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Received — 27 July 2026 ⏭

A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man To Prison For 18 Months

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 22:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name "fus__ro_dah" (two underscores after "fus"), but they accidentally requested records for the username "fus_ro_dah" (one underscore after "fus"). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme. (Ars readers may recognize "fus ro dah" as the Unrelenting Force "dragon shout" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.) Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term. Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme's conviction, writing: "Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted." [...] As the court puts it, "Although the information about the usernames was available at the time of the trial, there is no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Peacock to Be Included With YouTube Premium In Major Streaming Tie-Up

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 18:00
YouTube Premium will include Peacock Premium at no extra charge beginning in early 2027. "The deal brings a slew of premium content to the [$15.99 per month] YouTube Premium subscription, including live sports like the NFL, NBA and MLB and entertainment like Law & Order, Saturday Night Live and Love Island," reports The Hollywood Reporter. "It also has the potential to dramatically scale Peacock, which remains smaller than many of its streaming competitors." From the report: Peacock has 48 million subscribers, while YouTube Premium and YouTube Music have a combined 125 million subscribers, though they don't break out how many each of those offerings have. The agreement, which expands on the deal the company inked with YouTube parent company Google last year, will also extend the entertainment company's programming deal with YouTube TV, while bringing some of YouTube's offerings to Comcast Xfinity and Xumo platforms. There's also a notable sports and production element to the deal, with NBC Sports agreeing to stream some live sporting events on its YouTube channels, and with NBC agreeing to serve as the production partner for select live events on YouTube. YouTube will also bundle some of the company's International streaming offerings like Universal+ and Hayu in select markets.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Crm programmers/developer needed for us window replacement company

✇CRM - Customer Relationship Managment
By: /u/Horror-Age-6883
27 July 2026 at 17:03

I represent a large replacement window and door company based in northeast us. We have met with all the big crm companies and nothing fits all phases. Is there anyone out there that would be willing to create one or customize one they are currently working on to match my workflow. It needs to handle a large database, 30 to 40 active callers a day, 50 or more field salesman, 30 field service techs and 100 office emoloyees.

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Amazon Trying to Launch a Global Satellite Cellphone Network In 2028

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 17:00
Amazon has asked the FCC to approve a 5,105-satellite constellation launching in 2028 that would provide global direct-to-cell "voice, messaging, data, and emergency services," similar to Starlink's partnership with T-Mobile. The network would use Globalstar spectrum, support future Apple satellite services, and complement Amazon's existing Leo broadband constellation. The Verge reports: Advanced Television points out that the FCC application also includes a request to use spectrum assigned to Iridium's satellite network outside the US, even as Rocket Lab is in the process of acquiring Iridium with plans to expand. The new constellation and direct-to-device service will "complement" the broadband services Amazon also plans to offer through its Leo platform. In addition to consumer satellite service, it would also be used for things like disaster response and emergency messaging. Amazon says the new direct-to-device satellites "will process the signals in orbit before relaying them to improve performance." The new constellation will be nearly double the size of Amazon's initial Leo constellation, which is planned to include around 3,200 satellites. As of July 2nd, Amazon says "over 375" of those satellites have launched so far.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia, Tech Giants Launch AI Safety Initiative

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 16:00
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia and a large group of technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software companies have launched new initiative aimed at developing and sharing open source tools, models, and techniques for securing AI systems and agents. The new Open Secure AI Alliance aims to give defenders more open tools for testing, auditing and protecting AI models and agents. Nvidia points to the recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, noting that when closed AI tools could not differentiate between attackers and defenders and blocked forensic work, Hugging Face used the open-weight GLM 5.2 model on its own systems to review over 17,000 actions and contain the breach. "The right response is not to deny defenders access to capable open systems. It is to pair openness with strong safeguards, clear rules against malicious misuse, rigorous evaluation and rapid remediation. In cybersecurity, the safer path is the one that gives more defenders the ability to test, verify and strengthen the systems on which society relies," Nvidia said. Thanks to longtime Slashdot reader SphericalCrusher for also sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Client cards in Wrike?

✇CRM - Customer Relationship Managment
By: /u/Hot_Saguaro
27 July 2026 at 15:35

I'm at a new company and have been tasked to implement better organization to "client" information. I use "client" loosely as they are all internal partners who can't go anywhere else so we don't need to track a sales stage or anything like that, but we do need a better system to track information like contacts, audience, etc.

Right now we use Wrike. Does anyone know if it is possible to do something like client cards?

If Wrike isn't the solution, anyone have suggestions? We have access to both the Google and Microsoft suites. I don't think we have the budget this year for any new system outside of that.

Thanks for your input!

submitted by /u/Hot_Saguaro
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Codeberg Bans Cryptocurrency and LLM-Generated Code Projects

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 15:00
Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Hackaday: Community-led open source project hosting site Codeberg has formally announced that projects whose code is largely or fully machine-generated through LLMs and other 'AI' tools will no longer be welcome. This follows on the heels of a similar ban on cryptocurrency-related projects. The community vote was on two issues, the first being the notion that scraping of project code for the use in LLMs should be forbidden, which was a motion that easily passed. The second motion was on disallowing projects whose code was substantially generated by LLMs like Claude, OpenAI Codex, and similar. This motion passed with 358 in favor versus 144 against. In the earlier linked blog post the reasoning behind especially this second issue is expanded upon, covering not only "license whitewashing," but also the direct and indirect hardware costs, with the expanding 'AI' datacenter hyperscaling having massively increased hardware costs for Codeberg over the past years, as the costs have been largely externalized. Also covered is the aspect of these LLM-based tools destroying the OSS community, which is something that is backed up by recent studies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NVIDIA Forms 37-Member Open Secure AI Alliance and Open-Sources NOOA Framework

✇The Hacker News
By: [email protected] (The Hacker News)
27 July 2026 at 13:10
NVIDIA and 36 other organizations have formed the Open Secure AI Alliance to develop and share open technologies, techniques, and tools for securing software and artificial intelligence (AI) agents. The 37-member group spans cloud, security, enterprise software, and AI companies, including Microsoft, Cisco, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Hugging Face, IBM, Palo Alto Networks, Red Hat, and the Linux

China Begins Mass Production of Homegrown DUV Chip Tools

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 14:00
According to The Information (paywalled), a state-backed Shanghai company has begun mass-producing China's first homegrown immersion DUV lithography machines, with about five units expected this year for SMIC, Hua Hong, and CXMT. Roughly 20 more units are expected in 2027. Tom's Hardware reports: The Information didn't name the manufacturer, but its sources described the operation as having pulled DUV development teams from several Chinese companies, one of them the state-backed startup Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology. SMIC has been testing a Yuliangsheng immersion tool since September 2025. Most components in the new systems are domestic, though some critical parts still come from Japan, and delays at local suppliers have held back output this year. [...] China accounts for around 20% of ASML's net sales this year, down from 33% in 2025, driven mainly by mainstream logic demand... Independent analysis from the AI Futures Project in June put commercial-scale Chinese immersion DUV in the mid-2030s, with ASML holding 98.7% of the immersion market. Qualifying the new machines for production lines could take many months, and they trail ASML's tools on performance and build quality. China's domestic EUV effort, which Reuters first reported as a working prototype in December, remains years away.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ChatGPT Starts Blocking Direct Requests To Copy an Author's Style

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 13:10
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI's ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the "broad qualities" of those authors "while remaining distinct in its own voice," for example. This morning, Ars received the following response to a test prompt asking for a story introduction in the style of Stephen King: "I can definitely write with the hallmarks of atmospheric, character-driven horror and small-town dread, but I can't write in Stephen King's exact style or closely imitate his distinctive voice. Here's an original opening that captures a similar feeling while remaining its own..." In testing, ChatGPT generated similar dodges for other authors both living (J.K. Rowling, Amy Tan) and dead (Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway). An analysis published by No Latency earlier this month (PDF) found the same behavior for living authors but found ChatGPT complied with style-copying requests for deceased authors. In refusing to directly copy the "exact style" of various authors, ChatGPT offered instead to capture an overall "feeling" by incorporating some of the common features found in those authors' work. That may seem like a distinction without a real difference at first glance. But the slight alteration could be legally important as OpenAI continues to fight a number of lawsuits brought by book authors alleging large-scale copyright infringement by models trained on their work. One of those suits specifically cites ChatGPT's "uncanny ability to generate text similar to that found in copyrighted textual materials," for instance. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica. In the US, copyright law generally protects only a specific expression of an idea, not the more intangible style of an author. But an AI-generated stylistic imitation could become infringing if it becomes "substantially similar" to the work of the original author. "We've never had a situation in which this personal style of individual creators could be imitated as well and as inexpensively as we now have with AI," George Washington University Law School Professor Robert Brauneis told Bloomberg Law.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dysphoria IoT Botnet Adds Blockchain C2 and Victim Relays After JackSkid Disruption

✇The Hacker News
By: [email protected] (The Hacker News)
27 July 2026 at 12:16
Dysphoria, an Internet of Things (IoT) botnet line tracked by CNCERT and XLab, has adopted blockchain-based name services and infected-device relays after a March law-enforcement operation against JackSkid infrastructure. The researchers say the design makes the botnet harder to disrupt. CNCERT, China's national computer emergency response team, and XLab, the threat-intelligence lab of Chinese

Apple Will 'Watch Everything Burn' When AI Bubble Bursts

✇Slashdot
By: BeauHD
27 July 2026 at 12:00
MacRumors interviewed AI critic Ed Zitron, author of the Where's Your Ed At newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast, about what could happen to Apple if the costly AI infrastructure boom collapses. Zitron argued that Apple is relatively well insulated because it has spent far less on data centers than rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. He said the company could use the downturn to make selective acquisitions, though it might simply continue operating largely as before. "I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn," Zitron said. Here's an excerpt from the report: If the bubble deflates the way you expect (write-downs, too much compute supply, possibly OpenAI cratering), can you walk us through what that would actually look like for Apple? Does anything break for iPhone users, or does Apple mostly watch it happen from the sidelines? Could it even benefit Apple? I think things would look much the same for Apple. I think they will sit on the sidelines and watch everything burn. I could see them doing some choice acquisitions as things begin to collapse, but I could also see them do nothing. I think Apple is in a very weird place at the moment. The Vision Pro was a dud, but it was also the most interesting and future-forward thing I've seen anyone put out in a while. If they were smart, they'd tread water and sink as much money into making that as small as humanely possible -- no matter how long it takes -- because the entire AI bubble is a result of everybody running out of hypergrowth ideas, mostly because we're flat out of new interfaces. I want to be clear that what they want to do with the Vision Pro requires it to basically be weightless and invisible and never need adjustments. When it works, it's genuinely awesome. But that's a load-bearing when. One slight movement means the whole thing goes out of focus. I can't even use mine anymore because it needs an update that requires you to wear the thing the whole time. So much promise, released too early, shoved out the door by a CEO on his way out.

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Service business owners: can you help me break my product? In return I will replace your sales team.(Free access)

✇CRM - Customer Relationship Managment
By: /u/priyanshbhatiya
27 July 2026 at 11:15

I'm building a platform for service businesses that rely on inbound leads, and I'm looking for 5–10 businesses willing to break it.

After talking to agencies and service businesses, I kept hearing the same things:

"We know responding quickly wins more deals, but it's hard to stay on top of every lead."

"I always feel like I've forgotten to follow up with someone today."

Many businesses are also paying for a CRM plus multiple automation tools just to make their sales process work.

Unlike generic chatbots, the AI is trained on your business and company knowledge, so it gives accurate, business-specific answers. If it encounters something it doesn't know, it hands the conversation to your team and logs the knowledge gap so you can improve it over time. Your team can also take over any conversation whenever they want.

The platform also includes AI lead qualification, automated follow-ups across WhatsApp, email and SMS, a built-in CRM, appointment booking, a unified customer timeline, and an AI agent that does day-to-day sales operations.

I'm not looking for customers right now. I want honest feedback from businesses that actually deal with inbound leads every day.

In return, you'll get free 3-month subscription after launch as a thank you for helping shape the product.

If this sounds interesting, leave a comment or send me a DM. I'd genuinely love to hear what you think even if you end up telling me the product isn't useful.

submitted by /u/priyanshbhatiya
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