ICT news

• Will Remote Working Lead Millennials to Buy Homes in Affordable Remote Suburbs?

  06-05-2023 23:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Fortune:
  For eight years now, as millennials have entered their thirties and forties, also known as "homebuying age," Bank of America has surveyed over 1,000 members of the generation once a year for its Home Work series. And for 2023's edition... older millennials (age 31-41) are almost three times as likely to move into a house than an apartment, the survey found...
  Migration patterns during the pandemic have clearly established that most homebuyers
  
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• Nvidia Details 'Neural Texture Compression', Claims Significant Improvements

  06-05-2023 22:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader indominabledemon shared this article from TechSpot:Games today use highly-detailed textures that can quickly fill the frame buffer on many graphics cards, leading to stuttering and game crashes in recent AAA titles for many gamers... [T]he most promising development in this direction so far comes from Nvidia — neural texture compression could reduce system requirements for future AAA titles, at least when it comes to VRAM and storage.... In a research paper published this w
  
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• Safari Beats Edge as Second-Most Used Browser in April

  06-05-2023 21:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from BGR:Last year, Microsoft Edge surpassed Safari as the second most popular desktop browser. Now, new data from Statcounter shows that Apple's browser has finally regained second place.
  The full ranking shows that Google Chrome remains the most used browser... It's also interesting to note that after Firefox almost surpassed Safari in February of 2022, the browser is still losing its base to Microsoft Edge and Safari... Even the all-mighty Google Chrome
  
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• Ocean Temperatures Break Records. Scientists are Alarmed

  06-05-2023 20:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:
  Ocean surface heat is at record-breaking levels. Temperatures began climbing in mid-March and skyrocketed over the course of several weeks, leaving scientists scrambling to figure out exactly why.Temperatures have fallen since their peak in April — as they naturally do in the spring — but they are still higher than they have ever been on record for this time of year.... The record may not seem huge — it's nearly two-tenths of a d
  
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• TurboTax to Pay $141M Settlement Over 'Deceiving' Millions of Low-Income Americans

  06-05-2023 19:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports:TurboTax will begin sending checks next week to nearly 4.4 million low-income Americans whom the company deceived into paying for tax services that should have been free, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
  The checks, part of a $141 million settlement reached in May 2022 between TurboTax owner Intuit and all 50 states and the District of Columbia, are for people who were eligible to file taxes for free through an IRS partner program but were "tricked" into
  
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• Could We Build a Dyson Sphere Around the Sun Using Jupiter for Raw Materials?

  06-05-2023 18:34 via idle.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this report from Futurism:
  We'd need an astronomical amount of resources to construct a Dyson sphere, a giant theoretical shell that would harvest all of a given star's energy, around the Sun. In fact, as science journalist Jaime Green explores in her new book "The Possibility of Life," we'd have to go as far as to demolish a Jupiter-sized planet to build such a megastructure, a concept first devised by physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960...
  Not everybody agr
  
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• AMD Will Replace AGESA With Open Source Initialization Library 'openSIL'

  06-05-2023 17:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Phoronix shares some overlooked news from AMD's openSIL presentation at the OCP Regional Summit in April. Specifically, that AMD openSIL — their open-source x86 silicon initialization library — "is planned to eventually replace AMD's well known AGESA [BIOS utility]" around 2026, and "it will be supported across AMD's entire processor stack — just not limited to EPYC server processors as some were initially concerned..."Raj Kapoor, AMD Fellow and AMD's Chief Firmware Architect,
  
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• 'Free Comic Book Day' 2023 Celebrations Include 'Ant-Sized' Blu-Ray Discs

  06-05-2023 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  All across North America today, over 2,000 comic book stores are celebrating Free Comic Book Day. As it enters its third decade — the event started in 2001, according to Wikipedia — there'll be over two dozen free comic books to choose from this, and enthusiastic stores trying to dial up the fun even more.
  16 stores are also giving away Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania in special "ant-sized" boxes — the size of penny — with tiny versions of the cover art from the full-si
  
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• The Downfall of Brydge: iPad Keyboard Company Folds, Leaving Customer Orders Unfulfilled

  06-05-2023 13:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Supported by conversations with nearly a dozen former employees, 9to5Mac details the downfall of Brydge -- "a once thriving startup making popular keyboard accessories for iPad, Mac, and Microsoft Surface products." An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: According to nearly a dozen former Brydge employees who spoke to 9to5Mac, Brydge has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs within the past year after at least two failed acquisitions. As it stands today, Brydge employees have n
  
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• In a First, Astronomers Spot a Star Swallowing a Planet

  06-05-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  For the first time, astronomers have observed a star swallowing a planet. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. MIT News reports: The planetary demise appears to have taken place in our own galaxy, some 12,000 light-years away, near the eagle-like constellation Aquila. There, astronomers spotted an outburst from a star that became more than 100 times brighter over just 10 days, before quickly fading away. Curiously, this white-hot flash was followed by a colder, longer-lasting
  
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• Brazilian Frog Might Be the First Pollinating Amphibian Known To Science

  06-05-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: The creamy fruit and nectar-rich flowers of the milk fruit tree are irresistible to Xenohyla truncata, a tree frog native to Brazil. On warm nights, the dusky-colored frogs take to the trees en masse, jostling one another for a chance to nibble the fruit and slurp the nectar. In the process, the frogs become covered in sticky pollen grains -- and might inadvertently pollinate the plants, too. It's the first time a frog -- or any amphibia
  
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• Mercedes Locks Better EV Engine Performance Behind Annoying Subscription Paywalls

  06-05-2023 04:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Last year, BMW announced plans to charge a $18 per month subscription for heated seats. Now, Mercedes is considering making better EV engine performance an added subscription surcharge. "Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle owners in North America who want a little more power and speed can now buy 60 horsepower for just $60 a month or, on other models, 80 horsepower for $90 a month," reports CNN. "They won't have to visit a Mercedes dealer to get the upgrade either, or even leave their own driveway. T
  
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• White House Proposes 30% Tax On Electricity Used For Crypto Mining

  06-05-2023 03:25 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a report from Engadget: The Biden administration wants to impose a 30 percent tax on the electricity used by cryptocurrency mining operations, and it has included the proposal in its budget for the fiscal year of 2024. In a blog post on the White House website, the administration has formally introduced the Digital Asset Mining Energy or DAME excise tax. It explained that it wants to tax cryptomining firms, because they aren't paying for the "full cost
  
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• Vice Media Group Preps $400 Million Sale To George Soros and Fortress

  06-05-2023 02:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Vice Media Group is planning to sell to investors for about $400 million -- a fraction of its once high-flying $5.7 billion valuation back in 2017. The investors include Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management, according to the Wall Street Journal. Variety reports: Cash-strapped Vice Media has been searching for a buyer over the past year, to no avail. In February, Nancy Dubuc announced her exit as CEO after almost five years. The company subsequently appointed longtime execs Bruce D
  
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• Unionized Apple Store Workers Want You To Start Tipping Them

  06-05-2023 02:02 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Insider: Employees at Apple's first unionized store in Towson, Maryland are pushing for a contract that includes the introduction of tipping. The proposed system would allow customers to tip store workers in increments of 3%, 5%, or a customized amount for in-store credit card transactions. It's part of a broader list of economic proposals as the union heads into negotiation with Apple. Bloomberg first reported the details of the proposals Wednesday. The
  
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• OpenAI No Longer Relies On API Customer Data To Train ChatGPT

  06-05-2023 01:20 via slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC that the company no longer trains its AI large-language models such as GPT with paying customer data. "Customers clearly want us not to train on their data, so we've changed our plans: We will not do that," Altman told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin. From the report: OpenAI's terms of service were quietly updated March 1, records from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine show. "We don't train on any API data at all, we haven't for a while," Altman told CNBC. APIs, or
  
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• Gmail Is Starting To Show Ads In the Middle of the Inbox

  06-05-2023 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Gmail is starting to show more ads on mobile devices and the web. "Starting on mobile, we've observed that Google is now showing ads within your inbox's 'Updates' filter," reports 9to5Google. "That automatic filter is designed to capture emails regarding orders, select promotions, billing statements, and more. Now, Gmail is starting to show two ads at the top of the 'Updates' tab, just like it does on the other tabs." From the report: Beyond that, it also appears that Gmail is starting to mix it
  
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• Journalist Writes About Discovering She'd Been Surveilled By TikTok

  06-05-2023 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times, written by journalist Cristina Criddle: One evening in late December last year, I received a cryptic phone call from a PR director at TikTok, the popular social media app. I'd written extensively about the company for the Financial Times, so we'd spoken before. But it was puzzling to hear from her just before the holidays, especially since I wasn't working on anything related to the company at the time. The call lasted less than a min
  
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