ICT news

• New Intel Linux Graphics Driver Patches Released, Up To 10-15% Better Performance

  27-04-2023 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A new set of patches have been released for the Intel Linux graphics driver that "can provide 10-15% better performance when operating in the tuned mode," reports Phoronix. From the report: The set of Intel i915 Linux kernel graphics driver patches are about exposing the Intel RPS (Requested Power State) up/down thresholds. Right now the Intel Linux kernel driver has static values set for the up/down thresholds between power states while these patches would make them dynamically configurable by
  
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• ASML, Europe's Most Valuable Tech Firm, Is at the Heart of the US-China Chip War

  27-04-2023 22:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The low-profile firm that has become crucial to a half-trillion-dollar global industry. From a report: In 1984, Martin van den Brink, a young Dutch engineer, joined a newly created venture in a quiet corner of the Netherlands. Little did he know then that about 40 years on the company would be so crucial to the $580 billion semiconductor industry that it would be the epicenter of a US-China chip war. ASML Holding NV, where Van den Brink is now the chief technology officer, practically owns the m
  
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• Microsoft's Mice, Keyboards, and Webcams Are Being Discontinued in Favor of Surface Accessories

  27-04-2023 22:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft will no longer manufacture mice, keyboards, and webcams that are Microsoft-branded. Instead, Microsoft is now focusing on its Surface-branded PC accessories, which include mice, keyboards, pens, and more. From a report: It brings an end to the legacy of Microsoft-branded PC hardware after the company first launched its first mouse in 1983 and bundled it with Microsoft Word and Notepad. "Going forward, we are focusing on our Windows PC accessories portfolio under the Surface brand," say
  
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• The Imgur Apocalypse Is Going To Break Large Parts of the Internet

  27-04-2023 22:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Imgur, a popular photo-uploading service that has been informally tied to Reddit since its 2009 founding, will remove two types of content from its platform starting next month: explicit or pornographic imagery, and images uploaded anonymously -- the latter with a lean on unused images, according to the company. While technically banned from Imgur for years through its community rules, adult content hasn't been actively removed (and is incred
  
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• The Rapid Rise of Generative AI Threatens To Upend US Patent System

  27-04-2023 21:22 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Intellectual property laws cannot handle possibility artificial intelligence could invent things on its own. From a report: When members of the US supreme court refused this week to hear a groundbreaking case that sought to have an artificial intelligence system named as the inventor on a patent, it appeared to lay to rest a controversial idea that could have transformed the intellectual property field. The justices' decision, in the case of Thaler vs Vidal, leaves in place two lower court rulin
  
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• Brave Search Removes Last Remnant of Bing From Search Results Page

  27-04-2023 20:47 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Brave browser: Every Web search result seen in Brave Search is now served by our own index. We've removed all search API calls to Bing, which previously represented about 7% of query results.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Zuckerberg Says Meta Wants To 'Introduce AI Agents To Billions of People'

  27-04-2023 20:06 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta sees "an opportunity to introduce AI agents to billions of people in ways that will be useful and meaningful," CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors Wednesday. From a report: While he was vague about how exactly Meta will add generative AI to its apps, Zuckerberg gave the most detailed preview yet during the company's earnings call for the first quarter of this year, when it reported $28.6 billion in revenue and a record 2 billion daily users of the Facebook app, beating Wall Street's estimate
  
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• Colorado Governor Signs Tractor Right-to-Repair Law Opposed by John Deere

  27-04-2023 19:23 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  mrflash818 writes: Colorado has enacted the nation's first state law guaranteeing farmers a right to repair tractors and other equipment themselves or at independent repair shops. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed the bill yesterday. "I am proud to sign this important bipartisan legislation that saves hardworking farmers and ranchers time and money on repairs, and supports Colorado's thriving agriculture industry... Farmers and ranchers can lose precious weeks and months when equipme
  
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• EU Sets Out Patent Rules for Smart Technology To Limit Lawsuits

  27-04-2023 18:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The European Commission proposed rules on Thursday to govern patents increasingly in demand for technologies used in smart devices such as drones, connected cars and mobile phones, to try to reduce litigation. From a report: The Commission said the system for what are known as standard-essential patents (SEPs), was fragmented, lacked transparency, led to lengthy disputes and that self-regulation had not worked. SEPs protect technology such as for 5G, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth that is needed by equipmen
  
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• Microsoft Hits Back at UK After Activision Acquisition Blocked

  27-04-2023 18:05 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft's president Brad Smith said the UK regulator's decision to prevent its acquisition of 'Call of Duty' maker Activision Blizzard "had shaken confidence" in Britain as a destination for tech businesses. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which operates independently from government, blocked the deal on Wednesday, saying it could hit competition in the nascent cloud gaming market. Microsoft hit back on Thursday, saying it was "probably the darkest day in our four d
  
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• Dropbox Lays Off 500 Employees, CEO Says Due To Slowing Growth and 'the Era of AI'

  27-04-2023 17:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Cloud storage giant Dropbox today joined the fray of tech companies announcing layoffs. From a report: The company today announced that it would be laying off 16% of its staff, equivalent to about 500 employees, due to slowing growth, and -- in the words of CEO Drew Houston -- because "the AI era of computing has finally arrived." These appear to be the first layoffs the company has made since January 2021, when it laid off 315 employees in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic.Read more of this s
  
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• As Sea Levels Rise, the East Coast is Also Sinking

  27-04-2023 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Climate scientists already know that the East Coast of the United States could see around a foot of sea-level rise by 2050, which will be catastrophic on its own. But they are just beginning to thoroughly measure a "hidden vulnerability" that will make matters far worse: The coastline is also sinking. From a report: It's a phenomenon known as subsidence, and it's poised to make the rising ocean all the more dangerous, both for people and coastal ecosystems. New research published in the journal
  
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• Apple Discloses App Store Metrics in Europe

  27-04-2023 16:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has revealed App Store metrics in Europe in response to the European Digital Services Act. From the legal compliance post: iOS App Store: 101 million
  iPadOS App Store: 23 million
  macOS App Store: 6 million
  tvOS App Store: 1 million
  watchOS App Store: under 1 million
  Apple Books: under 1 million
  Podcasts paid subscriptions: under 1 millionRead more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• CISA Releases One Industrial Control Systems Medical Advisory

  27-04-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA released one Industrial Control Systems Medical (ICS) medical advisory on April 27, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review the newly released ICS medical advisory for technical details and mitigations:
  ICSMA-23-117-01 Illumina Universal Copy Service
  
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• Generative AI Systems Boost Productivity and Retention, Says Study

  27-04-2023 12:00 via slashdot.org
  
  dcblogs shares a report from TechTarget: A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that generative AI boosts productivity by 14%, reduces stress, and increases employee retention in customer support roles. The workers who gained the most from this automation were newer and less experienced. Customer support is a stressful job. "A key part of agents' jobs is to absorb customer frustrations while restraining one's own emotional reaction," the paper noted. But generative AI can act as an a
  
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• 'Game Changer' Method Lets Scientists Peer Into -- and Fly Through -- Mouse Bodies

  27-04-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: A research team has turned the bodies of dead mice into vivid 3D maps of anatomy, with tissues, nerves, and vessels highlighted in color. The technique, which renders the corpses transparent and then exposes them to fluorescent antibodies that label distinct cell types, could help everything from drug development to understanding the spread of cancer, its creators and other scientists say. The developers, at the Helmholtz Munich research instit
  
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• The First IVF Babies Conceived By a Robot Have Been Born

  27-04-2023 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Last spring, engineers in Barcelona packed up the sperm-injecting robot they'd designed and sent it by DHL to New York City. They followed it to a clinic there, called New Hope Fertility Center, where they put the instrument back together, assembling a microscope, a mechanized needle, a tiny petri dish, and a laptop. Then one of the engineers, with no real experience in fertility medicine, used a Sony PlayStation 5 controller to pos
  
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• Nate Silver To Leave FiveThirtyEight

  27-04-2023 04:02 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Thelasko writes: Renowned data journalist, Nate Silver, announced he will be leaving the company as soon as his contract expires. Although Disney owns the FiveThirtyEight brand, it is believed that Silver retains ownership of the site's algorithms. "ABC News remains dedicated to data journalism with a core focus on politics, the economy and enterprise reporting -- this streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond," an ABC New
  
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• Cruise Robotaxis Now Run All Day In San Francisco

  27-04-2023 03:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  According to a recent Twitter post from Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, the robotaxi service is now operating all day in San Francisco. The post says we will soon see Cruise "open up full operations in other cities," which may soon include Dallas, Texas, according to a recent job listing. From the report: According to a recent LinkedIn post from Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, the robotaxi network is now running 24/7 rides across San Francisco, beginning with employees. As The Kilowatts points out on Twitter, nonem
  
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• Motorola Unveils Co-Branded Lenovo 'ThinkPhone'

  27-04-2023 02:45 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola is being launched today in the U.S. for $699. It's the first co-branded phone from Motorola that arrives nine years after Lenovo purchased the Motorola brand for $2.91 billion. According to The Verge, the smartphone offers "a suite of productivity features designed to work with ThinkPad laptops." From the report: The ThinkPhone has a lot of the same stuff as a mainstream flagship phone, even though it's priced just below the likes of the $799 Samsung Galaxy S23.
  
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• Nvidia Releases a Toolkit To Make Text-Generating AI 'Safer'

  27-04-2023 02:02 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In pursuit of "safer" text-generating models, Nvidia today released NeMo Guardrails, an open source toolkit aimed at making AI-powered apps more "accurate, appropriate, on topic and secure." Jonathan Cohen, the VP of applied research at Nvidia, says the company has been working on Guardrails' underlying system for "many years" but just about a year ago realized it was a good fit for models along the lines of GPT-4 and ChatGPT. "We've been deve
  
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• Amazon Shuts Down Halo Division, Discontinues All Devices

  27-04-2023 01:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  According to The Verge, Amazon is shuttering its health-focused Halo division. All three Halo products will be discontinued and portions of the Halo team will be laid off. From the report: "We have made the difficult decision to wind down the Halo program, which will result in role reductions," Melissa Cha, Amazon's VP of smart home and health, told staffers in an email obtained by The Verge. "More recently, Halo has faced significant headwinds, including an increasingly crowded segment and an u
  
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• Meta Records Almost $4 Billion Loss On Metaverse In First Quarter

  27-04-2023 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In its first-quarter earnings report today, Meta said its virtual reality and augmented reality unit, Reality Labs, recorded a $3.99 billion operating loss. The unit generated just $339 million in revenue. CNBC reports: The numbers show a slowdown from last quarter, when Reality Labs lost $4.28 billion on $727 million of revenue. For all of last year, Reality Labs recorded an operating loss of $13.72 billion on $2.16 billion in sales, underscoring how VR and AR technologies have yet to reach the
  
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• Yuan Overtakes Dollar To Become Most-Used Currency In China's Cross-Border Transactions

  27-04-2023 00:02 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The yuan became the most widely-used currency for cross-border transactions in China in March, overtaking the dollar for the first time, official data showed, reflecting efforts by Beijing to internationalize use of the yuan. Cross-border payments and receipts in yuan rose to a record $549.9 billion in March from $434.5 billion a month earlier, according to Reuters calculation based on data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The y
  
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