ICT news

• MoviePass Is Back

  25-05-2023 23:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  MoviePass is back thanks to MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes, who was fired from the company in 2018 for questioning the sustainability of its business model. "Under the company's new points-based system, you can pay $10 per month to watch one to three movies at any of the 4,000 participating theaters throughout the US," reports The Verge. From the report: In addition to the $10 / month Basic plan, MoviePass offers three more expensive subscription options: a $20 / month Standard plan for three
  
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• Supreme Court Limits EPA's Authority Under the Clean Water Act

  25-05-2023 22:55 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The U.S. Supreme Court Court on Thursday significantly curtailed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the nation's wetlands and waterways. It was the court's second decision in a year limiting the ability of the agency to enact anti-pollution regulations and combat climate change. The challenge to the regulations was brought by Michael and Chantell Sackett, who bought property to build their dream house about 500 feet away fro
  
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• Paradigm Broadening Crypto-only Focus To Areas Including AI

  25-05-2023 22:17 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, one of most established and active players in the space, is going beyond just blockchain and highlighting a focus on a broader array of "frontier tech" that includes artificial intelligence, two sources with knowledge of the matter told The Block. From a report: The change is subtlety visible on the firm's website, with the company now calling itself a "research-driven technology investment firm" as opposed to one that specifically invested in âoedisru
  
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• Nvidia Short Sellers Lose $2.3 Billion in One Day as Stock Soars

  25-05-2023 21:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Traders betting against Nvidia suffered massive losses as the chipmaker's stock surged to a record high after it forecasts sales that far surpassed the average analyst estimate. From a report: Short sellers are facing $2.3 billion in paper losses on Thursday alone amid the tech giant's 27% intraday jump, data from S3 Partners LLC show. That's pushed mark-to-market losses for the contrarian traders to $8.1 billion in 2023 as Nvidia's price has more than doubled this year.Read more of this story a
  
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• YouTube is Killing Stories

  25-05-2023 20:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  YouTube is getting rid of Stories, a feature for temporary posts, beginning in June. Users won't be able to post Stories starting June 26th, and existing posts will expire after seven days. From a report: Stories were first introduced in 2017 under the name Reels and were available to users with over 10,000 subscribers. Similar to Instagram (which in turn lifted the concept from Snapchat), YouTube Stories disappeared after a set amount of time; creators could use Stories to post updates or behin
  
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• Google Search Starts Rolling Out ChatGPT-style Generative AI Results

  25-05-2023 20:09 via search.slashdot.org
  
  Google's "Search Generative Experience" is a plan to put ChatGPT-style generative AI results right in your Google search results page, and the company announced the feature is beginning to roll out today. At least, the feature is rolling out to the mobile apps for people who have been on the waitlist and were chosen as early access users. From a report: Unlike the normally stark-white Google page with 10 blue links, Google's generative AI results appear in colorful boxes above the normal search
  
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• Microsoft President Says Deep Fakes Are Biggest AI Concern

  25-05-2023 19:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft President Brad Smith said Thursday that his biggest concern around artificial intelligence was deep fakes, realistic looking but false content. From a report: In a speech in Washington aimed at addressing the issue of how best to regulate AI, which went from wonky to widespread with the arrival of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Smith called for steps to ensure that people know when a photo or video is real and when it is generated by AI, potentially for nefarious purposes. "We're going have to addr
  
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• Google Never Agreed It Wouldn't Copy Genius' Song Lyrics, US Official Says

  25-05-2023 19:03 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: After song lyrics website Genius sued Google in 2019 for allegedly breaching its terms of service by copying its lyrics transcriptions in search results, the United States Supreme Court invited the US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, to weigh in on how the US viewed the case. The question before Prelogar was whether federal copyright law preempted Genius' terms of service, which prohibits any of its website visitors from copying lyrics for commercial us
  
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• Altman Raises $115 Million for Worldcoin Crypto Project

  25-05-2023 18:44 via slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman has raised $115 million in a Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital for a cryptocurrency project he co-founded. From a report: The project, Worldcoin, aims to distribute a crypto token to people "just for being a unique individual". The project uses a device to scan irises to confirm their identity, after which they are given the tokens for free. Worldcoin has faced criticism for perceived privacy risks. In response to Altman's tweet introducing the pr
  
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• NSO Spyware Used in Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, Report Finds

  25-05-2023 17:21 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Invasive spyware capable of reading a smartphone's messages and listening to calls was found on the phones of at least 12 Armenian journalists, politicians and civil society members, according to a report published Thursday by a group of nonprofit organizations. From a report: The spyware, called Pegasus and made by the Israeli company NSO, had previously been found on the phones of thousands of people around the world, leading to U.S. sanctions in 2021 and a lawsuit from Apple. But researchers
  
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• Amazon To Close China App Store

  25-05-2023 16:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Amazon.com will close its official app store in China in July, the latest retreat from the Chinese market by the US tech giant following last year's announcement that its Kindle e-book service would also shut. From a report: An Amazon representative said the Amazon Appstore, launched in 2011 as an alternative to Google for Android phone users to install apps and games, will be "discontinued." However, its official shopping site Amazon.cn will remain operational, as will other services such as Am
  
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• Germany Falls Into Recession as Consumers in Europe's Biggest Economy Spend Less

  25-05-2023 16:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Germany has slipped into recession as last year's energy price shock takes its toll on consumer spending. From a report: Output in Europe's largest economy dropped 0.3% in the first three months of the year, following a 0.5% contraction at the end of 2022, official data showed Thursday. The Federal Statistical Office downgraded its previous estimate of zero growth in gross domestic product (GDP) compared with the previous quarter. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of declining o
  
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• Sony Confirms 'PlayStation Q,' a Handheld Device For Streaming PS5 Games

  25-05-2023 15:00 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amid a plethora of game trailers, Sony dedicated a single minute of its more-than-an-hour-long PlayStation Showcase livestream on Wednesday to reveal two new hardware products. The most buzzworthy of these is surely Project Q -- that's the internal name, as the final name is still pending. Whatever it is called in the future, Project Q confirms a long-standing rumor: It's a new PlayStation handheld.The device will be focused on streaming; So
  
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• CISA Warns of Hurricane/Typhoon-Related Scams

  25-05-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA urges users to remain on alert for malicious cyber activity following a natural disaster such as a hurricane or typhoon, as attackers target potential disaster victims by leveraging social engineering tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Social engineering TTPs include phishing attacks that use email or malicious websites to solicit personal information by posing as a trustworthy organization, notably as charities providing relief. Exercise caution in handling emails with hurricane/t
  
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• Lenovo Profits Sink 75% As PC Demand Continues Nosedive

  25-05-2023 12:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Lenovo, the world's largest PC maker, is facing a significant decline in revenue and profit due to decreased demand for personal computers in a post-pandemic world. According to The Register, the company "reported (PDF) revenue of $12.635 billion for Q4 of its fiscal 2023 ended March 31, down a brutal 24 percent year-on-year. Pre-tax profit was down 75 percent to $130 million on the back of workforce restructuring charges." From the report: The Intelligent Devices Group -- the PC and smart gadge
  
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• 'Alien' Signal Beamed To Earth From Mars In SETI Test

  25-05-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A new SETI project has begun, where a coded message was beamed from Europe's Trace Gas Orbiter Mars probe to Earth and received by three radio telescopes, "kicking off a global effort to decipher the cryptic signal," reports Space.com. From the report: That effort is A Sign in Space, a multiweek project led by Daniela de Paulis, the current artist in residence at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California and the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. "Throughout history, humanity has sea
  
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• A Paralyzed Man Can Walk Naturally Again With Brain and Spine Implants

  25-05-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. Now, with a combination of devices, scientists have given him control over his lower body again. "For 12 years I've been trying to get back my feet," Mr. Oskam said in a press briefing on Tuesday. "Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural." In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers
  
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• Right-To-Repair Rules Are Now the Law In Minnesota

  25-05-2023 04:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has signed a groundbreaking right-to-repair law, which will come into effect on July 1, 2024. The Verge reports: The rules, part of an omnibus appropriations bill, require electronics manufacturers to let independent repair shops and consumers buy the parts and tools necessary to repair their own equipment. But the rules don't apply to some notable categories, including farm equipment, game consoles, medical devices, and motor vehicles.The new Minnesota rules take eff
  
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• Nintendo Sued For 'Immoral' Mario Kart Loot Boxes

  25-05-2023 03:25 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Nintendo is facing a potential class-action lawsuit filed by a young gamer and backed by his father, alleging that the microtransactions in the mobile game Mario Kart Tour are "immoral." Axios reports: The suit calls for refunds for all minors in the U.S. who paid to use Mario Kart Tour's "Spotlight Pipes," which delivered players in-game rewards using undisclosed odds. Until last year, Mario Kart Tour players could spend real money to repeatedly activate the pipes, in the hope they'd randomly p
  
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• Uber Teams Up With Waymo To Add Robotaxis To Its App

  25-05-2023 02:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Waymo and Uber announced a new partnership today that will make robotaxis available via the Uber app in Phoenix. The Verge reports: A "set number" of Waymo vehicles will be available to Uber riders and Uber Eats delivery customers in Phoenix, where the Alphabet company recently doubled its service area to 180 square miles. The partnership was described as "multi-year," with the goal of bringing together "Waymo's world-leading autonomous driving technology with the massive scale of Uber's ridesha
  
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• 'iRecorder Screen Recorder' App Turns Malicious, Sends Mic Recordings Every 15 Minutes

  25-05-2023 02:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An app that had more than 50,000 downloads from Google Play surreptitiously recorded nearby audio every 15 minutes and sent it to the app developer, a researcher from security firm ESET said. The app, titled iRecorder Screen Recorder, started life on Google Play in September 2021 as a benign app that allowed users to record the screens of their Android devices, ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko said in a post published on Tuesday. Eleven months
  
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• Windows 11 Is Getting the Ability To Run Win32 Apps In Isolation

  25-05-2023 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  At its Build 2023 conference this week, Microsoft announced Windows 11 will soon be able to run Win32 apps in isolation mode. XDA Developers reports: Starting [today], Microsoft is launching a preview of Win32 apps in isolation for Windows 11 customers. As the name suggests, it will allow users to run Win32 apps in an isolated environment so that they can be sandboxed from the rest of the operating system in order to further strengthen security. The idea is to leverage Windows 11's isolation cap
  
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• European Commission Calls for Pirate Site Blocking Around the Globe

  25-05-2023 00:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The European Commission has published its biannual list of foreign countries with problematic copyright policies. One of the highlighted issues is a lack of pirate site blocking, which is seen as an effective enforcement measure, writes TorrentFreak, a news website that tracks piracy news. Interestingly, the EU doesn't mention the United States, which is arguably the most significant country yet to implement an effective site-blocking regime.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Supreme Court Declines To Hear Challenge To Warrantless Pole Camera Surveillance

  25-05-2023 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): The U.S. Supreme Court [Monday] declined to hear Moore v. United States, leaving in place a patchwork of lower court decisions on an important and recurring question about privacy rights in the face of advancing surveillance technology. In this case, police secretly attached a small camera to a utility pole, using it to surveil a Massachusetts home 24/7 for eight months -- all without a warrant. Law enforc
  
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