ICT news

• After Two Months of Quiet, North Korea Launches Another Ballistic Missile

  28-11-2017 23:40 via rss.slashdot.org
  South Korean and U.S. officials have confirmed that North Korea has launched another ballistic missile into the sea of Japan. The ballistic missile test -- launched just after 3am Wednesday local time from Sin-ni in South Pyongyang -- is the first since an intermediate-range missile test in September. Ars Technica reports: In a statement to the press, a spokesperson for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "North Korea fired an unidentified ballistic missile early this morning from Pyongson
  
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• Vivo CASE-V10G: Tempered Glass And LED Fans On The Cheap

  28-11-2017 23:30
  Vivo has launched yet another budget-friendly chassis that is as easy on the eyes as it is your wallet.
  
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• MacOS High Sierra Bug Allows Login As Root With No Password

  28-11-2017 23:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: A trivial-to-exploit flaw in macOS High Sierra, aka macOS 10.13, allows users to gain admin rights, or log in as root, without a password. The security bug is triggered via the authentication dialog box in Apple's operating system, which prompts you for an administrator's username and password when you need to do stuff like configure privacy and network settings. If you type in "root" as the username, leave the password box blank, hit "enter
  
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• Uber Trained Employees on How To 'Impede, Obstruct or Influence' Ongoing Legal Investigations, Ex-employee Says

  28-11-2017 22:25 via rss.slashdot.org
  From a report on CNBC: Uber faced fresh allegations on Tuesday that it deliberately took steps to keep " unlawful schemes from seeing the light of day." Hours of testimony on Tuesday centered around a letter from a former Uber security analyst's attorney to an Uber lawyer. The former analyst, Richard Jacobs, said in the letter there was a directive for Uber employees to use disappearing chat apps like Wickr, and that Uber sent employees to Pittsburgh (where it's developing its autonomous vehicle
  
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• HDMI 2.1 Supports Larger Bandwidth, Higher Resolutions

  28-11-2017 22:00
  The new spec also works with a higher refresh rate on 4K and 8K displays.
  
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• 'You Had to Be There': As Technologies Change Ever Faster, the Knowledge of Obsolete Things Becomes Ever Sweeter

  28-11-2017 21:45 via rss.slashdot.org
  Alexis C. Madrigal, writing for The Atlantic: There's a question going around on Twitter, courtesy of the writer Matt Whitlock: "Without revealing your actual age, what's something you remember that if you told a younger person they wouldn't understand?" This simple query has received, at this date, 18,000 responses. Here is just a tiny selection: A/S/L, pagers, manual car windows, "be kind, please rewind", "Waiting by the radio for my song to come on so I could record it on a cassette tape", fl
  
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• Some Oculus Rift Core 2.0 Features Require Windows 10

  28-11-2017 21:15
  Oculus is preparing to launch the public beta of the Rift Core 2.0 update. The update will be available to everyone with a Rift, but Windows 10 users will get a better exper
  
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• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Criticizes Companies That Oppose His Efforts To Repeal Net Neutrality Rules

  28-11-2017 21:05 via rss.slashdot.org
  Tony Romm, writing for Recode: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai thinks everyone from Cher to Twitter has it wrong when they say that his efforts to roll back the U.S. government's existing net neutrality rules will spell the death of the web. Instead, Pai said during an event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that tech giants could pose the greatest threat by discriminating against viewpoints on the internet. "They might cloak their advocacy in the public interest," he said, "but the real interest of these i
  
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• Bitcoin Hits $10,000 Because Ceilings Are Just a Construct, Man

  28-11-2017 20:25 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: On Tuesday, the trading price of the most prominent cryptocurrency hit $10,000 for the first time. And that nice round number will almost certainly have the kind of psychological effect that brings in new traders. Based on analysts' recent predictions, the $10,000 milestone could be the beginning of the end or just the beginning. Some thought that $2,000 would be the point at which we'd see a reversal of Bitcoin's ascent. Others predicted it would top out at
  
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• Vivo Launches Budget-Friendly Tempered Glass Chassis With LED Fans

  28-11-2017 20:00
  If you are in the market for a mid-tower ATX chassis with a tempered glass side panel and a gaggle of LED fans, the Vivo CASE-V08 might be just what you are looking for.This chassis supports up to EATX motherboards (12" x 10.7"), graphics cards as long as
  
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• New NSA Leak Exposes Red Disk, the Army's Failed Intelligence System

  28-11-2017 19:45 via rss.slashdot.org
  Zack Whittaker, reporting for ZDNet: The contents of a highly sensitive hard drive belonging to a division of the National Security Agency have been left online. The virtual disk image contains over 100 gigabytes of data from an Army intelligence project, codenamed "Red Disk." The disk image belongs to the US Army's Intelligence and Security Command, known as INSCOM, a division of both the Army and the NSA. The disk image was left on an unlisted but public Amazon Web Services storage server, wit
  
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• 'Civilization VI' Expansion Will Bring Golden, Dark Ages In February

  28-11-2017 19:30
  The "Rise and Fall" expansion will add more challenges to the campaign and make alliances a worthwhile investment.
  
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• Microsoft Sees the Future of Windows 10 as Sets, Ditching Windows For a Tabbed App Interface

  28-11-2017 19:05 via rss.slashdot.org
  Microsoft said Tuesday that it plans to overhaul Windows 10, with a browser-like, tabbed application view dubbed "Sets" that groups apps and files by project. From a report: Think of Sets as a mashup of existing and emerging Windows 10 technologies. Take Windows Explorer and the little-used Task View within Windows 10, mix in the newer "Pick up where you left off" and "Timeline" features, and wrap it all into a single-window experience. The idea is that every task requires a set of apps -- Mail,
  
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• NCGP Forms To 'Self-Regulate' The Game Industry

  28-11-2017 18:45
  A new body calling itself the National Committee for Games Policy has announced its formation as the “video game industry’s first, and de facto, self regulatory organization.” The NCGP was formed in light of the recent controversies relating to microt
  
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• Google Can Tell if Someone Is Looking at Your Phone Over Your Shoulder

  28-11-2017 18:25 via rss.slashdot.org
  Dave Gershgorn, writing for Quartz: At the Neural Information Processing Systems conference in Long Beach, California, next week, Google researchers Hee Jung Ryu and Florian Schroff will present a project they're calling an electronic screen protector, where a Google Pixel phone uses its front-facing camera and eye-detecting artificial intelligence to detect whether more than one person is looking at the screen. An unlisted, but public video by Ryu shows the software interrupting a Google messag
  
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• How To Use The Intel SA-00086 Detection Tool

  28-11-2017 18:00
  Intel has created a program to help you find out if your Intel-based Windows or Linux system is at risk from the recently announced vulnerabilities, Intel SA-00086, found in the Intel Management Engine.
  
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• HP Quietly Installs System-Slowing Spyware On Its PCs, Users Say

  28-11-2017 17:45 via rss.slashdot.org
  It hasn't been long since Lenovo settled a massive $3.5 million fine for preinstalling adware on laptops without users' consent, and it appears HP is on to the same route already. According to numerous reports gathered by news outlet Computer World, the brand is deploying a telemetry client on customer computers without asking permission. The software, called "HP Touchpoint Analytics Service", appears to replace the self-managed HP Touchpoint Manager solution. To make matter worse, the suite see
  
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• Researchers Identify 44 Trackers in More Than 300 Android Apps

  28-11-2017 17:01 via rss.slashdot.org
  Catalin Cimpanu, reporting for BleepingComputer: A collaborative effort between the Yale Privacy Lab and Exodus Privacy has shed light on dozens of invasive trackers that are embedded within Android apps and record user activity, sometimes without user consent. The results of this study come to show that the practice of collecting user data via third-party tracking code has become rampant among Android app developers and is now on par with what's happening on most of today's popular websites. Th
  
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• PSA: Remember To Update Your Intel Management Engine

  28-11-2017 17:00
  In light of Intel’s recent announcement of the vulnerabilities found and fixed in its Management Engine (ME), referred to as INTEL-SA-00086, many OEMs have begun issuing firmware updates for their products.
  
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• Elon Musk Says He Is Not Bitcoin's Satoshi Nakamoto

  28-11-2017 16:20 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader writes: Not only does Elon Musk deny being the mysterious creator of bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto, but he's also forgotten where he keeps his cryptocurrency. Musk's assertions came in response to a blog post coursing through digital-currency sites that suggested the PayPal co-founder and Tesla chief executive officer himself is probably the bitcoin originator who used the alias Nakamoto. "Not true," Musk said Tuesday in a tweet. "A friend sent me part of a BTC a few years, but I
  
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• Firms Team Up On Hybrid Electric Plane Technology

  28-11-2017 15:40 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens are to develop hybrid electric engine plane technology as part of a push towards cleaner aviation. The E-Fan X programme will first put an electric engine with three jet engines on a BAe 146 aircraft. The firms want to fly a demonstrator version of the plane by 2020, with a commercial application by 2030. Firms are racing to develop electric engines for planes after pressure from the EU to cut aviation pollution. Each of the pa
  
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• Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 850 PSU Review

  28-11-2017 15:00
  
  After evaluating Seasonic's 750W Focus Plus Gold power supply, which left a good impression on us, it's time to review that family's flagship, the SSR-850FX.
  
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• India's Telecom Regulator Backs Net Neutrality

  28-11-2017 15:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  From a report on Reuters: India's telecom regulator has made recommendations to ensure an open internet in the country and prevent any discrimination in internet access in a long-awaited report (PDF), after debating the issue of net neutrality for more than a year. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said it was not in favor of any "discriminatory treatment" with data, including blocking, slowing or offering preferential speeds or treatment to any content. The Indian regulator's sup
  
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• Destiny 2 Misrepresented XP Gains To Its Players Until the Developers Got Caught

  28-11-2017 14:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Destiny 2, like its predecessor, depends largely on an open-ended "end game" system. Once you beat the game's primary "quest" content, you can return to previously covered ground to find remixed and upgraded battles, meant to be played ad nauseam alone or with friends. To encourage such replay, Bungie dangles a carrot of XP gain, which works more slowly than during the campaign stages. Players are awarded a "bright engram" every time they "l
  
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• Microsoft Office Now Available On All Chromebooks

  28-11-2017 11:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has reportedly finished testing out its Office apps on Chromebooks as a number of Chromebooks are now seeing the Office apps in the Google Play Store. Samsung's Chromebook Pro, Acer's Chromebook 15, and Acer's C771 have the Office apps available for download. The Verge reports: The apps are Android versions of Office which include the same features you'd find on an Android tablet running Office. Devices like Asus' Chromebook Flip (with a 10.1-inch display) will get free access to Offic
  
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• Tom Baker Returns To Finish Shelved Doctor Who Episodes Penned By Douglas Adams

  28-11-2017 08:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  Zorro shares a report from The Register: The fourth and finest Doctor, Tom Baker, has reprised the role to finish a Who serial scuppered in 1979 by strike action at the BBC. Shada, penned by Hitchhiker's Guide author Douglas Adams, was supposed to close Doctor Who's 17th season. Location filming in Cambridge and a studio session were completed but the strike nixed further work and the project was later shelved entirely for fear it might affect the Beeb's Christmas-time productions. The remaining
  
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• Scientists Have Built Robot Muscles That Can Lift 1,000 Times Their Own Weight

  28-11-2017 04:30 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute and MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) announced today (Nov. 27) that they've created robotic "muscles" that can lift up to 1,000 times their own weight. The simple objects are constructed out of metal or plastic "skeletons" that are covered in either a liquid or air, and then sealed in plastic or fabric "skins." The muscle pulls taught when a vacuum is created inside the s
  
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• The Pixel 2's Dormant 'Visual Core' Chip Gets Activated In Latest Android Developer Preview

  28-11-2017 03:05 via rss.slashdot.org
  The Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL both feature a custom Intel "Visual Core" co-processor, which is meant to improve speed and battery life when shooting photos with Google's HDR+ technology. The chip has been hanging out in the phone not really doing much of anything -- until now. TechCrunch reports of a new developer preview of Android 8.1 due out today that puts the chip to use. "The component is expected to further improve the handsets' cameras, which were already scoring good marks, producti
  
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• Facebook Rolls Out AI To Detect Suicidal Posts Before They're Reported

  28-11-2017 02:25 via rss.slashdot.org
  Facebook is rolling out "proactive detection" artificial intelligence technology that will scan all posts on the site for patterns of suicidal thoughts, and when necessary send mental health resources to the user at risk or their friends, or contact local first-responders. The goal is to use AI to decrease how long it takes to send help to those in need. TechCrunch reports: Facebook previously tested using AI to detect troubling posts and more prominently surface suicide reporting options to fri
  
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• Pokemon Go Led To Increase In Traffic Deaths and Accidents, Says Study

  28-11-2017 01:45 via rss.slashdot.org
  A new study from Purdue University uses detailed local traffic accident reports to suggest that Pokemon Go caused a marked increase in vehicle damages, injuries, and even deaths due to people playing the game while driving. Ars Technica reports: In the provocatively titled "Death by Pokemon Go" (which has been shared online but has yet to be peer-reviewed), Purdue professors Mara Faccio and John J. McConnell studied nearly 12,000 accident reports in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, in the months befo
  
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• iPhone Users Complain About the Word 'It' Autocorrecting To 'I.T' On iOS 11 and Later

  28-11-2017 01:05 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: At least a few hundred iPhone users and counting have complained about the word "it" autocorrecting to "I.T" on iOS 11 and later. When affected users type the word "it" into a text field, the keyboard first shows "I.T" as a QuickType suggestion. After tapping the space key, the word "it" automatically changes to "I.T" without actually tapping the predictive suggestion. A growing number of iPhone users have voiced their frustrations about the is
  
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• White House Weighs Personal Mobile Phone Ban For Staff

  28-11-2017 00:20 via rss.slashdot.org
  The White House is considering banning its employees from using personal mobile phones while at work. While President Trump has been vocal about press leaks since taking office, one official said the potential change is driven by cybersecurity concerns. Bloomberg reports: One official said that there are too many devices connected to the campus wireless network and that personal phones aren't as secure as those issued by the federal government. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly -- whose pers
  
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