Month: June 2023

Enlarge (credit: Tim Goode/PA Images via Getty Images)

It took less than 11 hours for Reddit to feel the impact of widespread protests of its API fees. Over 7,000 subreddits became private in order to "go dark" and resist Reddit's controversial API pricing hike, which caused some instability for the site, and it was down from about 10:25 am ET to 1:26 pm today.

Amid the outage, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told The Verge:

A significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues, and we’ve been working on resolving the anticipated issue.

As of this writing, 7,856 subreddits have joined the protest, according to a counter on Twitch, and 8,191 have said they will do so. Some of the subreddits going dark have tens of millions of subscribers. But with the outage, the protests have already affected users who don't use a protesting subreddit.

Enlarge / This artist's impression of an asteroid fireball hurtling toward earth is not AI-generated and, thus, not banned from Nature. (credit: Romolo Tavani / Getty Images)

On Wednesday, renowned scientific journal Nature announced in an editorial that it will not publish images or video created using generative AI tools. The ban comes amid the publication's concerns over research integrity, consent, privacy, and intellectual property protection as generative AI tools increasingly permeate the world of science and art.

Founded in November 1869, Nature publishes peer-reviewed research from various academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It is one of the world's most cited and most influential scientific journals.

Nature says its recent decision on AI artwork followed months of intense discussions and consultations prompted by the rising popularity and advancing capabilities of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney.

Enlarge (credit: Western Digital)

The practice's revelation is the last straw for some users. Western Digital already had a steep climb to win back NAS customers' trust after shipping NAS drives with SMR (shingled magnetic recording) instead of CMR (conventional magnetic recording). Now, some are saying they won't use or recommend the company's hard drives anymore.

“Warning,” your NAS drive’s been on for 3 years

As users have reported online, including on Synology-focused and Synology's own forums, as well as on Reddit and YouTube, Western Digital drives using Western Device Digital Analytics (WDDA) are getting a "warning" stamp in Synology DSM once their power-on hours count hits the three-year mark. WDDA is similar to SMART monitoring and rival offerings, like Seagate's IronWolf, and is supposed to provide analytics and actionable items.

The recommended action says: "The drive has accumulated a large number of power on hours [throughout] the entire life of the drive. Please consider to replace the drive soon." There seem to be no discernible problems with the hard drives otherwise.