If Robots Steal So Many Jobs, Why Aren’t They Saving Us Now?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Modern capitalism has never seen anything quite like the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In a matter of months, the deadly contagious bug has spread around the world, hobbling any economy in its path. […] This economic catastrophe is blowing up the myth of the worker robot and AI takeover. We’ve been led to believe…

What Are the Best Free Streaming Services?

An anonymous reader shares some free streaming media options: There’s over 10,000 public domain audiobooks at LibriVox.org, created by volunteers reading public domain works. (If you’ve got time, why not record yourself reading your own favorite public domain poem or novel?) And there’s also a lot of free audiobooks (and ebooks) available through Hoopla, a free “digital media” service that’s partnering…

Magic Leap Wants Workers To Use Its Headsets While They’re Stuck At Home

Mixed reality startup Magic Leap is trying to tempt potential buyers with a package for people stuck working from home. The Verge reports: The “Collaboration Package” is a 45-day trial of four Magic Leap headsets, plus access to Spatial, a virtual collaboration program. It costs $5,000, with the option to extend the license or send the headsets back afterward. Spatial creates…

Canada’s Police Service Admits to Using Facial Recognition — After Previously Denying It

Canada’s federal and national police service the RCMP denied it was using facial recognition technology just a few weeks ago. But now long-time Slashdot reader satanicat quotes the CBC: [L]ast week, as the debate over the ethics of Clearview AI’s facial recognition technology was heating up and following reports the company’s client list had been hacked, the RCMP issued a statement…

Quibi is Giving People a 90-day Free Trial in Hopes They’ll Actually Sign Up

Quibi, a streaming service that has already raised more than $1.6 billion, is finally almost here, and in an effort to entice people who are probably already spending too much on content every month, the short form video streaming service is giving people a 90-day free trial for a limited time. From a report: The company is also planning to pump…

Some Clever Farmers are Harvesting Metals From Plants

The New York Times reports: Some of Earth’s plants have fallen in love with metal. With roots that act practically like magnets, these organisms — about 700 are known — flourish in metal-rich soils that make hundreds of thousands of other plant species flee or die…. The plants not only collect the soil’s minerals into their bodies but seem to hoard…