: India's Supreme Court has threatened legal consequences after a judge was found to have adjudicated on a property dispute using fake judgements generated by artificial intelligence. The top court, which was responding to an appeal by the defendants, will now examine the ruling given by the lower court in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. The Supreme Court called the case a matter of "institutional concern" and said fake AI-generated judgements had "a direct bearing on integrity of adjudicatory process."
[...] Coming down sternly against the fake judgements, the top court last Friday stayed the lower court's order on the property dispute. It said the use of AI while making judgements was not simply "an error in decision making" but an act of "misconduct." "This case assumes considerable institutional concern, not because of the decision that was taken on the merits of the case, but about the process of adjudication and determination," the top court said. The court said it would examine the case in more detail and issued notices to the country's Attorney and Solicitor General, as well as the Bar Council of India.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Intel Rendering Toolkit & OpenVINO AI GPU Performance On Intel Panther Lake's Xe3 B390 - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
Create new worlds in Project Genie with these 4 tipsCreate new worlds in Project Genie with these 4 tipsContributor
Learn more about Google DeepMind’s Project Genie and how to write prompts to create your own worlds.Learn more about Google DeepMind’s Project Genie and how to write prompts to create your own worlds.
Categories: Technology
