The temperatures in Svalbard during the Arctic winter have reached record highs, which is not a good sign. CC-licensed photo by zen whisk on Flickr.

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A selection of 9 links for you. Melting point. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.

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Hertz’ AI system that scans for “damage” on rental cars is turning into an epic disaster • Futurism

Noor Al-Sibai:

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As our sister site The Drive reported last month, customers soon started complaining that Hertz was charging them hundreds of dollars for minor cosmetic scuffs that would have been shrugged off by a human employee, or in some cases for phantom damage when none was visible at all.

As much as Hertz wants the storm to pass, anecdotal reports make it sound like the system is still a disaster — and one that’s alienating customers even as other rental providers eye similarly divisive tech.

In a post on the r/HertzRentals subreddit, one user insisted they were “done” with the agency after UVeye flagged nonexistent dings when they returned their rental.

After renting a car for a week from a Hertz location at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the user said that they were alerted that UVeye had flagged some apparent damage on the vehicle. When they checked the car, however, there was nothing visible.

Perturbed by the apparent mistake, the user tried to speak to employees and managers at the Hertz counter, but none were able to help, and all “pointed fingers at the ‘AI scanner.'” They were told to contact customer support  — but even that proved futile after representatives claimed they “can’t do anything.”

“Did the AI scanner [misinterpret] water reflections or dirt on the black car as damage?” they pondered. “There’s no way to even present that possibility, no path to defend yourself. It’s an unchallengeable, automated accusation.”

According to a recent New York Post article, Hertz’ UVeye scanners only appear to be deployed at the company’s airport locations for now. Still, recent reporting from our sister publication The Drive indicates that other rental companies are investing in similar damage-detection AI software.

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Who could possibly have predicted this? Who?
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Web Guide: an experimental AI-organized search results page • Google Blog

Austin Wu, group product manager for Search:

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We’re launching Web Guide, a Search Labs experiment that uses AI to intelligently organize the search results page, making it easier to find information and web pages.

Web Guide groups web links in helpful ways — like pages related to specific aspects of your query. Under the hood, Web Guide uses a custom version of Gemini to better understand both a search query and content on the web, creating more powerful search capabilities that better surface web pages you may not have previously discovered. Similar to AI Mode, Web Guide uses a query fan-out technique, concurrently issuing multiple related searches to identify the most relevant results.

For example, try it for open-ended searches like “how to solo travel in Japan.” Or try detailed queries in multiple sentences like, “My family is spread across multiple time zones. What are the best tools for staying connected and maintaining close relationships despite the distance?”

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I thought Google already had a system for ranking search results. Had it for the past 30-odd years, in fact.
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Google Chrome adds AI-powered store summaries to help US shoppers • TechCrunch

Sarah Perez:

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Google on Monday announced an update to its Chrome web browser that will introduce AI-generated store reviews to U.S. shoppers with the aim of helping to determine the best places to make a purchase. The feature, which will be available by clicking an icon just to the left of the web address in the browser, will display a pop-up that informs consumers about the store’s reputation for things like product quality, shopping, pricing, customer service, and returns.

The feature, which is currently available only in English, will generate the summaries based on reviews from partners, including Bazaarvoice, Bizrate Insights, Reputation.com, Reseller Ratings, ScamAdviser, Trustpilot, TurnTo, Yotpo, Verified Reviews, and others.

The feature will initially be available to Chrome on the desktop. When reached for comment, Google could not confirm if or when AI summaries would come to mobile devices.

Google says the goal with the summaries is to provide a safer and more efficient shopping experience. However, the feature also helps Google better compete with other AI features rolled out by retail giant Amazon, which has been using the new technology to summarize product ratings and reviews, help customers find clothes that fit, get product recommendations and comparisons, and more.

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I don’t find the Amazon summaries helpful; “customers say…” is not useful in a world where so many of the reviews are fake (or, these days, AI-written). Of course this is an “everyone else is doing it, we must too” thing. How is Google going to test whether people like these? Will it A/B test them? What form will that take?
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Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined • AP News

Mead Gruver and Matt O’Brien:

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An artificial intelligence data center that would use more electricity than every home in Wyoming combined before expanding to as much as five times that size will be built soon near Cheyenne, according to the city’s mayor.

“It’s a game changer. It’s huge,” Mayor Patrick Collins said Monday.

With cool weather — good for keeping computer temperatures down — and an abundance of inexpensive electricity from a top energy-producing state, Wyoming’s capital has become a hub of computing power.

The city has been home to Microsoft data centers since 2012. An $800 million data center announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms is nearing completion, Collins said.

The latest data center, a joint effort between regional energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would begin at 1.8 gigawatts of electricity and be scalable to 10 gigawatts, according to a joint company statement.

A gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes. But that’s more homes than Wyoming has people. The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 590,000 people.

…A top producer of coal, oil and gas, Wyoming ranks behind only Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania as a top net energy-producing state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Accounting for fossil fuels, Wyoming produces about 12 times more energy than it consumes. The state exports almost three-fifths of the electricity it produces, according to the EIA.

But this proposed data center is so big, it would have its own dedicated energy from gas generation and renewable sources, according to Collins and company officials.

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Not so long ago it was bitcoin that was going to burn up all the energy. Now it’s got some stiff competition.
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What to expect from the next Apple TV • MacRumors

Juli Clover:

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• New A-Series Chip – The next-generation Apple TV is expected to get an updated A-series chip. The Apple TV could get the prior-generation A17 Pro, the current A18 series chips, or the A19 chips that are coming with the iPhone 17 lineup. With any of these chips, the Apple TV will support console-quality games thanks to much improved CPU and GPU performance.

• Apple-designed Wi-Fi Chip – Apple is developing its own communications chip that combines Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, reducing its reliance on Broadcom. Apple’s chip is expected to feature either Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 connectivity, so either way it will work on the 6GHz Wi-Fi band. Users can expect faster Wi-Fi speeds and lower latency.

• A Camera? – This is far from guaranteed and we haven’t heard anything about it for quite some time, but there have been rumors suggesting that a future version of the Apple TV could have a front-facing camera for FaceTime. Right now, the Apple TV requires a connected iPhone for FaceTime calls, but if a built-in camera is added, an iPhone wouldn’t be needed. A camera could also add support for gesture-based controls.

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“Gesture-based controls”. Why do people keep trying to make these happen? They have been tried and knocked back again and again because they are a usability nightmare. How does the machine disambiguate you waving your hands around from intentional gestures? If the gestures are complicated enough that they won’t be confused with ordinary hand movements, they’re hard to learn.

I’ve seen programmers show off their gesture-based systems. They gave them up after a few weeks. And remember Microsoft’s Kinect. I tried that, as did zillions of gamers. It sold really well. Then people stopped using it.

All of which is to say: if there’s a camera on the next Apple TV (I don’t think there will be), it won’t be for gesture control. Expected by the end of the year, according to the rumours.
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Two bacteria identified as possible causes of multiple sclerosis • Earth.com

Jordan Joseph:

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For decades scientists have combed the gut looking for bacteria in the microbiome that push the immune system toward multiple sclerosis (MS). New evidence from a rare twin study now points a clear finger at two species of bacteria that hide in the small intestine.

The study, which compared 81 pairs of genetically identical siblings, singled out Eisenbergiella tayi and Lachnoclostridium as the most likely triggers of the nerve‑damaging disorder.

Dr. Anna Peters of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich steered the international team that linked these bacteria to disease in both people and mice.

Identical twins share nearly every gene, so differences in health are often related to outside factors. By focusing on twins where only one sibling had MS, the researchers stripped away much genetic noise.

Detailed DNA tracking of gut samples revealed 51 microbial candidates whose numbers diverged between affected and unaffected siblings.

Two species of bacteria kept resurfacing with the highest odds ratios, putting them at the top of the watch list.

Those samples came from the ileum, the last stretch of small intestine that hosts a busy immune garrison. The choice mattered because pro‑inflammatory T cells gather here before they head for the brain and spinal cord.

…To test cause rather than correlation, the investigators moved beyond sequencing. They transplanted ileal microbes from selected twins into germ‑free mice bred to develop MS‑like inflammation.

In animals that received bacteria from the sibling with multiple sclerosis, paralysis appeared within twelve weeks. Mice given microbes from the healthy twin stayed mobile the entire study.

…E. tayi and Lachnoclostridium belong to the Lachnospiraceae family, a large clan of anaerobes that usually help digest fiber. Most relatives are considered harmless and even beneficial.

What sets these two apart is not yet clear, but the German group noted that both can thrive on mucus sugars when dietary fiber is scarce. That ability could thin the intestinal barrier and expose immune sensors to microbial products.

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The study needs replication, of course, but also you can’t just go around zapping guy bacteria at random. Expect many more mice studies.
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Svalbard winter warming is reaching melting point • Nature Communications

James Bradley et al:

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Svalbard is at the front line of the climate crisis, warming at six to seven times the global average rate. Human-caused global warming is particularly amplified in the Arctic, causing the climate in the Arctic to warm more quickly than the rest of the Earth. The winter period is experiencing the highest rates of warming with winter temperatures over Svalbard rising at nearly twice the annual average. Meanwhile, centennial trends for annual precipitation in west Svalbard show increases of 3–4% per decade, of which a greater proportion is falling as rain.

As such, over the past 40 years, rain-on-snow events have significantly increased, and rain is projected to become the dominant form of precipitation in the Arctic by the end of this century.

This year, Arctic winter air temperatures were among the warmest ever recorded. In Ny-Ålesund, the world’s northernmost permanent settlement, situated in north-west Svalbard and approximately 1,200 km from the North Pole, the air temperature average for February 2025 was -3.3°C — considerably higher than the 1961-2001 average for this time of year of -15°C, and reached a maximum of 4.7°C.

Air temperatures higher than 0°C were recorded in Ny-Ålesund on 14 of the 28 days of February 2025. Such sustained warmth, coupled with prolonged rainfall, triggered widespread melting of snow and ice. When winter warming crosses the 0°C threshold, it marks more than just a warm anomaly — it signals a fundamental shift in Arctic winter dynamics.

Episodic thawing events during winter can have significant and lasting environmental consequences, including influencing ice layer formation, triggering microbial activation, altering nutrient discharge, and affecting permafrost thaw and ground ice development. The episodic warming event of February 2025 was not an isolated occurrence: winter warming events in Svalbard have been a recurring phenomenon in recent decades as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change.

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London Administrative Court Daily Cause List • Royal Courts of Justice

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The King (on the application of B and others) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal

FOR JUDGMENT HAND DOWN

This judgment will be handed down by the judge remotely by circulation to the parties’ representatives by email and release to The National Archives. The date and time for hand-down will be deemed to be at 2:30pm 30/07/2025. A copy of the judgment in final form as handed down can be made available after that time, on request by email to the administrativecourtoffice.listoffice@justice.gov.uk

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This is scheduled for today (Wednesday). I don’t know what it pertains to – “on the application of B and others” is an intentional obfuscation – but I’d guess it might have something to do with Apple’s complaint about efforts by the British government to stop it using end-to-end encryption (a complaint in which WhatsApp has joined it).

So anyway, that’s an email worth sending at 2.31pm for any (other) journalists reading this.
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Some Kenyan runners see doping as a path to glory – and to a daily meal • The New York Times

Tariq Panja:

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Thousands of feet above the Great Rift Valley that runs through East Africa, the small city of Iten, Kenya, calls itself the Home of Champions. It has long produced and attracted world-class running talent, its high altitude and red dirt roads a training ground for thousands.

The town also has a far less laudatory reputation. It is a well-documented center of a doping crisis that shows little sign of being tamed.

Runners come here for access to competition, coaching talent and the benefit of training in thin air, all to try to earn riches from running. Many Kenyans who try to join the elite endure cramped and dirty living conditions, little food and separation from their families in service of their ambitions.

In a region where the average annual income is the equivalent of little more than $2,000 and the competition so intense, the potentially life-changing lure of banned substances, referred to locally as “the medicine,” is obvious. A few thousand dollars in prize money or participation in a single overseas race can be the difference between runners and their families eating three meals a day and scratching around for the next bite.

They calculate that doping is worth the risks not only of getting caught, but also of damaging their health and, in some cases, even dying.

…“This economic reality means the high-risk situation is always going to be impossible to completely eradicate,” said Brett Clothier, the head of global track and field’s unit responsible for antidoping efforts.

Many runners and coaches suspect that their rivals dope, and they point to the roster of athletes barred from international competitive racing. Kenya, which has a smaller population than 25 other countries, has the most names on the list.

Some of Kenya’s most prominent runners have been caught doping and barred from competition. The women’s marathon world-record holder, Ruth Chepngetich, who is from the Rift Valley, was suspended this month after testing positive for a prohibited substance.

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There is a big industry – with money taken against future earnings. It’s a big problem for the anti-doping authorities.
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• Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more.

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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified