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Some Super-Smart Dogs Can Learn New Words Just By Eavesdropping

Slashdot.org - Thu, 01/08/2026 - 22:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: [I]t turns out that some genius dogs can learn a brand new word, like the name of an unfamiliar toy, by just overhearing brief interactions between two people. What's more, these "gifted" dogs can learn the name of a new toy even if they first hear this word when the toy is out of sight -- as long as their favorite human is looking at the spot where the toy is hidden. That's according to a new study in the journal Science. "What we found in this study is that the dogs are using social communication. They're using these social cues to understand what the owners are talking about," says cognitive scientist Shany Dror of Eotvos Lorand University and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. "This tells us that the ability to use social information is actually something that humans probably had before they had language," she says, "and language was kind of hitchhiking on these social abilities." [...] "There's only a very small group of dogs that are able to learn this differentiation and then can learn that certain labels refer to specific objects," she says. "It's quite hard to train this and some dogs seem to just be able to do it." [...] To explore the various ways that these dogs are capable of learning new words, Dror and some colleagues conducted a study that involved two people interacting while their dog sat nearby and watched. One person would show the other a brand new toy and talk about it, with the toy's name embedded into sentences, such as "This is your armadillo. It has armadillo ears, little armadillo feet. It has a tail, like an armadillo tail." Even though none of this language was directed at the dogs, it turns out the super-learners registered the new toy's name and were later able to pick it out of a pile, at the owner's request. To do this, the dogs had to go into a separate room where the pile was located, so the humans couldn't give them any hints. Dror says that as she watched the dogs on camera from the other room, she was "honestly surprised" because they seemed to have so much confidence. "Sometimes they just immediately went to the new toy, knowing what they're supposed to do," she says. "Their performance was really, really high." She and her colleagues wondered if what mattered was the dog being able to see the toy while its name was said aloud, even if the words weren't explicitly directed at the dog. So they did another experiment that created a delay between the dog seeing a new toy and hearing its name. The dogs got to see the unfamiliar toy and then the owner dropped the toy in a bucket, so it was out of sight. Then the owner would talk to the dog, and mention the toy's name, while glancing down at the bucket. While this was more difficult for dogs, overall they still could use this information to learn the name of the toy and later retrieve it when asked. "This shows us how flexible they are able to learn," says Dror. "They can use different mechanisms and learn under different conditions."

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YouTube Will Now Let You Filter Shorts Out of Search Results

Slashdot.org - Thu, 01/08/2026 - 21:10
YouTube is updating search filters so users can explicitly choose between Shorts and long-form videos. The change also replaces view-count sorting with a new "Popularity" filter and removes underperforming options like "Sort by Rating." The Verge reports: Right now, a filter-less search shows a mix of longform and short form videos, which can be annoying if you just want to see videos in one format or the other. But in the new search filters, among other options, you can pick to see "Videos," which in my testing has only showed a list of longform videos, or "Shorts," which just shows Shorts. YouTube is also removing the "Upload Date - Last Hour" and "Sort by Rating" filters because they "were not working as expected and had contributed to user complaints." The company will still offer other "Upload Date" filters, like "Today," "This week," "This Month," and "This Year," and you can also find popular videos with the new "Popularity" filter, which is replacing the "View count" sort option. (With the new "Popularity" filter, YouTube says that "our systems assess a video's view count and other relevance signals, such as watch time, to determine its popularity for that specific query.")

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What’s KernelCare?

LinuxJournal.com - Wed, 03/30/2022 - 11:00
by Suparna Ganguly

This article explains all that you need to know about KernelCare. But before studying about KernelCare, let’s do a quick recap of the Linux kernel. It’ll help you understand KernelCare better. The Linux kernel is the core part of Linux OS. It resides in memory and prompts the CPU what to do.

Now let’s begin with today’s topic which is KernelCare. And if you’re a system administrator this article is going to present valuable information for you.

What is KernelCare?

So, what’s KernelCare? KernelCare is a patching service that offers live security updates for Linux kernels, shared libraries, and embedded devices. It patches security vulnerabilities inside the Linux kernel without creating service interruptions or any downtime. Once you install KernelCare on the server, security updates automatically get applied every 4 hours on your server. It dismisses the need for rebooting your server after making updates.

It is a commercial product and is licensed under GNU GPL version 2. Cloud Linux, Inc developed this product. The first beta version of KernelCare was released in March 2014 and its commercial launch was in May 2014. Since then they have added various useful integrations for automation tools, vulnerability scanners, and others. 

Operating systems supported by KernelCare include CentOS/RHEL 5, 6, 7; Cloud Linux 5, 6; OpenVZ, PCS, Virtuozzo, Debian 6, 7; and Ubuntu 14.04.

Is KernelCare Important?

Are you wondering if KernelCare is important for you or not? Find out here. By installing the latest kernel security patches, you are able to minimize potential risks. When you try to update the Linux kernel manually, it may take hours. Apart from the server downtime, it can be a stressful job for the system admins and also for the clients.

Once the kernel updates are applied, the server needs a reboot. This is usually done during off-peak work hours. And this causes some additional stress. However, ignoring server reboots can cause a whole lot of security issues. It’s seen that, even after rebooting, the server experiences issues and doesn’t easily come back up. Fixing such issues is a trouble for the system admins. Often the system admin needs to roll back all the applied updates to get the server up quickly.

With KernelCare, you can avoid such issues.

How Does KernelCare Work?

KernelCare eliminates non-compliance and service interruptions caused by system reboots. KernelCare agent resides on your server. It periodically checks for new updates. In case it finds any, the agent downloads those and applies them to the running kernel. A KernelCare patch can be defined as a piece of code that’s used to substitute buggy code in the kernel. 

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Categories: Linux

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