ICT news

• Can Earthquakes Be Predicted?

  06-02-2023 23:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A researcher from the Netherlands has gone viral for allegedly predicting the earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria, just three days before two massive quakes affected the region on Monday, February 6. From a report: On Friday, February 3, Frank Hoogerbeets posted on Twitter, "Sooner or later there will be a ~M 7.5 earthquake in this region (South-Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon)." The post was accompanied by a map highlighting the area Hoogerbeets expected to be affected by seismic ac
  
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• Finland's Most-Wanted Hacker Nabbed In France

  06-02-2023 23:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Julius "Zeekill" Kivimaki, a 25-year-old Finnish man charged with extorting a local online psychotherapy practice and leaking therapy notes for more than 22,000 patients online, was arrested this week in France. A notorious hacker convicted of perpetrating tens of thousands of cybercrimes, Kivimaki had been in hiding since October 2022, when he failed to show up in court and Finland issued an international warrant for his arrest. [...] Ac
  
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• Wikipedia Unblocked in Pakistan After Prime Minister's Intervention

  06-02-2023 22:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Pakistan has unblocked Wikipedia in the South Asian market, three days after the online encyclopedia was censored in the nation over noncompliance with removing what the local regulator deemed as "sacrilegious" content. From a report: Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, directed the unblocking order, calling the censorship on Wikipedia "not a suitable measure to restrict access to some objectionable contents / sacrilegious matter on it." "The unintended consequences of this blanket b
  
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• Getty Images Sues AI Art Generator Stable Diffusion in the US For Copyright Infringement

  06-02-2023 21:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Getty Images has filed a lawsuit in the US against Stability AI, creators of open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion, escalating its legal battle against the firm. From a report: The stock photography company is accusing Stability AI of "brazen infringement of Getty Images' intellectual property on a staggering scale." It claims that Stability AI copied more than 12 million images from its database "without permission ... or compensation ... as part of its efforts to build a competing busi
  
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• AMC is About To Make Paying For Theater Seats More Like Booking an Airline Ticket

  06-02-2023 21:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Starting pretty soon, some tickets at AMC locations are going to be getting cheaper and more expensive depending on where you sit as the movie theater chain introduces a new tiered pricing scheme called Sightline. From a report: Today, AMC announced its plans to roll out Sightline at AMC, a new pricing structure that will split auditorium seats into three differently priced tiers in theaters across the country beginning this Friday. In a statement about the new program, Eliot Hamlisch, AMC's chi
  
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• Google Announces ChatGPT Rival Bard

  06-02-2023 20:09 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is working on a ChatGPT competitor named Bard. From a report: Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, announced the project in a blog post today, describing the tool as an "experimental conversational AI service" that will answer users' queries and take part in conversations. The software will be available to a group of "trusted testers" today, says Pichai, before becoming "more widely available to the public in the coming weeks." It's not clear exactly what capabilities Bard will have, but it seems
  
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• Microsoft Swears It's Not Coming For Your Data With Scan For Old Office Versions

  06-02-2023 19:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft wants everyone to know that it isn't looking to invade their privacy while looking through their Windows PCs to find out-of-date versions of Office software. From a report: In its KB5021751 update last month, Microsoft included a plan to scan Windows systems to smoke out those Office versions that are no longer supported or nearing the end of support. Those include Office 2007 (which saw support end in 2017) and Office 2010 (in 2020) and the 2013 build (this coming April). The company
  
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• AI-Generated 'Seinfeld' Show Banned on Twitch After Transphobic Standup Bit

  06-02-2023 19:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Nothing, Forever," the infinitely-generating AI version of Seinfeld that tens of thousands of people were watching has been banned for 14 days from Twitch after Larry Feinberg -- a clone of Jerry Seinfeld -- made transphobic statements during a standup bit late Sunday night. From a report: "Hey everybody. Here's the latest: we received a 14-day suspension due to what Larry Feinberg said tonight during a club bit," Xander, one of the creators of Nothing Forever, said on Discord. "We've appealed
  
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• Over-the-Counter Stock Reporting System Snarled by Tech Problem

  06-02-2023 18:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An industry watchdog said that a key system for reporting over-the-counter equity trades was experiencing technical difficulties. From a report: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said on Monday that its Over-the-Counter Reporting Facility, known as ORF, was experiencing an issue with transaction messages. The system is used to report stock trades that don't happen on centralized exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, as well as for trades in restricted equity securities.
  
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• Washington Turns Hostile on Crypto

  06-02-2023 17:41 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A year ago, crypto successfully scraped and scrapped to get a foot in the door in Washington. But in the wake of crypto's winter, and FTX's spectacular collapse, that door has now slammed shut. From a report: Gaining legitimacy in Washington has been an essential part of the industry's push into the mainstream. But a series of recent announcements from the Biden administration suggest there's a crackdown ahead.
  The vibes from the White House and federal agencies have been somber at best for anyo
  
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• The Great American Manure Rush Begins

  06-02-2023 17:04 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The energy industry is turning waste from dairy farms into renewable natural gas -- but will it actually reduce emissions? From a report: On an early August afternoon at Pinnacle Dairy, a farm located near the middle of California's long Central Valley, 1,300 Jersey cows idle in the shade of open-air barns. Above them whir fans the size of satellites, circulating a breeze as the temperature pushes 100F (38C). Underfoot, a wet layer of feces emits a thick stench that hangs in the air. Just a tad
  
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• India To Block Over 230 Betting and Loan Apps, Many With China Ties

  06-02-2023 16:41 via slashdot.org
  
  India is moving to block 232 apps, some with links to China, that offer betting and loan services in the South Asian market to prevent misuse of the citizens' data, the state-owned public broadcaster said Sunday. TechCrunch: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is in the process to enforce an emergency order to ban 138 betting and gambling apps and another 94 that provided unauthorized loan services in the interest of protecting the country's integrity, the broadcaster said. Th
  
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• Apple Talks Up High-End iPhones in Sign Ultra Model May Be Coming

  06-02-2023 15:52 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, speaking on an earnings call that was mostly focused on holiday results, made an off-the-cuff remark that could be quite telling about the company's future. Cook was fielding a question about whether the iPhone's rising average sales price was sustainable. After all, a top-of-the-line model that cost $1,150 in 2017 (the iPhone X with 256 gigabytes of storage) now fetches $1,600 (the iPhone 14 Pro Max with 1 terabyte).
  H
  
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• Dell To Cut About 6,650 Jobs, Battered by Plunging PC Sales

  06-02-2023 15:13 via slashdot.org
  
  Dell is eliminating about 6,650 roles as it faces plummeting demand for personal computers, becoming the latest technology company to announce thousands of job cuts. From a report: The reduction amounts to about 5% of Dell's global workforce, the company said in a regulatory filing early Monday. Dell is experiencing market conditions that "continue to erode with an uncertain future," Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke wrote in memo viewed by Bloomberg.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• After 16 Years of Freeware, 'Dwarf Fortress' Creators Get $7M Payday

  06-02-2023 13:34 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report from Ars Technica:
  The month before Dwarf Fortress was released on Steam (and Itch.io), the brothers Zach and Tarn Adams made $15,635 in revenue, mostly from donations for their 16-year freeware project. The month after the game's commercial debut, they made $7,230,123, or 462 times that amount....
  Tarn Adams noted that "a little less than half will go to taxes," and that other people and expenses must be paid. But enough of it will reach the brothers themselv
  
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• Oracle Criticized Over Price Change for New Oracle Java SE Licenses

  06-02-2023 09:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  While Oracle's existing Java corporate licensing agreements are still in effect, "the Named User Plus Licensing (user licenses) and Processor licenses (server licensing) are no longer available for purchase," reports IT World Canada. And that's where it gets interesting:The new pricing model is based on employee count, with different price tiers for different employee counts. The implication is that everyone in the organization is counted for licensing purposes, even if they don't use Java softw
  
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• Apple Pulls 'Damus' From Its App Store in China

  06-02-2023 07:05 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  9to5Mac is reporting that Apple pulled the Damus app from its App Store in China on Thursday, "with the developers being informed that the Nostr app 'includes content that is illegal in China.'"Apple rejected the app multiple times, applying the app review guidelines that would apply to a social networking service. In reality, all Damus does is provide access to Nostr feeds, so it would be more accurate to consider it akin to a web browser, with the developers having no control over, or responsi
  
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• Did 'Donkey Kong' Champ Use a Banned Joystick for His 2007 World Record?

  06-02-2023 04:34 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report from Ars Technica:
  Over the years, King of Kong star Billy Mitchell has seen his world-record Donkey Kong scores stripped, partially reinstated, and endlessly litigated, both in actual court and the court of public opinion. Through it all, Mitchell has insisted that every one of his records was set on unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware, despite some convincing technical evidence to the contrary.Now, new photos from a 2007 performance by Mitchell seem to sh
  
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• 'My Printer Is Extorting Me', Complains Subscriber to HP's 'Instant Ink' Program

  06-02-2023 02:45 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  A writer for the Atlantic complains that their HP printer is shaking them down like a loan shark.
  I discovered an error message on my computer indicating that my HP OfficeJet Pro had been remotely disabled by the company. When I logged on to HP's website, I learned why: The credit card I had used to sign up for HP's Instant Ink cartridge-refill program had expired, and the company had effectively bricked my device in response....
  Instant Ink is a monthly subscription program that purports to mon
  
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• Are Citywide Surveillance Cameras Effective?

  06-02-2023 01:05 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post looks at the effectiveness — and the implications — of "citywide surveillance" networks, including Memphis's SkyCop , "built on 2,100 cameras that broadcast images back to a police command center every minute of every day."Known for their blinking blue lights, the SkyCop cameras now blanket many of the city's neighborhoods, gas stations, sidewalks and parks. The company that runs SkyCop, whose vice president of sales previously worked for the Memphis police, promo
  
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• TikTok Unveils New US-Based 'Transparency and Accountability Center'

  06-02-2023 00:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Verge was part of "a handful" of journalists invited to Los Angeles to tour TikTok's new "Transparency and Accountability Center.... part of a multi-week press blitz by TikTok to push Project Texas, a novel proposal to the US government that would partition off American user data in lieu of a complete ban."
  TikTok says it has already taken thousands of people and over $1.5 billion to create Project Texas. The effort involves TikTok creating a separate legal entity dubbed USDS with an indepen
  
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