ICT news

• Six Months Later, Poker Player Garrett Adelstein Still Thinks He Was Cheated

  29-04-2023 23:53 via games.slashdot.org
  
  In October professional poker player Garrett Adelstein lost to a relative newcomer. Last month 15,000 viewers tuned in for his first new public interview, Poker News reports. Adelstein "reiterated his confidence that he was cheated," and said he will not fund the $135,000 the newcomer gave hiim as a peace offering.[Newcomer Robbi Jade Lew] denied cheating and Hustler's third-party investigation concluded there was "no evidence of wrongdoing." Early in the two-hour interview, Polk asked his guest
  
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• Report: Apple's AI and 'Siri' Efforts Hindered by Caution, Dysfunction

  29-04-2023 22:34 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  The Information reports:
  Late last year, a trio of engineers who had just helped Apple modernize its search technology began working on the type of technology underlying ChatGPT... For Apple, there was only one problem: The engineers no longer worked there.They'd left Apple last fall because "they believed Google was a better place to work on LLMs...according to two people familiar with their thinking... They're now working on Google's efforts to reduce the cost of training and improving the acc
  
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• Long-time Slashdot Reader Announces Open Source, Java-Based, Full-Stack Web Development Framework

  29-04-2023 21:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time software engineer Blake1024 (Slashdot reader #846,727) writes:We are thrilled to announce the release of Kiss v2.0, a comprehensive, Java-based, open-source, full-stack web development framework... Kiss v2.0 provides an even more seamless, out-of-the-box experience, including pre-configured front-end and back-end components... Key Features:* Custom HTML controls* RESTful web services* Microservices architecture* Built-in authentication* SQL API integration* Robust reporting capabilitie
  
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• 84 Amazon Delivery Drivers Just Won a $30 an Hour Union Contract

  29-04-2023 20:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  CNBC reports that 84 Amazon delivery drivers at a California facility "joined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union said Monday, in a win for labor organizers that have long sought to gain a foothold at the e-retailer."An anonymous reader shared this follow-up report from Vox:[T]hey unanimously ratified the contract, which will bring their wages from around $20 currently to $30 by September and would allow them to refuse to do deliveries they consider unsafe. But that victory is
  
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• NASA Seeks 'Citizen Scientists' to Listen to Space Noises

  29-04-2023 19:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "Earth's magnetic environment is filled with a symphony of sound that we cannot hear," NASA wrote this month. When solar winds approach earth, "it causes the magnetic field lines and plasma around Earth to vibrate like the plucked strings of a harp, producing ultralow-frequency waves... a cacophonous operetta portraying the dramatic relationship between Earth and the Sun."
  So NASA is now announcing "a new NASA-funded citizen science project called HARP — or Heliophysics Audified: Resonance
  
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• Lyft Demands Employees Return to Office in September

  29-04-2023 18:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "Since the pandemic began, Lyft employees have been able to work remotely," notes the New York Times, "logging into videoconferences from their homes and dispersing across the country like many other tech workers. Last year, the company made that policy official, telling staff that work would be 'fully flexible' and subleasing floors of its offices in San Francisco and elsewhere."No longer. On Friday, David Risher, the company's new chief executive, told employees in an all-hands meeting that th
  
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• Another Open Source Alternative to ChatGPT Released by Hugging Face

  29-04-2023 17:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Earlier this week TechCrunch reported that just like Stability AI, startup Hugging Face "has released an open source alternative to OpenAI's viral AI-powered chabot, ChatGPT, dubbed HuggingChat."Available to test through a web interface and to integrate with existing apps and services via Hugging Face's API, HuggingChat can handle many of the tasks ChatGPT can, like writing code, drafting emails and composing rap lyrics. The AI model driving HuggingChat was developed by Open Assistant, a project
  
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• System76 Plans Its Own Open Hardware Laptop, and a New Desktop Environment Written in Rust

  29-04-2023 16:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Linux Magazine argues that System76's Pop!_OS offers "something rare: a commercial distribution that was integrated into the hardware, with utilities designed specifically for System76 computers and keyboards."The only other example of an integrated commercial distro of which I am aware is Purism, a company in the same niche... With hardware and software coming from the same source — what business calls vertical integration — distributions like System76/Pop!_OS offer Linux users thei
  
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• California Passes 1st-In-Nation Emission Rules For Trains

  29-04-2023 12:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  California has approved a groundbreaking rule to cut greenhouse gas emissions by limiting rail pollution, banning locomotives over 23 years old by 2030, increasing the use of zero-emissions technology for freight transportation, and imposing restrictions on idling. The Associated Press reports: The rule will ban locomotive engines more than 23 years old by 2030 and increase the use of zero-emissions technology to transport freight from ports and throughout railyards. It would also ban locomotive
  
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• Nuke-Launching AI Would Be Illegal Under Proposed US Law

  29-04-2023 09:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A group of Senators on Wednesday announced bipartisan legislation that seeks to prevent an AI system from making nuclear launch decisions. "The Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous Artificial Intelligence Act would prohibit the use of federal funds for launching any nuclear weapon by an automated system without 'meaningful human control,'" reports Ars Technica. From the report: The new bill builds on existing US Department of Defense policy, which states that in all cases, "the United States will
  
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• The DOJ Detected the SolarWinds Hack 6 Months Earlier Than First Disclosed

  29-04-2023 05:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The U.S. Department of Justice, Mandiant, and Microsoft stumbled upon the SolarWinds breach six months earlier than previously reported, WIRED has learned, but were unaware of the significance of what they had found. The breach, publicly announced in December 2020, involved Russian hackers compromising the software maker SolarWinds and inserting a backdoor into software served to about 18,000 of its customers. That tainted software went on to infec
  
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• Why There's No Room For Suburbs In Open-World Games

  29-04-2023 04:02 via games.slashdot.org
  
  VICE's Ade Adeniji booted up The Crew 2, GTA V, GTA San Andreas, Saints Row, and Watch Dogs 2, and noticed a interesting pattern: there are no suburbs to be seen. "We are transported to major cities and vast countrysides, but nothing that really speaks to the in between -- to the suburbs," writes Adeniji. "[H]ow can open world games leave out a space that we fundamentally see as Americana? Is this about design choices and constraints, or does it speak to something deeper about how we really view
  
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• Washington Passes Law Requiring Consent Before Companies Collect Health Data

  29-04-2023 03:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Yesterday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed the My Health, My Data bill into law, requiring companies to receive a user's explicit consent before they can collect, share, or sell their health data. When the law comes into effect in March 2024, users will have the right to withdraw consent at any time and have their data deleted. The Verge reports: The law should help shield users' health data from the companies and organizations not included under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which prevents cert
  
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• ChatGPT Back in Italy After Meeting Watchdog Demands

  29-04-2023 02:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  ChatGPT's maker said Friday that the artificial intelligence chatbot is available again in Italy after the company met the demands of regulators who temporarily blocked it over privacy concerns. From a report: OpenAI said it fulfilled a raft of conditions that the Italian data protection authority wanted satisfied by an April 30 deadline to have the ban on the AI software lifted. "ChatGPT is available again to our users in Italy," San Francisco-based OpenAI said by email. "We are excited to welc
  
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• Tencent Cloud Announces Deepfakes-As-a-Service For $145

  29-04-2023 02:02 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Tencent Cloud has announced it's offering a digital human production platform -- essentially Deepfakes-as-a-Service (DFaaS). According to Chinese media and confirmed to The Reg by Tencent, the service needs just three minutes of live-action video and 100 spoken sentences -- and a $145 fee -- to create a high-definition digital human. Gestating the creation requires just 24 hours. Making people hasn't been that quick since Eden.The digital ch
  
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• Sony Closes In On 40 Million PS5s Sold

  29-04-2023 01:20 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Sony says it sold a total of 38.4 million PlayStation 5 consoles, according to the company's latest earnings release. In the first three months of the year, it shipped 6.3 million units -- "more than triple what the company shipped in the same quarter the previous year (2 million)," reports The Verge. From the report: On the software side things were more mixed, Bloomberg notes. Revenue from game software was up overall, but units shipped fell from 70.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 6
  
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• Chinese Hackers Outnumber FBI Cyber Staff 50 To 1, Bureau Director Says

  29-04-2023 00:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Chinese hackers vastly outnumber U.S. cyber intelligence staff "by at least 50 to 1." CNBC reports: "To give you a sense of what we're up against, if each one of the FBI's cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI Cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1," Wray said in prepared remarks for a budget hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday. The disclosure highlight
  
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• Daimler Is Setting Up a $650 Million Charging Network For Commercial EVs

  29-04-2023 00:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a new fast-charging network coming to North America. It's called Greenlane, and it's a $650 million joint venture between Daimler, NextEra Energy Resources, and a BlackRock investment fund. But it's unlikely you'll recharge your passenger EV at a Greenlane site any time soon -- this new network is being designed specifically for medium- and heavy-duty commercial EVs. [...] Based on the company's renderings, Greenlane's sites will be
  
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