ICT news

• Not Just the IRS - 20 US Agencies Are Already Set Up For Selfie IDs

  30-01-2022 23:26 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  America's Internal Revenue Service created an uproar with early plans to require live-video-feed selfies to verify identities for online tax services (via an outside company called ID.me).
  But Wired points out that more than 20 U.S. federal agencies are already using a digital identification system (named Login.gov and built on services from LexisNexis) that "can use selfies for account verification."
  It's run by America's General Services Administration, or GSA....
  The GSA's director of technol
  
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• Can AI Help Us Reimagine Chess?

  30-01-2022 22:04 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Three research scientists at DeepMind Technologies teamed up with former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik to "explore what variations of chess would look like at superhuman level," according to their new article in Communications of the ACM. Their paper argues that using neural networks and advanced reinforcement learning algorithms can not only surpass all human knowledge of chess, but also "allow us to reimagine the game as we know it...."
  "For example, the 'castling' move was only introd
  
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• Why Is a Harvard Astrophysicist Working With UFO Buffs?

  30-01-2022 21:04 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Science magazine checks in on the new "Galileo Project" from controversial Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb. It's searching for evidence of extraterrestrial technology, whether it's spotted deep in space by mountaintop observatories or by their network of rooftop cameras "designed to capture any UFOs prowling through Earth's atmosphere."
  "After enlisting more than three dozen astronomers and engineers in the project — as well as some notorious nonscientists — Loeb hopes to solve the endur
  
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• Intel Fails To Get Spectre, Meltdown Chip Flaw Class-action Suit Tossed Out

  30-01-2022 20:04 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "Intel will have to defend itself against claims that the semiconductor goliath knew its microprocessors were defective and failed to tell customers," reports the Register:On Wednesday, Judge Michael Simon, of the US District Court of Oregon, partially denied the tech giant's motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit arising from the 2018 public disclosure of Meltdown and Spectre, the family of data-leaking chip microarchitecture design blunders....
  To defend against Meltdown and Spectre, Intel a
  
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• 'The Dark Side of Cobalt, the Digital Age's Miracle Metal'

  30-01-2022 19:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The Toronto Star just published a searing excerpt from the book Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower — written by a member of Canada's Parliament:It argues in part that "The social conflict that existed in the early days of Cobalt has been magnified a thousandfold in jurisdictions where the rule of law is compromised, and incursions into Indigenous territories heighten conflict."The world is searching for cobalt, the miracle ingredient of the digital age. The me
  
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• Chinese Satellite Observed Grappling Another and Pulling It Out of Orbit

  30-01-2022 18:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Last week a Chinese satellite "was observed grabbing another satellite and pulling it out of its normal geosynchronous orbit," reports the Drive, "and into a 'super-graveyard drift orbit.'"
  "The maneuver raises questions about the potential applications of these types of satellites designed to maneuver close to other satellites for inspection or manipulation and adds to growing concerns about China's space program overall."On January 22, China's Shijian-21 satellite, or SJ-21, disappeared from i
  
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• Are Major Legal Changes Needed for the Driverless Car Era?

  30-01-2022 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader Hope Thelps brings news about the future of self-driving cars. "The law commisions of England and Wales and of Scotland (statutory bodies which keep the laws in those countries under review) are recommending a shift in accident liability away from 'drivers' when autonomous cars become a reality."
  The BBC reports:Human drivers should not be legally accountable for road safety in the era of autonomous cars, a report says. In these cars, the driver should be redefined as a
  
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• 'Anonymous' Hacktivist Martin Gottesfeld Said To Be Held In Solitary Confinement

  30-01-2022 16:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader reader Danngggg has been keeping us up-to-date about the case of Marty Gottesfeld, the Anonymous hacktivist initially prosecuted by the same U.S. attorney who prosecuted Aaron Swartz into suicide:Anonymous hacktivist Marty Gottesfeld was first covered by Slashdot in 2016, when he was rescued by at sea by a Disney cruise liner and then arrested by the FBI.... He's been practicing journalism from inside the Bureau of Prisons, most recently highlighting sexual abuse....
  Marty's home
  
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• O'Reilly Reports Increasing Interest in Cybersecurity, AI, Go, Rust, and C++

  30-01-2022 13:04 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "Focus on the horse race and the flashy news and you'll miss the real stories," argues Mike Loukides, the content strategy VP at O'Reilly Media. So instead he shares trends observed on O'Reilly's learning platform in the first nine months of 2021:While new technologies may appear on the scene suddenly, the long, slow process of making things that work rarely attracts as much attention. We start with an explosion of fantastic achievements that seem like science fiction — imagine, GPT-3 can
  
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• Apple's AirTags Catch a Moving Van Driver Lying About His Location

  30-01-2022 09:34 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Moving halfway across America, from Colorado to New York, Austin and Valerie McNulty had a bad experience after hiring a moving company that subcontracted the work to another moving company.But they'd also included an Apple AirTag in one of their boxes, Newsweek reports:A moving guy reportedly told Austin that he "just picked up the stuff" and would take another day or two. Due to the AirTag, the couple knew the moving guy was not in Colorado but was just less than five hours away in Harrisburg,
  
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• YouTube-DL Forks to Continue Supporting Older Versions of Python

  30-01-2022 05:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Wikipedia defines youtube-dl as "a free and open source download manager for video and audio from YouTube and over 1,000 other video hosting websites." It was created in 2006, and "According to libraries.io, 308 other packages and 1.43k repositories depend on it." The project now has over 106,000 stars on GitHub, and by one calculation it's their fourth-most starred project that's written in Python.
  A new issue today describes the project as "Under new management."
  I hope that we'll be able to m
  
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• America Races to Salvage Its Sunken F-35 Warplane - Before China Does

  30-01-2022 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "A race against time is under way for the U.S. Navy to reach one of its downed fighter jets — before the Chinese get there first," reports the BBC:The $100m (£74m) F-35C plane came down in the South China Sea after what the Navy describes as a "mishap" during take-off from the USS Carl Vinson. The jet is the Navy's newest, and crammed with classified equipment. As it is in international waters, it is technically fair game. Whoever gets there first, wins.The prize? All the secrets beh
  
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• Ask Slashdot: Do You Test Your Web pages With Microsoft Edge?

  30-01-2022 00:34 via ask.slashdot.org
  
  `Long-time Slashdot reader shanen writes:
  If you're doing any web page programming for money, then I'm pretty sure you're paid to support Edge, too. Probably even required to test it. So this question is really directed to the relative amateur programmers among us.
  As I think about the topic from my overly philosophic perspective, I even considered asking "Do you feel pressured or even blackmailed to support MS Edge?"
  The original submission tells the story of a homegrown app involving "moderate
  
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