ICT news

• Windows 95 Went the Extra Mile To Ensure Compatibility of SimCity, Other Games

  10-10-2022 23:20 via games.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's still possible to learn a lot of interesting things about old operating systems. Sometimes, those things are already documented (on a blog post) that miraculously still exist. One such quirk showed up recently when someone noticed how Microsoft made sure that SimCity and other popular apps worked on Windows 95. A recent tweet by @Kalyoshika highlights an excerpt from a blog post by Fog Creek Software co-founder, Stack Overflow co-creato
  
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• Why a $158,000 Drug With Unclear Benefits Hurts Whole Health System

  10-10-2022 22:40 via science.slashdot.org
  Price tag for a recently approved ALS drug illustrates broad industry problems. From a report: Like many patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS -- also known as Lou Gehrig's disease -- Layne Oliff didn't have any time to waste. Even before the drug Relyvrio was approved late last month by the Food and Drug Administration, he has had his own do-it-yourself method: he gets sodium phenylbutyrate in liquid form from a New Jersey pharmacy and taurursodiol online from Amazon. Th
  
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• It's Lonely in the Metaverse: Decentraland's 38 Daily Active Users in a $1.3B Ecosystem

  10-10-2022 22:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  What's going on in the metaverse these days, you might ask. Looking at two of the biggest companies with over $1 billion valuations, the answer is surprising: Not much, or at least not enough to bring users back every day. From a report: According to data from DappRadar, the Ethereum-based virtual world Decentraland had 38 active users in the past 24 hours, while competitor The Sandbox boasted 522 active users in that same time. An active user, according to DappRadar, is defined as a unique wall
  
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• Fungi Find Their Way Into Cancer Tumors, But What They're Doing There is a Mystery

  10-10-2022 21:22 via science.slashdot.org
  Angus Chen, reporting for StatNews: For a while, scientists thought the trillions of microbes on our bodies lived in landscapes connected to the outside world -- our skin, hair, and gut -- but research in the last few years has shown that's not so. When Ravid Straussman, a cancer biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, looked deeper, he and several other research groups around the world found bacteria in the milieu of tumors. Then, he and other scientists began wondering: if tu
  
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• Subjecting Workers To Webcam Monitoring Violates Privacy, Dutch Court Rules

  10-10-2022 20:43 via yro.slashdot.org
  A Florida-headquartered company has been ordered to pay about $73,000 in compensation and other fees after firing a Netherlands-based remote worker who refused to keep their webcam on all day, NL Times reports. The Verge: The company, Chetu, said the unnamed employee was required to attend a virtual classroom with their webcam turned on for the entire day and their screen remotely monitored. But when the employee refused, saying that leaving their webcam on for "9 hours a day" made them feel unc
  
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• Samsung Seeks Smart TV Growth With First Tizen OS Licensing Deals

  10-10-2022 20:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Samsung has confirmed the first third-party smart TV makers to ship with its Tizen operating system (OS), with several manufacturers preparing to launch Tizen-powered TVs this year across Europe and Australasia. From a report: Tizen, for the uninitiated, is a Linux-based OS hosted by the Linux Foundation for more than a decade, though Samsung has been the primary developer and driving force behind the project, using it across myriad devices, including smartwatches, kitchen appliances, cameras, s
  
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• Russian-Speaking Hackers Knock Multiple US Airport Websites Offline

  10-10-2022 19:20 via it.slashdot.org
  More than a dozen public-facing airport websites, including those for some of the nation's largest airports, appeared inaccessible Monday morning, and Russian-speaking hackers claimed responsibility. From a report: No immediate signs of impact to actual air travel were reported, suggesting the issue may be an inconvenience for people seeking travel information. "Obviously, we're tracking that, and there's no concern about operations being disrupted," Kiersten Todt, Chief of Staff of the US Cyber
  
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• A Minecraft Player Set Out To Build the Known Universe, Block by Block

  10-10-2022 18:40 via news.slashdot.org
  Christopher Slayton spent two months exploring black holes, identifying the colors of Saturn's rings and looking at his home planet from outer space. Mr. Slayton, 18, didn't have to leave his desk to do so. He set out to build the entire observable universe, block by block, in Minecraft, a video game where users build and explore worlds. From a report: By the end, he felt as if he had traveled to every corner of the universe. "Everyone freaks out about the power and expansiveness of the universe
  
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• Farmers in Bangladesh Pump So Much Water It May Help Reduce Floods

  10-10-2022 18:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Millions of smallholder farmers in Bangladesh pump huge amounts of groundwater for irrigation, helping to triple the country's rice production and possibly mitigate floods during monsoon season. From a report: Intensive irrigation and other agricultural improvements since the 1980s have enabled Bangladesh to produce enough food each year to be nearly self-sufficient. "In Bangladesh we rely heavily on groundwater for irrigation," says Kazi Matin Ahmed at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. He
  
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• PC Shipments Are Still on the Decline - Unless You're Apple

  10-10-2022 17:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Global PC shipments declined in calendar Q3 by 15 percent year-on-year thanks to reduced demand and lingering supply chain issues, according to number cruncher IDC. From a report: The Q3 slowdown is similar to that seen in Q2 2022, when shipments crashed by 15.3 percent year-on-year. The slowed growth didn't just start this year. Signs first emerged in Q3 2021 as Chromebooks hit market saturation. For perspective, volumes still remain higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
  Shipments also aren
  
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• India Facing a Pandemic of Antibiotics-Resistant Superbugs

  10-10-2022 16:40 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: At the 1,000-bed not-for-profit Kasturba Hospital in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, doctors are grappling with a rash of antibiotic-resistant "superbug infections." This happens when bacteria change over time and become resistant to drugs that are supposed to defeat them and cure the infections they cause. Such resistance directly caused 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019, according to The Lancet, a medical journal. Antibiotics -- which are consi
  
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• Nations Agree To Curb Emissions From Flying by 2050

  10-10-2022 16:00 via news.slashdot.org
  After almost a decade of talks, the nations of the world have committed to drastically lower emissions of planet-warming gases from the world's airplanes by 2050, a milestone in efforts to ease the climate effects of a fast-growing sector. From a report: The target to reach "net zero" emissions -- a point in which air travel is no longer pumping any additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -- would require the aviation industry to significantly step up its climate efforts. Previously, compa
  
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• California Passes Law Banning Single-Use Plastic Grocery Bags by 2025

  10-10-2022 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  You know how grocery stores have rolls of tear-off plastic bags in their produce sections for holding vegetables and fruit?
  Last week California's governor signed a law that will force supermarkets to discontinue them before 2025, reports the Bay Area Newsgroup, replacing them with either recycled paper bags or bags made of compostable plastic:"This kind of plastic film is not recyclable...." said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste, an environmental group that suppor
  
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• Your Boss Can Monitor Your Activities Without Special Software

  10-10-2022 09:34 via it.slashdot.org
  "Your boss probably has enough data about your digital activities to get a snapshot of your workday — without using any special monitoring software...." reports the Washington Post.
  "Workers should be aware that many online work apps offer data about their daily activities...."
  Commonly used network-connected apps such as Zoom, Slack and Microsoft Office give managers the ability to find everything from the number of video meetings in which you've actively participated, to how much you cha
  
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• United Airlines Hopes to Use Electric Planes for Flights Under 200 Miles By 2030

  10-10-2022 06:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  It's one of the largest airlines in the world. But now Futurism reports that United Airlines "is projecting it could have electric powered commercial flights by the tail end of this decade, potentially laying the groundwork for a much more environmentally friendly future for air travel.""Initially we want to fly on routes that are 200 miles or less," Mike Leskinen, president of United Airlines Ventures, told CNBC [at CNBC's ESG Impact Virtual Conference on Thursday]. "But as that energy density
  
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• Intel Confirms Alder Lake BIOS Source Code Leaked

  10-10-2022 03:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Tom's Hardware reports:We recently broke the news that Intel's Alder Lake BIOS source code had been leaked to 4chan and Github, with the 6GB file containing tools and code for building and optimizing BIOS/UEFI images. We reported the leak within hours of the initial occurrence, so we didn't yet have confirmation from Intel that the leak was genuine. Intel has now issued a statement to Tom's Hardware confirming the incident:
  "Our proprietary UEFI code appears to have been leaked by a third party.
  
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• Protestors Hack Iran's State-Run TV

  10-10-2022 00:50 via yro.slashdot.org
  "Iran's state-run broadcaster was apparently hacked on air Saturday," reports the BBC, "with a news bulletin interrupted by a protest against the country's leader."
  While such incidents are "historically rare," they add that more recently,this incident follows "widespread open dissent"It comes after at least three people were shot dead when protesters clashed with security forces in new unrest over the death of Mahsa Amini. s Amini was detained in Tehran by morality police for allegedly not cove
  
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