ICT news

• More Google Assistant Shutdowns: Third-Party Smart Displays Are Dead

  10-04-2023 23:21 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Google Assistant continues to suffer at the hands of Google's product shutdowns. The latest products to die are third-party Google Assistant smart displays. From a report: "Google no longer provides software updates for these third-party Smart Displays: Lenovo Smart Display (7", 8" & 10"), JBL Link View and LG Xboom AI ThinQ WK9 Smart Display. This could impact the quality of video calls and meetings," said Google Duo said in a support page. We're pretty sure that announcement applies to
  
  Read more

• Biden Administration To Curb Toxic Pollutants From Chemical Plants

  10-04-2023 22:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Biden administration has proposed a new regulation to significantly reduce hazardous air pollutants from chemical plants, a move that environmental advocates predicted would significantly reduce the health risks to people living near industrial sites. From a report: The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule calls on chemical plants to monitor and reduce the amount of toxic pollutants released in the air, including the carcinogens ethylene oxide, an ingredient in antifreeze, and chlor
  
  Read more

• EPA Said To Propose Rules Meant To Drive Up Electric Car Sales Tenfold

  10-04-2023 22:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, The New York Times reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. From the report: That would represent a quantum leap for the United States -- where just 5.8 percent of vehicles sold last year were all-electric -- and would exceed President Biden's earlier ambition
  
  Read more

• Sam Bankman-Fried Declared Alameda 'Unauditable,' New Report Shows

  10-04-2023 21:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The new management of FTX, headed by CEO John Ray III, on Sunday released its first interim report on control failures at the collapsed crypto exchange. There is a lot to digest. The Block: The 45-page report -- published Sunday afternoon by FTX Trading Ltd and its affiliated debtors -- describes in painstaking detail FTX's slapdash record-keeping, near non-existent cybersecurity defenses and its sparse expertise in key areas like finance. One of the more eye-catching items concerned Alameda Res
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• If We Lose the Internet Archive, We're Screwed

  10-04-2023 20:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: If you've ever researched anything online, you've probably used the Internet Archive (IA). The IA, founded in 1996 by librarian and engineer Brewster Kahle, describes itself as "a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more." Their annals include 37 million books, many of which are old tomes that aren't commercially available. It has classic films, plenty of podcasts and -- via its Wayback Machine -- just about ev
  
  Read more

• Time Set For National Mobile Phone Emergency Alert Test

  10-04-2023 20:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A siren will go off on nearly every smartphone in the UK on Sunday 23 April, the government has announced. From a report: The 10 seconds of sound and vibration at 15:00 BST will test a new emergency alerts system. The test had originally been planned for the early evening but was moved to avoid clashing with an FA Cup semi-final, which kicks off at 16:30. The government was also keen to avoid a clash with the London Marathon, which starts at 09:30 on that Sunday. The alert system will be used to
  
  Read more

• OpenBSD 7.3 Released

  10-04-2023 19:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  metrix007 writes: OpenBSD, the OS that earned an exaggerated reputation for security simply by disabling services by default, has released version 7.3. Plenty of new improvements and bug fixes including to the editor, although still no real security features to help lock down a system, no virtual machine support for non-OpenBSD guests and no modern file system.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  Read more

• FBI Warns Against Using Public Phone Charging Stations

  10-04-2023 18:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  The FBI recently warned consumers against using free public charging stations, saying crooks have managed to hijack public chargers that can infect devices with malware, or software that can give hackers access to your phone, tablet or computer. From a report: "Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels or shopping centers," a tweet from the FBI's Denver field office said. "Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devi
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Khan Academy Chief Says GPT-4 is Ready To Be a Tutor

  10-04-2023 18:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  For all the high-profile examples of ChatGPT getting facts and even basic math wrong, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan says the latest version of the generative AI engine makes a pretty good tutor. From a report: "This technology is very powerful," Khan told Axios in a recent interview. "It's getting better."
  Khan Academy was among the early users of GPT-4 that OpenAI touted when it released the updated engine. This week, two more school districts (Newark, N.J. and Hobart, Indiana) are joining the
  
  Read more

• US Bank Lending Slumps by Most on Record in Final Weeks of March

  10-04-2023 17:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  US bank lending contracted by the most on record in the last two weeks of March, indicating a tightening of credit conditions in the wake of several high-profile bank collapses that risks damaging the economy. From a report: Commercial bank lending dropped nearly $105 billion in the two weeks ended March 29, the most in Federal Reserve data back to 1973. The more than $45 billion decrease in the latest week was primarily due to a a drop in loans by small banks. The pullback in total lending in t
  
  Read more

• China's Payment Association Warns Over Risks of Using AI Products Like ChatGPT

  10-04-2023 16:44 via slashdot.org
  
  China's payment and clearing industry association warned on Monday against using Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence tools due to "risks such as cross-border data leaks." From a report: "Payment industry staff must comply with laws and rules when using tools such as ChatGPT, and should not upload confidential information related to the country and the finance industry," the Payment & Clearing Association of China said in a statement on Monday. The associatio
  
  Read more

• Global PC Shipments Dropped by a Third in Q1

  10-04-2023 16:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  After a nice spike during the first two years of the pandemic, global PC shipments continued to drop for a fourth consecutive quarter. Analyst firm IDC's latest figure has Q1 down 29% from the same time last year. Canalys paints an even more troubling picture for the industry, with a full 33% drop. From a report: A disappointing 2022 holiday set the stage for the beginning of the year, as vendor inventory has continued to pile up -- a trend that is expected to carry at least into Q3. The plunge
  
  Read more

• 'Endor' Filming Location Plans Festival for 40th Anniversary of 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi'

  10-04-2023 13:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  SFGate reports:A herculean effort is required to produce an event centered around the intellectual property of "Star Wars" (protected within the Disney galactic empire), but a film commissioner in Northern California was determined and got creative to solicit a response from the film franchise owners. "I offered to send my adult daughter, who's a chef, to Lucasfilm to make them meals if they let us do this," said Cassandra Hesseltine, commissioner for the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission. The
  
  Read more

• 'Rest of World' Photo Contest Highlight's Tech and Solar's Impact

  10-04-2023 09:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Since launching in 2020, the nonprofit site RestofWorld.org has been covering global tech news from 100 countries, the site announced this week. "But at Rest of World, the story of tech is as big as the world that's using it" — so they just finished their first international photography contest.We asked our readers to send us images of technology's impact in their communities — as seen from their lenses. We received 548 entries from around the world, including from Afghanistan, Mexic
  
  Read more

• Speedy Black Hole in Intergalactic Space Could be Creating a Trail of Stars

  10-04-2023 05:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "There's an invisible monster on the loose," NASA wrote on Thursday, "barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. "
  This supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy... Rather than gobbling up stars ahead of it, like a cosmic Pac-Man, the speedy black hole i
  
  Read more

• After Low-Speed Bus Crash, Cruise Recalled Software for Its Self-Driving Taxis in March

  10-04-2023 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  San Francisco autonomous vehicle company Cruise recalled and updated the software of its fleet of 300 cars, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, " after a Cruise taxi rear-ended a local bus "when the car's software got confused by the articulated vehicle, according to a federal safety report and the company."The voluntary report notes that Cruise updated its software on March 25th.Since last month's low-speed crash, which resulted in no injuries, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the company chose to co
  
  Read more

• Fully Recyclable Printed Electronics Produced Using Water Instead of Toxic Chemicals

  10-04-2023 01:17 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Duke University announces their engineers "have produced the world's first fully recyclable printed electronics that replace the use of chemicals with water in the fabrication process" — bypassing the need for hazardous chemicals.Electrical/computer engineering professor Aaron Franklin led the study, according to Duke's announcement:In previous work, Franklin and his group demonstrated the first fully recyclable printed electronics. The devices used three carbon-based inks: semiconducting
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!