ICT news

• Can Talking to Strangers Make Us Smarter?

  30-10-2022 23:41 via news.slashdot.org
  Smartphones "have made it easier than ever to avoid interacting with the people in our immediate environment, writes New York City-based author Joe Keohane.
  But is that always good? "Some social scientists believe teaching kids that literally everyone in the world they hadn't met is dangerous may have been actively harmful."For several years, I researched why we don't talk to strangers and what happens when we do for my book, The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious Wor
  
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• Fires from Exploding E-Bike Batteries Nearly Doubled This Year in New York City

  30-10-2022 22:15 via hardware.slashdot.org
  "Four times a week on average, an e-bike or e-scooter battery catches fire in New York City," reports NPR:Sometimes, it does so on the street, but more often, it happens when the owner is recharging the lithium ion battery. A mismatched charger won't always turn off automatically when the battery's fully charged, and keeps heating up. Or, the highly flammable electrolyte inside the battery's cells leaks out of its casing and ignites, setting off a chain reaction.
  "These bikes when they fail, the
  
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• How Privacy-Enhancing Technologies Are Fulfilling Cryptography's Potential

  30-10-2022 21:15 via it.slashdot.org
  Here's the Guardian's report on new cryptographic techniques where "you can share data while keeping that data private" — known by the umbrella term "privacy-enhancing technologies" (or "Pets).
  They offer opportunities for data holders to pool their data in new and useful ways. In the health sector, for example, strict rules prohibit hospitals from sharing patients' medical data. Yet if hospitals were able to combine their data into larger datasets, doctors would have more information, whi
  
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• The World Is Running Out of Helium. Why Doctors are Worried

  30-10-2022 20:15 via science.slashdot.org
  NBC News reports:A global helium shortage has doctors worried about one of the natural gas's most essential, and perhaps unexpected, uses: MRIs.Strange as it sounds, the lighter-than-air element that gives balloons their buoyancy also powers the vital medical diagnostic machines. An MRI can't function without some 2,000 liters of ultra-cold liquid helium keeping its magnets cool enough to work. But helium — a nonrenewable element found deep within the Earth's crust — is running low,
  
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• Space Station Astronauts Spot the World's Largest Methane Polluters

  30-10-2022 19:05 via science.slashdot.org
  "NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission is mapping the prevalence of key minerals in the planet's dust-producing deserts — information that will advance our understanding of airborne dust's effects on climate," NASA announced this week.
  "But EMIT has demonstrated another crucial capability: detecting the presence of methane, a potent greenhouse gas."In the data EMIT has collected since being installed on the International Space Station in July, the science te
  
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• An Investigation of CS Instructor Obstacles, Workarounds, and Desires

  30-10-2022 17:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:"What is your biggest pain point?", North Carolina State University PhD student Samim Mirhosseini and Microsoft Researchers Austin Z. Henley & Chris Parnin asked 32 computer science instructors at universities and community colleges. Their feedback is summed up in a just-posted paper that will be presented at SIGCSE 2023.
  Instructors cited understanding what students are struggling with, answering students' questions, limited teaching assistant (TA) su
  
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• Europe's Telecoms Want High-Traffic Companies Like Netflix to Fund Infrastructure Upgrades

  30-10-2022 16:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "Faced with a squeeze on profits and dwindling share prices, internet service providers are seeking ways of making additional income," reports CNBC.
  One example? "Telecom groups are pushing European regulators to consider implementing a framework where the companies that send traffic along their networks are charged a fee to help fund mammoth upgrades to their infrastructure, something known as the 'sender pays' principle."Their logic is that certain platforms, like Amazon Prime and Netflix, che
  
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• Security Certification Body (ISC)2 Defends Proposed Bylaw Changes

  30-10-2022 15:34 via it.slashdot.org
  Security certification body (ISC)Â — the International Information System Security Certification Consortium — "is a non-profit organization providing training and certification for cybersecurity professionals," writes PortSwigger "Daily Swig" blog for cybersecurity news. "Over the last two years, it has been carrying out a review of its practices around committees, nominations, and governance."
  But some of the proposed bylaw amendments (announced earlier this month) drew critic
  
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• Arm Disputes Qualcomm's Claim It's Licensing Only to OEMs (Not Chipmakers) After 2024

  30-10-2022 12:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Fierce Electronics reports on "a complex legal battle in U.S. district court" between Qualcomm and Arm "over licensing of intellectual property with potentially far-reaching impact..."Normally, Arm licenses its architectural designs and related IP to chipmakers such as Nvidia or Qualcomm, which in turn produce chips that are then sold to OEMs that use those chips to make servers and other computers and devices. In an updated Qualcomm counterclaim made public Oct. 26, Qualcomm argues that Arm is
  
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• 'How Google's Ad Business Funds Disinformation Around the World'

  30-10-2022 08:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  Today ProPublica published "the largest-ever analysis of Google's ad practices on non-English-language websites," saying their report shows Google "is funneling revenue to some of the web's most prolific purveyors of false information in Europe, Latin America and Africa," and "reveals how the tech giant makes disinformation profitable...."
  The company has publicly committed to fighting disinformation around the world, but a ProPublica analysis, the first ever conducted at this scale, documented
  
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• Dogecoin Surges 70% After Elon Musk's Twitter Deal

  30-10-2022 05:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Noting that Elon Musk once called Dogecoin "the people's crypto," Reuters reports that on Saturday the price of Dogecoin surged more than 70%, "extending this week's gains after Elon Musk sealed a $44-billion deal to take over Twitter..."Cryptocurrency exchange Binance which has invested $500 million into Musk's buyout of Twitter, said it is brainstorming strategies on how blockchain and crypto could be helpful to Twitter....
  Musk tweeted this month that he is buying Twitter to create an "everyt
  
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• Computing Pioneer Who Invented the First Assembly Language Dies at Age 100

  30-10-2022 02:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  "Kathleen Booth, who has died aged 100, co-designed of one of the world's first operational computers and wrote two of the earliest books on computer design and programming," the Telegraph wrote this week.
  "She was also credited with the invention of the first assembly language, a programming language designed to be readable by users."
  In 1946 she joined a team of mathematicians under Andrew Booth at Birkbeck College undertaking calculations for the scientists working on the X-ray crystallograph
  
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• Developer Proposes New (and Compatible) 'Extended Flavor' of Go

  30-10-2022 00:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  While listening to a podcast about the Go programming language, backend architect Aviv Carmi heard some loose talk about forking the language to keep its original design while also allowing the evolution of an "extended flavor."If such a fork takes place, Carmi writes on Medium, he hopes the two languages could interact and share the same runtime environment, libraries, and ecosystem — citing lessons learned from the popularity of other language forks:
  There are well-known, hugely successf
  
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