ICT news

• About Us

  21-01-2017 02:05
  
  Get to know the people behind Tom’s Hardware, as well as the history of our site and our mission. You can also find contact information here.
  
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• Boeing Starliner's First Crewed Mission Scrubbed

  07-05-2024 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "Out of an abundance of caution," Boeing says its historic Starliner launch has been postponed, citing an issue with the oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V rocket's upper stage. It was expected to launch tonight at 10:34 p.m. ET. TechCrunch reports: There are backup launch opportunities on May 7, 10 and 11. After years of delays and over $1 billion in cost overruns, the mission is set to be Boeing's first attempt to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Once the issue is resol
  
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• Apple's iPhone Spyware Problem Is Getting Worse

  07-05-2024 05:30 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: In April, Apple sent notifications to iPhone users in 92 countries, warning them they'd been targeted with spyware. "Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID," the notification reads. Users quickly took to social media sites including X, trying to work out what the notification meant. Many of those targeted were based inIndia, but others i
  
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• Stockholm Exergi Lands World's Largest Permanent Carbon Removal Deal With Microsoft

  07-05-2024 04:10 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Swedish energy company Stockholm Exergi and Microsoft have announced a 10-year deal that will provide the tech giant with more than 3.3 million tons of carbon removal certificates through bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. While the value of the deal was not disclosed, it stands as the largest of its kind globally. Carbon Herald reports: Scheduled to commence in 2028 and span a decade, the agreement underscores a pivotal moment in combatting climate change. Anders Egelrud, CEO of Stockho
  
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• Novel Attack Against Virtually All VPN Apps Neuters Their Entire Purpose

  07-05-2024 03:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers have discovered a new attack that can force VPN applications to route traffic outside the encrypted tunnel, thereby exposing the user's traffic to potential snooping or manipulation. This vulnerability, named TunnelVision, is found in almost all VPNs on non-Linux and non-Android systems. It's believe that the vulnerability "may have been possible since 2002 and may already have been discovered and used in the wild since then," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The effect of Tunn
  
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• Google Fit Dev APIs Shutdown Set, Fate of Android and Wear OS Apps Go Unannounced

  07-05-2024 02:53 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Abner Li reports via 9to5Google: Since the launch of Health Connect in 2022, Google has been winding down the Google Fit developer APIs. Earlier this week, the company fully detailed how the "Google Fit APIs have been deprecated and will be supported until June 30, 2025." Fitness and exercise apps that previously used Google Fit have until the June 2025 deadline to switch to Health Connect, with Google broadly referring to it as the "Android Health platform."Google's migration guide for develope
  
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• Pokemon Go Players Are Vandalizing Real Maps With Fake Data To Catch Rare Pokemon

  07-05-2024 02:02 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Pokemon Go players are creating a headache for members of the open source map tool OpenStreetMaps by adding fake beaches where they don't exist in hopes of more easily catching Wigletts, a Pokemon that only spawns on beaches. OpenStreetMaps is a free, open source map tool much like Google or Apple maps, but is maintained by a self-governing community of volunteers where anyone is welcome to contribute. An April 27 thread in the OpenStreetMap co
  
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• Jack Dorsey Departs Bluesky

  07-05-2024 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the Twitter alternative he helped start. The announcement comes shortly after Dorsey unfollowed all but three accounts on X and referred to Elon Musk's platform as "freedom technology." The Verge reports: In two posts today, Bluesky thanked Dorsey while confirming his departure and adding that it's searching for a new board member "who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience." [...] Neith
  
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• The Rabbit R1 Could've Just Been a Mobile App

  07-05-2024 00:40 via slashdot.org
  
  The Rabbit R1 is one of the first standalone AI companion devices to hit the market, offering the ability to translate languages, identify objects in your environment, and order DoorDash, among other things. It's been in the news last week for its all around poor reviews that cite poor battery life, painfully slow responses, and missing features (sound familiar?). Now, it's been confirmed that the Rabbit R1 is powered by an Android app that can run on existing Android phones. Android Authority r
  
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• Alternative Clouds Are Booming As Companies Seek Cheaper Access To GPUs

  07-05-2024 00:02 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: CoreWeave, the GPU infrastructure provider that began life as a cryptocurrency mining operation, this week raised $1.1 billion in new funding from investors, including Coatue, Fidelity and Altimeter Capital. The round brings its valuation to $19 billion post-money and its total raised to $5 billion in debt and equity -- a remarkable figure for a company that's less than 10 years old. It's not just CoreWeave. Lambda Labs, which also offers an a
  
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• OpenAI and Stack Overflow Partner To Bring More Technical Knowledge Into ChatGPT

  06-05-2024 23:21 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI and the developer platform Stack Overflow have announced a partnership that could potentially improve the performance of AI models and bring more technical information into ChatGPT. From a report: OpenAI will have access to Stack Overflow's API and will receive feedback from the developer community to improve the performance of AI models. OpenAI, in turn, will give Stack Overflow attribution -- aka link to its contents -- in ChatGPT. Users of the chatbot will see more information from Sta
  
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• 'The Good Enough Trap'

  06-05-2024 22:42 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares an essay: Software designers refer to "the good enough principle." It means, simply put, that sometimes you should prioritise functionality over perfection. As a relentless imperfectionist, I'm inclined to embrace this idea. I gave this newsletter its name to encourage myself to post rough versions of my pieces rather than not to write them at all. When it comes to parenting, I'm a Winnicottian: I believe you shouldn't try to be the perfect mum or dad because there's n
  
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• Shell Sold Millions of 'Phantom' Carbon Credits

  06-05-2024 22:04 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Shell sold millions of carbon credits tied to CO2 removal that never took place [non-paywalled link] to Canada's largest oil sands companies, raising new doubts about a technology seen as crucial to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. FT: As part of a subsidy scheme to boost the industry, the Alberta provincial government allowed Shell to register and sell carbon credits equivalent to twice the volume of emissions avoided by its Quest carbon capture facility between 2015 and 2021, the province'
  
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• North Yorkshire Apostrophe Fans Demand Road Signs With Nowt Taken Out

  06-05-2024 21:31 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A council has provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike after announcing it would ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems. From a report: North Yorkshire council is ditching the punctuation point after careful consideration, saying it can affect geographical databases. The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of whether they were used in the past. Some residents expressed reservations about removing the apostrophes,
  
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• Google is Changing How You Set Up 2FA

  06-05-2024 20:42 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Google is streamlining the process of setting up two-factor authentication (2FA). From a report: Instead of entering your phone number first to enable 2FA, you can now add a "second step method" to your account such as an authenticator app or a hardware security key to get things set up. This should make it safer to turn on 2FA, as it lets you avoid using less secure SMS verification. You can choose to enter a time-based one-time passcode through apps like Google Authenticator, or you can follow
  
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• 40,000 AI-Narrated Audiobooks Flood Audible

  06-05-2024 19:20 via slashdot.org
  
  A new breed of audiobook is taking over digital bookshelves -- ones narrated not by professional voice actors, but by artificial intelligence voices. It's an AI audiobook revolution that has been turbo-charged by Amazon. From a report: Since announcing a beta tool last year allowing self-published authors to generate AI "virtual voice" narrations for their ebooks, over 40,000 AI-narrated titles have flooded onto Audible, Amazon's audiobook platform. The eye-popping stat, revealed in a recent Blo
  
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• Poorer Nations Must Be Transparent Over Climate Spending, Says Cop29 Leader

  06-05-2024 18:41 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Poor countries must demonstrate clearer accounting and transparency to back up their calls for trillions of dollars of climate finance, the president of global climate negotiations has said. From a report: Mukhtar Babayev, the ecology minister of Azerbaijan, who will lead the Cop29 UN climate summit in November, urged governments in developing countries to draw up reports showing their progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and their spending on the climate crisis. "It's very important to
  
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• Police Resurrect Lockbit's Site and Troll the Ransomware Gang

  06-05-2024 18:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An international coalition of police agencies have resurrected the dark web site of the notorious LockBit ransomware gang, which they had seized earlier this year, teasing new revelations about the group. From a report: On Sunday, what was once LockBit's official darknet site reappeared online with new posts that suggest the authorities are planning to release new information about the hackers in the next 24 hours, as of this writing. The posts have titles such as "Who is LockBitSupp?," "What ha
  
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• PlayStation Reverses Course on Helldivers 2 PSN Account Requirement

  06-05-2024 17:20 via games.slashdot.org
  
  PlayStation has reversed course on the Helldivers 2 PSN account requirement, walking back the unpopular policy after a weekend long backlash that included tens of thousands of negative reviews, some of which spread to Sony's other Steam games. From a report: "Helldivers fans -- we've heard your feedback on the Helldivers 2 account linking update. The May 6 update, which would have required Steam and PlayStation Network account linking for new players and for current players beginning May 30, wil
  
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• Microsoft Readies New AI Model To Compete With Google, OpenAI

  06-05-2024 16:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  For the first time since it invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI in exchange for the rights to reuse the startup's AI models, Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI model large enough to compete with state-of-the-art models from Google, Anthropic and OpenAI itself. The Information: The new model, internally referred to as MAI-1, is being overseen by Mustafa Suleyman, the ex-Google AI leader who most recently served as CEO of the AI startup Inflection before Microsoft hired the majority o
  
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• More Than 90% of Stablecoin Transactions Aren't From Real Users, Visa Study Finds

  06-05-2024 16:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  More than 90% of stablecoin transaction volumes aren't coming from genuine users, according to a new metric co-developed by Visa, suggesting such crypto tokens may be far away from becoming a commonly used means of payment. Bloomberg: The dashboard from Visa and Allium Labs is designed to strip out transactions initiated by bots and large-scale traders to isolate those made by real people. Out of about $2.2 trillion in total transactions in April, just $149 billion originated from "organic payme
  
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• In Argentina, Facing Surging Inflation, 500K Accept Worldcoin's Offer of $50 for Iris-Scanning

  06-05-2024 13:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Wednesday Rest of World noticed an overlooked tech story in Argentina:Olga de León looked confused as she walked out of a nightclub on the edge of Buenos Aires on a recent Tuesday afternoon. She had just had her iris scanned. "No one told me what they'll do with my eye," de León, 57, told Rest of World. "But I did this out of need." De León, who lives off the $95 pension she receives from the state, had been desperate for money. Persuaded by her nephew, she agreed to have on
  
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• Elon Musk's X Launches Grok AI-Powered 'Stories' Feature

  06-05-2024 09:34 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Mint:Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has launched a new Grok AI-powered feature called 'Stories', which allows users to read summaries of a trending post on the social media platform. The feature is currently only available to X Premium subscribers on the iOS and web versions, and hasn't found its way to the Android application just yet... instead of reading the whole post, they'll have Grok AI summarise it to get the gist of
  
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• How 'Star Wars' was Influenced by San Francisco - and Architecture

  06-05-2024 05:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  "Without San Francisco, Star Wars wouldn't exist," says David Reat, the culture studies director of the architecture department at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde.
  SFGate reports:Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, where his father expected him to run the family stationery store once he turned 18, but Lucas instead left for Los Angeles, where he studied film production at the University of Southern California, before moving to San Francisco. Despite all that these cities had to offer, Luca
  
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• Scientists Find a 'Missing Link' Between Poor Diet and Higher Cancer Risk

  06-05-2024 03:35 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Science Alert reports that a team of researchers found "that changes in glucose metabolism could help cancer grow by temporarily disabling a gene that protects us from tumors called BRCA2."The team first examined people who inherited one faulty copy of BRCA2. They found that cells from these people were more sensitive to methylglyoxal (MGO), which is produced when cells break down glucose for energy in the process of glycolysis. Glycolysis generates over 90 percent of the MGO in cells, which a p
  
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• Microsoft's 'Responsible AI' Chief Worries About the Open Web

  06-05-2024 01:18 via slashdot.org
  
  From the Washington Post's "Technology 202" newsletter:As tech giants move toward a world in which chatbots supplement, and perhaps supplant, search engines, the Microsoft executive assigned to make sure AI is used responsibly said the industry has to be careful not to break the business model of the wider web. Search engines citing and linking to the websites they draw from is "part of the core bargain of search," [Microsoft's chief Responsible AI officer] said in an interview Monday....
  "It's
  
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• Can Technology Help Reduce Drunk-Driving Deaths?

  06-05-2024 00:18 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Wall Street Journal:
  Drunken-driving deaths in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen in nearly two decades, federal data show, a major setback to long-running road-safety efforts. At the same time, arrests for driving under the influence have plummeted, as police grapple with challenges like hiring woes and heightened concern around traffic stops... About 13,500 people died in alcohol impairment-related crashes in 2022, according to data released
  
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• America's Federal Regulators Are Preparing More Lawsuits Against Crypto Companies

  05-05-2024 23:18 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A "string of legal victories" by America's market-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission "has jolted some of crypto's biggest players," reports Politico — even as they're seeking more credibility with U.S. lawmakers:
  Judges have recently rebuked claims that the SEC lacks authority to police the market. Coinbase, the largest U.S. exchange, lost a bid to throw out charges that it is violating investor-protection rules. And a New York jury found one-time billionaire entrepreneur Do Kwo
  
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• Could Better Data Protections Reduce Big Tech's Polarizing Power?

  05-05-2024 22:18 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "What if the big tech companies achieved their ultimate business goal — maximizing engagement on their platforms — in a way that has undermined our ability to function as an open society?"
  That's the question being asked by Chuck Todd, chief political analyst for NBC News:
  What if they realized that when folks agree on a solution to a problem, they are most likely to log off a site or move on? It sure looks like the people at these major data-hoarding companies have optimized their a
  
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• Some San Francisco Tech Workers are Renting Cheap 'Bed Pods'

  05-05-2024 20:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from SFGate:
  Late last year, tales of tech workers paying $700 a month for tiny "bed pods" in downtown San Francisco went viral. The story provided a perfect distillation of SF's wild (and wildly expensive) housing market — and inspired schadenfreude when the city deemed the situation illegal. But the provocative living situation wasn't an anomaly, according to a city official."We've definitely seen an uptick of these 'pod'-type complaints," Kelly Won
  
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