ICT news

• Vivaldi Co-Founder: Advertisers 'Stole the Internet From Us'

  13-03-2023 23:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Vivaldi is a browser founded by Opera co-founder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and launched in 2016 with a heavy focus on privacy and customizations. As someone who has worked on the internet since 1992, Tetzchner has a lot of thoughts on the state of the internet in 2023, especially when it comes to advertising. XDA spoke with Tetzchner at this year's Mobile World Congress, and it's clear to him that advertisers "stole the internet from us." From the report: For the unfamiliar, Android's Privacy
  
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• Biden Administration Approves Controversial Alaska Oil Drilling Project

  13-03-2023 23:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Biden administration on Monday gave the green light to a sprawling oil drilling project in Alaska, opening the nation's largest expanse of untouched land to energy production. The multibillion-dollar project will be located inside the National Petroleum Reserve, about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and could produce nearly 600 million barrels of crude oil over the next 30 years, according to the Interior Department. The department not
  
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• Dish Hit With $469 Million Verdict Over Commercial-Skipping Technology

  13-03-2023 22:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Dish Network must pay $469 million for infringing two patents held by parental-control technology maker ClearPlay related to filtering material from streaming video, a jury in U.S. federal court in Utah has decided. From a report: The jury in Salt Lake City reached its decision on Friday in ClearPlay's lawsuit against Dish, finding that Dish's AutoHop feature for skipping commercials on its Hopper set-top boxes is covered by ClearPlay's patents. While jurors found that Dish's technology violated
  
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• Meta To End News Access For Canadians if Online News Act Becomes Law

  13-03-2023 21:42 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Facebook-parent Meta Platforms said on Saturday that it would end availability of news content for Canadians on its platforms if the country's Online News Act passes in its current form. From a report: The "Online News Act," or House of Commons bill C-18, introduced in April last year laid out rules to force platforms like Meta and Alphabet's Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content. "A legislative framework that compels us to pay for links or content that w
  
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• Toxic 'Forever Chemicals' Found in Toilet Paper Around the World

  13-03-2023 21:01 via science.slashdot.org
  
  All toilet paper from across the globe checked for toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" contained the compounds, and the waste flushed down toilets and sent to sewage treatment plants probably creates a significant source of water pollution, new research has found. From a report: Once in the wastewater plant, the chemicals can be packed in sewage sludge that is eventually spread on cropland as fertilizer, or spilt into waterways. "Toilet paper should be considered as a potentially major source of PFAS
  
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• US Minerals Industries Are Booming

  13-03-2023 20:21 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A recent set of sweeping US laws have already kicked off a boom in proposals for new mining operations, minerals processing facilities, and battery plants, laying the foundation for domestic supply chains that could support rapid growth in electric vehicles and other clean technologies. From a report: That's by design. A stipulation in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted last year, restricts EV tax credits to vehicles with batteries that contain a significant portion of minerals extracted
  
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• Courses in the Metaverse Struggle To Compete With Real World

  13-03-2023 19:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Fulfilment of initial promise made for the technology remains elusive. From a report: The Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) has offered a tantalising prospect to people who want to learn but don't like to leave the house: join us 'virtually, for a postgraduate course in the metaverse.' Students signing up to WU's professional master of sustainability, entrepreneurship and technology programme can complete the entire part-time course -- attending lectures, meeting their classmates
  
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• 'Robot Lawyer' DoNotPay is Being Sued By a Law Firm Because It 'Does Not Have a Law Degree'

  13-03-2023 19:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  DoNotPay, which describes itself as "the world's first robot lawyer," has been accused of practicing law without a license. From a report: It's facing a proposed class action lawsuit filed by Chicago-based law firm Edelson on March 3 and published Thursday on the website of the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of San Francisco. The complaint argues: "Unfortunately for its customers, DoNotPay is not actually a robot, a lawyer, nor a law firm. DoNotPay does not have a law d
  
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• CISA Announces Ransomware Vulnerability Warning Pilot

  13-03-2023 18:43 via cisa.gov
  Today, CISA is announcing the creation of the Ransomware Vulnerability Warning Pilot (RVWP). Through the RVWP, CISA:
  Proactively identifies information systems—belonging to critical infrastructure entities—that contain vulnerabilities commonly associated with ransomware intrusions.
  Notifies the owners of the affected information systems, which enables the owners to mitigate the vulnerabilities before damaging intrusions occur.
  Review the RVWP webpage for details, including infor
  
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• Congressman Confronts FBI Over 'Egregious' Unlawful Search of His Personal Data

  13-03-2023 18:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Last month, a declassified FBI report revealed that the bureau had used Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to conduct multiple unlawful searches of a sitting Congress member's personal communications. From a report: Wired was the first to report the abuse, but for weeks, no one knew exactly which lawmaker was targeted by the FBI. That changed this week when Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) revealed during an annual House Intelligence Committee hearing on world threats that
  
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• Tim Cook Bets on Apple's Mixed-Reality Headset To Secure His Legacy

  13-03-2023 17:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  When Tim Cook unveils Apple's new "mixed-reality" headset later this year, he won't just be showing off the tech giant's latest shiny gadget. From a report: The Apple chief will also be guaranteeing his legacy includes the launch of a next-generation hardware product that some inside the company believe might one day rival the iPhone. After seven years in development -- twice as long as the iPhone -- the tech giant is widely expected to unveil a headset featuring both virtual and augmented reali
  
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• DeFi Lender Euler Finance Hit By $197 Million Hack, Experts Say

  13-03-2023 17:01 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Decentralized lending protocol Euler Finance was hit by an attack that drained $197 million in cryptocurrencies from its platform on Monday, making it the largest hack in its corner of the digital-assets market this year. From a report: The bulk of the hacker's loot -- worth roughly $135 million -- was denominated in staked Ether tokens (stETH), while the remainder was held in wrapped Bitcoin and stablecoins DAI and USDC, according to security firm BlockSec. Some of the proceeds from the attack
  
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• 'That's How Capitalism Works,' Biden Says of SVB, Signature Bank Investors Who Lost Money in Failed Banks

  13-03-2023 16:22 via news.slashdot.org
  
  President Joe Biden sought to assure customers of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank on Monday that their money was safe -- insured by the Deposit Insurance Fund -- but said investors in the failed banks' securities aren't going to get the same guarantee. From a report: "Investors in the banks will not be protected," Biden said in a White House speech. "They knowingly took a risk and when the risk didn't pay off, the investors lose their money. That's how capitalism works." The nation's top
  
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• Microsoft Strung Together Tens of Thousands of Chips in a Pricey Supercomputer for OpenAI

  13-03-2023 16:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  When Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, it agreed to build a massive, cutting-edge supercomputer for the artificial intelligence research startup. The only problem: Microsoft didn't have anything like what OpenAI needed and wasn't totally sure it could build something that big in its Azure cloud service without it breaking. From a report: OpenAI was trying to train an increasingly large set of artificial intelligence programs called models, which were ingesting greater volumes of d
  
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• GitHub Starts Mandatory 2FA Rollout Early for Some Users

  13-03-2023 12:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  By the end of 2023, GitHub will require all code contributors to enable two-factor authentication — part of "a platform-wide effort to secure software development by improving account security."
  But on Monday they'll start rolling it out, according to a new blog post, reaching out to "smaller" groups of developers and administrators "to notify them of their 2FA enrollment requirement."
  If your account is selected for enrollment, you will be notified via email and see a banner on GitHub.com
  
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• Meta is Exploring Plans to Build a Twitter Rival

  13-03-2023 08:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Meta, the parent firm of Facebook and Instagram, is working on a standalone, text-based social network app," reports the BBC.
  BR>
  "It could rival both Twitter and its decentralised competitor, Mastodon."A spokesperson told the BBC: "We're exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates...." According to MoneyControl, the new app is codenamed P92, and will allow users to log in through their existing Instagram credentials.
  Meta's app will be based on a similar fra
  
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• HSBC To Buy UK Arm of Silicon Valley Bank For $1.2

  13-03-2023 08:12 via slashdot.org
  
  HSBC, in a stock exchange filing: HSBC Holdings plc announces that its UK ring-fenced subsidiary, HSBC UK Bank plc, is acquiring Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited (SVB UK) for 1 pound ($1.2). As at 10 March 2023, SVB UK had loans of around $6.6 bn and deposits of around $8.1bn. Noel Quinn, HSBC Group CEO, said, "This acquisition makes excellent strategic sense for our business in the UK. It strengthens our commercial banking franchise and enhances our ability to serve innovative and fast-growing fi
  
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• Stack Overflow Survey Finds Most-Proven Technologies: Open Source, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning

  13-03-2023 04:55 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Stack Overflow explored the "hype cycle" by asking thousands of real developers whether nascent tech trends have really proven themselves, and how they feel about them. "With AI-assisted technologies in the news, this survey's aim was to get a baseline for perceived utility and impact" of various technologies, writes Stack Overflow's senior analyst for market research and insights.
  The results? "Open source is clearly positioned as the north star to all other technologies, lighting the way to th
  
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• New 'Ubuntu Flatpak Remix' Has (Unofficial) Flatpak Support Preinstalled

  13-03-2023 02:54 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares this report from 9to5Linux:
  After Canonical's announcement that future Ubuntu releases won't include Flatpak support by default, someone already made an unofficial Ubuntu flavor that ships with support for Flatpak apps preinstalled and working out of the box, called Ubuntu Flatpak Remix.
  Meet Ubuntu Flatpak Remix, an unofficial Ubuntu derivative that doesn't feature support for Snap apps and comes with support for Flatpak apps working out of the box. Several key apps a
  
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• GM Wants to Bring Microsoft's ChatGPT to Cars

  13-03-2023 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Reuters reports:General Motors is exploring uses for ChatGPT as part of its broader collaboration with Microsoft, a company executive told Reuters. "ChatGPT is going to be in everything," GM Vice President Scott Miller said in an interview last week.
  The chatbot could be used to access information on how to use vehicle features normally found in an owners manual, program functions such as a garage door code or integrate schedules from a calendar, Miller said. "This shift is not just about one si
  
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