ICT news

• Fake SSDs With Great Reviews Are Still Popping Up on Amazon

  17-01-2023 23:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader writes: If you've searched for external SSDs on Amazon.com recently, you may have noticed something weird: mixed in with the 1TB and 2TB drives from brands like Samsung and SanDisk are a bunch of listings for 16TB SSDs, mostly around $100, and with surprisingly high user ratings. Every single one is a scam, even if they're shipped by Amazon. Josh Hendrickson -- Editor-in-Chief of Review Geek -- bought one of the "16TB SSDs" and tore it down to reveal a
  generic 64GB microSD ca
  
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• Eating One US Fish Is Equivalent To Drinking a Month's Worth of Contaminated Water, Study Finds

  17-01-2023 23:02 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Eating one freshwater fish caught in a river or lake in the United States is the equivalent of drinking a month's worth of water contaminated with toxic "forever chemicals," new research said on Tuesday. The invisible chemicals, called PFAS, were first developed in the 1940s to resist water and heat and are now used in items such as non-stick pans, textiles, fire suppression foams and food packaging. But the indestructibility of PFAS, per- and p
  
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• Microsoft To Cut Thousands of Jobs Across Divisions

  17-01-2023 22:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft plans to cut thousands of jobs with some roles expected to be eliminated in human resources and engineering divisions, according to media reports on Tuesday. From a report: The expected layoffs would be the latest in the U.S. technology sector, where companies including Amazon.com and Meta have announced retrenchment exercises in response to slowing demand and a worsening global economic outlook. Microsoft's move could indicate that the tech sector may continue to shed jobs.
  "From a bi
  
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• Apple TV Requires You To Have an iPhone To Accept New iCloud Terms and Conditions

  17-01-2023 21:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: A viral tweet today highlights a somewhat frustrating limitation with the Apple TV software. As of a recent software update, tvOS expects users have access to an iPhone or iPad in order to do things like accept new iCloud terms and conditions, or update their Apple ID settings. Although most people who use the Apple TV 4K box are deeply ensconced in the Apple ecosystem, this doesn't apply to everyone. Up until recently, the Apple TV could be used essentially
  
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• New York Faces a New Legal Fight Over a Proposed Crypto-Mining Power Plant

  17-01-2023 21:05 via slashdot.org
  
  Environmental groups are pushing New York state to scrutinize a crypto mining company's purchase of a gas-fired power plant, contending in a new lawsuit that turning the power plant into a crypto mine would go against the state's climate goals and dump more pollution on nearby neighborhoods. From a report: Sierra Club and the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York filed a suit on Friday that challenges the New York Public Service Commission's (PSC) approval of the sale. Under state law, the com
  
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• CISA Updates Best Practices for Mapping to MITRE ATT&CK®

  17-01-2023 20:23 via us-cert.cisa.gov
  Original release date: January 17, 2023
  Today, CISA updated Best Practices for MITRE ATT&CK® Mapping. The MITRE ATT&CK® framework is a lens through which network defenders can analyze adversary behavior and, as CISA Executive Assistant Director Eric Goldstein noted in his June 2021 blog post on the framework, it directly supports “robust, contextual bi-directional sharing of information to help strengthen the security of our systems, networks, and data.” CISA highly e
  
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• India Proposes Social Media Firms Rely On Fact Checking By Government Agencies

  17-01-2023 20:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Indian government has proposed making the Press Bureau of India and its other agencies the arbiter of truth on what information is misleading for social media firms and other internet companies as they oversee their users' data in the South Asian market. From a report: The proposal by the Ministry of Electronics and IT came as part of an amendment to the nation's IT rules. In the current draft, the ministry asks social media firms and online gaming companies to undertake due diligence on the
  
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• Samsung 'Self-Repair' Program Adds Galaxy S22 Phones, Some Galaxy Books

  17-01-2023 19:59 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  DIY-minded Samsung owners now have officially supported options to repair more smartphones and, for the first time, laptops from that firm. From a report: The company announced Tuesday that its Self-Repair program now covers Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+, Galaxy S22 Ultra phones as well as Galaxy Book Pro 15-inch and Galaxy Book Pro 360 (15-inch) laptops. Samsung says S22-series owners will be able to buy kits to swap out "display assemblies, back glass, and charging ports." For the two Galaxy Book la
  
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• Wikipedia Criticises 'Harsh' New Online Safety Bill Plans

  17-01-2023 19:07 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Wikipedia should be treated differently to the big social media firms in the Online Safety Bill, a leading member of its foundation says. From a report: The encyclopaedia is written and edited entirely by thousands of volunteers around the world. The Wikimedia Foundation's Rebecca MacKinnon also says a proposed change to the bill,would "limit freedom of expression".
  The bill aims to protect people from harmful content online. The Wikimedia Foundation is the not-for-profit organisation which host
  
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• MSI Accidentally Breaks Secure Boot for Hundreds of Motherboards

  17-01-2023 18:28 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Over 290 MSI motherboards are reportedly affected by an insecure default UEFI Secure Boot setting that allows any operating system image to run regardless of whether it has a wrong or missing signature. From a report: This discovery comes from a Polish security researcher named Dawid Potocki, who claims that he did not receive a response despite his efforts to contact MSI and inform them about the issue. The issue, according to Potocki, impacts many Intel and AMD-based MSI motherboards that use
  
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• UK Lawmakers Vote To Jail Tech Execs Who Fail To Protect Kids Online

  17-01-2023 17:52 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children to grow up online. Many UK lawmakers have argued that the only way to guarantee that future is to criminalize tech leaders whose platforms knowingly fail to protect children. From a report: Today, the UK House of Commons reached a deal to appease those lawmakers, Reuters reports, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government agreeing to modify the Online Safety Bill to ensure its passage. It now appears that tech company executives
  
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• Google Didn't Show Bias in Filtering Campaign-Ad Pitches, FEC Says

  17-01-2023 17:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  The Federal Election Commission has dismissed a complaint from Republicans that Google's Gmail app aided Democratic candidates by sending GOP fundraising emails to spam at a far higher rate than Democratic solicitations. From a report: The Republican National Committee and others contended that the alleged benefit amounted to unreported campaign contributions to Democrats. But in a letter to Google last week, the FEC said it "found no reason to believe" that Google made prohibited in-kind corpor
  
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• Apple Announces a Mac Mini With the M2 and M2 Pro

  17-01-2023 16:24 via apple.slashdot.org
  The Mac Mini is Apple's next computer to get the bump up to the M2 chip -- and this time around, it's being offered with the Pro version of Apple's processor, too. From a report: The new model was announced this morning in a press release, with a starting price of $599, and is available to order today, with availability beginning Tuesday, January 24th. The Mac Mini's baseline configuration includes the M2 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It features an HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet, and a s
  
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• Apple Announces MacBook Pros With M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips

  17-01-2023 15:42 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple has announced new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring its latest M2 Pro and Max chips. From a report: The M2 Pro model will launch with a 12-core CPU, up to 19-core GPU, and up to 32GB of unified memory, while the M2 Max includes up to 38 cores of GPU power and support for up to 96GB of unified memory. The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $1,999, with the 16-inch model starting at $2,499. Both are available to order online today and will start shipping and appearing in App
  
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• Getty Images is Suing the Creators of AI Art Tool Stable Diffusion for Scraping Its Content

  17-01-2023 15:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Getty Images is suing Stability AI, creators of popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, over alleged copyright violation. From a report: In a press statement shared with The Verge, the stock photo company said it believes that Stability AI "unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright" to train its software and that Getty Images has "commenced legal proceedings in the High Court of Justice in London" against the firm. Getty Images CEO Craig Peters told The Verge in an
  
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• Lab-Grown Alternatives Aim To Cut Palm Oil Dependence

  17-01-2023 14:00 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: It was landing at Singapore's international airport a decade ago that sparked Shara Ticku's idea to create a lab-grown alternative to palm oil. "In 2013 I flew to Singapore, and when I landed I had to wear a mask," says the boss of US tech firm C16 Biosciences. "The air was toxic because they were burning the rainforest in Indonesia." Indonesian farmers, who were clearing land for palm oil and other crops, were blamed for the fires and the smoke
  
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• Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service Now Generally Available, With ChatGPT On the Way

  17-01-2023 08:00 via slashdot.org
  In a blog post this evening, Microsoft announced the general availability of Azure OpenAI Service, which allows businesses to power their apps with large-scale AI models, including GPT-3.5, DALL-E 2, and Codex. VentureBeat reports: According to a press statement, availability is "restricted to customers who meet and adhere to the standards for responsible and ethical AI principles that Microsoft has set and published (linked here). Customers are required to apply for access describing their inte
  
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• China's Population Drops For the First Time In Decades

  17-01-2023 04:30 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: China's population declined in 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. The drop was the first since the early 1960s, according to Yi Fuxian, a critic of China's one-child policy and author of the book "Big Country With an Empty Nest." Mainland China's population, excluding foreigners, fell by 850,000 people in 2022 to 1.41 billion, the statistics bureau said. The country reported 9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths for 2022.In
  
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• High-Powered Lasers Can Be Used To Steer Lightning Strikes

  17-01-2023 03:25 via science.slashdot.org
  fahrbot-bot shares a report from Engadget: Lightning rods have been used to safely guide strikes into the ground since Benjamin Franklin's day, but their short range (roughly the same radius as the height) and fixed-in-place design makes them ineffective for protecting large areas. The technology may finally be here to replace them in some situations. European researchers have successfully tested a system that uses terawatt-level laser pulses to steer lighting toward a 26-foot rod. It's not limi
  
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• CircleCI Says Hackers Stole Encryption Keys and Customers' Secrets

  17-01-2023 02:45 via it.slashdot.org
  Last month, CircleCI urged users to rotate their secrets following a breach of the company's systems. The company confirmed in a blog post on Friday that some customers' data was stolen in the breach. While the customer data was encrypted, cybercriminals obtained the encryption keys able to decrypt the data. TechCrunch reports: The company said in a detailed blog post on Friday that it identified the intruder's initial point of access as an employee's laptop that was compromised with malware, al
  
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• IBM Shifts Remaining US-Based AIX Dev Jobs To India

  17-01-2023 02:01 via developers.slashdot.org
  According to The Register, IBM has shifted the roles of US IBM Systems employees developing AIX over to the Indian office. From the report: Prior to this transition, said to taken place in the third quarter of 2022, AIX development was split more or less evenly between the US and India, an IBM source told The Register. With the arrival of 2023, the entire group had been moved to India. Roughly 80 US-based AIX developers were affected, our source estimates. We're told they were "redeployed," and
  
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• Amsterdam Calls For Crackdown On Menace of Souped-Up E-Bikes

  17-01-2023 01:22 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The Netherlands, once famed for being cycle-friendly, is facing a surprising threat: souped-up electric bikes speeding at up to 42kph (26mph). [...] Fietsersbond [is] a cyclists' union that is campaigning to crack down on speedy e-bikes and "fat bikes" -- those with extremely wide tyres. These should only use cycle paths with a maximum speed of 25kph -- but some of the bikes are designed to go faster or are being altered by the user to allow
  
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• CAMM: The Future of Laptop Memory Has Arrived

  17-01-2023 00:45 via hardware.slashdot.org
  There's a real possibility that SODIMM memory sticks could be replaced by a new type of removable memory called CAMM. According to PC World, "Memory overseer JEDEC will formally adopt the 'CAMM Common Spec' as the next RAM module standard for laptops." From the report: JEDEC, the memory group that homologates RAM standards, is in the process of hammering out the new spec to replace the basic SO-DIMMs that have been in use for 25 years, according to JEDEC committee member, and Dell Senior Disting
  
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• EVs Made Up 10% of All New Cars Sold Last Year

  17-01-2023 00:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  According to the Wall Street Journal, citing preliminary research from LMC Automotive and EV-Volumes.com, there were 7.8 million electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2022, a 68% increase from 2021. "The uptick helped electric vehicles achieve a roughly 10% global market share in the automotive industry for the first time," reports Insider. From the report: While 10% is only a modest share of the total market, the industry is growing faster than some had predicted. In 2021, for instance, the Inter
  
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