ICT news

• UC Berkeley Neglected To Disclose $220 Million Deal With China To the US Government

  22-05-2023 23:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  schwit1 shares a report from The Daily Beast: U.C. Berkeley has failed to disclose to the U.S. government massive Chinese state funding for a highly sensitive $240 million joint tech venture in China that has been running for the last eight years. The Californian university has not registered with the U.S. government that it received huge financial support from the city of Shenzhen for a tech project inside China, which also included partnerships with Chinese companies that have since been sanct
  
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• WhatsApp Allows Users To Edit Messages

  22-05-2023 22:57 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  WhatsApp users will now be able to edit messages within 15 minutes of hitting send. Reuters reports: "For the moments when you make a mistake or simply change your mind, you can now edit your sent messages on WhatsApp," the Meta Platforms Inc-owned messaging app said in a blog post on Monday.The function can be accessed by long-pressing the message and choosing "edit" in the drop-down menu. The modified message will carry the label "edited", without showing edit history.Read more of this story a
  
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• SpaceX Launches 10th Crewed Mission, Third Fully Commercial Flight

  22-05-2023 22:15 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: SpaceX on Sunday evening launched a commercial mission to the International Space Station carrying four people, including former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. This "Axiom-2" mission was commanded by Whitson and carried a paying customer named John Shoffner, who served as pilot, as well as two Saudi Arabian mission specialists, Ali al-Qarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. Shoffner and the government of Saudi Arabia procured the seats on Crew Dragon fro
  
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• Four Accused of Violating German Law in Turkish Spyware Deal

  22-05-2023 21:21 via it.slashdot.org
  
  A prosecutor in Germany has indicted former executives of surveillance technology company FinFisher GmbH, accusing them of unlawfully supplying the Turkish secret services with spyware that could be used to hack into phones and computers. From a report: In an announcement on Monday, a spokesperson for the Munich Public Prosecutor's said that the office had carried out an "extensive and complex" investigation of the company following searches of 15 properties. Four of the company's managing direc
  
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• Meta's New AI Models Can Recognize and Produce Speech For More Than 1,000 Languages

  22-05-2023 20:58 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta has built AI models that can recognize and produce speech for more than 1,000 languages -- a tenfold increase on what's currently available. It's a significant step toward preserving languages that are at risk of disappearing, the company says. From a repprt: Meta is releasing its models to the public via the code hosting service GitHub. It claims that making them open source will help developers working in different languages to build new speech applications -- like messaging services that
  
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• Intel Gives Details on Future AI Chips as It Shifts Strategy

  22-05-2023 20:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Intel on Monday provided a handful of new details on a chip for artificial intelligence (AI) computing it plans to introduce in 2025 as it shifts strategy to compete against Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. From a report: At a supercomputing conference in Germany on Monday, Intel said its forthcoming "Falcon Shores" chip will have 288 gigabytes of memory and support 8-bit floating point computation. Those technical specifications are important as artificial intelligence models similar to servi
  
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• Biden Names FCC Picks, Pushes for Democratic Majority at Deadlocked Agency

  22-05-2023 19:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  President Joe Biden moved to lock in his first Democratic majority at the Federal Communications Commission, naming veteran government lawyer Anna Gomez to an open seat and proposing to extend the service of two current commissioners. From a report: The appointments poise the FCC, after more than two years of partisan deadlock under a Democratic chairwoman, to act on the party's priorities, including restoring net neutrality regulations. Such rules bar broadband providers from interfering with w
  
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• Google's AI-enabled Flood Forecasting Goes Global

  22-05-2023 18:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Artificial intelligence is increasingly being tapped to address the impacts of climate change. From a report: Google's latest announcement is one example. Countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America can now use its AI-enabled platform that displays flood forecasts. Starting Monday, governments, aid organizations and people in 60 countries across these regions are able to access Google's flood prediction information up to seven days in advance of an inc
  
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• Amazon Braces For Compensation Criticism at Annual Meeting

  22-05-2023 18:07 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Amazon will face a record 18 shareholder resolutions at its annual meeting this week, with outside groups urging the company to disclose more about its treatment of employees and more closely tie executive compensation to performance. From a report: Major shareholder advisory firms recommend investors approve calls for assessments of Amazon employees' working conditions and freedom to organize, as well as the risks posed by the company's sales of surveillance products. Between them, Institutiona
  
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• China is Calling in Loans To Dozens of Countries

  22-05-2023 17:20 via slashdot.org
  
  A dozen poor countries are facing economic instability and even collapse under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign loans, much of them from the world's biggest and most unforgiving government lender, China. From a report: An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China -- including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia -- found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of the tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide elect
  
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• AMD Now Powers 121 of the World's Fastest Supercomputers

  22-05-2023 16:40 via slashdot.org
  
  The Top 500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world was released today, and AMD continues its streak of impressive wins with 121 systems now powered by AMD's silicon -- a year-over-year increase of 29%. From a report: Additionally, AMD continues to hold the #1 spot on the Top 500 with the Frontier supercomputer, while the test and development system based on the same architecture continues to hold the second spot in power efficiency metrics on the Green 500 list. Overall, AMD also powers
  
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• US College See a Surge in CS Majors, Fewer Humanities Majors

  22-05-2023 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post notes a trend at U.S. colleges like the University of Maryland: "booming enrollment in computer science and plummeting student demand for the humanities."The number of students nationwide seeking four-year degrees in computer and information sciences and related fields shot up 34 percent from 2017 to 2022, to about 573,000, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The English-major head count fell 23 percent in that time, to about 113,000. History fell
  
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• Meta Fined Record $1.3 Billion in EU Over US Data Transfers

  22-05-2023 11:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Facebook owner Meta was hit by a record $1.3 billion European Union privacy fine and given a deadline to stop shipping users' data to the US after regulators said it failed to protect personal information from the prying eyes of American security services. Bloomberg News: The social network giant's continued data transfers to the US didn't address "the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms" of people whose data was being transfered across the Atlantic, according to a decision by the Irish
  
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• Is Concern About Deadly AI Overblown?

  22-05-2023 09:44 via slashdot.org
  
  "Formerly fringe beliefs that machines could suddenly surpass human-level intelligence and decide to destroy mankind are gaining traction," acknowledges the Washington Post. "And some of the most well-respected scientists in the field are speeding up their own timelines for when they think computers could learn to outthink humans and become manipulative.
  "But many researchers and engineers say concerns about killer AIs that evoke Skynet in the Terminator movies aren't rooted in good science. Ins
  
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• How Space Companies Plan to Build Roads and Bases on the Moon

  22-05-2023 05:44 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Space experts convened in Washington DC for 2023's "Humans to Mars Summit," reports Vice, where one panel explored civil engineering and construction on the moon and Mars.
  Melodie Yasher, who serves as vice president of building design and performance at ICON, previewed her company's vision of lunar infrastructure based on 3D-printing and additive manufacturing technologies... "We're looking into how to create, first, horizontal construction elements such as landing pads and roadways, and then e
  
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• Google Chrome Will Now Detect Typos in Your URLs

  22-05-2023 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Google Chrome will now check for typos in your URLs and display suggested websites based on what it thinks you meant," reports the Verge.
  From Google's announcement:When you type a website into the Chrome address bar, it will now detect URL typos and suggest websites based on the corrections. This increases accessibility for people with dyslexia, language learners, and anyone who makes typos by making it easier to get to previously visited websites despite spelling errors. This feature is now a
  
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• Python's PyPi Package Repository Temporarily Halted New Signups, Citing 'Volume of Malicious Projects'

  22-05-2023 01:42 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  On Saturday PyPI, the official third-party registry of open source Python packages, "temporarily suspended new users from signing up, and new projects from being uploaded to the platform" reports BleepingComputer.
  "The volume of malicious users and malicious projects being created on the index in the past week has outpaced our ability to respond to it in a timely fashion, especially with multiple PyPI administrators on leave," stated an incident notice posted by PyPI admins Saturday.
  Hours ago t
  
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• Python Repository Temporarily Halted New Signups, Citing 'Volume of Malicious Projects'

  22-05-2023 01:42 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  On Saturday PyPI, the official third-party registry of open source Python packages, "temporarily suspended new users from signing up, and new projects from being uploaded to the platform" reports BleepingComputer.
  "The volume of malicious users and malicious projects being created on the index in the past week has outpaced our ability to respond to it in a timely fashion, especially with multiple PyPI administrators on leave," stated an incident notice posted by PyPI admins Saturday.
  Hours ago t
  
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• Bill Gates Applauds Affordable Colleges, Urges Graduates to Solve the World's Problems

  22-05-2023 00:06 via news.slashdot.org
  
  When Bill Gates took the stage at Stanford back in 1996, he was ready with his first joke after a long round of appreciative applause. "Maybe I dropped out of the wrong college."
  But Bill Gates still cares about education. In 2019, a Gates Foundation commission even suggested valuing colleges by their affordability and accessibility, as well as the improvements they provide to economic mobility. And by those metrics, Gates writes on his blog, an emerging leader is Northern Arizona University (or
  
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