ICT news

• Taiwan Suspects Chinese Ships Cut Islands' Internet Cables

  08-03-2023 23:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: In the past month, bed and breakfast owner Chen Yu-lin had to tell his guests he couldn't provide them with the internet. Others living on Matsu, one of Taiwan's outlying islands closer to neighboring China, had to struggle with paying electricity bills, making a doctor's appointment or receiving a package. For connecting to the outside world, Matsu's 14,000 residents rely on two submarine internet cables leading to Taiwan's main isl
  
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• Google Groups Has Been Left To Die

  08-03-2023 22:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a blog: Google Groups is dying. Its epitaph is not yet inscribed on the Killed by Google website, but the end is easily seen from here (although it should also be noted its death was called as early as 13 years ago). The deficiencies in Google Groups search, supposedly Google's forte, have long been noted. Lately though basic features have just stopped working. Why care? Google Groups is, for whatever reason, the de-facto standard community website in the formal method
  
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• YouTuber Sentenced To Over 5 Years and Ordered To Forfeit $30 Million in Large-Scale Cable Piracy Case

  08-03-2023 21:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A YouTube star who built a sizable following with slickly produced videos flaunting his fleet of luxury and sports cars, collection of diamond-encrusted bling, and his spacious Swedesboro home will be forced to give up nearly all of it after he was sentenced Tuesday to 5 and a half years in prison for the illegal business that allowed him to amass those trappings of success. From a report: Bill Omar Carrasquillo -- better known to his more than 800,000 online followers as "Omi in a Hellcat" -- p
  
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• Google Expands VPN Access To All Google One Members, Rolls Out New 'Dark Web Report' Feature

  08-03-2023 21:01 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Google is expanding VPN access to all Google One members on all plans and rolling out a new dark web report feature for all subscribers. From a report: VPN by Google One was previously only available to members on the Premium 2TB plan, but will now be available to all Google One members, including those on the Basic plan that starts at $1.99 per month. The tech giant notes that VPN by Google One adds more protection to your internet activity no matter what apps or browsers you use, shielding it
  
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• Moderna CEO Defends Pricing Plans for Covid-19 Shot

  08-03-2023 20:21 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel pushed back against criticism of the company's pricing plans for its Covid-19 vaccine at Wall Street Journal Health Forum. From the report: U.S. politicians including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Peter Welch (D., Vt.) have questioned the company's strategy around commercial pricing, which could be unveiled in the coming months. Moderna received funding from the U.S. government related to development of its Covid-19 vacci
  
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• After Nearly a Decade in Development, Japan's New Rocket Fails in Debut

  08-03-2023 19:41 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The launch of Japan's H3 rocket on Tuesday morning, local time in Tanegashima, failed after the vehicle's second-stage engine did not ignite. From a report: In a terse statement on the failure, Japanese space agency JAXA said, "A destruct command has been transmitted to H3 around 10:52 am (Japan Standard Time), because there was no possibility of achieving the mission. We are confirming the situation." The Japanese space agency, in concert with the rocket's manufacturer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industr
  
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• Spotify's Biggest Update in Over a Decade Includes 'Entirely New' Home Feed, CEO Says

  08-03-2023 19:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  A brand new version of Spotify is being unveiled to millions of subscribers on Wednesday, marking the largest change to the platform since it became available on phones more than a decade ago. From a report: In an exclusive interview airing Thursday on "CBS Mornings," Spotify's CEO and founder, Daniel Ek, said the updates include an "entirely new" home feed that is "completely redesigned from the ground up." "You'll see Spotify, I think, come alive. You're gonna see a lot more interactive conten
  
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• How Fake Sugars Sneak Into Foods and Disrupt Metabolic Health

  08-03-2023 18:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Artificial sweeteners and other sugar substitutes sweeten foods without extra calories. But studies show the ingredients can affect gut and heart health. From a report: Table sugar, or sucrose, is still the dominant sweetener in the food supply, and eating a lot of ultra-processed foods with added sugar has been linked to chronic illness and obesity. The number of new food products containing sucrose has fallen by 16 percent in the last five years. Use of high-fructose corn syrup and agave syrup
  
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• Want To Impress Wall Street? Just Add Some AI

  08-03-2023 17:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  As media executives look to pop the stock of flagging publicly traded companies, tech advances are becoming the new gimmick to wow (even temporarily) the investing class. From a report: When Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel opened his company's earnings call with prepared remarks Feb. 28, a casual listener hearing him tout the UFC and WME might have missed the most interesting part: Emanuel wasn't speaking at all. Well, he sort of was. The words were his, and the voice was his, but rather than Emanuel s
  
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• Google Tells Employees That Fewer of Them Will Get Promotions To Senior Roles

  08-03-2023 17:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is warning employees that fewer of them will receive promotions to more senior levels this year than in the past. From a report: "The process is manager-led and will be largely similar to last year -- though with our slower pace of hiring, we are planning for fewer promotions into L6 and above than when Google was growing quickly," the company said in an email that was viewed by CNBC. The L6 distinction refers to the first layer of staff that's considered senior and typically includes peo
  
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• Microsoft Tells UK It Will License 'Call of Duty' To Sony For 10 Years

  08-03-2023 16:20 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft said it would license Activision Blizzard's "Call of Duty" (CoD) to Sony for 10 years to address concerns raised by Britain over its $69 billion takeover of the games maker, according to a document published by the regulator. From a report: "Microsoft is proposing a package of licensing remedies which (i) guarantee parity between the PlayStation and Xbox platforms in respect of CoD and (ii) ensure wide availability of CoD and other Activision titles on cloud gaming services," Microsoft
  
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• Binance Extends Market Share for Fourth Consecutive Month

  08-03-2023 15:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has extended its spot market share across crypto exchanges for a fourth consecutive month. From a report: The exchange market share increased from 59.4% in January to 61.8% in February, according to a report from crypto market data provider CryptoCompare. Binance had a 13.7% increase in its spot volumes to $504 billion, an all-time high market share for the exchange. This comes as regulators in the U.S. and beyond have ratcheted up
  
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• DuckDuckGo Dabbles With AI Search

  08-03-2023 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has followed Microsoft and Google to become the latest veteran search player to dip its beak in the generative AI trend -- announcing the launch today in beta of an AI-powered summarization feature, called DuckAssist, which can directly answer straightforward search queries for users. From a report: DDG says it's drawing on natural language technology from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, an AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI employees, to power the natur
  
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• Amazon Engineer Loses Bid For Class Action Over Work-From-Home Expenses

  08-03-2023 14:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon on Tuesday defeated a proposed class action lawsuit on behalf of nearly 7,000 workers in California that claimed the company should have reimbursed employees who worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic for home office expenses. U.S. District Judge Vincent Chhabria in San Francisco said the named plaintiff, David Williams, failed to show that Amazon had a company-wide policy of not reimbursing employees for internet, cell phone and oth
  
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• Geothermal Startup Shows Its Wells Can Be Used Like a Giant Underground Battery

  08-03-2023 11:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  James Temple reports via MIT Technology Review: In late January, a geothermal power startup began conducting an experiment deep below the desert floor of northern Nevada. It pumped water thousands of feet underground and then held it there, watching for what would happen. Geothermal power plants work by circulating water through hot rock deep beneath the surface. In most modern plants, it resurfaces at a well head, where it's hot enough to convert refrigerants or other fluids into vapor that cra
  
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• NASA's Artemis 1 Orion Spacecraft Aced Moon Mission Despite Heat Shield Issue

  08-03-2023 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  NASA's Orion spacecraft performed better than expected on its first deep-space flight despite experiencing unpredicted loss of its heat shield material. Space.com reports: During Tuesday's call, NASA program managers revealed that Orion's heat shield did not perform as expected, losing more material than the agency had planned for. Nevertheless, NASA leadership is confident that everything will be ready for the crewed around-the-moon flight of Artemis 2, which is planned for next year. Howard Hu
  
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• Google Researchers Unveil ChatGPT-Style AI Model To Guide a Robot Without Special Training

  08-03-2023 04:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, a group of AI researchers from Google and the Technical University of Berlin unveiled PaLM-E, a multimodal embodied visual-language model (VLM) with 562 billion parameters that integrates vision and language for robotic control. They claim it is the largest VLM ever developed and that it can perform a variety of tasks without the need for retraining. According to Google, when given a high-level command, such as "bring me the rice
  
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• ADHD Startups Are Exploding, and Now There's Even a Dedicated Browser

  08-03-2023 03:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Mike Butcher writes via TechCrunch: SidekickWas it the pandemic? Did everyone follow too many ADHD TikTokers? Have smartphones fried our brains? Whatever the case, there is a boom in ADHD tech solutions, from online drug deliveries to web sites and apps. [...] Now there is a Sidekick, who's pitch is that it's a "productivity browser." Today it's launching a host of features geared to ADHD sufferers and the attention distracted more generally. The company claims users with ADHD noticed a "signifi
  
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• YouTube Reverses Course On Controversial Swearing and Monetization Policy

  08-03-2023 02:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  YouTube is relaxing some of the profanity rules it introduced late last year -- "with an update outlining a less restrictive policy that will allow the use of moderate and strong profanity to be used without risking demonetization," reports Engadget. From the report: The original policy, first introduced in November, would flag any video that used rude language in the first several seconds as ineligible for advertising, with little delineation between "strong" or "moderate" swearing. The policy
  
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• Sued by Meta, Freenom Halts Domain Registrations

  08-03-2023 02:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The domain name registrar Freenom, whose free domain names have long been a draw for spammers and phishers, has stopped allowing new domain name registrations. KrebsOnSecurity reports: Freenom is the domain name registry service provider for five so-called "country code top level domains" (ccTLDs), including .cf for the Central African Republic; .ga for Gabon; .gq for Equatorial Guinea; .ml for Mali; and .tk for Tokelau. Freenom has always waived the registration fees for domains in these countr
  
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• White House Backs Bill To Strengthen US Powers To Ban TikTok

  08-03-2023 01:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The White House said Tuesday it backs a bill in Congress to give the Biden administration new powers to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok and other foreign technologies that could pose security threats. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the bipartisan bill sponsored by a dozen senators "would strengthen our ability to address discrete risks posed by individual transactions, and systemic risks posed by certain classes of tr
  
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• Apple Readies Its Next Range of Macs

  08-03-2023 00:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  According to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is readying a new batch of Macs to launch "between late spring and summer." This includes a 15-inch MacBook Air and a new 24-inch iMac. From the report: Apple's next iMac desktop is at an advanced stage of development called engineering validation testing, or EVT, and the company is conducting production tests of the machine. The next iMac will continue to come in the same 24-inch screen size as the current model, which was announced in A
  
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