ICT news

• Microsoft Adds Over 50 Games To xCloud Preview, Plans Launch For 2020

  14-11-2019 23:40 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has added more than 50 new games to the preview of its Project xCloud game streaming service, including Devil May Cry 5, Tekken 7 and Madden 2020. Engadget reports: In a blog post today, Microsoft said it'll send out a new wave of xCloud preview invites to gamers in the US, UK and South Korea. Starting next year, it also plans to expand the preview to Canada, India, Japan and Western Europe. If you live in one of those countries, you can sign up for the preview here and hope you get se
  
  Read more

• AMD Launches 16-Core Ryzen 9 3950X At $750, Beating Intel's $2K 18-Core Chip

  14-11-2019 23:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  MojoKid writes: AMD officially launched its latest many-core Zen 2-based processor today, a 16-core/32-thread beast known as the Ryzen 9 3950X. The Ryzen 9 3950X goes head-to-head against Intel's HEDT flagship line-up like the 18-core Core i9-9980XE but at a much more reasonable price point of $750 (versus over $2K for the Intel chip). The Ryzen 9 3950X has base and boost clocks of 3.5GHz and 4.7GHz, respectively. The CPU cores at the heart of the Ryzen 9 39050X are grouped into two, 7nm 8-core
  
  Read more

• FCC Sued By Dozens of Cities After Voting To Kill Local Fees and Rules

  14-11-2019 22:20 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission faces a legal battle against dozens of cities from across the United States, which sued the FCC to stop an order that preempts local fees and regulation of cable-broadband networks. The cities filed lawsuits in response to the FCC's August 1 vote that limits the fees municipalities can charge cable companies and prohibits cities and towns from regulating broadband services offered over cable networks. "A
  
  Read more

• Over Half of Fortune 500 Exposed To Remote Access Hacking

  14-11-2019 19:53 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Over a two-week period, the computer networks at more than half of the Fortune 500 left a remote access protocol dangerously exposed to the internet, something many experts warn should never happen, according to new research by the security firm Expanse and 451 research. From a report: According to Coveware, more than 60% of ransomware is installed via a Windows remote access feature called Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). It's a protocol that's fine in secure environments but once exposed to the
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Google's Rollout of RCS Chat for all Android Users in the US Begins Today

  14-11-2019 19:15 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Google is announcing that today, a year and a half after it first unveiled RCS chat as Android's primary texting platform, it is actually making RCS chat Android's primary texting platform. That's because it is rolling out availability to any Android user in the US who wants to use it, starting today. From a report: RCS stands for "rich communication services," and it's the successor to SMS. Like other texting services, it supports read receipts, typing indicators, improved group chats, and high
  
  Read more

• The USPTO Wants To Know if Artificial Intelligence Can Own the Content it Creates

  14-11-2019 18:30 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  The US office responsible for patents and trademarks is trying to figure out how AI might call for changes to copyright law, and it's asking the public for opinions on the topic. From a report: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a notice in the Federal Register last month saying it's seeking comments, as spotted by TorrentFreak. The office is gathering information about the impact of artificial intelligence on copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rig
  
  Read more

• Windows and Linux Get Options To Disable Intel TSX To Prevent Zombieload v2 Attacks

  14-11-2019 17:54 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Both Microsoft and the Linux kernel teams have added ways to disable support for Intel Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX). From a report: TSX is the Intel technology that opens the company's CPUs to attacks via the Zombieload v2 vulnerability. Zombieload v2 is the codename of a vulnerability that allows malware or a malicious threat actor to extract information processed inside a CPU, information to which they normally shouldn't be able to access due to the security walls present ins
  
  Read more

• Instagram Tests Hiding Like Counts Globally

  14-11-2019 17:10 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Instagram is making Like counts private for some users everywhere. From a report: Instagram tells TechCrunch the hidden Likes test is expanding to a subset of users globally. Users will have to decide for themselves if something is worth Liking rather than judging by the herd. The change could make users more comfortable sharing what's important to them without the fear of people seeing them receive an embarrassingly small number of likes. Instagram began hiding Likes in April in Canada and then
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• NCSC-NZ Releases Annual Cyber Threat Report

  14-11-2019 17:01 via us-cert.gov
  Original release date: November 14, 2019
  The New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ) has released their annual report detailing cyber threats and incidents affecting New Zealand from July 2018 to June 2019. During this period, NCSC-NZ recorded an increase in the severity of cybersecurity incidents—particularly from state-sponsored threat actors. NCSC-NZ provides enhanced cybersecurity services to New Zealand Government and organizations of national significance against cyberse
  
  Read more

• PayPal Pulls Out of Pornhub, Hurting 'Hundreds of Thousands' of Performers

  14-11-2019 16:25 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Pornhub announced late Wednesday that PayPal is no longer supporting payments for Pornhub -- a decision that will impact thousands of performers using the site as a source of income. From a report: Most visitors to Pornhub likely think of it as a website that simply provides access to an endless supply of free porn, but Pornhub also allows performers to upload, sell, and otherwise monetize videos they make themselves. Performers who used PayPal to get paid for this work now have to switch to a d
  
  Read more

• China Completes Crucial Landing Test For First Mars Mission in 2020

  14-11-2019 15:44 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  China on Thursday successfully completed a crucial landing test in northern Hebei province ahead of a historic unmanned exploration mission to Mars next year. From a report: China is on track to launch its Mars mission, Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, said on Thursday, speaking to foreign diplomats and the media before the test. The Mars lander underwent a hovering-and-obstacle avoidance test at a sprawling site in Huailai, northwest of Beijing. The site was litter
  
  Read more

• Apple Is Considering Bundling Digital Subscriptions as Soon as 2020

  14-11-2019 15:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Apple is considering bundling its paid internet services, including News+, Apple TV+ and Apple Music, as soon as 2020, in a bid to gain more subscribers, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From a report: The latest sign of this strategy is a provision that Apple included in deals with publishers that lets the iPhone maker bundle the News+ subscription service with other paid digital offerings, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing privat
  
  Read more

• Public Cloud Providers' Network Performance Wildly Varies

  14-11-2019 14:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  ThousandEyes, a cloud analysis company, in its second annual Cloud Performance Benchmark, has succeeded in measuring a major performance factor objectively: Public cloud providers' global network performance. ZDNet reports: In this study, ThousandEyes looked at the five major public cloud providers: Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. It did by analyzing over 320 million data points from 98 global metro locations over 30 days. Th
  
  Read more

• George Lucas Has Apparently Changed the Famous Greedo Scene In 1977's Star Wars Again, For Disney+

  14-11-2019 11:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Freshly Exhumed shares a report from The Guardian: George Lucas, whose departure from all things Star Wars seems to have been greatly exaggerated -- appears to have yet again doctored the famous Greedo scene in 1977's Star Wars [prior to it being shown on the Disney+ streaming service]. The scene depicts the Mos Eisley cantina in which Harrison Ford's Han Solo is confronted by an alien bounty hunter and winds up shooting him dead in a brief flurry of blaster fire. It has been much discussed over
  
  Read more

• Motorola Resurrects the Razr As a Foldable Android Smartphone

  14-11-2019 08:05 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  After teasing it last month, Motorola has officially announced the successor to the Motorola Razr. The "razr," as it is called, "keeps the same general form factor but replaces the T9 keypad and small LCD with a 6.2-inch foldable plastic OLED panel and Android 9 Pie," reports The Verge. "It'll cost $1,499 when it arrives in January 2020." From the report: The new Razr is a fundamentally different take on the foldable phones that we've seen so far: instead of turning a modern-sized phone into a s
  
  Read more

• Hologram-Like Device Animates Objects Using Ultrasound Waves

  14-11-2019 04:30 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Researchers in Southampton have built a device that displays 3D animated objects that can talk and interact with onlookers. A demonstration of the display showed a butterfly flapping its wings, a countdown spelled out by numbers hanging in the air, and a rotating, multicolored planet Earth. Beyond interactive digital signs and animations, scientists want to use it to visualize and even feel data. While the images are similar, the device is n
  
  Read more

• GitHub Faces More Resignations In Light of ICE Contract

  14-11-2019 03:20 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  TechCrunch reports that another employee, engineer Alice Goldfuss, has resigned from GitHub over the company's $200,000 contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). From the report: In a tweet, Goldfuss said GitHub has a number of problems to address and that "ICE is only the latest." Meanwhile, Vice reports at least five staffers quit today. These resignations come the same day as GitHub Universe, the company's big product conference. Ahead of the conference, Tech Workers Coalition
  
  Read more

• John Carmack Stepping Down As CTO of Oculus To Work On AI

  14-11-2019 02:40 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Oculus CTO John Carmack announced Wednesday that he is stepping down from the augmented-reality company to focus his time on artificial general intelligence. The Verge reports: Carmack will remain in a "consulting CTO" position at Oculus, where he will "still have a voice" in the development work at the company, he wrote. Recent comments from Carmack suggest he may have soured on VR. Carmack was a champion of phone-based VR for years at Oculus, but in October, he delivered a "eulogy" for Oculus'
  
  Read more

• Apple Is Finally Willing To Make Gadgets Thicker So They Work Better

  14-11-2019 02:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has started to make its products thicker in an effort to give people what they want: functionality over form. This is a good thing. There are two recent examples: this year's iPhones and the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Todd Haselton writes via CNBC: This is a theory, but it seems this may be that there are some design changes being made after the departure of Apple's former chief design officer Jony Ive. Ive was known for creating gorgeous products but, sometimes as we've seen with the older
  
  Read more

• The NYPD Kept an Illegal Database of Juvenile Fingerprints For Years

  14-11-2019 01:20 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: For years, the New York Police Department illegally maintained a database containing the fingerprints of thousands of children charged as juvenile delinquents -- in direct violation of state law mandating that police destroy these records after turning them over to the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services. When lawyers representing some of those youths discovered the violation, the police department dragged its feet, at first denyi
  
  Read more

• GitHub Places Open-Source Code In Arctic Cave For Safekeeping

  14-11-2019 00:40 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  pacopico writes: GitHub's CEO Nat Friedman traveled to Svalbard in October to stash Linux, Android, and 6,000 other open-source projects in a permafrost-filled, abandoned coal mine. It's part of a project to safeguard the world's software from existential threats and also just to archive the code for posterity. As Friedman says, "If you told someone 20 years ago that in 2020, all of human civilization will depend on and run on open-source code written for free by volunteers in countries all arou
  
  Read more

• YouTube's New Kids' Content System Has Creators Scrambling

  14-11-2019 00:00 via rss.slashdot.org
  
  As of Tuesday afternoon, YouTube is requiring creators to label any videos of theirs that may appeal to children. If they say a video is directed at kids, data collection will be blocked for all viewers, resulting in lower ad revenue and the loss of some of the platform's most popular features, including comments and end screens. It's a major change in how YouTube works, and has left some creators clueless as to whether they're subject to the new rules. The Verge reports: Reached by The Verge, G
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!