ICT news

• A Supercomputer In a 19th Century Church Is 'World's Most Beautiful Data Center'

  16-01-2019 01:03 via rss.slashdot.org
  "Motherboard spoke to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center about how it outfitted a deconsecrated 19th century chapel to host the MareNostrum 4 -- the 25th most powerful supercomputer in the world," writes Slashdot reader dmoberhaus. From the report: Heralded as the "most beautiful data center in the world," the MareNostrum supercomputer came online in 2005, but was originally hosted in a different building at the university. Meaning "our sea" in Latin, the original MareNostrum was capable of per
  
  Read more

• California Exceeds 100% of Energy Demand With Renewables Over a Record 30 Days

  16-04-2024 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California's main grid for 30 of the past 38 days. Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson has been tracking California's renewables performance, and he shares his findings on Twitter (X) when the state breaks records. Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for "0.25-6 h per day," and that's an important fact. The
  
  Read more

• T-Mobile Employees Across The Country Receive Cash Offers To Illegally Swap SIMs: Report

  16-04-2024 03:30 via it.slashdot.org
  
  T-Mobile employees from around the country are reportedly receiving text messages offering them cash in exchange for swapping SIMs. SIM swapping is when cybercriminals trick a cellular service provider into switching a victim's service to a SIM card that they control, essentially hijacking the victim's phone number and gaining access to two-factor authentication codes. From the Mobile Report: The texts offer the employee $300 per SIM swap, and asks the worker to contact them on telegram. The tex
  
  Read more

• Meta To Close Threads In Turkey To Comply With Injunction

  16-04-2024 02:50 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta plans to "temporarily" shut down Threads in Turkey from April 29, in response to an interim injunction prohibiting data sharing with Instagram. TechCrunch reports: The Turkish Competition Authority (TCA), known as Rekabet Kurumu, noted on March 18 that its investigations found that Meta was abusing its dominant market position by combining the data of users who create Threads profiles with that of their Instagram account -- without giving users the choice to opt in. [...] In the buildup to
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Adobe Premiere Pro Is Getting Generative AI Video Tools

  16-04-2024 02:10 via slashdot.org
  
  Adobe is using its Firefly machine learning model to bring generative AI video tools to Premiere Pro. "These new Firefly tools -- alongside some proposed third-party integrations with Runway, Pika Labs, and OpenAI's Sora models -- will allow Premiere Pro users to generate video and add or remove objects using text prompts (just like Photoshop's Generative Fill feature) and extend the length of video clips," reports The Verge. From the report: Unlike many of Adobe's previous Firefly-related annou
  
  Read more

• The IRS's New Tax Software: Rave Reviews, But Low Turnout

  16-04-2024 01:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: The Biden administration marked the close of tax season Monday by announcing it had met a modest goal of getting at least 100,000 taxpayers to file through the Internal Revenue Service's new tax software, Direct File -- an alternative to commercial tax preparers. Although the government had billed Direct File as a small-scale pilot, it still represents one of the most significant experiments in tax filing in decades -- a free platform
  
  Read more

• Roku Makes 2FA Mandatory For All After Nearly 600K Accounts Pwned

  16-04-2024 00:50 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Roku has made two-factor authentication (2FA) mandatory for all users following two credential stuffing attacks that compromised approximately 591,000 customer accounts and led to unauthorized purchases in fewer than 400 cases. The Register reports: Credential stuffing and password spraying are both fairly similar types of brute force attacks, but the former uses known pairs of credentials (usernames and passwords). The latter simply spams common passwords at known usernames in the hope one of t
  
  Read more

• Linus Torvalds Injects Tabs To Thwart Kconfig Parsers Not Correctly Handling Them

  16-04-2024 00:10 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Within yesterday's Linux 6.9-rc4 release is an interesting little nugget by Linus Torvalds to battle Kconfig parsers that can't correctly handle tabs but rather just assume spaces for whitespace for this kernel configuration format. Due to a patch having been queued last week to replace a tab with a space character in the kernel tracing Kconfig file, Linus Torvalds decided to take matters into his own hand for Kconfig parsers that can't deal with tabs... Tor
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• A D&D Actual Play Show Is Going To Sell Out Madison Square Garden

  15-04-2024 23:30 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Dropout's Dungeons & Dragons actual play show, Dimension 20, is getting pretty close to selling out a 19,000-seat venue just hours after ticket sales opened to the general public. To the uninitiated, it may seem absurd to go to a massive sports arena and watch people play D&D. As one Redditor commented, "This boggles my mind. When I was playing D&D in the early eighties, I would have never believed that there was a future where peo
  
  Read more

• Crickets From Chirp Systems in Smart Lock Key Leak

  15-04-2024 22:50 via it.slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. government is warning that smart locks securing entry to an estimated 50,000 dwellings nationwide contain hard-coded credentials that can be used to remotely open any of the locks. Krebs on SecurityL: The lock's maker Chirp Systems remains unresponsive, even though it was first notified about the critical weakness in March 2021. Meanwhile, Chirp's parent company, RealPage, Inc., is being sued by multiple U.S. states for allegedly colluding with landlords to illegally raise rents. On Mar
  
  Read more

• Stanford Releases AI Index Report 2024

  15-04-2024 22:10 via slashdot.org
  
  Top takeaways from Stanford's new AI Index Report [PDF]: 1. AI beats humans on some tasks, but not on all. AI has surpassed human performance on several benchmarks, including some in image classification, visual reasoning, and English understanding. Yet it trails behind on more complex tasks like competition-level mathematics, visual commonsense reasoning and planning.2. Industry continues to dominate frontier AI research. In 2023, industry produced 51 notable machine learning models, while acad
  
  Read more

• Ubisoft Revokes Access To Purchased Game, Sparking Digital Ownership Debate

  15-04-2024 21:30 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Ubisoft has come under fire from players who claim the company has revoked access to a game they had previously purchased. Users attempting to launch "The Crew" on Ubisoft Connect are met with a message stating, "You no longer have access to this game. Why not check the Store to pursue your adventures?" The game has also been moved to a separate "inactive games" section in players' libraries.
  While the game can still be launched, it reportedly only plays a limited demo version. Ubisoft has yet t
  
  Read more

• UK Starts Drafting AI Regulations for Most Powerful Models

  15-04-2024 20:50 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The UK is starting to draft regulations to govern AI, focusing on the most powerful language models which underpin OpenAI's ChatGPT, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Policy officials at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are in the early stages of devising legislation to limit potential harms caused by the emerging technology, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing undeveloped proposals. No bil
  
  Read more

• Song Lyrics Have Become Simpler and More Repetitive Over the Last Five Decades

  15-04-2024 20:05 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Abstract of a paper on Nature: Music is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and lyrics play an integral role when we listen to music. The complex relationships between lyrical content, its temporal evolution over the last decades, and genre-specific variations, however, are yet to be fully understood. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of English lyrics of Western, popular music over five decades and five genres, using a wide set of lyrics descriptors, including lyrical complexity, structur
  
  Read more

• Security Engineer Jailed For 3 Years For $12M Crypto Hacks

  15-04-2024 19:25 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Shakeeb Ahmed, a cybersecurity engineer convicted of stealing around $12 million in crypto, was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison. In a press release, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the sentence. Ahmed was accused of hacking into two cryptocurrency exchanges, and stealing around $12 million in crypto, according to prosecutors.
  Adam Schwartz and Bradley Bondi, the lawyers representing Ahmed, did not immediately res
  
  Read more

• Senator Warren Claims TurboTax 'Relentlessly' Upsells Customers in Letter To FTC

  15-04-2024 18:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has written a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, saying that TurboTax "continues to relentlessly upsell" customers while also directing them away from services that would otherwise be free. From a report: As noted in the letter, Warren's staff analyzed TurboTax's services using a sample taxpayer and found that the company attempted to upsell the customer eight times during the tax filing process. Warren writes that in "several cases," these solicitations "app
  
  Read more

• Sony's PS5 Pro is Real and Developers Are Getting Ready For It

  15-04-2024 18:10 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Sony is getting ready to release a more powerful PS5 console, possibly by the end of this year. After reports of leaked PS5 Pro specifications surfaced recently, The Verge has obtained a full list of specs for the upcoming console. From the report: Sources familiar with Sony's plans tell me that developers are already being asked to ensure their games are compatible with this upcoming console, with a focus on improving ray tracing. Codenamed Trinity, the PlayStation 5 Pro model will include a mo
  
  Read more

• iOS App Store's First Game Boy Emulator Taken Down Just Days Later

  15-04-2024 17:37 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the weekend, developer Mattia La Spina launched iGBA as one of the first retro game emulators legitimately available on the iOS App Store following Apple's rules change regarding such emulators earlier this month. As of Monday morning, though, iGBA has been pulled from the App Store following controversy over the unauthorized reuse of source code from a different emulator project.
  iOS 8.1 plugs security hole that made it easy to install emulators
  Shortly
  
  Read more

• Telecom Fights Price Caps as US Spends Billions on Internet Access

  15-04-2024 16:50 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon are quietly trying to weaken a $42.5 billion federal program to improve internet access across the nation, aiming to block strict new rules that would require them to lower their poorest customers' monthly bills in exchange for a share of the federal aid. From a report: In state after state, the telecom firms have blasted the proposed price cuts as illegal -- forcing regulators in California, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and elsewhere to re
  
  Read more

• Apple Loses Mantle as World's Biggest Phone Seller To Samsung as China Sales Drop

  15-04-2024 16:03 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has lost its spot as the world's biggest mobile phone seller after a steep sales drop as South Korean rival Samsung retook the lead in the global market share. From a report: Samsung had been the biggest seller of mobile phones for 12 years until the end of 2023, when sales of Apple's iPhone models overtook it. Global smartphone shipments increased by 8% to 289.4m units during January-March, according to research firm IDC. Samsung won a 20.8% market share, beating Apple's 17.3% share, whic
  
  Read more

• Joint Guidance on Deploying AI Systems Securely

  15-04-2024 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, the National Security Agency’s Artificial Intelligence Security Center (NSA AISC) published the joint Cybersecurity Information Sheet Deploying AI Systems Securely in collaboration with CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD ACSC), the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ), and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Cent
  
  Read more

• Emissions Dropped 1.8% Every Year in California's Bay Area. Researchers Credit EVs

  15-04-2024 13:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Los Angeles Times:
  A network of air monitors installed in Northern California has provided scientists with some of the first measurable evidence quantifying how much electric vehicles are shrinking the carbon footprint of a large urban area. Researchers from UC Berkeley set up dozens of sensors across the Bay Area to monitor planet-warming carbon dioxide, the super-abundant greenhouse gas produced when fossil fuels are burned. Between 2018 and 2022
  
  Read more

• Disneyland Adds 'Stars Wars' Touches (and New Droids) for 'Season of the Force' Event

  15-04-2024 09:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  A monthslong "Star Wars"-themed festival called Season of the Force is now happening at Disneyland — including John Williams compositions in the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge land during the park's fireworks. SFGate reports:Before the show starts, a voice rings through the land. "Black Spire Outpost has a long and colorful history of heroes and legends, Jedi and Sith, royalty and resistance," it says. "Those who would rule and those who refuse to bow. Here we celebrate that fiery spirit tonight
  
  Read more

• California Replaces Gas Plant with Giant, Billion-Dollar Grid Battery

  15-04-2024 06:15 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Meanwhile, in Southern California, nonprofit news site Canary Media reports that an old gas combustion plant is being replaced by a "power bank" named Nova.
  It's expected to store "more electricity than all but one battery plant currently operating in the U.S."The billion-dollar project, with 680 megawatts and 2,720 megawatt-hours, will help California shift its nation-leading solar generation into the critical evening and nighttime hours, bolstering the grid against the heat waves that have pus
  
  Read more

• CNN Reporter 'Still Haunted' By Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

  15-04-2024 02:54 via science.slashdot.org
  
  After nearly 11 years as CNN's space correspondent, Miles O'Brien found himself in 2003 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida covering the launch of the space shuttle Columbia:As part of the post-launch routine, NASA began sharing several replays of the launch from various cameras trained on the vehicle. And that was when we saw it. Producer Dave Santucci called me into our live truck, and said, "You got to look at this." It was kind of a grainy image of what looked like a puff of smoke, as if
  
  Read more

• America's Legal System May Be 'Closing In' on Regulating Cryptocurrencies

  15-04-2024 01:04 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A business columnist at the Los Angeles Times notes Sam Bankman-Fried's judge issued another ruling "that may have a more far-reaching effect on the crypto business.
  U.S. Judge Failla "cleared the Securities and Exchange Commission to proceed with its lawsuit alleging that the giant crypto broker and exchange Coinbase has been dealing in securities without a license."What's important about Failla's ruling is that she dismissed out of hand Coinbase's argument, which is that cryptocurrencies are n
  
  Read more

• Struggling Movie Exhibitors Beg Studios For More Movies - and Not Just Blockbusters

  15-04-2024 00:04 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Movie exhibitors still face "serious risks," the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday:
  Attendance was on the decline even before the pandemic shuttered theaters, thanks to changing consumer habits and competition for people's time and money from other entertainment options. The industry has demonstrated an over-reliance on Imax-friendly studio action tent poles, when theater chains need a deep and diverse roster of movies in order to thrive... It remains to be seen whether the global box office wi
  
  Read more

• Will the US-China Competition to Field Military Drone Swarms Spark a Global Arms Race?

  14-04-2024 22:59 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Associated Press reports:As their rivalry intensifies, U.S. and Chinese military planners are gearing up for a new kind of warfare in which squadrons of air and sea drones equipped with artificial intelligence work together like swarms of bees to overwhelm an enemy. The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage in coordinated battle. A single controller might oversee dozens of drones. Some would scout, others attack. Some would be able to pivot to
  
  Read more

• Axios CEO Believes AI Will 'Eviscerate the Unprepared' Among Media Companies

  14-04-2024 21:59 via news.slashdot.org
  
  In the view of Jim VandeHei, CEO of Axios, artificial intelligence will eviscerate the weak, the ordinary, the unprepared in media," reports the New York Times:VandeHei says the only way for media companies to survive is to focus on delivering journalistic expertise, trusted content and in-person human connection. For Axios, that translates into more live events, a membership program centered on its star journalists and an expansion of its high-end subscription newsletters. "We're in the middle
  
  Read more

• Canonical Says Qualcomm Has Joined Ubuntu's 'Silicon Partner' Program

  14-04-2024 20:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and Arm are among Canonical's "silicon partners," a program that "ensures maximum Ubuntu compatibility and long-term support with certified hardware," according to Web Pro News.
  And now Qualcomm is set to be Canonical's next silicon partner, "giving Qualcomm access to optimized versions of Ubuntu for its processors."
  Companies looking to use Ubuntu on Qualcomm chips will benefit from an OS that provides 10 years of support and security updates.The collaboration is expected to
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!