ICT news

• Plans For Royal Mint NFT Dropped By UK Government

  27-03-2023 23:50 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Plans for a government backed non-fungible token (NFT) produced by the Royal Mint have been dropped, the Treasury has announced. The BBC reports: Rishi Sunak ordered the creation of a "NFT for Britain" that could be traded online, while chancellor in April 2022. The Treasury announced it was "not proceeding with the launch" following a consultation with the Royal Mint. But economic secretary Andrew Griffiths said the department would keep the proposal "under review."Responding to the announcemen
  
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• Microsoft Says Its New Version of Teams Is Twice As Fast

  27-03-2023 23:10 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft said Monday it is starting to roll out a faster new version of its Teams communication app for Windows to commercial clients enrolled in a preview program. CNBC reports: The software will become available to all customers later this year, and Microsoft also promises new versions of Teams for Mac and the web. The new version also includes enhancements meant to simplify Teams, building on the more than 400 feature updates Microsoft delivered last year, some of them meant to help Microsof
  
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• Glass Beads On Moon's Surface May Hold Billions of Tons of Water, Scientists Say

  27-03-2023 22:35 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Tiny glass beads strewn across the moon's surface contain potentially billions of tons of water that could be extracted and used by astronauts on future lunar missions, researchers say. The discovery is thought to be one of the most important breakthroughs yet for space agencies that have set their sights on building bases on the moon, as it means there could be a highly accessible source of not only water but also hydrogen and oxygen. "This
  
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• Japan Lawmakers Eye Ban on TikTok, Others If Used Improperly

  27-03-2023 21:35 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A group of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers plans to compile a proposal next month urging the government to ban social networking services such as TikTok if they are used for disinformation campaigns, an LDP lawmaker said on Monday. From a report: Many U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to ban the popular Chinese-owned social media app, alleging the app could be used for data collection, content censorship and harm to children's mental health. "If it's
  
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• Europol Sounds Alarm About Criminal Use of ChatGPT, Sees Grim Outlook

  27-03-2023 20:40 via slashdot.org
  
  EU police force Europol on Monday warned about the potential misuse of artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT in phishing attempts, disinformation and cybercrime, adding to the chorus of concerns ranging from legal to ethical issues. From a report: "As the capabilities of LLMs (large language models) such as ChatGPT are actively being improved, the potential exploitation of these types of AI systems by criminals provide a grim outlook," Europol said as it presented its first tech report
  
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• FTC Is Reviewing Competition in AI

  27-03-2023 20:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The US Federal Trade Commission is paying close attention to developments in artificial intelligence to ensure the field isn't dominated by the major tech platforms, Chair Lina Khan said Monday. From a report: "As you have machine learning that depends on huge amounts of data and also a huge amount of storage, we need to be very vigilant to make sure that this is not just another site for big companies to become bigger," Khan said at an event hosted by the Justice Department in Washington. Khan
  
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• Biden Executive Order Bans Federal Agencies From Using Commercial Spyware

  27-03-2023 19:22 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Biden administration on Monday announced a new executive order that would broadly ban U.S. federal agencies from using commercially developed spyware that poses threats to human rights and national security. From a report: The move to ban federal agencies -- including law enforcement, defense and intelligence -- from using commercial spyware comes as officials confirmed that dozens of U.S. government personnel had their phones targeted. Human rights defenders and security researchers have fo
  
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• Apple Acquires Startup That Uses AI To Compress Videos

  27-03-2023 18:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has quietly acquired a Mountain View-based startup, WaveOne, that was developing AI algorithms for compressing video. From a report: Apple wouldn't confirm the sale when asked for comment. But WaveOne's website was shut down around January, and several former employees, including one of WaveOne's co-founders, now work within Apple's various machine learning groups. In a LinkedIn post published a month ago, WaveOne's former head of sales and business development, Bob Stankosh, announced the
  
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• Cryptocurrencies Add Nothing Useful To Society, Says Nvidia

  27-03-2023 18:04 via slashdot.org
  
  The US chip-maker Nvidia has said cryptocurrencies do not "bring anything useful for society" despite the company's powerful processors selling in huge quantities to the sector. From a report: Michael Kagan, its chief technology officer, said other uses of processing power such as the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT were more worthwhile than mining crypto. Nvidia never embraced the crypto community with open arms. In 2021, the company even released software that artificially constrained
  
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• Binance Sued by US Watchdog for Alleged Derivatives Rule Lapses

  27-03-2023 17:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Binance Holdings, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao, were sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly breaking trading and derivatives rules. From a report: The CFTC filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Chicago. The derivatives regulator said Binance shirked its obligations by not properly registering with it. Since at least 2021, the CFTC has been probing Binance over whether it failed to keep US residents from
  
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• Pinduoduo App Malware Detailed By Cybersecurity Researchers

  27-03-2023 16:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Security researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab have identified and outlined potential malware in versions of PDD Holdings' Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo, days after Google suspended it from its Android app store. From a report: In one of the first public accountings of the malicious code, Kaspersky laid out how the app could elevate its own privileges to undermine user privacy and data security. It tested versions of the app distributed through a local app store in China, where Huawei Techn
  
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• First Citizens To Acquire Silicon Valley Bank

  27-03-2023 16:02 via slashdot.org
  
  First Citizens has agreed to buy a $72 billion chunk of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, the California lender formerly known as Silicon Valley Bank that was taken over by the FDIC two weeks ago after depositors, in a crisis of confidence, made a run on it. SVB served as lifeblood to thousands of startups before its collapse, the biggest in U.S. banking in years, sent shockwaves through the financial sector. From a report: Seventeen former branches of Silicon Valley Bank will open as First Citizens B
  
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• Microsoft Brags Its ChapGPT Integration Will Be Right or 'Usefully Wrong'

  27-03-2023 13:34 via slashdot.org
  
  ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk flags Microsoft's latest "poetic use of words" when describing the ChatGPT-based functionalities it's bundling into applications like Word and Excel.
  It's there to help steer you to your destination. It's there to free you to focus on steering your life. And it's there to help you land on the perfect version of you, the one that does more in order to, I don't know, be more. There's one difference, though, between Microsoft's Copilot and, say, an American Airlines
  
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• Arduino Announces 'UNO R4' with Clock Speed/Memory/Storage Upgrades, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4

  27-03-2023 09:44 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Saturday Arduino announced "a new, revolutionary revision of the iconic UNO board," promising "a long-awaited update on performance and possibilities."The Arduino UNO R4 indeed preserves the well-known features of the UNO family — standard form factor, shield compatibility, 5V operating voltage, outstanding robustness — while offering no less than a 32-bit Cortex-M4 and a 3-to-16x increase in clock speed, memory and flash storage....
  The UNO R4 will come in two versions — UNO R
  
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• Falling Lithium Prices are Making Electric Cars More Affordable

  27-03-2023 05:54 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The New York Times reports:Since January, the price of lithium has dropped nearly 20%, according to Benchmark Minerals, while sales of electric vehicles have soared. The price of cobalt, another important battery material, has fallen by more than half. Copper, essential to electric motors and batteries, has slipped by about 18%, at a time when U.S. mines and copper-rich countries such as Peru are struggling to increase production.
  The price moves have confounded many analysts who predicted costs
  
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• What's New in TypeScript 5.0?

  27-03-2023 03:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  InfoWorld reports that TypeScript 5.0 is smaller, faster, and simpler:TypeScript 5.0, an update to Microsoft's strongly typed JavaScript variant, is now available as a production release, Microsoft announced March 16. With the upgrade, TypeScript has been rebuilt to use ECMAScript modules. TypeScript 5.0 also modernizes decorators for class customization.ECMAScript modules reduce package size and boost performance. Decorators, an upcoming ECMAScript feature, allow for customizing classes and the
  
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• Bill Gates Predicts 'The Age of AI Has Begun'

  27-03-2023 00:58 via slashdot.org
  
  Bill Gates calls the invention of AI "as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone," predicting "Entire industries will reorient around it" in an essay titled "The AI Age has Begun."
  In my lifetime, I've seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary. The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface — the forerunner of every modern operating system, including Windows....
  
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