ICT news

• Amazon S3 Will Now Encrypt All New Data With AES-256 By Default

  06-01-2023 23:40 via it.slashdot.org
  Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) will now automatically encrypt all new objects added on buckets on the server side, using AES-256 by default. BleepingComputer reports: While the server-side encryption system has been available on AWS for over a decade, the tech giant has enabled it by default to bolster security. Administrators will not have to take any actions for the new encryption system to affect their buckets, and Amazon promises it won't have any negative performance impact. Administrat
  
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• Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i Is an Unprecedented Laptop For People Who Hate Foldables

  06-01-2023 23:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Scharon Harding: Like it or not, companies are set on making foldable PCs a thing. Asus' Zenbook 17 Fold OLED turned out to be one of 2022's most adventurous laptops, and Lenovo is planning its second foldable, the 16-inch ThinkPad X1 Fold for this spring. Assuming an operating system and apps that play well with the form factor, foldables excite multitaskers, workers, and creatives who can benefit from larger, yet still portable,
  
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• College Student Made App That Exposes AI-Written Essays

  06-01-2023 22:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: ChatGPT's artificial intelligence generated dialogue has gotten pretty sophisticated -- to the point where it can write convincing sounding essays. So Edward Tian, a computer science student at Princeton, built an app called GPTZero that can "quickly and efficiently" label whether an essay was written by a person or ChatGPT. In a series of recent tweets, Tian provided examples of GPTZero in progress; the app determined John McPhee's New Yorker essay "Frame of
  
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• IBM Staff Grumble Redeployment Orders Are Stealth Layoffs

  06-01-2023 21:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told employees last year that he had no plans for further layoffs. But according to current IBM employees, managers continue to face pressure to reduce headcount and are trying to do without Resource Actions -- what Big Blue calls formal layoffs. The Register: Instead, they're trying to encourage employees to leave on their own through redeployment and eliminating jobs without formally doing so. An IBM employee who asked not to be identified and has been with the company f
  
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• FDA Approves New Treatment for Early Alzheimer's

  06-01-2023 21:00 via science.slashdot.org
  The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a new Alzheimer's drug that may modestly slow the pace of cognitive decline early in the disease, but also carries risks of swelling and bleeding in the brain. From a report: The approval of the drug, lecanemab, to be marketed as Leqembi, is likely to generate considerable interest from patients and physicians. Studies of the drug -- an intravenous infusion administered every two weeks -- suggest it is more promising than the scant number of ot
  
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• FCC Wants Carriers To Notify You Sooner When There's a Data Breach

  06-01-2023 20:20 via news.slashdot.org
  The Federal Communications Commission isn't done dragging data breach policy into the modern era. From a report: The agency has proposed rules that would improve reporting for breaches at carriers. Most notably, the move would scrap a mandatory wait of seven business days before a telecom can warn customers about a security incident. Hackers would have a shorter window of opportunity to abuse your data without your knowledge, to put it another way.
  The proposal would also clarify that carriers m
  
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• EPA Proposes New Rule To Crack Down on Deadly Air Pollution

  06-01-2023 19:40 via news.slashdot.org
  For the first time since 2012, the US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing an update to the federal air quality standard for fine soot -- a long-awaited step to reduce deadly air pollution. From a report: The current standard, which has been in place for more than a decade, limits the average annual amount of fine particle pollution to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The EPA is proposing reducing that limit to 9 to 10 micrograms, though it will be taking public comment on a range a
  
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• Using Your PS5 Vertically May Result in Hardware Failure

  06-01-2023 19:02 via games.slashdot.org
  The PS5 looks to have a design fault that can take months to appear and only seems to happen if you use the console while it's in a vertical orientation. From a report: As Wololo reports, hardware repair specialists working on PS5 consoles that fail to boot are finding the problem is caused by the liquid metal thermal interface Sony used on the custom AMD Zen 2 CPU.
  When the PS5 is oriented in a vertical position, over time the liquid metal is moving and spilling out on to the components surroun
  
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• Rackspace Says Hackers Accessed Customer Data During Ransomware Attack

  06-01-2023 18:24 via it.slashdot.org
  Cloud computing giant Rackspace has confirmed hackers accessed customer data during last month's ransomware attack. From a report: The attack, which Rackspace first confirmed on December 6, impacted the company's hosted Exchange email environment, forcing the web giant to shut down the hosted email service following the incident. At the time, Rackspace said it was unaware "what, if any, data was affected." In its latest incident response update published on Friday, Rackspace admitted that the ha
  
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• Half of Glaciers Will Be Gone By 2100 Even Under Paris 1.5C Accord, Study Finds

  06-01-2023 17:41 via news.slashdot.org
  Half the planet's glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen in the next 30 years. From a report: Researchers found 49% of glaciers would disappear under the most optimistic scenario of 1.5C of warming. However, if global heating continued under the current scenario of 2.7C of warming, lo
  
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• India Approves $2.3 Billion Plan To Become Global Hub for Green Hydrogen

  06-01-2023 17:05 via news.slashdot.org
  The Indian government has approved $2.3 billion to support production, use and exports of green hydrogen, aiming to make India a global hub for the nascent industry. From a report: The funding, announced late Wednesday, is a first step toward establishing the capacity to make at least 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen by the end of this decade. Green hydrogen is hydrogen that is produced through the electrolysis of water, powered by electricity generated from renewable sources of energy. M
  
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• Google Urges Apple Not To 'Drop the Ball' on Fixing Messaging in New Billboard Pushing RCS

  06-01-2023 16:27 via apple.slashdot.org
  Google is continuing on with its #GetTheMessage campaign attempting to convince Apple to adopt the RCS messaging protocol, this time taking out a large New Year's-themed ad at Harmon Corner in Las Vegas. From a report: The digital billboard urges Apple not to "drop the ball" on fixing its "pixelated photos and videos." Hey Apple, it's Android, the ball may have dropped on 2022, but you don't have to drop the ball on fixing your pixelated photos and videos. [...] After the short message, the bill
  
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• Microsoft, Activision Back Off Aggressive Claim in FTC Case

  06-01-2023 15:45 via slashdot.org
  Microsoft says it made a mistake last month when it claimed that the very structure of Federal Trade Commission, the agency trying to block its bid for Activision Blizzard, violates the United States Constitution. From a report: Microsoft removed that argument Thursday as it filed a revised -- and less incendiary -- response to the FTC's lawsuit to stop the tech giant's $69 billion gaming acquisition. Microsoft's new filing still argues that its purchase of the creator of Call of Duty, World of
  
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• US National Cyber Strategy To Stress Biden Push on Regulation

  06-01-2023 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The Biden administration is set to unveil a national strategy that for the first time calls for comprehensive cybersecurity regulation of the nation's critical infrastructure, explicitly recognizing that years of a voluntary approach have failed to secure the nation against cyberattacks, according to senior administration officials. From a report: The strategy builds on the first-ever oil and gas pipeline regulations imposed last year by the administration after a hack of one of the country's la
  
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• California's Pay Transparency Law Goes Into Effect, Revealing Big Tech Salaries

  06-01-2023 14:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: A new law that went into effect this week requires most California employers to disclose salaries on job listings. The law affects every company with more than 15 employees looking to fill a job that could be performed from the state of California. It covers hourly and temporary work, all the way up to openings for highly paid technology executives. That means it's now possible to know the salaries top tech companies pay their workers. For example:
  
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• Giant Plasma Cloud Bursts From the Sun

  06-01-2023 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  SonicSpike shares a report from Space.com: A giant cloud of magnetized plasma exploded from a sunspot hidden on the far side of the sun that might turn to face Earth only two days from now, so get ready for some solar fireworks. The explosion that erupted from behind the sun's eastern edge in the early morning of Tuesday (Jan. 3) was a so-called coronal mass ejection (CME), a burst of particles from the sun's upper atmosphere, or corona. The CME was accompanied by a powerful solar flare that las
  
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• US Approves World's First Vaccine For Declining Honey Bees

  06-01-2023 08:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The US has approved use of the world's first vaccine for honey bees. The BBC reports: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved a conditional license for the vaccine this week, according to the biotech firm behind its development. It was engineered to prevent fatalities from American foulbrood disease, a bacterial condition known to weaken colonies by attacking bee larvae. [...] American foulbrood disease poses a challenge for beekeepers as it is highly contagious and has no cure. The onl
  
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• Meet the Spy Tech Companies Helping Landlords Evict People

  06-01-2023 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  schwit1 shares an excerpt from a Motherboard article: Some renters may savor the convenience of "smart home" technologies like keyless entry and internet-connected doorbell cameras. But tech companies are increasingly selling these solutions to landlords for a more nefarious purpose: spying on tenants in order to evict them or raise their rent. "You CAN raise rents in NYC!" reads the headline of one promotional email sent to landlords. It was a sales pitch from Teman, a tech company that makes s
  
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• Saudi Arabia Jails Two Wikipedia Staff In 'Bid To Control Content'

  06-01-2023 03:02 via news.slashdot.org
  Saudi Arabia has infiltrated Wikipedia and jailed two administrators in a bid to control content on the website, weeks after a former Twitter worker was jailed in the US for spying for the Saudis. The Guardian reports: One administrator was jailed for 32 years, and another was sentenced to eight years, the activists said. An investigation by parent body Wikimedia found the Saudi government had penetrated Wikipedia's senior ranks in the region, with Saudi citizens acting or forced to act as agent
  
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• Salesforce Guts Tableau After Spending $15.7 Billion in 2019 Deal

  06-01-2023 02:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  Salesforce division Tableau was hit harder than other units in the company's largest-ever round of jobs cuts this week, adding to a major reorganization that signals the $15.7 billion acquisition hasn't lived up to expectations. Bloomberg reports: Chief Executive Officer Mark Nelson was ousted from the data analytics division in late December and more senior staff were axed Wednesday as part of Salesforce's announcement that it would eliminate 10% of its workforce. Job reductions at Tableau were
  
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• Qualcomm's Going Toe-To-Toe With Apple's Satellite Messaging Feature

  06-01-2023 01:45 via mobile.slashdot.org
  Qualcomm has announced that its new processors and modems will allow phones to communicate with the Iridium satellite network, letting users send and receive messages even in areas without cell coverage. The Verge reports: The feature, called Snapdragon Satellite, will be available in phones that have both Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and its X70 Modem system, along with some additional radios. Phones that support it should be "launched in select regions starting in the second half of
  
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• Mercedes-Benz Will Build a $1 Billion EV Fast-Charging Network In the US

  06-01-2023 01:02 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, Mercedes-Benz announced that it is entering the DC fast-charging arena for electric vehicles. The German automaker is in the midst of an electrification push and a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2039, and it evidently doesn't believe that the current charging infrastructure is as good as its new EVs, so it's doing something about the situation. Mercedes says it plans to deploy more than 10,000 fast chargers around the world, start
  
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• ChatGPT Creator In Talks For Tender Offer That Would Give It $29 Billion Valuation

  06-01-2023 00:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  Artificial-intelligence research company OpenAI is in discussions over potentially selling at least $300 million in shares in a tender offer that would give it a roughly $29 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. From a report: The offering of shares of OpenAI -- known for AI programs like the chatbot ChatGPT and the image-generator Dall-E 2 â" would make it among the most highly-valued startups in the U.S., the Journal said. The valuation would be more than twice it
  
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