ICT news

• CNN: Planet Earth 'Just Failed Its Annual Health Checkup'

  22-04-2023 22:47 via news.slashdot.org
  
  CNN reports on this year's "State of the Climate" report from the World Meteorological Organization (the UN agency promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science a d climatology).
  The report "analyzes a series of global climate indicators — including levels of planet-heating pollution, sea level rise and ocean heat — to understand how the planet is responding to climate change and the impact it is having on people and nature."
  CNN's conclusion? "The world just failed its
  
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• Researchers Discover Our 'Motor Cortex' Actually Links to Other Parts of the Brain

  22-04-2023 21:18 via science.slashdot.org
  
  While medical textbooks teach that our movements are controlled solely by the brain's motor cortex — that may be wrong, reports NPR, with another area keeping track of the entire body.
  "Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that previously overlooked areas of the brain's motor cortex appear to link control of specific muscles with information about the entire body and brain."As a result, the act of, say, reaching for a cup of coffee can directly inf
  
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• Cory Doctorow's New Thriller Dramatizes 'Cryptocurrency Shenanigans' and 'Financial Rot'

  22-04-2023 19:43 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Cory Doctorow just wrote a new thriller "about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works," according to his publisher. Doctorow calls Red Team Blues "a book about the financial rot at the center of Silicon Valley... a kind of anti-finance finance thriller."
  The publisher describes the book's hero as "a self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. "
  He knows computer
  
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• Can Consumers Break Free of the Tech Industry's Hold on Their Messaging History?

  22-04-2023 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports on "a relatively young app called Beeper that pulls all your chats into one place." This is significant, the Post argues, because "we're better off if we have the freedom to pick up our digital lives and move on. Tech companies should feel terrified that you'll walk if they disappoint you..."If different people send you messages in Apple's Messages (a.k.a., iMessage), WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Slack, you don't have to check multiple apps to read and reply. Maybe the best
  
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• Leaker of US Documents Shared More Secrets Earlier in a Discord Group with 600 Members

  22-04-2023 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Remember that U.S. Air National Guardsman who's suspected of leaking classified documents? The New York Times has discovered "a previously undisclosed chat group on Discord" where the same airman apparently also posted "sensitive information" including "secret intelligence on the Russian war effort," this time to a group with 600 members — and "months earlier than previously known," in February of 2022.The case against Airman Teixeira, 21, who was arrested on April 13, pertains to the leak
  
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• Rust Foundation Apologizes For Proposed Trademark Changes, Promises Improvement

  22-04-2023 16:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "The Rust Foundation on Monday apologized for confusion caused by the organization's proposed trademark policy changes," reports the Register.
  The Foundation now says their proposed policy "clearly needs improvement" and "there are many valid critiques of the initial draft," promising to address them and adopt a more transparent process (with a report summarizing the feedback soon). From the Register's report:The foundation, which provides financial and legal support for the memory-safe programm
  
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• Snapchat's AI Chatbot Is Now Free For All Global Users

  22-04-2023 15:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Snapchat's AI chatbot is now opening up to a global audience, the company announced today at its Snap Partner Summit. Initially launched in February, the feature originally allowed Snapchat's paid subscribers to chat with an AI chatbot powered by OpenAI's GPT technology directly in its app. Now it will be available for free. To date, users have sent nearly 2 million messages per day using the chatbot, Snap noted. With today's global expansion,
  
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• 'Devastating' Melt of Greenland, Antarctic Ice Sheets Found

  22-04-2023 12:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are now losing more than three times as much ice a year as they were 30 years ago, according to a new comprehensive international study. Phys.Org reports: Using 50 different satellite estimates, researchers found that Greenland's melt has gone into hyperdrive in the last few years. Greenland's average annual melt from 2017 to 2020 was 20% more a year than at the beginning of the decade and more than seven times higher than its annual shrinkage in the early
  
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• Humane's Wearable AI Projector in Action

  22-04-2023 07:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Humane, the top-secret tech startup founded by ex-Apple vets Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, just showed off the first demo for its projector-based wearable at a TED talk. From a report: Axios' Ina Fried broke the news, and Inverse has seen a recording of the full TED talk given by Chaudhri. Journalist Zarif Ali, who had tweeted out an image of Humane's wearable projecting a phone call function onto Chaudhri's palm, says the full TED talk video is not slated to become available until April
  
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• China Building Cyberweapons To Hijack Enemy Satellites, Says US Leak

  22-04-2023 05:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: China is building sophisticated cyber weapons to "seize control" of enemy satellites, rendering them useless for data signals or surveillance during wartime, according to a leaked US intelligence report. The US assesses that China's push to develop capabilities to "deny, exploit or hijack" enemy satellites is a core part of its goal to control information, which Beijing considers to be a key "war-fighting domain." The CIA-marked document, wh
  
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• Smart Gun Operating On Facial Recognition Goes On Sale In US

  22-04-2023 03:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Colorado-based Biofire Tech is taking orders for a smart gun enabled by facial-recognition technology, the latest development in personalized weapons that can only be fired by verified users. Reuters reports: But in a sign of the long, challenging road that smart guns have faced, a prototype twice failed to fire when demonstrated for Reuters this week. Company founder and Chief Executive Kai Kloepfer said the software and electronics have been fully tested, and the failure was related to the mec
  
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• Autonomy Founder Mike Lynch Loses Appeal Against Extradition To US

  22-04-2023 02:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Mike Lynch, the tech entrepreneur once hailed as Britain's answer to Bill Gates, has lost an appeal against extradition to the US to answer criminal fraud charges. The Guardian reports: Lynch, the founding investor of the British cybersecurity firm Darktrace, is facing allegations that he duped the US firm Hewlett-Packard into overpaying when it struck an $11bn deal for his software firm Autonomy in 2011. Two high court judges considered Mike Lynch's challenge at a recent hearing in London and o
  
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• ChatGPT Creates Mostly Insecure Code, But Won't Tell You Unless You Ask

  22-04-2023 01:40 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  ChatGPT, OpenAI's large language model for chatbots, not only produces mostly insecure code but also fails to alert users to its inadequacies despite being capable of pointing out its shortcomings. The Register reports: Amid the frenzy of academic interest in the possibilities and limitations of large language models, four researchers affiliated with Universite du Quebec, in Canada, have delved into the security of code generated by ChatGPT, the non-intelligent, text-regurgitating bot from OpenA
  
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• Google's 80-Acre San Jose Mega-Campus Is On Hold

  22-04-2023 01:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  According to CNBC, Google has halted construction of its proposed 80-acre campus in San Jose, California, after the first demolition phase. "Some sources close to the development told CNBC that the company doesn't have plans to revive the project in the near future." From the report: In June 2021, Google won approval to build an 80-acre campus, spanning 7.3 million square feet of office space, in San Jose, California, the third-largest city in the country's most populous state. The estimated eco
  
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• Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants For Training Data

  22-04-2023 00:20 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Stack Overflow, a popular internet forum for computer programming help, plans to begin charging large AI developers as soon as the middle of this year for access to the 50 million questions and answers on its service, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar says. The site has more than 20 million registered users. Stack Overflow's decision to seek compensation from companies tapping its data, part of a broader generative AI strategy, has not been previously rep
  
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