ICT news

• Lyft Is Reportedly Slashing 1,200 Jobs, Or 30% of Its Workforce

  21-04-2023 23:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  According to the Wall Street Journal, ride-hailing company Lyft is planning to cut 1,200 jobs, or more than 30% of the company's 4,000-person workforce. These figures don't include drivers because they aren't counted as employees at Lyft. Insider reports: It's another round of reductions for the company that last cut 700 employees in November. The cuts come just days after David Risher took the helm as Lyft's new CEO and could help the company reduce costs by 50%, the Journal said. In a memo to
  
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• Redbox Owner Interested In Buying Netflix's DVD Business

  21-04-2023 23:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Redbox CEO Bill Rouhana told The Hollywood Reporter that he'd like to buy the business, saying: "I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down." From the report: Redbox is already the biggest DVD rental company in the U.S., with a network of some 32,000 red DVD kiosks across the country. Just this week, it announced plans to add another 1,500 kiosks at Dollar General stores (Rouhana says the Dollar General kiosks are some of the company's most profitable). While the DVD
  
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• The Car Thieves Using Tech Disguised Inside Old Nokia Phones and Bluetooth Speakers

  21-04-2023 22:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A man sitting in the driver's seat of a Toyota is repeatedly tapping a button next to the steering wheel. A red light flashes -- no luck, the engine won't start. He doesn't have the key. In response, the man pulls up an usual tool: a Nokia 3310 phone. The man plugs the phone into the car using a black cable. He then flicks through some options on the 3310's tiny LCD screen. "CONNECT. GET DATA," the screen says. He then tries to start the car
  
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• Mullvad VPN Maker Says Police Tried To Raid Its Offices But Couldn't Find Any User Data

  21-04-2023 20:43 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Mullvad, the Swedish company behind Mullvad VPN (virtual private network), says police walked away with nothing after attempting to seize computers from its office. From a report: According to an update on Mullvad's site, the authorities left and didn't take anything after it informed them that the company doesn't store customer data. "We argued they had no reason to expect to find what they were looking for and any seizures would therefore be illegal under Swedish law," Mullvad writes. "After d
  
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• Linux Foundation Launches New Organization To Maintain TLA+

  21-04-2023 20:01 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit tech consortium that manages various open source efforts, today announced the launch of the TLA+ Foundation to promote the adoption and development of the TLA+ programming language. AWS, Oracle and Microsoft are among the inaugural members. From a report: What is the TLA+ programming language, you ask? It's a formal "spec" language developed by computer scientist and mathematician Leslie Lamport. Best known for his seminal work in distributed systems, Lamport
  
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• US Begins Planning for 6G Wireless Communications

  21-04-2023 19:21 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Biden administration is beginning to plan for 6G wireless telecommunications, seeking to expand internet access while reasserting U.S. leadership in a sector where China has notched gains. WSJ: The White House on Friday will meet with corporate, government and academic experts to begin developing goals and strategies for the new 6G communications technology, which would have the ability to take cloud computing and the mobile internet to true global ubiquity, among other improvements. The nex
  
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• Cities Keep Building Luxury Apartments Almost No One Can Afford

  21-04-2023 18:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Cutting red tape and unleashing the free market was supposed to help strapped families. So far, it hasn't worked out that way. From a report: Austin is experiencing an unrivaled apartment boom. In 2021 the region including the Texas capital issued nearly 26,000 multifamily housing permits, about 11 units per 1,000 residents. That's more per capita than any large US metro area since 1996, when Las Vegas OK'd new apartments at only a slightly higher level, according to rental marketing firm Apartm
  
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• More Than 25% of the Companies That Merged With SPACs During the Boom Are Penny Stocks Now

  21-04-2023 18:01 via slashdot.org
  
  Buzzfeed isn't the only company that merged with a SPAC that's hurting. Of the 365 companies that listed publicly through a SPAC merger between 2020 and 2022, 100 -- or 27% -- were penny stocks trading below $1 as of Thursday's close, according to data firm SPAC Research. From a report: Among the companies now in the cents-per-share club: WeWork, scooter rental company Bird, and aspiring electric vehicle makers including Nikola, Lordstown Motors and Faraday Future. Two-thirds of companies -- 248
  
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• Google Asks Judge To Toss Antitrust Charges in App Store Case

  21-04-2023 17:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Alphabet's Google asked a court late Thursday to toss out several allegations made by Epic, Match and U.S. state attorneys general about how the search and advertising giant runs its app store for Android phones. From a report: Google's motion is the company's latest bid to end costly and time-consuming antitrust lawsuits. It has also asked a federal court in Washington to dismiss claims in a 2020 antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. And it has asked a federal court in Virginia to
  
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• Google's Bard AI Chatbot Can Now Help You Code and Create Functions For Google Sheets

  21-04-2023 16:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is updating its Bard AI chatbot to help developers write and debug code. Rivals like ChatGPT and Bing AI have supported code generation, but Google says it has been "one of the top requests" it has received since opening up access to Bard last month. From a report: Bard can now generate code, debug existing code, help explain lines of code, and even write functions for Google Sheets. "We're launching these capabilities in more than 20 programming languages including C++, Go, Java, Javascr
  
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• Ontario Teachers Fund Steers Clear of Crypto After $95 Million FTX Loss

  21-04-2023 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Canada's $190bn Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan says it is steering clear of the cryptocurrency sector after writing off a $95mn investment in FTX, the failed digital currency exchange. From a report: OTPP was among a number of big-name money managers to back FTX, with investments in 2021 and early 2022. The move was widely seen as a sign that high-profile, blue-chip investors were giving their stamp of approval to the fast-growing but lightly regulated crypto sector. But in November 2022 OTPP wr
  
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• The EARN IT Act Will Be Introduced To Congress For the Third Time

  21-04-2023 15:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The controversial EARN IT Act, first introduced in 2020, is returning to Congress after failing twice to land on the president's desk. The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, (EARN IT) Act is intended to minimize the proliferation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) throughout the web, but detractors say it goes too far and risks further eroding online privacy protections.Here's how it would work, according
  
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• VMware Releases Security Update for Aria Operations for Logs

  21-04-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  VMware has released a security update to address multiple vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Logs (formerly vRealize Log Insight). A cyber threat actor could exploit these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2023-0007 and apply the necessary updates.
  
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• Oracle Releases Security Updates

  21-04-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Oracle has released its Critical Patch Update Advisory, Solaris Third Party Bulletin, and Linux Bulletin for April 2023 to address vulnerabilities affecting multiple products. A remote attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review Oracle’s Critical Patch Update Advisory, Solaris Third Party Bulletin, and Linux Bulletin and apply the necessary updates.
  
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• CISA Releases Two SBOM Documents

  21-04-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, CISA released two community-drafted documents around Software Bill of Materials (SBOM): Types of SBOM documents and Minimum Requirements for Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange (VEX). 
  The Types of SBOM document summarizes common types of SBOMs that tools may create in the industry today, along with the data typically presented for each type of SBOM. As software goes from planning to source to build to deployed and used, tools may be able to detect subtle differences in t
  
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• Amazon Introduces New Feature To Make Dialogue In Its TV Shows Intelligible

  21-04-2023 12:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Amazon has introduced a new feature to Prime Video called Dialogue Boost. It's intended to isolate dialogue and make it louder relative to other sounds in streaming videos on the service. Ars Technica reports: Amazon describes how it works in a blog post: "Dialogue Boost analyzes the original audio in a movie or series and intelligently identifies points where dialogue may be hard to hear above background music and effects. Then, speech patterns are isolated and audio is enhanced to make the dia
  
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• Pentagon Shoots Down UFO Rumors But Says 650 Cases Are Still Pending

  21-04-2023 09:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which was created last year to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs), said on Wednesday that they have not found any evidence of aliens in its analysis. The office within the Secretary of Defense is, however, tracking more than 650 potential cases of so-called "unidentified aerial phenomena" -- up from the 350 reports referenced in an unclassified intelligence report released earlier this year. Half of them are considered "espe
  
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• Scientists Finally Solved the Mystery of How the Mayan Calendar Works

  21-04-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: The Mayan calendar's 819-day cycle has confounded scholars for decades, but new research shows how it matches up to planetary cycles over a 45-year span. That's a much broader view of the tricky calendar than anyone previously tried to take. In a study published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, two Tulane University scholars highlighted how researchers never could quite explain the 819-day count calendar until they broadened their vi
  
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• New York's First Offshore Wind Farms To Launch This Year

  21-04-2023 03:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  New York will launch the nation's first major offshore wind farms later this year off of Long Island. CBS News reports: Long Island winds, strong and consistent, will power New York's first offshore wind farm, and its first power cable has made landfall. Snaking 60 miles, by year's end it will connect 12 wind turbines being built 35 miles east of Montauk, ushering in clean energy to 70,000 homes. It's the biggest dive into offshore wind in the nation -- a first of many. It's named South Fork. It
  
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• Jack Dorsey's Bluesky App Is Now On Android

  21-04-2023 03:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Bluesky, the Twitter alternative backed by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, has now rolled out to Android users. TechCrunch reports: The app, which promises a future of decentralized social networking and choose-your-own algorithms, initially launched to iOS users in late February and remains in a closed beta. The exclusivity is driving demand for the newer social network to some extent, but so is having Dorsey's name attached. Bluesky aims to give users algorithmic choice, letting them e
  
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• Collapsed Turkish Crypto Exchange Thodex's CEO Faruk Ozer Extradited, Arrested In Istanbul

  21-04-2023 02:50 via slashdot.org
  
  Faruk Fatih Ozer, the founder of Thodex, one of Turkey's largest crypto exchanges, facing charges of fraud and running a criminal organization, has been extradited to Turkey and was detained by police upon arrival in Istanbul, state media aa.com reported on Thursday. CoinDesk reports: Ozer was arrested in Albania in August after an Interpol red notice against him. Ozer, the founder and CEO of Thodex, fled to Albania after his exchange suddenly went offline last year. More than 400,000 members we
  
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• Zuckerberg Says Meta May Not Be Through With Layoffs

  21-04-2023 02:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said the embattled company may not be done with layoffs even as it goes through its latest round of 4,000 this week and braces for another batch in May. MarketWatch reports: The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which announced its intention to slash 21,000 jobs late last year, is also likely to dramatically slow down hiring, Zuckerberg told employees in a town hall on Thursday, according to a Wall Street Journal report. "I just kind of thi
  
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• Huawei Launches In-house Software System After Being Cut Off From US Services

  21-04-2023 02:10 via slashdot.org
  
  China's Huawei said on Thursday it is replacing internal software management systems it once sourced from U.S. vendors with its own in-house version, hailing it as a victory over U.S. curbs that once threatened its survival. From a report: Huawei held an internal ceremony to celebrate the switch to its own 'MetaERP' (enterprise resource planning system) in Dongguan, south China on Thursday, attended by the Huawei's rotating Chairperson Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the company's founder Ren Zhen
  
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• Man Battling Google Wins $500K For Search Result Links Calling Him a Pedophile

  21-04-2023 01:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A Montreal man spent years trying to hold Google accountable for search results linking to a defamatory post falsely accusing him of pedophilia that he said ruined his career. Now Google must pay $500,000 after a Quebec Supreme Court judge ruled that Google relied on an "erroneous" interpretation of Canadian law in denying the man's requests to remove the links. "Google variously ignored the Plaintiff, told him it could do nothing, told him
  
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• BuzzFeed News Is Shutting Down

  21-04-2023 00:50 via news.slashdot.org
  
  BuzzFeed is shutting down BuzzFeed News and laying off 15% of its employees, or about 180 people. CEO Jonah Peretti made the announcement in a memo on Thursday. Variety reports: Going forward, BuzzFeed will concentrate its news efforts in a single profitable news organization -- HuffPost, which it acquired from Verizon in 2020, per Peretti's memo. The company's flagship BuzzFeed.com site will remain in place. "While layoffs are occurring across nearly every division, we've determined that the co
  
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• Atari Acquires the Rights To Over 100 PC and Console Classics

  21-04-2023 00:10 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Atari has announced the acquisition of over 100 PC and console titles launched in the 1980s and 1990s from Accolade, Micropose and Infogrames. Engadget reports: Atari's ownership and catalogue have changed hands a bit since its heyday, so the purchase includes a homecoming for some of Atari's IPs. It's also adding Accolade's trademark to its vault. The newly Atari-owned games include the Demolition Racer series, Bubsy and Hardball. "Many of these titles are a part of Atari history, and fans can
  
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