Thursday, 09 July
16:00 EDT
Google Hands Open Health Stack To the Linux Foundation [Slashdot]
BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation intends to launch the Open Health Stack Software Foundation, a new vendor-neutral home for the Google Open Health Stack project. Google is contributing the project code and assets while Google.org is providing a $3 million grant. The initiative is also backed by Microsoft, Anthropic, and the World Health Organization, with the goal of building open source, AI-ready digital health infrastructure. Will moving the project under Linux Foundation governance accelerate adoption, or is this simply another foundation that most developers will never interact with? The new project will focus on core HL7 FHIR technologies for healthcare interoperability, the Open Health Stack Player deployment toolkit, and AI Commons -- a model-agnostic healthcare AI initiative being co-developed with the World Health Organization. A notable part of the announcement is its planned Implementer Program, which aims to give startups, small businesses, and local developers in low- and middle-income countries a formal role in governance. In other words, the effort is not just about building healthcare software standards, but about making sure the people implementing them in underserved markets help shape the project too.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
15:00 EDT
San Francisco Moves To Build Private Luxury Airport Terminal [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The [San Francisco international airport] is hoping to build a brand-new terminal exclusively for passengers who pay a premium, gaining access to a luxurious airport experience complete with private security lines and valet service from terminal to tarmac. It will service commercial flights, not business or corporate jets, and the terminal will have its own Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines as well as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lines for international travel. SFO is seeking bidders to take on the development, construction and operation of the private terminal, which is planned for a 75,000-sq-ft site located across the runway from all current public terminals. The airport will accept proposals between late September and early October, and is looking to award a contract by early December with hopes of opening the terminal in late 2028. [...] If SFO is successful, it would become the next major American airport to open a luxury terminal. Los Angeles, Dallas Fort Worth, Miami and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airports all offer a private terminal through PS (formerly known as the Private Suite), a company owned by security firm Gavin de Becker and Associates. Multiple representatives from PS and Gavin de Becker and Associates attended a June conference hosted by SFO about the private terminal, and PS has said it hopes to open a private terminal at every major US airport by 2030. The report notes that access to existing PS private terminals "can cost passengers $1,295 for a one-time experience, or up to $4,850 for a yearly membership."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
14:00 EDT
Surprised doctors find 10-inch worm in man's groin during elective surgery [Ars Technica - All content]
When surgeons dug into a man's groin to repair a painless bulge, they made the unexpected discovery of a living, 10-inch-long (26 cm) worm snug in his abdomen. Adding to the oddity, the man told the surgeons that this had actually happened to him before, according to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The 71-year-old man had opted to have surgery to repair the bulge, which was an inguinal hernia. These types of protrusions are fairly common, particularly in older men, and occur when a small amount of abdominal contents, such as fat or a bit of intestines, slips through a gap or weak point in the muscles and tissues of the abdominal wall. This bodily leakage creates an external bulge that, in some cases, can be painful and uncomfortable. If the bulge's contents become stuck and pinched off, it can even create a life-threatening situation called a strangulated hernia. But, in other cases, the escaped innards are painless and loose and can be temporarily put back in place by simple, gentle massage.
Most people with inguinal hernias will need surgery at some point to patch up their weak abdominal wall. But, for older men with no pain or discomfort, doctors may suggest watchful waiting, delaying surgery until the need is clear. This was the case for the man. But he elected to repair the inguinal hernia, which was on his right side.
'Solo agers' are a growing group. Changes that would help them could help everyone [NPR Topics: News]
Many older adults navigate aging on their own — without children or a spouse. An expert says this is "a reality to be supported" rather than a crisis to be solved.
(Image credit: Ashley Milne-Tyte for NPR)
Class action suit against AI makers over deepfake child sexual abuse material expands [NPR Topics: News]
New plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Elon Musk's SpaceXAI and Stability AI say the companies' AI tools were used to make sexually explicit images of them as children.
(Image credit: Pablo Vera)
macOS 28 Will Drop Support For Encrypted Mac OS Extended Volumes [Slashdot]
Starting with macOS 28, Apple will no longer support encrypted Mac OS Extended, or HFS+, volumes. Users will need to decrypt them or reformat them as APFS to keep using them. 9to5Mac reports: In a new support document, Apple explains that starting with macOS 28, "the Mac OS Extended file system format will be supported only for volumes (disks and other storage devices) that aren't encrypted." In practice, this means users who currently rely on encrypted HFS+ external drives or other encrypted legacy Mac-formatted volumes will need to "either decrypt or reformat any encrypted Mac OS Extended volumes." Apple doesn't explain the reason for the change. Still, the move appears to be another step in Apple's transition to APFS, its file system with built-in encryption support, which replaced Mac OS Extended as the default Mac file system in macOS High Sierra. As a result of this change, Apple says that starting with macOS 26, Macs might notify users when they're using an encrypted Mac OS Extended disk that won't be compatible with macOS 28 or later. According to the support page, "the notification will identify the volume by name." However, Apple says users can manually confirm whether a volume is both using Mac OS Extended format and encrypted by following these steps [...]. Apple adds that "macOS 28 and later will continue to support unencrypted volumes that use Mac OS Extended format," and notes "Mac OS Extended is also known as HFS Plus (or HFS+)."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
13:00 EDT
Google Flights #Resists the defilement of a once-beautiful airport (PBI -> DJT) [Philip Greenspun’s Weblog]
Today is a dark day for billionaire Democrats who’ve been avoiding New York City and New York State income tax by living 183 days per year in Palm Beach. Their Gulfstreams are now parked at “DJT”, President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Google is #Resisting. If you say that you want to fly from an airport named after the worst U.S. president ever to one named after the best U.S. president ever (JFK gave us the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and open borders (Lyndon Johnson had to finish the last two)), Google Flights responds that nothing is available and that one must fly instead from “PBI”:
(Maybe because the IATA code won’t officially update until August? On the third hand, the site could silently fix the discrepancy and simply display flights from what is still “PBI” for baggage tags.)
Airnav’s budget is smaller than Google’s, but their site is fully up to date with today’s change:
Garmin pilot shows that a new FAA VFR chart is apparently available:
SkyVector (awesome and free!) is also up to date:
The post Google Flights #Resists the defilement of a once-beautiful airport (PBI -> DJT) appeared first on Philip Greenspun’s Weblog.
Icy Strait Point [Philip Greenspun’s Weblog]
Where did the Huna Tlingit Indians forced by Climate Change to evacuate Glacier Bay circa 1800 end up? Just across Icy Strait in Hoonah. Right next to their town, after salmon canning became unprofitable, they set up a theme park for cruise ships called “Icy Strait Point”:
What did our AI cruise director suggest?
Icy Strait Point has a built-for-cruise feel, but it is also one of the better places for whale watching or kayaking because the tour boats don’t have to spend a lot of time just reaching wildlife areas. The port’s official site emphasizes the old salmon cannery setting and excursions tied to the natural setting and local history.
For a no-excursion plan, do the Icy Strait Point Nature Trail, beach, cannery area, and maybe walk/ride into Hoonah. The Nature Trail is short—about 1.1 miles, easy, roughly 0.5–1 hour—so it won’t satisfy your “couple of hours in forest” goal by itself. If you want a more substantial activity here, this is a good port for a guided wilderness hike, kayak, or whale-watch rather than improvising deep woods, partly because Chichagof Island is serious bear country.
Here’s the overview map:
We bought tickets from the ship for the Sky Peak gondola, which rises 1,600′, and arrived in the middle of a cloud for a bilingual talk by a tribal elder (not Elizabeth Warren):
Was waiting in line for the gondola worth it? 100 percent! Where better to practice outdoor masking than on top of a mountain in Alaska?
Remember to have your coffee before getting off the ship. The line for the shack at the top of the gondola wasn’t pretty:
The trail to a long boardwalk carried some warnings:
Who wouldn’t be happy to be out in the fresh air with a 12-gauge shotgun? One of these guys was from Indiana(!) and now makes his year-round home in Hoonah:
Were the guns necessary? The guides/guards said that the bears were all down closer to the water because there was an ample food supply down there during the late May time of our visit. The bear-free boardwalk:
The weather cleared when we got back to the top of the gondola:
There was a 30-minute line to get onto a free gondola that saves a 20-minute walk into Hoonah:
Hoonah with multiple ships in port is at least as crowded as Manhattan and with comparable restaurant waiting times.
Instead of waiting in the line, we hoofed it back to our ship and ate lunch on board.
I enjoyed seeing Serenade of the Seas, the Royal Caribbean ship that was home for me and mom on my very first ocean cruise (Baltic 2016). She’s also a product of Meyer Werft.
For fans of the costs of government regulation, a Jones Act Alaskan Marine Highway ferry, M/V Hubbard. She was built in Alaska and took 17 years from being “envisioned” to completion, i.e., enough time for the Chinese to build a few cities and associated shipyards for Neopanamax container carriers. The cost might have been as high as $100 million, including crew quarters that were added, for this Ketchikan-built 5,000-ton vessel that carries 53 cars. With her sister ship, in other words, the cost was higher than what our Chinese brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters charge to build a Neopanamax container ship of 15,000 TEU capacity and 135,000 gross tons. Do the Chinese need 17 years? ChatGPT says closer to 1 year, though this can stretch to 3-4 years depending on the shipyard’s backlog.
If we returned to Icy Strait Point we’d book a whale watch.
The post Icy Strait Point appeared first on Philip Greenspun’s Weblog.
How was the immigration of Bekhzod Asrarov supposed to make Americans better off? [Philip Greenspun’s Weblog]
A migration enrichment story that ended badly for a native-born American (Fox):
Suppose that Bekhzod Asrarov hadn’t killed anyone. How was his immigration to the U.S. in 2024 expected to make existing Americans better off? He won a “diversity lottery” at age 40 during the Biden administration. Given that he couldn’t speak English and was just 25 years from retirement age, how was his presence in the U.S. supposed to make this a better country?
Why does the U.S. continue to operate this diversity lottery? The New York Times, reporting on a Harvard study, says that diversity makes us worse off. If the goal is economic enrichment, you’d think we’d be selecting immigrants for their ability to earn a high income here in the U.S., which someone who doesn’t speak English is extremely unlikely to do. There is no international law or treaty that, as far as I know, requires us to turn foreigners selected at random into U.S. citizens.
RIP, Tobias “Toby” Forsythe, 21:
Related:
- How was the immigration of Mohamed Sabry Soliman supposed to benefit Americans?
- How was the immigration of Ndiaga Diagne supposed to make Americans better off?
- How was the immigration of Rahmanullah Lakanwal supposed to make Americans better off?
- How was the immigration of Akayed Ullah supposed to benefit native-born Americans?
- How was the immigration of José Antonio Ibarra supposed to make the average American better off?
- How was the immigration of Ayman Mohamad Ghazali supposed to make Americans better off?
- How was the immigration of Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov supposed to benefit native-born Americans?
The post How was the immigration of Bekhzod Asrarov supposed to make Americans better off? appeared first on Philip Greenspun’s Weblog.
OpenAI Releases New Voice Models For More Natural Live Conversations [Slashdot]
OpenAI has released GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini, "claiming that they sound more natural and can handle turn-taking better," reports TechCrunch. "These are full-duplex models, meaning they can speak and listen at the same time, allowing users to interrupt naturally and enabling features like live translation." TechCrunch reports: The company is also replacing its current Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT with GPT-Live-1 mini by default. Users of paid tiers will be able to access the larger GPT-Live-1 model. The previous model combined a speech-to-text model to transcribe speech, a large language model to generate responses, and a text-to-speech model to deliver the final answer. The company said in a press briefing that the new models solve issues like interrupting users while they're talking and not having enough intelligence to answer questions. OpenAI's new models will send the query to its latest text models like GPT-5.5 for search, reasoning, or agentic capabilities while continuing the conversation. OpenAI also showed that the model can stay silent for a long time and absorb the context of the conversation until it's called upon. Plus, as the new voice mode has access to newer GPT models, it can also present some information in a visual format. Other startups like Monogram, which raised $40 million in seed funding from DST and Lux Capital, are also leaning into visual responses to make assistants more interactive. The company said the new voice mode in ChatGPT is designed to have longer conversations. During the briefing, ChatGPT Voice's product lead, Atty Eleti, said he has had 30- to 40-minute-long conversations with the voice feature during walks.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
12:00 EDT
Conspiracies and regrets abound in Dune: Part Three trailer [Ars Technica - All content]
We haven't seen much footage to date for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three, other than the broody and haunting extended teaser Warner Bros. dropped in March. But now we've got a shiny new trailer jam-packed with tantalizing hints of what to expect, and plenty of Easter eggs to delight avid book fans.
(Spoilers for first two films in the franchise below.)
As previously reported, in 2021’s Dune, we first met Frank Herbert’s iconic anti-hero, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet). That film culminated in the brutal defeat of House Atreides by rival House Harkonnen, with Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), fleeing to the desert and taking refuge among the Fremen. Among them is Chani (Zendaya), whom Paul has been seeing in visions all along.
Ruf debuts new flat-eight engine at Goodwood [Ars Technica - All content]
Ruf has come quite a long way from its roots as a tuner of Porsches. The German company (no doubt familiar to those of us in the PlayStation generation as Gran Turismo 2's workaround because someone else owned the video game rights to the real 911) has evolved past that stage and now builds cars of its own design. And today at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England, it fired up a brand-new engine for the first time in public.
In fact, the German authorities have considered Ruf a distinct manufacturer (as opposed to a tuner) for some time—the BTR in 1983 was the first to carry a Ruf vehicle identification number rather than the one that Porsche originally stamped on the chassis. Then in 2007, it revealed the CTR3. The Porsche DNA was clear, but the CTR3 was mid-engined, unlike the rear-engined 911, and featured a frame chassis developed by Ruf together with Multimatic.
More recently, it has been building its own all-carbon monocoque chassis for cars like the SCR and Rodeo, which otherwise look like 964-era Porsche 911s. Those still use horizontally opposed six-cylinder engines, but for its next generation of cars, it seems Ruf wanted something a little different.
Free Waymo rides in California? You can thank a regulatory quirk. [Ars Technica - All content]
Robotaxi companies have thrived in California, where the good weather, enthusiasm for technology, and sophisticated labor force have supported their growth for nearly two decades. But a delayed decision from a state regulatory agency is now slowing Alphabet’s subsidiary Waymo, the US leader in driverless robotaxi service.
The holdup means that Waymo isn’t yet allowed to expand into parts of Northern and Southern California. And, in an upside for riders, Waymo still isn’t able to charge California passengers for rides in its new vehicle, a pale blue Chinese-made car it’s calling the Ojai, which started picking up riders last month.
If Waymo continues to operate these vehicles in its driverless ride-hail service, they could be gratis until the end of September and perhaps beyond. (The company continues to charge for rides in its Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis, which make up the majority of its fleet.)
The newest entrant in the military’s launch competition isn't actually a launch company [Ars Technica - All content]
This week the US Space Force brought two more companies into the pool of bidders eligible to compete for its launch contracts—Impulse Space and Relativity Space. For a rocket company, cracking into the lucrative US military launch market is both a sign of maturity, as well as an important source of revenue.
The inclusion of Relativity Space, which is making credible progress toward the launch of its heavy-lift Terran R rocket, is perhaps not a huge surprise. Under the leadership of former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, the company has continued to work toward bringing the partly reusable rocket to the launch pad.
The addition of Impulse Space, however, was something of a surprise. The company specializes in building spacecraft for in-space operations, rather than launching from Earth.
Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charge [NPR Topics: News]
Canoeist David Hearn plead not guilty in D.C. Superior Court Thursday to a charge of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
(Image credit: Finn Gomez)
Are they unable to find candidates without misogynistic traits? [Pharyngula]
I’ve avoided discussing Graham Platner here all this time. I could tell early in his rise that his campaign was going to be an ugly mess that was going to tempt a lot of good people to support him. Bernie Sanders endorsed him!
Right away, I thought “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t sport a Nazi tattoo?”
Then there were the old internet posts, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t have a history of internet bigotry?”
Then we got the accounts of crude drunken behavior on dates, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t treat women with disrespect?”
Now the latest damning accusation has emerged, prompting Platner to finally drop out, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who haven’t raped someone?”
So I was useless on this issue, because I was too busy backing away from this growing clusterfuck. Rebecca Watson has a more forthright response.
Let’s learn to more quickly recognize disqualifying characteristics in our candidates, OK? How about if we don’t make excuses for them anymore?
Travel Noise Machine/Golden Visas/Easier TSA PreCheck [Cool Tools]
LectroFan Alpha Noise Machine
I’ve reviewed a few different noise machines on here because my wife’s a light sleeper and I’ve found that these things are more effective than earplugs in a noisy hotel room or apartment. This LectroFan Alpha one I’ve used recently is marketed to parents of young children, with a place to clip it onto a crib or a flip-out stand to use on a table, but it’s fine for travelers with no kids too. It has a range of continuous sounds that include calm and heavy ocean waves, regular and heavy fans, pink noise, and brown noise. There’s also a heartbeat option that seems creepy to me, but maybe that’s good for a baby or pet. Recharges by USB, easy to pack and 4 ounces.
Remaining Golden Visa Options
If you have enough money or assets, a quick path to residency and even citizenship is to get a “golden visa” that fast-tracks you in exchange for investing in the country. Some of these have worked too well, like in Portugal, so governments have scaled back. There are still more than 30 of them out there though and the New York Times ran down a few, complete with minimum investment levels. See the full story here. (Paywalled, but available free with e-mail, Google, or Apple sign-in. Via Kevin Kelly.)
Narcissism Drives Return-to-Office Mandates
You probably had a feeling that the bosses making everyone come back to the office were doing it because they’re too full of themselves, but now we have proof. This scientific study won me over from the start with its title: Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work. This is an exhaustively researched study, with hundreds of supporting footnotes and links, and the conclusion is clear. In short, these leaders want to see, be seen, exert power, and demonstrate control, all much tougher without physical proximity. “The sparseness of remote communication can make it more difficult for narcissists to satisfy these cravings for power and status.”
Add TSA PreCheck to Google Wallet
I’m sure I’m not the only one that has had problems with the tiny TSA PreCheck icon not showing up on a boarding pass sometimes. As of last week, it’s going to get a lot easier to show proof of enrollment because you can now add touchless ID to Google Wallet on a phone. “Now, once a traveler creates a digital ID pass using their passport within Google Wallet, the app automatically handles the TSA enrollment connection during flight check-in.” This means that Touchless ID availability “goes from just six airlines to all 100+ participating TSA PreCheck airlines.” See more info here.
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Parents' Phone Addiction Affects Bond With Kids, New Study Finds [Slashdot]
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Parents' attachment to screens and smartphones can have negative, long-lasting developmental and psychological effects on their children, according to new research. Caregivers who mismanage their devices can both exacerbate "insecure attachment" and make healthy relationships more anxious and avoidant for children, according to the findings, which were published last month in Frontiers in Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal. The study, which surveyed 600 minors in the US from 12 to 17 years old, found that kids reported feeling marginalized or neglected by parents glued to their screens. "A child with insecure attachment may lack confidence or display a lower sense of self; demonstrate difficulty with interpersonal relationships and intimacy; and possess an unwillingness to take risks necessary to achieve success," reports Bloomberg, citing one of the study's researchers. This type of behavior has become normalized: 2024 Pew data found that nearly half of U.S. teens say their parents are at least sometimes distracted by phones during interactions. "When parents were asked about their own behavior, far fewer said this was an issue," the report adds. "Still, earlier Pew data from 2020 found most parents feel their phones can interfere with quality family time, with 68% reporting being 'at least sometimes' distracted by them.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
10:00 EDT
Former coach at Bucknell University charged in death of freshman football player [NPR Topics: News]
Former strength and conditioning coach Mark Kulbis was charged Monday in the death of Calvin "CJ" Dickey Jr., a freshman athlete with sickle-cell trait who collapsed during training in July 2024.
