ICT news

• UK Conducts First Satellite Orbital Space Launch

  09-01-2023 23:42 via science.slashdot.org
  Britain has conducted its first orbital space launch from UK soil on Monday evening, making it the privately-owned Virgin Orbit's first international launch. Deutsche Welle reports: Dubbed "Start Me Up," as in the Rolling Stones song, the rocket is carrying nine small satellites now making their way into space. The repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft took off from Cornwall in southwestern England at around 10:15 pm local time (2215 GMT) before releasing the rocket around an hour into
  
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• England Makes Gigabit Internet a Legal Requirement For New Homes

  09-01-2023 23:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amendments to Building Regulations 2010 were announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) on January 6th that mandate new homes constructed in England to be fitted with infrastructure and connections required to achieve gigabit internet connectivity. Connection costs will be capped at £2,000 per home, and developers must still install gigabit-ready infrastructure (including ducts, chambers, and termination poi
  
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• Restoration of the Ozone Layer Is Back on Track, Scientists Say

  09-01-2023 22:20 via news.slashdot.org
  The protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere could be restored within several decades, scientists said Monday, as recent rogue emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals from China have been largely eliminated. From a report: In a United Nations-sponsored assessment, the scientists said that global emissions of CFC-11, a banned chemical that has been used as a refrigerant and in insulating foams, had declined since 2018 after increasing for several years. CFC-11 and similar chemicals, collecti
  
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• AI Turns Its Artistry to Creating New Human Proteins

  09-01-2023 21:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  Using many of the same techniques that underpin DALL-E and other art generators, these scientists are generating blueprints for new proteins -- tiny biological mechanisms that can change the way of our bodies behave. From a report: Our bodies naturally produce about 20,000 proteins, which handle everything from digesting food to moving oxygen through the bloodstream. Now, researchers are working to create proteins that are not found in nature, hoping to improve our ability to fight disease and d
  
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• Apple Will Talk Up Its Mixed-Reality Headset in 2023 But Not Much Else

  09-01-2023 21:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple, after seven years of development, is nearly ready to launch its first mixed-reality headset. But the focus on this new product will lead to an otherwise muted 2023. Bloomberg: I first wrote in 2017 about Apple's ambition to launch a high-performance AR-based headset -- complete with its own operating system, App Store and dedicated chips. Back then, Apple had aimed to get it to market by 2019. Over time, the delays stacked up. Apple had plans to launch the device in 2020, then 2021 and th
  
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• Raspberry Pi Launches Higher Resolution Camera Module, Now With Autofocus

  09-01-2023 20:21 via tech.slashdot.org
  Raspberry Pi is launching a new camera module for use with its diminutive DIY computers -- the Camera Module 3. Its upgraded Sony IMX708 sensor is higher resolution, but perhaps more important is that the new module supports high dynamic range photography and autofocus. Alongside it, Raspberry Pi is also releasing a new camera board for use with M12-mount lenses. From a report: Combined, the new features mean the Camera Module 3 should be able to take more detailed photographs (especially in low
  
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• Steam Reaches 10 Million Concurrent In-Game Players for the First Time

  09-01-2023 19:41 via games.slashdot.org
  Alongside reaching 32 million concurrently online users, Steam has also just surpassed 10 million concurrent in-game players for the first time. From a report: The news was shared by SteamDB, and it shows the milestones were reached on Saturday, January 7, where the in-game concurrents were at 10,082,055 million and the concurrently online users -- those who are simply on Steam but not necessarily playing a game -- were at 32,186,301. As for what these millions of people were playing, the #1 pla
  
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• US Supreme Court Lets Meta's WhatsApp Pursue 'Pegasus' Spyware Suit

  09-01-2023 19:01 via news.slashdot.org
  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let Meta's WhatsApp pursue a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of exploiting a bug in its WhatsApp messaging app to install spy software allowing the surveillance of 1,400 people, including journalists, human rights activists and dissidents. From a report: The justices turned away NSO's appeal of a lower court's decision that the lawsuit could move forward. NSO has argued that it is immune from being sued because it was acting as an agent for unidentified forei
  
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• Microsoft Looks To Add OpenAI's Chatbot Technology To Word, Email

  09-01-2023 18:21 via slashdot.org
  In a move that could change how more than a billion people write documents, presentations and emails, Microsoft has discussed incorporating OpenAI's artificial intelligence in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and other apps so customers can automatically generate text using simple prompts, The Information reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the effort. From a report: These goals won't be easy to accomplish. For more than a year, Microsoft's engineers and researchers have worked to create
  
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• US Tech Giants Say Indian Panel's Recommended Competition Act 'Absolutist and Regressive'

  09-01-2023 17:42 via news.slashdot.org
  An influential industry group that represents Google, Meta and Amazon among other tech firms has expressed concerns about the digital competition law recommended by an Indian parliamentary panel that seeks to regulate their alleged anticompetitive practices, calling the proposal "absolutist and regressive" in nature in the latest escalation of tension between U.S. tech giants and New Delhi. From a report: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance recommended last month that the government
  
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• Belarus Legalizes Piracy of Movies, Music and Software of 'Unfriendly' Nations

  09-01-2023 17:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  AmiMoJo writes: Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has signed a new law that legalizes piracy of movies, music, TV shows and software owned by rightsholders from 'unfriendly countries'. The law also allows goods protected by intellectual property law to be imported from any country without obtaining permission from rightsholders. Lukashenko's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to new sanctions being imposed by the EU, U.S. and other countries. In common with Russia, Belarus relie
  
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• Identity Thieves Bypassed Experian Security To View Credit Reports

  09-01-2023 16:21 via news.slashdot.org
  Identity thieves have been exploiting a glaring security weakness in the website of Experian, one of the big three consumer credit reporting bureausBrian Krebs reported Monday. From the report: Normally, Experian requires that those seeking a copy of their credit report successfully answer several multiple choice questions about their financial history. But until the end of 2022, Experian's website allowed anyone to bypass these questions and go straight to the consumer's report. All that was ne
  
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• McCarthy's Fast Start: Big Tech is a Top Target

  09-01-2023 15:41 via news.slashdot.org
  House Republicans plan to launch a new investigative panel this week that will demand copies of White House emails, memos and other communications with Big Tech companies, Axios reported Monday, citing sources. From the report: Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans a quick spate of red-meat actions and announcements to reward hardliners who backed him through his harrowing fight for the gavel. The new panel, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, is partly a response to r
  
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• Deere Will Allow Farmers To Repair Their Own Equipment

  09-01-2023 15:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  The American Farm Bureau Federation and machinery manufacturer Deere signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday that ensures farmers have the right to repair their own farm equipment or go to an independent technician. From a report: As the agriculture sector accelerates its adoption of technology, the reliance on high-tech machinery such as GPS-guided combines and tractors has become more common-place.
  But equipment makers such as Deere have generally required customers to use their parts a
  
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• San Jose Police Announce Three Stolen Vehicles Recovered Using Automatic License Plate Reader

  09-01-2023 13:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Saturday night in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose, the assistant police chief tweeted out praise for their recently-upgraded Automatic License Plate Readers:Officers in Air3 [police helicopter], monitoring the ALPR system, got alerted to 3 stolen cars. They directed ground units to the cars. All 3 drivers in custody! No dangerous vehicle pursuits occurred, nor were they needed.
  2 drivers tried to run away. But, you can't outrun a helicopter!"There's photos — one of the vehicles appears
  
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• Artists Worry Adobe Could Track Their Design Processes to Train AI

  09-01-2023 09:34 via slashdot.org
  "A recent viral moment highlights just how nervous the artist community is about artificial intelligence," reports Fast Company:
  It started earlier this week, when French comic book author Claire Wendling posted a screenshot of a curious passage in Adobe's privacy and personal data settings to Instagram. It was quickly reposted on Twitter by another artist and campaigner, Jon Lam, where it subsequently spread throughout the artistic community, drawing nearly 2 million views and thousands of retw
  
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• Study Reveals the Happiest, Least Stressful Jobs in America

  09-01-2023 05:51 via it.slashdot.org
  "Envy the lumberjacks, for they perform the happiest, most meaningful work on earth," writes the Washington Post.
  "Or at least they think they do. Farmers, too."Agriculture, logging and forestry have the highest levels of self-reported happiness — and lowest levels of self-reported stress — of any major industry category, according to our analysis of more than 13,000 time journals from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey. (Additional reporting sharpened our focus
  
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• Successful Strike at University of California Sparks Organizing Surge Among US Academic Workers

  09-01-2023 03:39 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares this report from the Los Angeles Times:
  The University of California strike is over, culminating last month in significant improvements in wages and working conditions after 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars walked off their jobs in the nation's largest labor action of academic workers. But the effects of the historic strike still reverberate across the nation, helping energize an unprecedented surge of union activism among acade
  
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• Cryonics Company Charges a Monthly Subscription Fee (Plus Your Life Insurance Payout)

  09-01-2023 01:09 via science.slashdot.org
  "To date, about 500 people have been put in cryogenic stasis after legal death," writes a Bloomberg Opinion technology columnist, "with the majority of them in the U.S.
  "But a few thousand more, including Emil Kendziorra, are on waiting lists, wearing bracelets or necklaces with instructions for emergency responders. "Kendziorra, 36, runs Berlin-based Tomorrow Biostasis GmbH, one of the first cryonics businesses in Europe to join a market dominated by American firms organizations like The Alcor
  
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