ICT news

• Debian Package Maintainer Steps Down, Complaining About 'Old Infrastructure'

  10-03-2019 23:49 via rss.slashdot.org
  Michael Stapelberg, maintains "a bunch" of Debian packages and services, and says the free software Linux distro "has been in my life for well over 10 years at this point."
  Today he released a 2,255-word essay explaining why he's "winding down" his involvement in Debian to a minimum, citing numerous complaints including Debian's complicated build stack, waits of up to seven hours before package uploads can be installed, leading to "asynchronous" feedback -- and Debian's lack of tooling for large
  
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• Ubisoft's Day-One Patch For 'The Division 2' on PS4 is 90 Gigabytes

  10-03-2019 23:07 via rss.slashdot.org
  When The Division 2 launches on March 15th, PlayStation 4 owners will also need to download a day one update -- that's 90 gigabytes. Eurogamer reports:That's according to a new official support page (as spotted by Game Informer) in which Ubisoft warns PS4 players who've opted to purchase The Division 2's physical edition that they should expect an 88-92 gigabyte download on launch day.... Ubisoft also notes that the the final HDD install size on PS4 will be between 88-92GB, for both the digital
  
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• 'Angry Birds' Developer Rovio Seeks Backers For 5G 'Netflix of Games' Service

  10-03-2019 22:39 via rss.slashdot.org
  "The next success for the company behind Angry Birds could be twofold: convincing the U.S. public they should buy a 5G mobile phone from Sprint Corp., and developing the world's biggest video game streaming platform in the process," reports Bloomberg:Rovio Entertainment is in talks with "several" investors to take a stake in its subsidiary Hatch -- a "Netflix for games" platform that Sprint will use to showcase what its high-speed 5G handsets can do when it opens its new network in May. But Rovi
  
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• Coders Used Ham Radio To Send Bitcoin From Canada To San Francisco

  10-03-2019 21:41 via rss.slashdot.org
  "In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind transaction, two developers working in separate countries have successfully sent a bitcoin lightning payment over radio waves," writes CoinBase. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
  The completed payment effectively moved real bitcoin from Toronto, Canada, to San Francisco, California... But sending bitcoin over radio isn't just fun. Some researchers argue it actually has a necessary use case... The idea is that, while the internet can potentially b
  
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• What Is ECC Memory in RAM? A Basic Definition

  10-03-2019 21:35
  
  What’s the meaning of ECC memory? ECC memory in RAM explained.
  
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• Best Memory 2019: Fast, Cheap and RGB

  10-03-2019 21:35
  
  Here are the best performing RAM kits we’ve tested: computer memory that’s ideal for gaming, video editing and graphics-heavy applications.
  
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• 'Captain Marvel' Smashes Box Office Record, Laughs Off Review-Bombing Trolls

  10-03-2019 20:49 via rss.slashdot.org
  "With a $302 million international gross, Captain Marvel has earned $455 million overall to date, the largest ever global opening for a March release and the sixth highest of all-time," reports the Wrap. The superhero movie raked in $153 million just in America, reports Collider, "Suggesting that a sad, extremely vocal minority of idiots on the internet don't actually matter in the slightest."They're referring to another Rotten Tomateos review-counting glitch Friday morning, as covered by the Ho
  
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• Genetically Engineered Seafood Coming To a Restaurant Near You

  10-03-2019 19:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  "The first genetically-modified animal for human consumption could be arriving in grocery stores across the United States as early as next year." Long-time Slashdot reader tomhath tipped us off to Indiana Public Media's report on AquaBounty Technologies:
  AquaBounty will produce a GMO salmon that CEO Ron Stotish says will grow faster than freshwater-raised fish. "It does so because we've given it the ability, using the same biological process that regulates growth in the unmodified salmon, to gro
  
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• Corsair AX850 PSU Review: Top Performer and Dead Silent

  10-03-2019 18:39
  
  The Corsair AX850 achieves top performance and it is reasonable priced, given its features. It surely is a worthy competitor to the digital AX860i.
  
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• Are People Who Take Frequent Breaks More Productive?

  10-03-2019 18:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  Dr. Travis Bradberry has a PhD in industrial-organizational psychology, and argues that "The eight-hour workday is an outdated and ineffective approach to work."
  A study recently conducted by the Draugiem Group used a computer application to track employees' work habits. Specifically, the application measured how much time people spent on various tasks and compared this to their productivity levels. In the process of measuring people's activity, they stumbled upon a fascinating finding: the leng
  
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• Nvidia Outbids Intel for Mellanox - Reuters via Calcalist

  10-03-2019 17:36
  Reuters, via financial news outlet Calcalist, reports that Nvidia has outbid Intel in an attempt to buy networking behemoth Mellanox.
  
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• Microsoft To Start Selling Windows 7 Add-On Support April 1st

  10-03-2019 17:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  AmiMoJo quotes Computerworld: Microsoft plans to start selling its Windows 7 add-on support beginning April 1. Labeled "Extended Security Updates" (ESU), the post-retirement support will give enterprise customers more time to purge their environments of Windows 7. From Windows 7's Jan. 14, 2020 end of support, ESU will provide security fixes for uncovered or reported vulnerabilities in the OS. Patches will be issued only for bugs rated "Critical" or "Important" by Microsoft, the top two rankings
  
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• The Controller for Google's Game Streaming Service May Have Leaked

  10-03-2019 17:30
  Renders purporting to show a controller for Google's unannounced "Netflix for games" platform has appeared online.
  
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• Silicon Valley Library Tests Book-Returning Robot Created By Google

  10-03-2019 16:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  What if a robot came to your house to retrieve library books? An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup:
  Residents in downtown Mountain View have gotten their first peek at the future with the debut of BookBot, the library's newest non-human helper. A creation of Google's Area 120 -- an experimental division of the technology juggernaut -- the bot is the company's first personal delivery robot to hit the streets and begin interacting with the public, said Christian Bersch, the project's
  
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• Could Blockchain-Based Fractions of Digitized Stocks Revolutionize Markets?

  10-03-2019 15:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat:
  Despite being championed as a decentralized form of money that puts individuals firmly in control of their own wealth, cryptocurrencies mostly remain the preserve of the super-rich and the super-nerdy. 1,000 Bitcoin wallets currently hold 35.18% of all Bitcoins, for example, and only a select few computer scientists understand the inner workings and machinations of blockchains... Such inconvenient truths undermine the oft-repeated claim that blockchains wi
  
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• After Amazon Increases Worker Wages, Whole Foods Responds By Cutting Worker Hours

  10-03-2019 12:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  schwit1 shared this article from the Guardian:
  In response to public pressure and increasing scrutiny over the pay of its warehouse workers, Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage for all its employees on 1 November, including workers at grocery chain Whole Foods, which it purchased in 2017... But since the wage increase, Whole Food employees have told the Guardian that they have experienced widespread cuts that have reduced schedule shifts across many stores, often negating wage gains for employees.
  
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• How Facebook Could Profit From Zuckerberg's So-Called 'Privacy' Push

  10-03-2019 09:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  Saturday the Associated Press analyzed Mark Zuckerberg's new vision for Facebook as an encrypted "privacy-focused communications platform."
  [C]ritics say the announcement obscures Facebook's deeper motivations: To expand lucrative new commercial services, continue monopolizing the attention of users, develop new data sources to track people and frustrate regulators who might be eyeing a breakup of the social-media behemoth. Facebook "wants to be the operating system of our lives," said Siva Vaid
  
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• DST-Hating Reps in Washington State Vote To 'Ditch the Switch'

  10-03-2019 05:39 via rss.slashdot.org
  In the state of Washington, the House has voted 89 to 7 to "ditch the switch, bring the light, and defeat the dark night," says one representative. KOMO reports:
  Changing the clocks twice a year impacts the body's natural rhythms and is associated with a spike in heart attacks, strokes, and traffic collisions each year, according to the Washington State Department of Health's impact review. Extended daylight in the evening is also better for kids who play sports or who are active outside, Riccel
  
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• A Doctor Remotely Told A Patient He Was Going To Die Using A Video-Link Robot

  10-03-2019 03:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  dryriver quotes the BBC: A doctor in California told a patient he was going to die using a robot with a video-link screen. Ernest Quintana, 78, was at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont when a doctor — appearing on the robot's screen — informed him that he would die within a few days. A family friend wrote on social media that it was "not the way to show value and compassion to a patient". The hospital says it "regrets falling short" of the family's expectations. Mr Quintana
  
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• Is Bad Customer Service More Profitable Than Good?

  10-03-2019 01:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  Two associate professors of marketing recently shared research in the Harvard Business Review about how customer service is structured at at tech, travel, and finance companies:
  [O]ur research suggests that some companies may actually find it profitable to create hassles for complaining customers, even if it were operationally costless not to.... We found that these companies screen complaining callers by using a hierarchical organizational structure. This structure, we argue, keeps a lid on the
  
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• Tufts Expelled a Student For Grade Hacking. She Claims Innocence

  10-03-2019 00:34 via rss.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes TechCrunch: As she sat in the airport with a one-way ticket in her hand, Tiffany Filler wondered how she would pick up the pieces of her life, with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt and nothing to show for it. A day earlier, she was expelled from Tufts University veterinary school. As a Canadian, her visa was no longer valid and she was told by the school to leave the U.S. 'as soon as possible.' That night, her plane departed the U.S. for her native Toronto,
  
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