RTFKT, the NFT project most known for its attempt at making "digital shoes" a thing, is shutting down, according to a statement on Monday. From a report: The project, acquired by athletic wear juggernaut Nike in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, plans to fully unwind by the end of January, though its Ethereum-based tokens will remain accessible.

Launched in 2020 amid the beginnings of the mania around NFTs and the metaverse, RTFKT quickly garnered a reputation as a fast-moving startup. It spun up "drops" with brands, including Nike, and collaborated with the likes of sneaker designer Jeff Staple and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Companies have been discussing migrating off of VMware since Broadcom's takeover a year ago led to higher costs and other controversial changes. Now we have an inside look at one of the larger customers that recently made the move.

According to a report from The Register today, Beeks Group, a cloud operator headquartered in the United Kingdom, has moved most of its 20,000-plus virtual machines (VMs) off VMware and to OpenNebula, an open source cloud and edge computing platform. Beeks Group sells virtual private servers and bare metal servers to financial service providers. It still has some VMware VMs, but "the majority" of its machines are currently on OpenNebula, The Register reported.

Beeks' head of production management, Matthew Cretney, said that one of the reasons for Beeks migration was a VMware bill for "10 times the sum it previously paid for software licenses," per The Register. According to Beeks, OpenNebula has enabled the company to dedicate more of its 3,000 bare metal server fleet to client loads instead of to VM management, as it had to with VMware. With OpenNebula purportedly requiring less management overhead, Beeks is reporting a 200 percent increase in VM efficiency since it now has more VMs on each server.

U.S. movie theaters are struggling to attract casual moviegoers, who once made up a significant portion of box office revenues, as shorter theatrical runs and changing consumer habits reshape the industry. The domestic box office, which regularly exceeded $10 billion in annual ticket sales before COVID-19, is expected to reach only $8.5 billion this year.

Films now average 32 days in theaters compared to 80 days pre-pandemic, limiting opportunities for audiences to discover movies spontaneously. Midtier films generating $50-100 million at the box office have become scarcer, particularly in genres like drama and romantic comedy. Theater chains are responding with enhanced experiences and loyalty programs to draw audiences back.

"It's fair to say there is a missing billion dollars that, if we had the right movies, people would be going to see them," said Bruce Nash, founder of movie business site the Numbers, told LA Times. Frequent moviegoers comprise only 12-15% of box office revenue, according to Patrick Corcoran of theater consulting firm Fithian Group.

Getty Images CEO has criticized AI companies' stance on copyright, particularly pushing back against claims that all web content is fair use for AI training. The statement comes amid Getty's ongoing litigation against Stability AI for allegedly using millions of Getty-owned images without permission to train its Stable Diffusion model, launched in August 2022.

Acknowledging AI's potential benefits in areas like healthcare and climate change, Getty's chief executive argued against the industry's "all-or-nothing" approach to copyright. He specifically challenged Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's assertion that web content has been "freeware" since the 1990s. The Getty chief advocated for applying fair use principles case-by-case, distinguishing between AI models for scientific advancement and commercial content generation. He also drew parallels to music streaming's evolution from Napster to licensed platforms like Spotify, suggesting AI companies could develop similar permission-based models.

He adds: As litigation slowly advances, AI companies advance an argument that there will be no AI absent the ability to freely scrape content for training, resulting in our inability to leverage the promise of AI to solve cancer, mitigate global climate change, and eradicate global hunger. Note that the companies investing in and building AI spend billions of dollars on talent, GPUs, and the required power to train and run these models -- but remarkably claim compensation for content owners is an unsurmountable challenge.

My focus is to achieve a world where creativity is celebrated and rewarded AND a world that is without cancer, climate change, and global hunger. I want the cake and to eat it. I suspect most of us want the same.

A new lawsuit filed by a current Apple employee accuses the company of spying on its workers via their personal iCloud accounts and non-work devices. From a report: The suit, filed Sunday evening in California state court, alleges Apple employees are required to give up the right to personal privacy, and that the company says it can "engage in physical, video and electronic surveillance of them" even when they are at home and after they stop working for Apple.

Those requirements are part of a long list of Apple employment policies that the suit contends violate California law. The plaintiff in the case, Amar Bhakta, has worked in advertising technology for Apple since 2020. According to the suit, Apple used its privacy policies to harm his employment prospects. For instance, it forbade Bhakta from participating in public speaking about digital advertising and forced him to remove information from his LinkedIn page about his job at Apple.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has stepped down amid the company's continued struggles against rivals, with shares losing over half their value this year. The chipmaker announced Monday that Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner and Executive Vice President Michelle Johnston Holthaus will serve as interim co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

Gelsinger, 63, was hired in 2021 to lead an ambitious turnaround aimed at reclaiming Intel's technological edge from competitors like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. His strategy included expanding Intel's factory network with new facilities in Ohio and transforming the company into a contract manufacturer for other firms. The plan faced significant headwinds as Nvidia dominated the AI chip market, with cloud computing companies increasingly favoring Nvidia's processors for AI development over Intel's Gaudi line.

Intel's challenges culminated in an August earnings report showing a surprise loss, leading to dividend suspension and plans to cut over 15% of its 110,000-person workforce. Board Chairman Frank Yeary, now serving as interim executive chair, emphasized the need to prioritize Intel's product group to meet customer demands. The leadership change also impacts the Biden administration's semiconductor industry initiatives, as Intel was set to receive the largest grant under the $39 billion Chips Act program.

Multiple news outlets including Bloomberg and Reuters report that Gelsinger was forced out by the board because "directors felt Gelsinger's costly and ambitious plan to turn Intel around was not working and the progress of change was not fast enough."

America's FBI "has been investigating a longtime Exxon Mobil consultant," reports Reuters, "over the contractor's alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of the oil company's biggest critics, according to three people familiar with the matter." The operation involved mercenary hackers who successfully breached the email accounts of environmental activists and others, the sources told Reuters. The scheme allegedly began in late 2015, when U.S. authorities contend that the names of the hacking targets were compiled by the DCI Group, a public affairs and lobbying company working for Exxon at the time, one of the sources said. DCI provided the names to an Israeli private detective, who then outsourced the hacking, according to the source.

In an effort to push a narrative that Exxon was the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying its business, some of the stolen material was subsequently leaked to the media by DCI, Reuters determined. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that DCI shared the information with Exxon before leaking it, the source said. Some environmental activists interviewed by Reuters say the hacking operation disrupted preparations for lawsuits by cities and state attorneys general against Exxon and other energy companies... The stolen material continues to be used today to counter litigation claiming the oil giant misled the public and its investors about the risks of climate change...

The investigation into the hack-and-leak operation comes amid growing concern among law enforcement agencies worldwide about how such cyberespionage schemes threaten to taint judicial proceedings. The FBI has been investigating the broader use of mercenary hackers to tamper with lawsuits since early 2018, Reuters has previously reported. The Israeli private detective hired by DCI, Amit Forlit, was arrested this year at London's Heathrow Airport and is fighting extradition to the United States on charges of hacking and wire fraud... Federal prosecutors have secured a related conviction: that of Forlit's former business associate, private investigator Aviram Azari. Azari pleaded guilty in 2022 to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit hacking and aggravated identity theft, which included targeting the environmental activists.

Nonprofit Code.org has posted this year's cartoon for "Hour of Code," their annual learn-to-code event for schoolchildren.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes its animated pigeon gives a shout-out to the AI that could ultimately replace programmers: In an Instagram post introducing the video, Code.org explains: "Bartlett the Pigeon just learned how to code and now thinks he's smarter than us. Honestly...he might be. Meet the face (and feathers) of this year's #HourOfCode." In the video, Bartlett wows a social media influencer with his coding skills. "Is this pigeon typing code?" she asks in disbelief. "I'm going to film this for my socials!" Bartlett goes on to explain that the song he remixes with coding blocks — Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar" — could have instead been generated by simply using AI, which he says is "like having a personal DJ assistant who never misses a beat!"

Interestingly, Blacc noted in a 2011 interview that he wrote "I Need a Dollar" after being made redundant in his career as a business consultant by Ernst & Young. That multinational company is now advising global business leaders on how they can harness the power of GenAI "to achieve more with fewer resources" by disrupting professions — like programming — that "involve a high degree of repetitive and data-driven tasks that AI can automate."

The New York Post writes that "After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good, it is important — now more than ever — to shop local."

America's Small Business Administration issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to a site mapping small businesses in your area. (And there's also a directory listing online small businesses.) Small Business Saturday was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011. It is an important part of small businesses' busiest shopping season.

- In 2023, the reported projected spending in the U.S. from those who shopped at small businesses on Small Business Saturday was around $17 billion

- Since 2010, the total reported U.S. spending at small businesses during the annual Small Business Saturday is an estimated $201 billion
"Let's keep the Shop Small tradition going," urges the American Express web site — encouraging shoppers to also use the #ShopSmall hashtag on social media.

Transport for London (TfL) has dropped its investigation into how it could introduce driverless trains on the London Underground. From a report: One of the many conditions imposed on TfL during the pandemic to keep services running when most of us were stuck at home was that it would investigate how it could introduce driverless trains on the Underground. TfL was required to produce a business case for converting the Waterloo & City line and Piccadilly line to a DLR-style operation, and in September 2021, it advertised for consultancy work on the project.

It's now been confirmed that the study reached the same conclusion that every other study into the issue has already reported -- it'll cost an awful lot of money for very little benefit. Despite the claims that it would prevent strikes on the tube, the reality is that it wouldn't, as driverless trains would still have staff on board, just as the DLR does, and the DLR still has strikes.

Performance improvement plans, a controversial corporate tool for managing underperforming employees, are becoming increasingly prevalent in U.S. workplaces. HR Acuity data shows workers subject to performance actions rose from 33.4 per 1,000 in 2020 to 43.6 per 1,000 in 2023.

While companies maintain PIPs offer a path to improvement, WSJ -- citing HR executives and former employees -- describes them as primarily providing legal protection against wrongful termination lawsuits and an alternative to formal layoffs. Only 10-25% of employees survive the 30-90 day improvement plans, with most either being terminated or leaving voluntarily.

A broad coalition of Canada's major news organizations, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, is suing tech giant OpenAI, saying the company is illegally using news articles to train its ChatGPT software. From a report: It's the first time all of a country's major news publishers have come together in litigation against OpenAI. The suit, filed in Ontario's Superior Court of Justice Friday morning, seeks punitive damages, disgorgement of any profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations' articles, and an injunction barring OpenAI from using any of the news articles in the future.

"Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's illegal," said a joint statement from the media organizations, which are represented by law firm Lenczner Slaght.

Panasonic has created an AI clone of its late founder Konosuke Matsushita based on his writings, speeches, and over 3,000 voice recordings. From a local media report: Known as Japan's "god of management," the Panasonic icon is one of the most respected by the Japanese business community, and comes back to life in digital form to impart wisdom directly to those he never met in person.

"As the number of people who received training directly from Matsushita has been on the decline, we decided to use generative AI technology to pass down our group's founding vision to the next generation," the company said in a statement. Codeveloped with the University of Tokyo-affiliated Matsuo Institute, the model can reproduce how a person thinks or talks. The company aims to further develop the digital clone to help make business decisions in the future.

Intel must maintain majority control of its foundries as a condition of receiving $7.86 billion in U.S. CHIPS Act funding, according to terms disclosed in a regulatory filing [PDF]. The semiconductor giant will need to keep at least 50.1% ownership if the foundry unit is spun off privately, while no single shareholder can hold more than 35% of shares if it goes public unless Intel remains the largest stakeholder. The restrictions, which also require Intel to remain a customer, come as the company struggles financially and recently restructured its foundry business as an independent unit.

Alphabet's Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal to sell the business, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the world's biggest tech companies. From a report: The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to require measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system, according to people familiar with the plans.

The ongoing cybersecurity incident affecting a North West England NHS group has forced sites to fall back on pen-and-paper operations. From a report: The Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust updated its official line on the incident on Wednesday evening, revealing new details about the case, but remains coy about the true nature of the attack.

"After detecting suspicious activity, as a precaution, we isolated our systems to ensure that the problem did not spread. This resulted in some IT systems being offline," the updated statement said.

"We have reverted to our business continuity processes and are using paper rather than digital in the areas affected. We are working closely with the national cybersecurity services and we are planning to return to normal services at the earliest opportunity."

Record numbers of plastic industry lobbyists are attending global talks that are the last chance to hammer out a treaty to cut plastic pollution around the world. From a report: The key issue at the conference will be whether caps on global plastic production will be included in the final UN treaty. Lobbyists and leading national producers are furiously arguing against any attempt to restrain the amount that can be produced, leaving the talks on a knife-edge.

New analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) shows 220 fossil fuel and chemical industry representatives -- more plastic producers than ever -- are represented at the UN talks in Busan, South Korea. Taken as a group, they would be the biggest delegation at the talks, with more plastic industry lobbyists than representatives from the EU and each of its member states, (191) or the host country, South Korea (140), according to the Centre for International Environmental Law. Their numbers overwhelm the 89 delegates from the Pacific small island developing states (PSIDs), countries that are among those suffering the most from plastic pollution.

Sixteen lobbyists from the plastics industry are at the talks as part of country delegations. China, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Finland, Iran, Kazakhstan and Malaysia all have industry vested interests within their delegations, the analysis shows. The plastic producer representatives outnumber delegates from the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty by three to one. Approximately 460m tonnes of plastics are produced annually, and production is set to triple by 2060 under business-as-usual growth rates.

The FTC has opened a broad antitrust investigation into Microsoft, including of its software licensing and cloud computing business. Bloomberg first reported the news. Reuters reports: The probe was approved by FTC Chair Lina Khan ahead of her likely departure in January. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the expectation he will appoint a fellow Republican with a softer approach toward business, leaves the outcome of the investigation up in the air.

The FTC is examining allegations that the software giant is potentially abusing its market power in productivity software by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its Azure cloud service to other competitive platforms, sources confirmed earlier this month. The FTC is also looking at practices related to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence products, the source said on Wednesday.

PetaPixel: Leica Camera announced that its 2023/2024 fiscal year saw it achieve the highest revenue in the entire history of the company. It saw 14% growth to 554 million euros ($586.3 million) over last year's already spectacular 485 million euros.

Last winter, Leica announced that it had set a sales record for the 2022/23 financial year and it has shattered that achievement now in 2024. The company says it was able to build on its successful business and sustain the growth of its earnings. The biggest driver of the company's success remains unchanged: cameras. While Leica has bolstered its business with its Mobile Imaging segment (smartphone technology and partnerships), the core of its business remains stand-alone cameras and the support of photography.

Specifically, Leica says that the most potent revenue driver this year was the Leica Q3. However, it did not elaborate on sales numbers for this camera. 2024 is the best fiscal year so far in the almost 100-year history of the company and Leica says that this result confirms its "strategic alignment" of the Leica Camera Group as it continues to foster its core business as well as expansions into other markets.

Chinese companies are aggressively recruiting foreign tech talent as a key strategy to gain technological supremacy, prompting national security concerns across Western nations and Asia, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing multiple intelligence officials and corporate sources. The campaign focuses particularly on advanced semiconductor expertise, with companies like Huawei offering triple salaries to employees at critical firms like Zeiss SMT and ASML, which produce essential components for cutting-edge chip manufacturing.

These recruitment efforts intensified after Western export controls restricted China's access to advanced technology. While Taiwan and South Korea have implemented strict countermeasures, including criminal penalties for illegal talent transfers, the U.S. and Europe struggle to balance open labor markets with national security concerns.

Chinese firms often obscure their origins through local ventures and persistent recruitment tactics. The strategy has shown results: Former employees have helped Chinese companies advance their technological capabilities, including SMIC's development of 7nm chips with help from ex-TSMC talent.