ICT news

• Crypto.com Will Delist Tether In Canada To Comply With Ontario Regulator

  11-01-2023 23:40 via news.slashdot.org
  Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com will no longer facilitate transactions involving Tether in Canada and plans to delist the largest stablecoin by market capitalization for customers in the region. Decrypt reports: "Crypto.com has delisted USDT for users in Canada in accordance with instructions from the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) as part of our pre-registration undertaking for a restricted dealer license," a spokesperson for Crypto.com told Decrypt. Canadian users of the exchange were
  
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• Parler's Parent Company Lays Off Majority of Its Staff

  11-01-2023 23:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Parlement Technologies, the parent company of "censorship-free" social media platform Parler, has laid off a majority of its staff and most of its chief executives over the last few weeks. The sudden purge of staff has thrown the future of Parler, one of the first conservative alternatives to mainstream platforms, into question. Parlement Technologies began laying off workers in late November, according to multiple sources familiar with the mat
  
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• Second-hand and Refurbished Phone Market Takes Flight Amid Inflation Hike

  11-01-2023 22:20 via mobile.slashdot.org
  More and more cash-strapped people are opting to buy second hand and refurbished handsets in these tougher economic times with sales of used and refurbished devices estimated to have passed 282 million in 2022. From a report: The unit growth for those 12 months is some 11.5 percent higher than the prior year, and IDC number-crunchers have calculated compound annual growth of 10.3 percent until 2026 when shipments are forecast to reach 413.3 million. Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC's
  
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• Microsoft 365 Basic is a New $1.99 a Month Subscription With 100GB of Storage

  11-01-2023 21:40 via slashdot.org
  Microsoft is introducing a new consumer tier to its Microsoft 365 subscription offerings. From a report: Priced at $1.99 per month, Microsoft 365 Basic is designed to replace the 100GB OneDrive storage option with some extra features that sit in between the free option and the $6.99 a month Personal subscription. Microsoft 365 Basic will be available worldwide on January 30th with 100GB of cloud storage, an ad-free Outlook web and mobile experience, and enhanced security features. The security f
  
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• Apple To Begin Making In-House Screens in 2024 in Shift Away From Samsung

  11-01-2023 21:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple is planning to start using its own custom displays in mobile devices as early as 2024, an effort to reduce its reliance on technology partners like Samsung and LG and bring more components in-house. From a report: The company aims to begin by swapping out the display in the highest-end Apple Watches by the end of next year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The screens upgrade the current OLED -- organic light-emitting diode -- standard to a technology called microLED, and
  
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• NCSC-UK Releases Guidance on Using MSP for Administering Cloud Services

  11-01-2023 20:37 via us-cert.cisa.gov
  Original release date: January 11, 2023
  The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK) has released a blog post, Using MSPs to administer your cloud services, that provides organizations security considerations for using a third party, such as a managed service provider (MSP), to administer cloud services. Contracting with an MSP for cloud service management has become an increasingly appealing option for organizations.The post discusses the trade-offs involved as well as sp
  
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• Microsoft To Move Some Teams Features To More Costly 'Premium' Edition

  11-01-2023 20:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has revealed that a Premium cut of its Teams cloudy collaborationware suite will debut in early February, and some features that are currently included in Microsoft 365 will move to the new -- more costly -- product. From a report: As Microsoft's licensing guide clarifies: "some Teams features will move from Teams licenses to Teams Premium licenses." Those features are:
  Live translated captions;
  Timeline markers in Teams meeting recordings for when a user left or joined meetings;
  Custo
  
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• Joe Biden: Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses

  11-01-2023 19:25 via news.slashdot.org
  Congress can find common ground on the protection of privacy, competition and American children, says U.S. President Joe Biden. In an op-ed at Wall Street Journal, he shares why he has pushed for legislation to hold Big Tech accountable. From the start of his administration, says Biden, he has embraced three broad principles for reform: First, we need serious federal protections for Americans' privacy. That means clear limits on how companies can collect, use and share highly personal data -- yo
  
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• Meta CTO Tells Employees Higher Headcount Has Led To 'Untenable' Slow Movement

  11-01-2023 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth has one of the toughest jobs in tech this year. On one hand, he has to deliver on CEO Mark Zuckerberg's grand metaverse ambitions as Apple and ByteDance are entering the space. At the same time, he's also attempting a dramatic cultural reset within Reality Labs, the sprawling division responsible for those ambitions. In an internal memo I obtained that he sent to employees just before the holidays, Bosworth acknowledged a sentiment I'
  
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• Moderna CEO: 400% Price Hike on COVID Vaccine 'Consistent With the Value'

  11-01-2023 18:20 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Moderna is considering raising the price of its COVID-19 vaccine by over 400 percent -- from $26 per dose to between $110 and $130 per dose -- according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The plan, if realized, would match the previously announced price hike for Pfizer-BioNTech's rival COVID-19 vaccine. The Journal spoke with Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco Monday, who said of the 400 percent price hike
  
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• Messenger Billed as Better Than Signal is Riddled With Vulnerabilities

  11-01-2023 17:40 via it.slashdot.org
  Academic researchers have discovered serious vulnerabilities in the core of Threema, an instant messenger that its Switzerland-based developer says provides a level of security and privacy "no other chat service" can offer. From a report: Despite the unusually strong claims and two independent security audits Threema has received, the researchers said the flaws completely undermine assurances of confidentiality and authentication that are the cornerstone of any program sold as providing end-to-e
  
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• FTX Has Recovered Over $5 Billion in Cash and Securities, Attorney Says

  11-01-2023 17:01 via slashdot.org
  Crypto exchange FTX has recovered more than $5 billion in cash and liquid cryptocurrencies and securities, an attorney for the bankrupt company founded by Sam Bankman-Fried told a judge on Wednesday. From a report: [FTX Attorney Andy] Dietderich also said that the company plans to sell non-strategic investments that had a book value of $4.6 billion, although the company's books have been described as unreliable.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• OpenAI Begins Piloting ChatGPT Professional, a Premium Version of Its Viral Chatbot

  11-01-2023 16:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  OpenAI this week signaled it'll soon begin charging for ChatGPT, its viral AI-powered chatbot that can write essays, emails, poems and even computer code. From a report: In an announcement on the company's official Discord server, OpenAI said that it's "starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT" as one of the ways to "ensure [the tool's] long-term viability." The monetized version of ChatGPT will be called ChatGPT Professional, apparently. That's according to a waitlist link OpenAI posted
  
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• China Claims To Have Made Major Quant Computer Breakthrough But Western Experts Say Any Commercial Benefits Still Years Away

  11-01-2023 15:44 via tech.slashdot.org
  Are today's rudimentary quantum computers already on the verge of significant feats beyond the reach of traditional computers? Or have their capabilities been exaggerated, as practical uses for the technology recede into the future? From a report: These questions have been thrown into sharp relief in recent days by a claim from a group of Chinese researchers to have come up with a way to break the RSA encryption that underpins much of today's online communications. The likelihood that quantum co
  
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• Anthropic's Claude Improves On ChatGPT But Still Suffers From Limitations

  11-01-2023 14:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Anthropic, the startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI employees that's raised over $700 million in funding to date, has developed an AI system similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT that appears to improve upon the original in key ways. Called Claude, Anthropic's system is accessible through a Slack integration as part of a closed beta. Claude was created using a technique Anthropic developed called "constitutional AI." As the company explains in a recent Twitt
  
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• Flights Grounded Across US After FAA Failure

  11-01-2023 13:02 via news.slashdot.org
  A Federal Aviation Administration system failure caused some flights across the United States to be grounded, the agency said early Wednesday. From a report: The full extent of the delays was not immediately known, but the delays were spread across several airlines. More than 700 flights within, into and out of the United States had been delayed on Wednesday, and more than 90 were canceled, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking company. On social media, would-be passengers across the Unite
  
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• FDA No Longer Needs To Require Animal Tests Before Human Drug Trials

  11-01-2023 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  New medicines need not be tested in animals to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, according to legislation signed by President Joe Biden in late December 2022. Science Magazine reports: "This is huge," says Tamara Drake, director of research and regulatory policy at the Center for a Humane Economy, a nonprofit animal welfare organization and key driver of the legislation. "It's a win for industry. It's a win for patients in need of cures." In place of the 1938 stipulation
  
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• Paramount+ Orders 'Dungeons & Dragons' Live-Action Series

  11-01-2023 08:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Paramount+ has given an eight-episode, straight-to-series order to an adaptation of Hasbro's wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game franchise. Deadline reports: Red Notice filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote the pilot script and is set to direct the first episode of the series which will be a co-production between eOne and Paramount Pictures. At Paramount+, the Dungeons & Dragons series will join Halo, the video game adaptation, which is one of the streamer's mos
  
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• Iran Says Face Recognition Will ID Women Breaking Hijab Laws

  11-01-2023 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Last month, a young woman went to work at Sarzamineh Shadi, or Land of Happiness, an indoor amusement park east of Iran's capital, Tehran. After a photo of her without a hijab circulated on social media, the amusement park was closed, according to multiple accounts in Iranian media. Prosecutors in Tehran have reportedly opened an investigation. Shuttering a business to force compliance with Iran's strict laws for women's dress is a familiar tactic
  
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• Many People Aren't Sticking Around Mastodon

  11-01-2023 03:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  The number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December. The Guardian reports: Mastodon, an open-source network of largely independently hosted servers, has often been touted as an alternative to Twitter. And its growth appears connected to controversies
  
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• The First Insider Trading Case Involving Cryptocurrency

  11-01-2023 02:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  The brother of a former Coinbase product manager was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty in what U.S. prosecutors have called the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency. Reuters reports: Nikhil Wahi admitted to making trades based on confidential information from Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, when he pleaded guilty in September to a wire fraud conspiracy charge. Prosecutors said Ishan Wahi, the former product manager, sh
  
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• Meta Abandons Original Quest VR Headset

  11-01-2023 01:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  Meta is dropping support for its first Meta Quest VR headset. The device will no longer receive future content updates, and by 2024 it will no longer get any bug fixes or security patches. Gizmodo reports: Notably, users will no longer have significant functionality. Though Meta promised you will still be able to use the headset and its installed games and apps, Quest 1 users will no longer be able to join parties, and they will also lose access to Meta's feature product Horizon Home on March 5
  
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• Right-To-Repair Advocates Question John Deere's New Promises

  11-01-2023 01:02 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Early this week, tractor maker John Deere said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation, an agricultural trade group, promising to make it easier for farmers to access tools and software needed to repair their own equipment. The deal looked like a concession from the agricultural equipment maker, a major target of the right-to-repair movement, which campaigns for better access to documents and tools neede
  
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• Robinhood Shares Worth Nearly $500M Seized in FTX Case

  11-01-2023 00:20 via news.slashdot.org
  The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has seized more than 55 million shares of Robinhood stock owned -- via a holding company -- by Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, according to a court document. The shares were worth just over $456 million based on HOOD's closing price of $8.25 on Friday. CoinDesk reports: The stock had been held at an account at U.K.-based brokerage ED&F Man. The "seized Assets constitute property involved in violations" of crimes such as money laundering an
  
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