France Bans ‘Recreational Apps’ From Government Staff Phones

France announced Friday it is banning the “recreational” use of TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and other apps on government employees’ phones because of concern about insufficient data security measures. Reuters reports: The French Minister for Transformation and Public Administration, Stanislas Guerini, said in a statement that ”recreational” apps aren’t secure enough to be used in state administrative services and “could present a risk for the protection of data.” The ban will be monitored by France’s cybersecurity agency. The statement did not specify which apps are banned but noted that the decision came after other governments took measures targeting TikTok.

Guerini’s office said in a message to The Associated Press that the ban also will include Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, gaming apps like Candy Crush and dating apps. Exceptions will be allowed. If an official wants to use a banned app for professional purposes, like public communication, they can request permission to do so. Case in point: Guerini posted the announcement of the ban on Twitter.

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Humans Have Reclaimed ‘Land Size of Luxembourg’ Since 2000

Land reclamation is nothing new, but during this century there has been a significant rise in the creation of artificial land by humans, with a recent study showing that developers have added more than 2,500 sq km — an area equivalent to the size of Luxembourg — to coastlines since 2000. The Guardian reports: Using satellite imagery, Dhritiraj Sengupta, from the University of Southampton, and his colleagues analysed land changes in 135 large cities. Their results, published in the journal Earth’s Future, show that much of the recent land reclamation has occurred in the global south, with China, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates leading the way. Shanghai alone has added about 350 sq km of land. Most of the projects were driven by port expansion, a need for urban space and industrialization, while a small handful were “prestige” projects such as the palm tree-shaped islands of Dubai.

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The Writers Guild of America Would Allow AI In Scriptwriting, As Long as Writers Maintain Credit

The Writers Guild of America has proposed allowing artificial intelligence to write scripts, as long as it does not affect writers’ credits or residuals. Variety reports: The guild had previously indicated that it would propose regulating the use of AI in the writing process, which has recently surfaced as a concern for writers who fear losing out on jobs. But contrary to some expectations, the guild is not proposing an outright ban on the use of AI technology. Instead, the proposal would allow a writer to use ChatGPT to help write a script without having to share writing credit or divide residuals. Or, a studio executive could hand the writer an AI-generated script to rewrite or polish and the writer would still be considered the first writer on the project.

In effect, the proposal would treat AI as a tool — like Final Draft or a pencil — rather than as a writer. It appears to be intended to allow writers to benefit from the technology without getting dragged into credit arbitrations with software manufacturers. The proposal does not address the scenario in which an AI program writes a script entirely on its own, without help from a person. The guild’s proposal was discussed in the first bargaining session on Monday with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Three sources confirmed the proposal. It’s not yet clear whether the AMPTP, which represents the studios, will be receptive to the idea. The WGA proposal states simply that AI-generated material will not be considered “literary material” or “source material.” Those terms are key for assigning writing credits, which in turn have a big impact on residual compensation.

“Literary material” is a fundamental term in the WGA’s minimum basic agreement — it is what a “writer” produces (including stories, treatments, screenplays, dialogue, sketches, etc.). If an AI program cannot produce “literary material,” then it cannot be considered a “writer” on a project. “Source material” refers to things like novels, plays and magazine articles, on which a screenplay may be based. If a screenplay is based on source material, then it is not considered an “original screenplay.” The writer may also get only a “screenplay by” credit, rather than a “written by” credit. A “written by” credit entitles the writer to the full residual for the project, while a “screenplay by” credit gets 75%. By declaring that ChatGPT cannot write “source material,” the guild would be saying that a writer could adapt an AI-written short story and still get full “written by” credit.

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Utah Passes Laws Requiring Parental Permission For Teens To Use Social Media

Utah’s governor has signed two bills that could upend how teens in the state are able to use social media apps. Engadget reports: Under the new laws, companies like Meta, Snap and TikTok would be required to get parents permission before teens could create accounts on their platforms. The laws also require curfew, parental controls and age verification features. The laws could dramatically change how social platforms handle the accounts of their youngest users. In addition to the parental consent and age verification features, the laws also bar companies “from using a design or feature that causes a minor to have an addiction to the company’s social media platform.” For now, it’s not clear how Utah officials intend to enforce the laws or how they will apply to teenagers’ existing social media accounts. Both laws are scheduled to take effect next March.

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GNOME 44 Released

“9to5Linux.com reports that the GNOME 44 desktop environment is officially released and gives a detailed look at the major new features and improvements,” writes Slashdot reader prisoninmate. From the report: Code-named “Kuala Lumpur” in recognition of the work done by the organizers of GNOME.Asia Summit 2022 conference, GNOME 44 introduces a GTK4 port of the Epihaphy (GNOME Web) web browser, a file chooser grid view for apps that use the standard GTK file chooser, as well as support for adding a WireGuard VPN directly from the Network panel. GNOME 44 continues to improve the Quick Settings feature introduced in GNOME 43 by implementing a submenu to the Bluetooth button to more easily and quickly connect or disconnect peripherals, adding descriptions to buttons to easily see their status, and implementing a new feature called Background Apps via a new background monitoring service in XDG portals 1.16.0.” A full list of changes are available in the official release notes. The GNOME project also published a launch video on YouTube.

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Coinbase Warned By SEC of Potential Securities Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued crypto exchange Coinbase a Wells notice, warning the company that it identified potential violations of U.S. securities law. CNBC reports: “Based on discussions with the Staff, the Company believes these potential enforcement actions would relate to aspects of the Company’s spot market, staking service Coinbase Earn, Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Wallet,” Coinbase said in a regulatory filing. “The potential civil action may seek injunctive relief, disgorgement, and civil penalties.”

Coinbase described the investigation as “cursory,” and said the Wells notice provided relatively little information about potential violations. “Although we don’t take this development lightly, we are very confident in the way we run our business — the same business we presented to the SEC in order for us to become a public company in 2021,” Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a blog post. The company said that until the resolution of any legal processes, the exchange’s offerings would continue to operate as usual.

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Epic Is Merging Its Digital Asset Stores Into One Huge Marketplace

Epic Games’ next big plan for the metaverse is to unify all of its disparate asset marketplaces under one brand, Fab. The Verge reports: The new store will include assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace, Quixel Bridge, Artstation Marketplace, and Sketchfab, and Epic will give creators 88 percent of earnings on the store, like it does for the Epic Games Store. On Fab, you’ll be able to get a vast amount of digital assets, including “3D models, materials, sound, VFX, digital humans, and more,” Epic says. And the company is positioning it as an open marketplace that will support “all engines, all metaverse-inspired games which support imported content, and the most popular digital content creation packages.” In theory, that means you won’t need to be an Unreal Engine developer to get value from the store.

Fab is set to launch later this year, though it’s available in alpha as a plugin for the new Unreal Editor for Fortnite tools.

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The World Saw a Record 9.6% Growth In Renewables In 2022

By the end of 2022, global renewable generation capacity amounted to 3,372 gigawatts (GW), growing the stock of renewable power by 295 GW or 9.6%, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Renewables produced an overwhelming 83% of all power capacity added last year. Electrek reports: Renewable Capacity Statistics 2023, released today by IRENA, shows that renewable energy continues to grow at record levels despite global uncertainties, confirming the downward trend of fossil fuels. While many countries increased their renewable capacity in 2022, the significant growth of renewables is concentrated in Asia, the US, and Europe. IRENA reports that almost half of all new capacity in 2022 was added in Asia, resulting in a total of 1.63 terawatts (TW) of renewable capacity by 2022. China was the largest contributor, adding 141 GW to Asia’s new capacity.

Renewables in Europe and North America grew by 57.3 GW and 29.1 GW, respectively. Africa saw an increase of 2.7 GW, slightly above 2021. Oceania continued its double-digit growth with an expansion of 5.2 GW, and South America had a capacity expansion of 18.2 GW. The Middle East recorded its highest increase in renewables on record, with 3.2 GW of new capacity added in 2022, an increase of 12.8%. Although hydropower accounted for the largest share of the global total renewable generation capacity with 1,250 GW, solar and wind continued to dominate new generating capacity. Together, both technologies contributed 90% to the share of all new renewable capacity in 2022. Solar led with a 22% (191 GW) increase, followed by wind, which increased its generating capacity by 9% (75 GW).

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Google Defends Auto-Deletion of Chats After US Alleged It Destroyed Evidence

Google defended its use of “history-off chats” for many internal communications, denying the US government’s allegation that it intentionally destroyed evidence needed in an antitrust case. The history-off setting causes messages to be automatically deleted within 24 hours. Ars Technica reports: The US government and 21 states last month asked a court to sanction Google for allegedly using the auto-delete function on chats to destroy evidence and accused Google of falsely telling the government that it suspended its auto-deletion practices on chats subject to a legal hold. Google opposed the motion for sanctions on Friday in a filing (PDF) in US District Court for the District of Columbia. Google said it uses a “tiered approach” for preserving chats. “When there is litigation, Google instructs employees on legal hold not to use messaging apps like Google Chat to discuss the subjects at issue in the litigation and, if they must, to switch their settings to ‘history on’ for chats regarding the subjects at issue in the litigation, so that any such messages are preserved,” the Google filing said.

Google said the government plaintiffs “contend that the Federal Rules specifically mandate that Google should have applied a forced history on setting for all custodians for all chats created while the custodian was on legal hold, regardless of the possible relevance of the message to the litigation.” But federal rules only require “reasonable steps to preserve” information, Google pointed out. “Google’s vast preservation efforts here — and specifically its methodology with respect to history-off chats — were ‘reasonable steps’ under the Rule,” Google argued. Google said the US and state attorneys general “have not been denied access to material information needed to prosecute these cases and they have offered no evidence that Google intentionally destroyed such evidence.” Google also argued that the objections came too late, alleging that the government knew before litigation began “that there was a subset of chats not automatically retained.” “Plaintiffs’ motions are barred at the outset because they were on notice of Google’s approach to chats for years, yet did not object until well after the close of discovery. Those tactics should not be countenanced,” Google told the court.

Google said its November 2019 disclosures in an ESI (Electronically Stored Information) questionnaire “show that the distinction between ‘on-the-record’ and other chats was apparent to anyone who wanted to pursue the matter from the outset of DOJ’s investigation. For instance, the ESI Questionnaire response specifies that chat ‘messages are generally retained for a period of 30 days if they have been marked on-the-record, and potentially longer if on-the-record messages are on legal hold.'” Google also said, “it is no secret how Google’s Chat product operates” because it’s a publicly available product and the Google Chat website explains the history-off feature. The Justice Department’s motion last month said things happened very differently. “Google systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours” for nearly four years, the government motion said, continuing […].

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Roblox Launches Its First Generative AI Game Creation Tools

Roblox is launching its first set of generative AI game creation tools: Code Assist and Material Generator. Engadget reports: Although neither tool is anywhere close to generating a playable Roblox experience from a text description, Head of Roblox Studio Stef Corazza told an audience at GDC 2023 that they can “help automate basic coding tasks so you can focus on creative work.” For now, that means being able to generate useful code snippets and object textures based on short prompts. Roblox’s announcement for the tools offers a few examples, generating realistic textures for a “bright red rock canyon” and “stained glass,” or producing several lines of functional code that will that make certain objects change color and self-destruct after a player interacts with them.

Code Assist looks promising, but Roblox is careful to state it’s imperfect, and may generate “incorrect” or “misleading” information. “It is still up to you to review, test, and determine if the code suggestion is contextually appropriate.” Even so, Roblox’s Corazza seems confident that this is the first step towards making every user on the platform a creator, suggesting it may only be a few years before these tools can generate fully playable, interactive 3D scenes from a simple prompt.

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