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The SAT is billed as "a great way to find out how prepared students are for college." If that's true, recent changes to its format offer an unflattering assessment of the country's aspiring scholars, Bloomberg's editorial board wrote Wednesday. From the piece: [...] Then the pandemic hit. As in-person exams became impractical, hundreds of schools dropped their testing requirements. The SAT and its main competitor, the ACT, lost millions of dollars in revenue. Although both recently started offering digital options, schools have been slow to reinstate their requirements. Today, more than 80% of schools remain test-optional. "If students are deciding to take a test," as one College Board executive put it, "how do we make the SAT the one they want to take?" To anyone familiar with American teenagers, the company's answer should come as no surprise: Make the test easier. The newly digitized format allows a calculator for the entire math section and drastically cuts reading comprehension. Gone are the 500- to 750-word passages about which students would answer a series of questions. Instead, test takers read 25- to 150-word excerpts -- about the length of a social media post -- and answer a single question about each. [...] An effort by the College Board to reemphasize the benefits of deep reading -- for critical thinking, for self-reflection, for learning of all kinds -- might go a long way toward restoring some balance. It should build on efforts to incorporate college prep into school curricula, work with districts to develop coursework that builds reading stamina for all test takers, and consider reducing the cost of its subject-specific Advanced Placement exams that continue to test these skills (now $99), in line with the SAT ($68). Schools, for their part, should recommit to teaching books in their entirety.

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For the first time in more than four years, there are fewer open jobs in the U.S. than there are job seekers. CNN: "This is a turning point for the labor market," Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote Wednesday. "It's yet another crack." The number of job openings fell to an estimated 7.18 million at the end of July, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday. Job openings not only are at their lowest level in 10 months, but they're also below the number of unemployed workers (at 7.2 million) for the first time since April 2021.

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Streameast -- the world's largest illegal sports streaming platform -- has been shut down after a year long investigation, according to a leading United States-based anti-piracy organisation. From a report: The network of 80 unauthorised domains generated 1.6billion combined visits over the past year, providing free access to global sports fixtures, including Europe's top football leagues and competitions, such as the Premier League and Champions League, as well as the NFL, NBA and MLB. The Athletic has been informed by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) -- a coalition of 50 media and entertainment organisations including Amazon, Apple TV+, Netflix and Paramount -- that an operation alongside Egyptian law enforcement officials took place on Sunday August 24 to disrupt Streameast's dominant position in the illegal streaming market. Traffic to the site reached 136million average monthly visits, with domains primarily originating from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and Germany.

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Critics are denouncing Tuesday's antitrust remedies ruling against Google, calling them inadequate to restore search market competition. DuckDuckGo said the court's decision allows Google to continue using its monopoly to hold back competitors in AI search. The Open Markets Institute called it "pure judicial cowardice" that leaves Google's power "almost fully intact." Senator Amy Klobuchar said the limited remedies demonstrate why Congress needs to pass legislation stopping dominant platforms from preferencing their own products. The News/Media Alliance criticized Judge Amit Mehta for failing to address Google forcing publishers to provide content for AI offerings to remain in search results.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon.com must face a class action on behalf of hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers over claims that the online retail giant overcharged for products sold by third-party sellers, a federal judge in Seattle has ruled. U.S. District Judge John Chun in an order (PDF) unsealed on Friday certified a nationwide class involving 288 million customers and billions of transactions, marking one of the largest-ever in the United States. The class includes buyers in the United States who purchased five or more new goods from third-party sellers on Amazon since May 26, 2017. The consumers' 2021 lawsuit said Amazon violated antitrust law by restricting third-party sellers from offering their products for lower prices elsewhere on rival platforms while they are also for sale on Amazon. Amazon's policies have allowed the company to impose inflated fees on sellers, causing shoppers to pay higher prices for purchases, the lawsuit said. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing. It has already appealed Chun's class certification order, which was first issued under seal on Aug. 6. Amazon argued that the class was too large to be manageable and that the plaintiffs failed to show its alleged conduct had a widespread effect. Amazon also said that since 2019 it has not used a pricing program that the plaintiffs challenged. Chun found there was no evidence at this stage that the size of the class was overbroad. Other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members, the judge said.

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alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals -- including us. Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence. Progressively higher prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos was associated with incrementally greater deviations in brain structure, function, and metabolism in children and teens, the researchers found, along with poorer measures of motor speed and motor programming. [...] This supports previous research linking chlorpyrifos with impaired cognitive function and brain development, but these findings are the first evidence of widespread and long-lasting molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain. "The disturbances in brain tissue and metabolism that we observed with prenatal exposure to this one pesticide were remarkably widespread throughout the brain," says first author Bradley Peterson, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. Senior author Virginia Rauh added: "It is vitally important that we continue to monitor the levels of exposure in potentially vulnerable populations, especially in pregnant women in agricultural communities, as their infants continue to be at risk." The report notes that the EPA banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001 but the pesticide is still used in agriculture around the world. The findings have been published in the journal JAMA Neurology.

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The world's largest iceberg is now breaking apart rapidly in warmer waters after nearly 40 years adrift. "Earlier this year, the 'megaberg' known as A23a weighed a little under a trillion tons and was more than twice the size of Greater London," reports The Guardian. "It is now less than half its original size, but still a hefty 1,770 sq km (683 sq miles) and 60km (37 miles) at its widest point..." Scientists expect it to completely disintegrate within weeks. From the report: A23a calved from the Antarctic shelf in 1986 but quickly grounded in the Weddell Sea, remaining stuck on the ocean floor for over 30 years. It finally escaped in 2020 and, like other giants before it, was carried along "iceberg alley" into the South Atlantic Ocean by the powerful Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Around March, it ran aground in shallow waters off distant South Georgia island, raising fears it could disrupt large colonies of adult penguins and seals there from feeding their young. But it dislodged in late May, and moved on. [...] Iceberg calving is a natural process. But scientists say the rate at which they were being lost from Antarctica is increasing, probably because of human induced climate change.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: On a recent evening, a trio of Ukrainian drones flew under the cover of darkness to a Russian position and decided among themselves exactly when to strike. The assault was an example of how Ukraine is using artificial intelligence to allow groups of drones to coordinate with each other to attack Russian positions, an innovative technology that heralds the future of battle. Military experts say the so-called swarm technology represents the next frontier for drone warfare because of its potential to allow tens or even thousands of drones -- or swarms -- to be deployed at once to overwhelm the defenses of a target, be that a city or an individual military asset. Ukraine has conducted swarm attacks on the battlefield for much of the past year, according to a senior Ukrainian officer and the company that makes the software. The previously unreported attacks are the first known routine use of swarm technology in combat, analysts say, underscoring Ukraine's position at the vanguard of drone warfare. [...] The drones deployed in the recent Ukrainian attack used technology developed by local company Swarmer. Its software allows groups of drones to decide which one strikes first and adapt if, for instance, one runs out of battery, said Chief Executive Serhii Kupriienko. "You set the target and the drones do the rest," Kupriienko said. "They work together, they adapt." Swarmer's technology was first deployed by Ukrainian forces to lay mines around a year ago. It has since been used to target Russian soldiers, equipment and infrastructure, according to the Ukrainian military officer. The officer said his drone unit had used Swarmer's technology more than a hundred times, and that other units also have UAVs equipped with the software. He typically uses the technology with three drones, but says others have deployed it with as many as eight. Kupriienko said the software has been tested with up to 25 drones. A common operation uses a reconnaissance drone and two other UAVs carrying small bombs to target a Russian trench, the officer said. An operator gives the drones a target zone to look for an enemy position and the command to engage when it is spotted. The reconnaissance drone maps the route for the bombers to follow and the drones themselves then decide when, and which one, will release the bombs over the target.

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A group of more than 85 scientists have issued a joint rebuttal to a recent U.S. Department of Energy report about climate change, finding it full of errors and misrepresenting climate science. NPR: The group of climate scientists found several examples where the DOE authors cherry-picked or misrepresented climate science in the agency's report. For instance, in the DOE report the authors claim that rising carbon dioxide can be a "net benefit" to U.S. agriculture, neglecting to mention the negative impacts of more heat and climate-change fueled extreme weather events on crops. The DOE report also states that there is no evidence of more intense "meteorological" drought in the U.S. or globally, referring to droughts that involve low rainfall. But the dozens of climate scientists point out that this is misleading, because higher temperatures and more evaporation -- not just low rainfall -- can lead to and exacerbate droughts. They say that there are, in fact, many studies showing how climate change has exacerbated droughts.

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Waymo is expanding its U.S. robotaxi footprint by bringing its Jaguar I-Pace SUVs and Zeekr vans to Denver and Seattle. Testing is set to begin this week, with commercial rides expected as early as 2026. TechCrunch reports: The vehicles will be manually driven to start, before the company starts testing its autonomous tech in both cities. Waymo told TechCrunch that it hopes to start offering robotaxi trips in Denver next year and the Seattle metropolitan area "as soon as we're permitted to do so." Denver and Seattle will be two of the most extreme-weather cities that Waymo is feeling out, giving it a chance to test out its tech in snow, wind, and rain that is harder to come by in places like Phoenix. The report notes that Waymo currently operates more than 2,000 robotaxis in the U.S., concentrated in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta. The self-driving car company is expanding to Dallas, Miami, Washington D.C., and New York, while also "dipping its toes" in additional markets such as Philadelphia, Las Vegas, and Houston. Further reading: 'Why Do Waymos Keep Loitering in Front of My House?'

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Paramount and Activision are teaming up to produce a live-action Call of Duty movie, with Paramount promising the same blockbuster treatment it gave Top Gun: Maverick. David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Paramount, said in a statement: "As a lifelong fan of Call of Duty this is truly a dream come true. From the first Allied campaigns in the original Call of Duty, through Modern Warfare and Black Ops, I've spent countless hours playing this franchise that I absolutely love. Being entrusted by Activision and players worldwide to bring this extraordinary storytelling universe to the big screen is both an honor and a responsibility that we don't take lightly. We're approaching this film with the same disciplined, uncompromising commitment to excellence that guided our work on Top Gun: Maverick, ensuring it meets the exceptionally high standards this franchise and its fans deserve. I can promise that we are resolute in our mission to deliver a cinematic experience that honors the legacy of this one-in-a-million brand -- thrilling longtime fans of Call of Duty while captivating a whole new generation." Rob Kostich, President of Activision, also commented: "Throughout its history, Call of Duty has captured our imagination with incredible action and intense stories that have brought millions of people together from around the world, and that focus on making incredible Call of Duty games remains unwavering. With Paramount, we have found a fantastic partner who we will work with to take that visceral, breathtaking action to the big screen in a defining cinematic moment. The film will honor and expand upon what has made this franchise great in the first place, and we cannot wait to get started. Our shared goal is quite simple -- to create an unforgettable blockbuster movie experience that our community loves, and one that also excites and inspires new fans of the franchise."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Ten vulnerabilities in Copeland controllers, which are found in thousands of devices used by the world's largest supermarket chains and cold storage companies, could have allowed miscreants to manipulate temperatures and spoil food and medicine, leading to massive supply-chain disruptions. The flaws, collectively called Frostbyte10, affect Copeland E2 and E3 controllers, used to manage critical building and refrigeration systems, such as compressor groups, condensers, walk-in units, HVAC, and lighting systems. Three received critical-severity ratings. Operational technology security firm Armis found and reported the 10 bugs to Copeland, which has since issued firmware updates that fix the flaws in both the E3 and the E2 controllers. The E2s reached their official end-of-life in October, and affected customers are encouraged to move to the newer E3 platform. Upgrading to Copeland firmware version 2.31F01 mitigates all the security issues detailed here, and the vendor recommends patching promptly. In addition to the Copeland updates, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is also scheduled to release advisories today, urging any organization that uses vulnerable controllers to patch immediately. Prior to these publications, Copeland and Armis execs spoke exclusively to The Register about Frostbyte10, and allowed us to preview an Armis report about the security issues. "When combined and exploited, these vulnerabilities can result in unauthenticated remote code execution with root privileges," it noted. [...] To be clear: there is no indication that any of these vulnerabilities were found and exploited in the wild before Copeland issued fixes. However, the manufacturer's ubiquitous reach across retail and cold storage makes it a prime target for all manner of miscreants, from nation-state attackers looking to disrupt the food supply chain to ransomware gangs looking for victims who will quickly pay extortion demands to avoid operational downtime and food spoilage.

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Chrome has extended its dominance in the browser wars, surpassing 70% market share on desktops while Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Opera trail far behind. Neowin reports: According to [Statcounter], in August 2025, Chrome kept on increasing its overwhelming market share, which is now above the 70% mark (70.25%, to be precise) in the desktop browser market. The gap between Chrome and its closest competitor, Microsoft Edge, is immense, with Edge holding just 11.8% (+0.01 points over the previous month). Apple's Safari is third with 6.34% (+1.04 points); Firefox has 4.94% (-0.36 points); and Opera is fifth with a modest 2.06% market share (-0.13 points). Things look similar on the mobile side of the market, with Google Chrome having 69.15% (+1.92 points) and Safari being second with 20.32% (-2.2 points). Samsung Internet is third with 3.33% (-0.17 points). As for Microsoft Edge, its mobile share is only 0.59% (+0.06 points). The findings can be found here.

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SAP will invest over 20 billion euros ($23 billion) in European sovereign cloud infrastructure over the next decade. "Innovation and sovereignty cannot be two separate things -- it needs to come together," said Thomas Saueressig, SAP's board member tasked with leading customer services and delivery. CNBC reports: The company said it was expanding its sovereign cloud offerings to include an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform enabling companies to access various computing services via its data center network. IaaS is a market dominated by players like Microsoft and Amazon. It will also roll out a new on-site option that allows customers to use SAP-operated infrastructure within their own data centers. The aim of the initiative is to ensure that customer data is stored within the European Union to maintain compliance with regional data protection regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. [...] Saueressig said that SAP is "closely" involved in the creation of the new AI gigafactories but would not be the lead partner for the initiative. He added that the company's more than 20-billion-euro investment in Europe's sovereign cloud capabilities will not alter the company's capital expenditure for the next year and has already been baked into its financial plans.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI said on Tuesday it will acquire Statsig in an all-stock deal valuing the product testing startup at about $1.1 billion based on OpenAI's current valuation of $300 billion. The ChatGPT maker will also appoint Statsig's chief executive officer, Vijaye Raji, as OpenAI's tech chief of applications, in a push to build on its artificial intelligence products amid strong competition from rivals. [...] In his role, Vijaye will head product engineering for ChatGPT and the company's coding agent, Codex, with responsibilities that span core systems and product lines including infrastructure, the company said. Statsig builds tools to help software developers test and flag new features. It raised $100 million in funding earlier this year. Once the acquisition is finalized, Statsig employees will work for OpenAI but will continue operating independently out of its Seattle office, OpenAI said. The move follows the acquisition of iPhone designer Jony Ive's startup, io Products, in a $6.5 billion deal to usher in "a new family of products" for the age of artificial general intelligence.

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A federal judge spared Google from the harshest penalties in its antitrust case. The search giant can keep Chrome and avoid breaking up Android, but it has been barred from exclusive contracts and ordered to limit data sharing with rivals. CNBC reports: U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the U.S. Department of Justice, including selling off its Chrome browser, which provides data that helps its advertising business deliver targeted ads. "Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment," the decision stated. "Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints." The company can make payments to preload products, but it cannot have exclusive contracts, the decision stated. The DOJ asked Google to stop the practice of "compelled syndication," which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones. [...] The judge ordered the parties to meet by September 10th for the final judgement. "Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products. Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial -- in some cases, crippling -- downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban." [...] Google said it will appeal the ruling, which would delay any potential penalties. Mehta ruled Tuesday that Google will have to make available certain search index data and user interaction data though "not ads data." The court narrowed the datasets Google will be required to share and said they must occur on "ordinary commercial terms that are consistent with Google's current syndication services."

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An old school ransomware attack has a new twist: threatening to feed data to AI companies so it'll be added to LLM datasets. 404 Media reports: Artists&Clients is a website that connects independent artists with interested clients. Around August 30, a message appeared on Artists&Clients attributed to the ransomware group LunaLock. "We have breached the website Artists&Clients to steal and encrypt all its data," the message on the site said, according to screenshots taken before the site went down on Tuesday. "If you are a user of this website, you are urged to contact the owners and insist that they pay our ransom. If this ransom is not paid, we will release all data publicly on this Tor site, including source code and personal data of users. Additionally, we will submit all artwork to AI companies to be added to training datasets." LunaLock promised to delete the stolen data and allow users to decrypt their files if the site's owner paid a $50,000 ransom. "Payment is accepted in either Bitcoin or Monero," the notice put on the site by the hackers said. The ransom note included a countdown timer that gave the site's owners several days to cough up the cash. "If you do not pay, all files will be leaked, including personal user data. This may cause you to be subject to fines and penalties under the GDPR and other laws."

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An anonymous reader shares a report: It's broadly understood that electric vehicles are more environmentally friendly than their counterparts that burn only gasoline. And yes -- that includes the impact of manufacturing batteries and generating power to charge them. But even then, such generalizations gloss over specifics, like which EVs are especially eco-friendly, not to mention where. The efficiency of an electric car varies greatly depending on ambient temperature, which is less compromising for gas-burning vehicles. We now have the data and math to answer these questions, courtesy of the University of Michigan. Last week, researchers there released a study along with a calculator that allows users to compare the lifetime difference in greenhouse gas emissions of various vehicle types and powertrains from "cradle to grave," as they say. That includes vehicle production and disposal, as well as use-phase emissions from "driving and upstream fuel production and/or electricity generation," per the university itself. What's more, these calculations can be skewed by where you live. So, if I punch in my location of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, I can see that my generic, pure-ICE "compact sedan" emits 309 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (gCO2e) per mile. A compact hybrid would emit 20% less; a plug-in hybrid, 44% less; and an EV with a 200-mile range, a whopping 63% less. And, if I moved to Phoenix, the gains would be even larger by switching to pure electric, to the tune of a 79% reduced carbon impact.

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UK weather agency Met Office, in a blog post: Provisional Met Office statistics confirm that summer 2025 is officially the warmest summer on record for the UK. Analysis by Met Office climate scientists has also shown that a summer as hot or hotter than 2025 is now 70 times more likely than it would be in a 'natural' climate with no human caused greenhouse gas emissions. The UK's mean temperature from 1 June to 31 August stands at 16.10C, which is 1.51C above the long-term meteorological average. This surpasses the previous record of 15.76C, set in 2018, and pushes the summer of 1976 out of the top five warmest summers in a series dating back to 1884.

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Taylor Otwell, inventor and maintainer of popular PHP framework Laravel, is warning against overly complex code and the risks of bypassing the framework. From a report: Developers are sometimes drawn to building "cathedrals of complexity that aren't so easy to change," he said, speaking in a podcast for maintainable.fm, a series produced by Ruby on Rails consultancy Planet Argon. Software, he said, should be "simple and disposable and easy to change." Some problems are genuinely complex, but in general, if a developer finds a "clever solution" which goes beyond the standard documented way in a framework such as Laravel or Ruby on Rails, "that would be like a smell." A code smell -- for the uninitiated in the The Reg readership -- is a term developers use for code that works but may cause problems at a later date. Otwell described himself as a "pretty average programmer" but reckons many others are the same, solving basic problems as quickly and efficiently as they can.

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