ICT news

• AI-Powered Software Delivery Company Predicts 'The End of Programming'

  31-12-2022 23:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  Matt Welsh is the CEO and co-founder of Fixie.ai, an AI-powered software delivery company founded by a team from Google and Apple. "I believe the conventional idea of 'writing a program' is headed for extinction," he opines in January's Communications of the ACM, "and indeed, for all but very specialized applications, most software, as we know it, will be replaced by AI systems that are trained rather than programmed."
  His essay is titled "The End of programming," and predicts a future will "Pro
  
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• 'If Aliens Contact Humanity, Who Decides What We Do Next?'

  31-12-2022 22:34 via science.slashdot.org
  If humankind detects a message from an advanced civilisation, "It would be a transformative event for humankind," writes the Guardian, "one the world's nations are surely prepared for."Or are they?"
  "Look at the mess we made when Covid hit. We'd be like headless chickens," says Dr John Elliott, a computational linguist at the University of St Andrews. "We cannot afford to be ill-prepared, scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless, for an event that could happen at any time and which w
  
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• Ancient Cats Migrated With Humans All Over the World

  31-12-2022 21:34 via science.slashdot.org
  Slashdot reader guest reader shares some interesting research from the University of Missouri:
  Nearly 10,000 years ago, humans settling in the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the first switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers. They developed close bonds with the rodent-eating cats that conveniently served as ancient pest-control in society's first civilizations.
  A new study at the University of Missouri found this lifestyle transiti
  
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• Other Software Projects Are Now Trying to Replicate ChatGPT

  31-12-2022 20:34 via news.slashdot.org
  "The first open source equivalent of OpenAI's ChatGPT has arrived," writes TechCrunch, "but good luck running it on your laptop — or at all."This week, Philip Wang, the developer responsible for reverse-engineering closed-sourced AI systems including Meta's Make-A-Video, released PaLM + RLHF, a text-generating model that behaves similarly to ChatGPT [listed as a work in progress]. The system combines PaLM, a large language model from Google, and a technique called Reinforcement Learning wi
  
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• MIT's Newest fMRI Study: 'This is Your Brain on Code'

  31-12-2022 19:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  Remember when MIT researchers did fMRI brain scans measuring the blood flow through brains to determine which parts were engaged when programmers evaluated code? MIT now says that a new paper (by many of the same authors) delves even deeper:Whereas the previous study looked at 20 to 30 people to determine which brain systems, on average, are relied upon to comprehend code, the new research looks at the brain activity of individual programmers as they process specific elements of a computer progr
  
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• Inspired by Amazon, Paid Promotions Spread to Other Online Shopping Sites in 2022

  31-12-2022 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  We're buying more things online, the Washington Post notes. But how we buy may be changing too:For the first time in years, Google and Meta have grabbed less than half of the digital marketing money spent in the United States in 2022. Amazon, which took more than 11 percent of all digital ads purchased, was the biggest reason Google and Meta lost ground as advertising powerhouses, according to the research firm Insider Intelligence.
  In part because of Amazon's success with paid product promotion
  
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• World Chess Champ Magnus Carlsen Also Wins World Blitz and Rapid Chess Titles

  31-12-2022 17:34 via games.slashdot.org
  "Rapid chess" grants 15 minutes to each player for all moves (plus 10 seconds per move). "Blitz chess" grants each player three minutes (plus 2 seconds per move).Now CNN reports that five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen "won both the World Rapid and World Blitz chess titles in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in the latest landmark of his glittering career."The 32-year-old Norwegian is now the holder of all three world chess championship titles — in Classical, Rapid and Blitz — for the t
  
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• Systemd's Growth Over 2022

  31-12-2022 16:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  Phoronix checks systemd's Git activity in 2022 (and compares it to previous years):
  If measuring a open-source project's progress by the commity activity per year, while not the most practical indicator, systemd had a very good year. In 2022 there were 6,271 commits which is under 2021's all-time-high of 6,787 commits. But this year's activity count effectively ties 2018 for second place with the most commits in a given calendar year.
  This year saw 201k lines of new code added to systemd and 110
  
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• Google Will Pay $9.5 Million To Settle Washington DC AG's Location-Tracking Lawsuit

  31-12-2022 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google has agreed to pay $9.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Washington DC Attorney General Karl Racine, who accused the company earlier this year of "deceiving users and invading their privacy." From a report: Google has also agreed to change some of its practices, primarily concerning how it informs users about collecting, storing and using their location data. "Google leads consumers to believe that consumers are in control of whether Google collects and retains information about thei
  
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• The Dark Sky's iOS App Will Stop Working Imminently

  31-12-2022 12:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  The time has come: Dark Sky, the (mostly) beloved weather app for iOS is going to stop working on January 1st, according to in-app warnings. From a report: The sunsetting has been in the forecast for a while -- Apple announced it was planning on shutting down the service last year after acquiring it in 2020, and it removed Dark Sky from the App Store a few months ago, according to 9to5Mac. But if you've been putting off finding a new weather app, now's the time to finally get around to it. As fo
  
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• Tim Cook Relayed Concern Over App Store Curbs To Japan Prime Minister

  31-12-2022 10:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple CEO Tim Cook urged Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to consider user protections when regulating smartphone app distribution during a mid-December meeting, Nikkei is reporting, as the tech giant faces growing pressure to open up to third-party app stores. From a report: Apple has come under fire in Europe and elsewhere for requiring all app downloads on the iPhone go through its official App Store. Cook's first trip to Japan in three years was likely intended to prevent similar argume
  
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• Microsoft's $200 Surface Earbuds Have Seemingly Been Abandoned

  31-12-2022 07:00 via it.slashdot.org
  Windows Central reports: The Surface Earbuds are a weird product in Microsoft's line of Surface devices. Now over two years old, and still available to buy at a close to launch price of $160, the Surface Earbuds might be the worst "Surface" branded device you can buy brand new right now. They launched at a time when the wireless earbuds space was heating up and offered less than the competition while charging more. Are they the best in audio quality? Definitely not. Are they the best designed? M
  
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• The 240Hz OLED Gaming Displays Are Coming

  31-12-2022 04:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: CES 2023 is now just days away, and there's already a standout category that we're particularly excited about: 240Hz OLED gaming monitors. Generally speaking, OLED panels can achieve better picture quality and a faster response time than their LED or IPS equivalents but have historically lacked the ability to match them in providing high-refresh rates. There have been some exceptions -- such as the Alienware AW3423DW, a QD-OLED running at 175Hz -- but now, OL
  
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• Sage Accused of 'Strong Arm' Tactics Over Move To Software Subscriptions

  31-12-2022 01:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  British businesses have complained about the tactics used by Sage, the UK's largest listed tech company, to push them into accepting more expensive subscription services or have access to their existing accounting software packages switched off. From a report: Small companies across the UK rely on the FTSE 100 company's Sage50 software for book-keeping, sending invoices, processing orders and helping with tax payments. But in recent months, Sage has pushed customers who had been sold single-paym
  
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