ICT news

• "Father of the Space Shuttle" George Mueller Dies At 97

  18-10-2015 02:17 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports that long-time NASA engineer and administrator George Mueller died on October 12 of congestive heart failure, at 97. Mueller had a hand in NASA programs as Associate Administrator of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight going back to the Apollo program, but not only as an administrator: he played a large role in the design of Skylab, and in lobbying for the Space Shuttle; this last earned him the (sometimes disputed) nickname of "Father of the Space Shuttle." During
  
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• Ransomware Group Claims Responsibility for Christie's Hack

  28-05-2024 07:18 via it.slashdot.org
  
  A hacker group called RansomHub said it was behind the cyberattack that hit the Christie's website just days before its marquee spring sales began, forcing the auction house to resort to alternatives to online bidding. From a report: In a post on the dark web on Monday, the group claimed that it had gained access to sensitive information about the world's wealthiest art collectors, posting only a few examples of names and birthdays. It was not immediately possible to verify RansomHub's claims, b
  
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• Intel Removes Knights Mill and Knights Landing Xeon Phi Support In LLVM 19

  28-05-2024 04:30 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Similar to the GCC compiler dropping support for the Xeon Phi Knights Mill and Knights Landing accelerators a few days ago, Intel has also gone ahead and seen to the removal of Xeon Phi support for the LLVM/Clang 19 compiler. Since earlier this year in LLVM/Clang 18 the Xeon Phi Knights Mill and Knights Landing support was treated as deprecated. Now for the LLVM 19 release due out around September, the support is removed entirely. This aligns with GCC 14 havi
  
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• Rivers of Lava on Venus Reveal a More Volcanically Active Planet

  28-05-2024 03:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Witnessing the blood-red fires of a volcanic eruption on Earth is memorable. But to see molten rock bleed out of a volcano on a different planet would be extraordinary. That is close to what scientists have spotted on Venus: two vast, sinuous lava flows oozing from two different corners of Earth's planetary neighbor. From a report: "After you see something like this, the first reaction is 'wow,'" said Davide Sulcanese, a doctoral student at the Universita d'Annunzio in Pescara, Italy, and an aut
  
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• Ditch Brightly Colored Plastic, Anti-Waste Researchers Tell Firms

  28-05-2024 01:31 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Retailers are being urged to stop making everyday products such as drinks bottles, outdoor furniture and toys out of brightly coloured plastic after researchers found it degrades into microplastics faster than plainer colours. From a report: Red, blue and green plastic became "very brittle and fragmented," while black, white and silver samples were "largely unaffected" over a three-year period, according to the findings of the University of Leicester-led project. The scale of environmental pollu
  
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• Microsoft's Automatic Super Resolution Arrives To Improve Gaming Performance

  28-05-2024 00:30 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has announced Auto SR, an AI-powered image upscaling solution for Windows 11 on Arm devices. The feature, exclusive to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X CPUs, aims to enhance gaming performance on ARM-based systems. Auto SR, however, comes with notable restrictions, including compatibility limitations with certain DirectX versions and the inability to work simultaneously with HDR.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Millions in US Face Extreme-Heat Threat

  27-05-2024 23:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Millions of Americans face the threat of dangerous heatwaves in the coming weeks with another summer of record-breaking temperatures forecast to hit the US. From a report: Most of New Mexico and Utah -- alongside parts of Arizona, Texas and Colorado -- have the highest chance (60% to 70%) of seeing hotter-than-average summer temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). In addition, the entire north-east -- from Maine down to Pennsylvania and New Jersey -
  
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• Harris Announces Plans To Help 80% of Africa Gain Access To the Internet

  27-05-2024 22:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Vice President Kamala Harris has announced the formation of a new partnership to help provide internet access to 80% of Africa by 2030, up from roughly 40% now. From a report: The announcement comes as follow-through on Harris' visit to the continent last year and in conjunction with this week's visit to Washington by Kenyan President William Ruto. Harris and the Kenyan leader had a public chat on Friday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about how public-private partnerships can increase economic
  
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• Bungie Wins Lawsuit Against Cheat Maker Aimjunkies

  27-05-2024 21:31 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Bungie has won a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against cheat maker Phoenix Digital.ÂFrom a report: The case was potentially the first-ever video game cheating jury trial and resulted in Bungie winning $63,210 in damages from Phoenix Digital,Âwhich isÂalso known as Aimjunkies. While cheating in a game is not illegal, Bungie was able to sue the cheat maker under the argument that reverse engineering the game, specifically Destiny 2, to find those cheats violates the company's copyrig
  
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• North Korea Says Its Attempt To Put Another Spy Satellite Into Orbit Has Failed

  27-05-2024 20:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A North Korean rocket carrying its second spy satellite exploded midair on Monday, state media reported, after its neighbors strongly rebuked its planned launch. From a report: The North's official Korean Central News Agency said it launched a spy satellite aboard a new rocket at its main northwestern space center. But KCNA said the rocket blew up during a first-stage flight soon after liftoff due to a suspected engine problem. Earlier Monday, North Korea had notified Japan's coast guard about i
  
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• Microsoft: Windows 24H2 Will Remove Cortana and WordPad Apps

  27-05-2024 19:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft says the Cortana, Tips, and WordPad applications will be automatically removed on systems upgraded to the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 release. From a report: This was shared in a Thursday blog announcing that Windows 11, version 24H2 (Build 26100.712) is now available for Insiders in the Release Preview Channel. The company removed the Cortana standalone app from Windows 11 in preview build 25967 for Insiders, released in the Canary Channel in early October. It first announced that it wou
  
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• Google's AI Feeds People Answers From The Onion

  27-05-2024 17:09 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: As denizens of the Internet, we have all often seen a news item so ridiculous it caused us to think, "This seems like an Onion headline." But as real human beings, most of us have the ability to discern between reality and satire. Unfortunately, Google's newly launched "AI Overview" lacks that crucial ability. The feature, which launched less than two weeks ago (with no way for users to opt-out), provides answers to certain queries at the top of the page abov
  
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• China Sets Up Third Fund With $47.5 Billion To Boost Semiconductor Sector

  27-05-2024 16:00 via slashdot.org
  
  China has set up its third planned state-backed investment fund to boost its semiconductor industry, with a registered capital of 344 billion yuan ($47.5 billion), according to a filing with a government-run companies registry. Reuters: The hundreds of billions of yuan invested in the sector puts into perspective President Xi Jinping's drive to achieve self-sufficiency for China in semiconductors. That commitment has taken on renewed urgency after the U.S. imposed a series of export control meas
  
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• Company will Convert GM's Electric Vans into Speedy Mobile Superchargers for Fleets

  27-05-2024 13:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Nashville-based Yoshi Mobility launched in 2015 to deliver gasoline to vehicle owners, reports Forbes. But this week the company announced they'll begin converting GM electric delivery vans into "mobile EV superchargers" — fast, battery-powered 240 kw DC chargers — for corporate fleets of electric cars.
  "There's kind of this critical grid problem and so we think that we can accelerate towards an EV future and this is a unique way that we can do it," said [cofounder/CEO Bryan] Frist i
  
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• Food Industry Launches 'Ferocious' Campaign Against Regulations on Ultraprocessed Foods

  27-05-2024 09:36 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Studies show ultraprocessed food "encourages overeating but may leave the eater undernourished," writes Ars Technica.But the food industry's response has been "a ferocious campaign against regulation."In part it has used the same lobbying playbook as its fight against labeling and taxation of "junk food" high in calories: big spending to influence policymakers. FT analysis of US lobbying data from non-profit Open Secrets found that food and soft drinks-related companies spent $106 million on lob
  
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• 1 in 9 American Kids Were Diagnosed With ADHD, New Study Finds

  27-05-2024 06:35 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "About 1 in 9 children in the U.S., between the ages of 3 and 17, have been diagnosed with ADHD," reports NPR:
  That's according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that calls attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder an "expanding public health concern."
  Researchers found that in 2022, 7.1 million kids and adolescents in the U.S. had received an ADHD diagnosis — a million more children than in 2016. That jump in diagnoses was not surprising, given that the da
  
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• America Has One Public Charger for Every 20 Electric Cars

  27-05-2024 05:04 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  This week the Washington Post noted that just last year nearly 1.2 million more electric vehicles were sold in America, "accounting for over 7 percent of total new car sales and a new national record." But "data show that EV sales are far outpacing growth in the U.S. charging network... In 2016, there were seven electric cars for each public charging point; today, there's more than 20 electric cars per charger."
  The article points out that 80% of America's EV's are just charging at home, accordi
  
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• Pew Research Finds 64% of Americans Live Within Two Miles of a Public EV Charger

  27-05-2024 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a public charging station," Pew Research reported this week, citing a survey paired with an analysis of U.S. Energy Department data that found over 61,000 publicly accessible charging stations.
  And those who live closest to public chargers "view EVs more positively."The vast majority of EV charging occurs at home, but access to public infrastructure is tightly linked with Americans' opinions of electric vehicles themselves. Our analysis finds that America
  
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• Technical Issues' Stall MLB's Adoption of Robots to Call Balls and Strikes

  27-05-2024 01:32 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Will Major League Baseball games use "automated" umpires next year to watch pitches from home plate and call balls and strikes?"We still have some technical issues," baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday. NBC News reports:"We haven't made as much progress in the minor leagues this year as we sort of hoped at this point. I think it's becoming more and more likely that this will not be a go for '25."
  Major League Baseball has been experimenting with the automated ball-strike system in mi
  
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• Memory Sealing 'mseal' System Call Merged For Linux 6.10

  26-05-2024 23:53 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  "Merged this Friday evening into the Linux 6.10 kernel is the new mseal() system call for memory sealing," reports Phoronix:The mseal system call was led by Jeff Xu of Google's Chrome team. The goal with memory sealing is to also protect the memory mapping itself against modification. The new mseal Linux documentation explains:
  "Modern CPUs support memory permissions such as RW and NX bits. The memory permission feature improves security stance on memory corruption bugs, i.e. the attacker can't
  
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• Mojo, Bend, and the Rise of AI-First Programming Languages

  26-05-2024 22:53 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "While general-purpose languages like Python, C++, and Java remain popular in AI development," writes VentureBeat, "the resurgence of AI-first languages signifies a recognition that AI's unique demands require specialized languages tailored to the domain's specific needs... designed from the ground up to address the specific needs of AI development."
  Bend, created by Higher Order Company, aims to provide a flexible and intuitive programming model for AI, with features like automatic differentiat
  
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• Could Sea Explosions Finally Locate the 2014 Crash Site of Flight MH370?

  26-05-2024 21:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in 2014 — and efforts continue to find it. In 2018 a UK-based video producer claimed to have discovered the crashed aircraft on Google Maps — but Newsweek pointed out the same wreckage "is visible in imagery dating back to January 1, 2004 — more than a decade before MH370 disappeared."
  Marine robotics company Ocean Infinity also failed to find the aircraft after a five-month search in 2018 — but has returned to the headlines this Marc
  
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• Netflix's Sci-Fi Movie 'Atlas': AI Apocalypse Blockbuster Gets 'Shocking' Reviews

  26-05-2024 19:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Space.com calls it a movie "adding more combustible material to the inferno of AI unease sweeping the globe." Its director tells them James Cameron was a huge inspiration, saying Atlas "has an Aliens-like vibe because of the grounded, grittiness to it." (You can watch the movie's trailer here...)
  But Tom's Guide says "the reviews are just as shocking as the movie's AI." Its "audience score" on Rotten Tomatoes is 55% — but its aggregate score from professional film critics is 16%. The Holly
  
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• Ubuntu 24.04 Now Runs on the Nintendo Switch (Unofficially)

  26-05-2024 18:34 via games.slashdot.org
  
  "The fact it's possible at all is a credit to the ingenuity of the open-source community," writes the blog OMG Ubuntu:
  Switchroot is an open-source project that allows Android and Linux-based distros like Ubuntu to run on the Nintendo Switch — absolutely not something Nintendo approves of much less supports, endorses, or encourages, etc! I covered the loophole that made this possible back in 2018. Back then the NVIDIA Tegra X1-powered Nintendo Switch was still new and Linux support for muc
  
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• Rust Foundation Reports 20% of Rust Crates Use 'Unsafe' Keyword

  26-05-2024 17:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  A Rust Foundation blog post begins by reminding readers that Rust programs "are unable to compile if memory management rules are violated, essentially eliminating the possibility of a memory issue at runtime."
  But then it goes on to explore "Unsafe Rust in the wild" (used for a small set of actions like dereferencing a raw pointer, modifying a mutable static variable, or calling unsafe functions). "At a superficial glance, it might appear that Unsafe Rust undercuts the memory-safety benefits Rus
  
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• How A US Hospital is Using AI to Analyze X-Rays - With Help From Red Hat

  26-05-2024 16:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  This week Red Hat announced one of America's leading pediatric hospitals is using AI to analyze X-rays, "to improve image quality and the speed and accuracy of image interpretation."
  Red Hat's CTO said the move exemplifies "the positive impact AI can have in the healthcare field".Before Boston Children's Hospital began piloting AI in radiology, quantitative measurements had to be done manually, which was a time-consuming task. Other, more complex image analyses were performed completely offline
  
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• VBScript's 'Deprecation' Confirmed by Microsoft - and Eventual Removal from Windows

  26-05-2024 13:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "Microsoft has confirmed plans to pull the plug on VBScript in the second half of 2024 in a move that signals the end of an era for programmers," writes Tech Radar.
  Though the language was first introduced in 1996, Microsoft's latest announcement says the move was made "considering the decline in VBScript usage":Beginning with the new OS release slated for later this year [Windows 11, version 24H2], VBScript will be available as features on demand. The feature will be completely retired from fut
  
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• A Startup's Faster-Than-E-Ink Android Tablet Challenges Apple's IPad

  26-05-2024 09:34 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  It's "one of the most talked about devices in Silicon Valley," according to tech writer/investor Om Malik.
  The company's web site calls it "the computer, de-invented," promising a tablet with "the world's first full-speed paper-like display." But Its founder has structured the company as a Public Benefit Corporation, with its web site describing the eyestrain-relieving tablet as "designed for deep focus and wellbeing. We refuse to accept a future where our devices are exhausting, addictive, and
  
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• Trump Promises He'd Commute the Life Sentence of 'Silk Road' Founder Ross Ulbricht

  26-05-2024 05:34 via politics.slashdot.org
  
  In 2011 Ross Ulbricht launched an anonymous, Tor-hidden "darknet" marketplace (with transactions conducted in bitcoin). By 2015 he'd been sentenced to life in prison for crimes including money laundering, distributing narcotics, and trafficking in fraudulent identity documents — without the possibility of parole.
  Today a U.S. presidential candidate promised to commute that life sentence — Donald Trump, speaking at the national convention of the Libertarian Party as it prepares to nom
  
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• Proposed Zero-Carbon Cement Solution Called 'Absolute Miracle'

  26-05-2024 03:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  "Concrete and steel production are major sources of CO2 emissions," writes New Atlas, "but a new solution from Cambridge could recycle both at the same time."Throwing old concrete into steel-processing furnaces not only purifies iron but produces "reactivated cement" as a byproduct. If done using renewable energy, the process could make for completely carbon-zero cement.
  Concrete is the world's most used building material, and making it is a particularly dirty business — concrete productio
  
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