ICT news

• Ultra-Processed Meals Are Unhealthier Than You Think

  17-10-2022 23:22 via science.slashdot.org
  For a long time it has been known that diets dominated by ultra-processed food (UPF) are more likely to lead to obesity. But recent research suggests that high UPF consumption also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and, according to a recent American study involving 50,000 health professionals, of developing colon cancer. From a report: On a more general note, last month a study in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology found that people born after 1990 are more likely to develop
  
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• Xi's Call To Win Tech Race Points To New Wave of Chinese State-led Spending

  17-10-2022 22:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  President Xi Jinping's call for China to "win the battle" in core technologies could signal an overhaul in Beijing's approach to advancing its tech industry, with more state-led spending and intervention to counter U.S. pressures, analysts say. From a report: Achieving self-reliance in technology featured prominently in Xi's full work report to kick off the once-every-five-years Communist Party Congress, with four mentions versus none in 2017. The term "technology" was referred to 40 times, up f
  
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• Chip Delivery Times Shrink in Sign That Supply Crunch Is Easing

  17-10-2022 22:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Chip delivery times shrank by four days in September, the biggest drop in years, in a sign that the industry's supply crunch is easing. From a report: Lead times -- the gap between when a chip is ordered and when it is delivered -- averaged 26.3 weeks in the period, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group. That compares with nearly 27 weeks the prior month. Wait times contracted for all key product categories, with power-management and analog chips seeing the biggest declines, Susqu
  
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• In Praise of FFmpeg

  17-10-2022 21:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  Drew DeVault, prolific FOSS blogger and hacker behind SourceHut, Sway, wlroots, and many other projects, writes in a blog post: I have relied on ffmpeg for many tasks and for many years. It has always been there to handle any little multimedia-related task I might put it to for personal use -- re-encoding audio files so they fit on my phone, taking clips from videos to share, muxing fonts into mkv files, capturing video from my webcam, live streaming hacking sessions on my own platform, or anyth
  
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• UK Holds Talks on How To Avoid Blackouts at Major Data Centers

  17-10-2022 20:41 via news.slashdot.org
  UK government officials held detailed discussions with some of the biggest data center operators about ways to keep those businesses running through any potential power shortages in coming months, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From a report: The talks focused on allocating diesel for backup generators if Britain's energy infrastructure operator, National Grid, needed to cut power, the people said, asking not to be named because the discussions are privat
  
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• Visa, Mastercard Draw New Government Scrutiny Over Debit-Card Routing

  17-10-2022 20:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Visa and Mastercard's security tokens restrict debit-card routing competition on online payments, WSJ reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The FTC for the past few years has already been probing whether Visa and Mastercard block merchants from routing payments over other debit-card networks. The networks acknowledged an FTC probe in regulatory filings in recent years. In recent months, the FTC expanded its
  
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• FedEx Abandons Its Last-Mile Delivery Robot Program

  17-10-2022 19:24 via hardware.slashdot.org
  The courier company FedEx is abandoning a project to develop last-mile delivery robots. In 2019, FedEx partnered with New Hampshire-based DEKA Research and Development Corp, founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen, to develop a wheeled robot called Roxo for last-mile deliveries. From a report: But FedEx decided to end the project in early October, according to a report in Robotics 24/7. FedEx employees were told of the decision via an email from the company's chief transformation officer, Sriram K
  
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• Mark Zuckerberg Says WhatsApp 'Far More Private and Secure' than iMessage

  17-10-2022 18:42 via tech.slashdot.org
  Mark Zuckerberg, writing in a Facebook post: WhatsApp is far more private and secure than iMessage, with end-to-end encryption that works across both iPhones and Android, including group chats. With WhatsApp you can also set all new chats to disappear with the tap of a button. And last year we introduced end-to-end encrypted backups too. All of which iMessage still doesn't have.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Zimbabwe's Currency Crackdown Spurs Wider Use of US Dollars

  17-10-2022 18:02 via news.slashdot.org
  A crackdown by authorities in Zimbabwe to support the local currency and fight inflation has increased the use of US dollars in the economy, according to the country's oldest brokerage. From a report: "Ironically the authorities' clampdown on Zimbabwe dollar payments created such a squeeze that it has had the unintended consequence of driving dollarization at a faster pace," Imara Asset Management Chief Executive Officer John Legat said in the Harare-based company's latest quarterly investment n
  
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• Mexico Probes Whether Pegasus Spyware Purchases Were Legal

  17-10-2022 17:21 via yro.slashdot.org
  The Mexican attorney general's office said on Sunday it is investigating the purchase of Pegasus computer spyware by the previous administration and whether it was carried out legally. From a report: In a statement, the office referred to existing probes of two people, including a prominent ex-official, into the use of Pegasus spyware, days after the current government denied it had spied on journalists or critics. Pegasus belongs to Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, which typically only sells the
  
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• Since Crew Dragon's Debut, SpaceX Has Flown More Astronauts Than Anyone

  17-10-2022 16:41 via science.slashdot.org
  After 170 days in space, four astronauts splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, bringing an end to a successful NASA-SpaceX mission to the International Space Station. From a report: Following two days of weather delays, SpaceX's Crew Dragon Freedom returned to Earth off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, beneath clear blue skies and into mild seas. The spacecraft's descent through Earth's atmosphere appeared to be nominal, with two drogue parachutes deploying on schedule, followed by f
  
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• Scientists Baffled After a Black Hole 'Burps' a Star's Energy - Three Years Later

  17-10-2022 13:34 via science.slashdot.org
  NPR reports that astronomers have spotted a black hole finally "burping" out energy from a star that it swallowed back in 2018:How unusual is this? "Super unusual," Yvette Cendes, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian and lead author of the paper, tells NPR. "We've never really seen this before to this degree."Researchers made the discovery when they used a powerful radio telescope facility — the Very Large Array in New Mexico — to check in on some two
  
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• Kanye West To Acquire 'Uncancelable' Social Media Platform Parler

  17-10-2022 13:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  Kanye West, the rapper who also also goes by the name Ye, has reached an agreement to buy "uncancelable free speech platform" Parler, the two said in a statement Monday, in a move they said will help individuals express their conservative opinions freely. From a report: As part of the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, Parler has agreed to sell fully to West but the social network will continue to receive technical support from Parlement Technologies, including access to its priv
  
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• 96 File Legal Action Demanding Coinbase Reimburse $21M Lost to Crypto Scammers

  17-10-2022 10:54 via news.slashdot.org
  "Over the past year, thousands of people have lost tens, if not hundreds, of millions in cryptocurrency when gangs of sophisticated scammers whisked their money out of their accounts," reports the Washington Post, noting the accounts "managed by an app from the publicly traded cryptocurrency giant Coinbase.
  "Now those victims are fighting back. Nearly 100 people are trying to hold Coinbase accountable, saying the company didn't do enough to protect them."Scam victims says they notified the compa
  
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• Rent Going Up? One Company's Algorithm Could Be Why.

  17-10-2022 07:34 via slashdot.org
  Some have complained high-paying tech jobs have driven up rents in major tech hubs — creating an exodus that will later drive up rents in other cities.
  But ProPublica asks whether there's another technology at work:On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech executives gathered at a conference hall in Nashville to boast about one of their company's signature products: software that uses a mysterious algorithm to help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants. "Never b
  
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• Vaccines to Treat Cancer Possible by 2030, Say BioNTech Founders

  17-10-2022 04:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Ugur Sahin and and Özlem Türeci. The BBC calls them "the husband and wife team behind one of the most successful Covid vaccines" — the couple who co-founded the German biotech company BioNTech in 2008, "exploring new technology involving messenger RNA to treat cancer."
  And though they partnered with Pfizer to ues the same approach for their Covid vaccine, "Now the doctors are hopeful it could lead to new treatments for melanoma, bowel cancer and other tumour types."BioNTech has s
  
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• How 'Homestar Runner' Re-Emerged After the End of Flash

  17-10-2022 02:42 via tech.slashdot.org
  Wikipedia describes Homestar Runner as "a blend of surreal humour, self-parody, and references to popular culture, in particular video games, classic television, and popular music." But after launching in 2000, the web-based cartoon became a cultural phenomenon, co-creator Mike Chapman remembered in 2017:On the same day we received a demo of a song that John Linnell from They Might Be Giants recorded for a Strong Bad Email and a full-size working Tom Servo puppet from Jim Mallon from Mystery Sci
  
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• HBO Max Picks 'Homestar Runner' Co-Creator to Direct Batman Spin-off Series 'The Penguin'

  17-10-2022 01:41 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  From a report:
  Filmmaker Craig Zobel has been tapped by HBO Max to direct the first two episodes of The Penguin, its much-awaited Batman spinoff. He will also serve as executive producer of the show, with Lauren LeFranc writing the script. Starring in The Penguin is Colin Farrell, who played the villainous Oswald Cobblepot in The Batman earlier this year. The Penguin will focus its attention on Cobblepot's notorious past and trace his rise to power in Gotham.
  Zobel is already part of the family,
  
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• New Specialized Career Certifications Created by 'Grow with Google' Through University-Industry Partnerships

  17-10-2022 00:41 via news.slashdot.org
  In 2017 Google committed $1 billion to a program called "Grow with Google," and in 2018 launched "Google Career Certificates."
  Fortune looks at the success of those programs — and their newest evolution:These online educational programs are focused on helping learners land jobs that are in high demand, including in digital marketing, IT support , data analytics, project management, and UX design. More than 300,000 people have graduated from Google's Career Certificates program, and 75% of
  
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