ICT news

• Universal Product Code Barcode Will Be Supplanted By 2027 With a More Data-Rich '2D' Barcode

  17-04-2023 23:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The humble and familiar barcode -- a staple on consumer packaging for nearly 50 years -- will soon be replaced with a more robust and muscular successor that offers far more information about the product inside. Axios reports: In a worldwide push called "Sunrise 2027," the retail industry is transitioning from the standard 12-digit barcode -- that square of vertical lines that's printed on a package and makes it go "beep" at the checkout scanner -- to a two-dimensional web-enabled version. The e
  
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• DuckDuckGo's Building AI-Generated Answers Into Its Search Engine

  17-04-2023 23:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  DuckDuckGo announced a new tool called DuckAssist that "automatically pulls and summarizes information from Wikipedia in response to certain questions," reports The Verge. From the report: DuckAssist's beta is live on the search engine right now -- but only through DuckDuckGo's mobile apps and browser extensions. Gabriel Weinberg, the founder and CEO of DuckDuckGo, says the company will add it to the web-based search engine if the trial "goes well." When you enter a question that DuckAssist can
  
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• China Security Unit Targeted US With Fake Social-Media Scheme, Prosecutors Allege

  17-04-2023 22:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the U.S. Department of Justice: Two criminal complaints filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York were unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging 44 defendants with various crimes related to efforts by the national police of the People's Republic of China (PRC) -- the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) -- to harass Chinese nationals residing in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere in the United States. The d
  
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• Bank of England Official Says Stablecoin Use May Need Limits

  17-04-2023 20:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said regulators may need to impose a limit on using so-called stablecoins for payments as policy makers try to balance the need for innovation with its accompanying concerns. From a report: Cunliffe raised the prospect that rapid innovation in payment systems could bring new risks for customers and financial markets as a whole. "While, from a public policy perspective, we want competition and innovation in payments we need to guard against rapid, disr
  
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• iOS 17 To Support App Sideloading To Comply With European Regulations

  17-04-2023 20:01 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple in iOS 17 will for the first time allow iPhone users to download apps hosted outside of its official App Store, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. From a report: Otherwise known as sideloading, the change would allow customers to download apps without needing to use the App Store, which would mean developers wouldn't need to pay Apple's 15 to 30 percent fees. The European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect on November 1, 2022, requires "gatekeeper" companies to op
  
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• Apple Launches Apple Card's Savings Accounts With 4.15% Interest Rate

  17-04-2023 19:21 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple Card customers in the U.S. can open a savings account and earn interests starting today. When the company originally announced the new financial product back in October, Apple said that it couldn't share what interest rate would be paid out on these accounts because rates are fluctuating so much these days. From a report: As of today, Apple is going to offer an APY of 4.15%. It looks like a competitive offering when you look at data from Bankrate -- you can currently find savings accounts
  
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• Adobe Brings Firefly To Its Video Tools

  17-04-2023 18:40 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: A month ago, Adobe announced Firefly, its entry into the generative AI game. Initially, Firefly's focus was on generating commercially safe images, but the company is now pushing its technology beyond still images. As the company announced today, it will soon bring Firefly to its Creative Cloud video and audio applications. To be clear, you won't (yet) be able to use Firefly to create custom videos yet. Instead, the emphasis here is on making it easier for an
  
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• US SEC Charges Bittrex With Operating Unregistered Securities Exchange

  17-04-2023 18:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex and its former CEO William Shihara with operating an unregistered national securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. From a report: The SEC alleged in its complaint, which was filed in a U.S. district court in Washington, that Shihara coordinated with crypto asset issuers seeking to make their tokens available for trading on Bittrex's platform to delete public statements that Shihara believed wou
  
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• Samsung Considering Replacing Google With Bing as the Default Search Engine

  17-04-2023 17:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is sprinting to protect its core business with a flurry of projects, including updates to its search engine and plans for an all-new one. From a report: Google's employees were shocked when they learned in March that the South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on its devices. For years, Bing had been a search engine also-ran. But it became a lot more interesting to industry insiders when it recentl
  
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• Artist Refuses Prize After His AI Image Wins at Top Photo Contest

  17-04-2023 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: A photographer has stirred up fresh controversy and debate after his artificial intelligence (AI) image won first prize at one of the world's most prestigious photography competitions. He has since declined to accept the prize while the contest has remained silent on the matter. Berlin-based "photomedia artist" Boris Eldagsen participated this year in the World Photography Organization's Sony World Photography Awards, a leading photo contest that offers prize
  
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• US Tech Giants Voice Concern Over India's Fact-Checking Rule

  17-04-2023 16:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Asia Internet Coalition, an influential industry organization representing technology giants such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon, has voiced concerns over a recent amendment to India's IT rules, saying the changes grant the local government expansive content removal authority without implementing adequate procedural safeguards. From a report: India recently updated its IT rules, barring social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter from disseminating false or misleading informa
  
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• CISA Releases Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Sharing Lifecycle Report

  17-04-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA has released the SBOM Sharing Lifecycle Report to the cybersecurity and supply chain community. The purpose of this report is to enumerate and describe the different parties and phases of the SBOM Sharing Lifecycle and to assist readers in choosing suitable SBOM sharing solutions based on the amount of time, resources, subject-matter expertise, effort, and access to tooling that is available to the reader to implement a phase of the SBOM sharing lifecycle. 
  This report also h
  
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• CISA and CESER Releases Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Sharing Lifecycle Report

  17-04-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) have released the SBOM Sharing Lifecycle Report to the cybersecurity and supply chain community. The purpose of this report is to enumerate and describe the different parties and phases of the SBOM Sharing Lifecycle and to assist readers in choosing suitable SBOM sharing solutions based on the amount of time, resources, subject-matter expertise, effort, and access to tooling that
  
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• German Government Rejects Bavaria's Offer to Reopen Its Closed Nuclear Plant

  17-04-2023 13:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Germany consists of 16 states, the largest of which is Bavaria (covering about of fifth of Germany by area). Hours after Germany closed its last three nuclear power plants, Bavaria's premier offered to keep one of the three reactors running as a state-controlled power plant (rather than as a federally-controlled plant), according to a report in DW.It reports that the premier told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Bavaria was "demanding that the federal government give states the responsibility
  
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• Frozen Driverless Cars are Delaying San Francisco's Buses

  17-04-2023 09:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  There's a new problem with driverless test vehicles. Wired obtain records from San Francisco's public transit agency for about six months showing that driverless cars testing on city streets "resulted in at least 83 minutes of direct delays" for the city's "Muni" buses. And "that data likely doesn't reflect the true scale of the problem," Wired argues, since "a single delay can slow other lines, worsening the blow."
  Some examples from the article:
  - On January 22, a Cruise at a green light would
  
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• Recruiters Try Asking Laid Off Tech Workers to Return to the Same Companies as Contractors

  17-04-2023 06:04 via it.slashdot.org
  
  The Seattle Times reports:After losing their jobs at one of Seattle's biggest tech companies, some workers find themselves facing an unexpected question: Do you want to return to the company that just let you go?There's a catch. Those offers, from third-party recruiters eager to place workers at the companies they just left, are for contract positions rather than staff positions. They would come with an end date, a lower salary, no benefits and no stock options.
  For workers the messages range fr
  
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• How Should AI Be Regulated?

  17-04-2023 03:34 via slashdot.org
  
  A New York Times opinion piece argues people in the AI industry "are desperate to be regulated, even if it slows them down. In fact, especially if it slows them down." But how?What they tell me is obvious to anyone watching. Competition is forcing them to go too fast and cut too many corners. This technology is too important to be left to a race between Microsoft, Google, Meta and a few other firms. But no one company can slow down to a safe pace without risking irrelevancy. That's where the gov
  
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• Compromised Sites Use Fake Chrome Update Warnings to Spread Malware

  17-04-2023 01:51 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Bleeping Computer warned this week about compromised web sites "that display fake Google Chrome automatic update errors that distribute malware to unaware visitors."
  The campaign has been underway since November 2022, and according to NTT's security analyst Rintaro Koike, it shifted up a gear after February 2023, expanding its targeting scope to cover users who speak Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. BleepingComputer has found numerous sites hacked in this malware distribution campaign, including a
  
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• Google Releases Emergency Chrome Security Update

  17-04-2023 00:21 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "Earlier this week, Google released an emergency security update for the Chrome browser due to a vulnerability that is being actively exploited in the wild," reports Hot Hardware:On Friday, Google highlighted CVE-2023-2033, reported by Clément Lecigne of Google's own Threat Analysis Group (TAG). This vulnerability is a 'type confusion' bug in the JavaScript engine for Chromium browsers useing the V8 Javascript engine. In short, type confusion is a bug that allows memory to be accessed wit
  
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