ICT news

• Renewable Energy Could Use 50% Less Land, Study Suggests

  03-06-2023 23:59 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post looks at a new study co-authored by Nels Johnson, senior practice adviser for renewable energy development at the Nature Conservancy nonprofit.Its underlying point: the current way of building renewables will not work."If we take the business-as-usual approach, land conflicts will probably prevent us from getting to these ambitious clean energy targets," said Jason Albritton, director of the Nature Conservancy's North American climate mitigation program and one of Johnson's c
  
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• Scientists Zap Sleeping Humans' Brains with Electricity to Improve Their Memory

  03-06-2023 22:59 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "A little brain stimulation at night appears to help people remember what they learned the previous day," reports NPR — a finding that could one day help people with memory problems, sleeps issues, or depression:A study of 18 people with severe epilepsy found that they scored higher on a memory test if they got deep brain stimulation while they slept, a team reports in the journal Nature Neuroscience.The stimulation was delivered during non-REM sleep, when the brain is thought to strengthe
  
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• Hundreds of Amazon Workers Staged a Walkout Wednesday

  03-06-2023 21:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "Amazon employees staged a walkout Wednesday," reports CNBC, "in protest of the company's recent return-to-office mandate, layoffs and its environmental record."
  Approximately 2,000 employees worldwide walked off the job shortly after 3 p.m. EST, with about 1,000 of those workers gathering outside the Spheres, the massive glass domes that anchor Amazon's Seattle headquarters, according to employee groups behind the effort. Amazon disputed the figure and said about 300 employees participated.
  The
  
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• Red Hat is Dropping Its Support for LibreOffice

  03-06-2023 20:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  The Red Hat Package Managers for LibreOffice "have recently been orphaned," according to a post by Red Hat manager Matthias Clasen on the "LibreOffice packages" mailing list, "and I thought it would be good to explain the reasons behind this."
  The Red Hat Display Systems team (the team behind most of Red Hat's desktop efforts) has maintained the LibreOffice packages in Fedora for years as part of our work to support LibreOffice for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are adjusting our engineering prior
  
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• ChatGPT is Already Taking Jobs

  03-06-2023 19:34 via slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post writes that "Some economists predict artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT could replace hundreds of millions of jobs, in a cataclysmic reorganization of the workforce mirroring the industrial revolution."For some workers, this impact is already here."Those that write marketing and social media content are in the first wave of people being replaced with tools like chatbots, which are seemingly able to produce plausible alternatives to their work.
  Experts say that ev
  
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• Uber Eats to Deploy 2,000 Autonomous Delivery Robots

  03-06-2023 18:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "If you live in San Jose, Dallas, or Vancouver, you may soon be sharing the sidewalk with an army of delivery robots," reports PC Magazine (citing a report from TechCrunch. Uber Eats is expanding its partnership with Serve Robotics to deploy up to 2,000 zero-emission bots:Currently covering Los Angeles and San Francisco, Serve Robotics has been working with more than 200 California restaurants to dish out meals via the Uber Eats platform... Serve's sidewalk robots run seven days a week from 10 a
  
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• Boeing Delays Starliner Launch Again After Discovering Two Serious Problems

  03-06-2023 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "A Boeing official said Thursday that the company was 'standing down' from an attempt to launch the Starliner spacecraft on July 21," reports Ars Technica, "to focus on recently discovered issues with the vehicle."Starliner's program manager said they'd spent last weekend investigating the problems, and "after internal discussions that included Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun, the company decided to delay the test flight" carrying astronauts to the International Space Station.
  The issues see
  
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• 'RISE' Project Building Open Source RISC-V Software Announced by Linux Foundation Europe

  03-06-2023 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Linux Foundation Europe "has announced the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) Project to help facilitate more performant, commercial-ready software for the RISC-V processor architecture," reports Phoronix.
  "Among the companies joining the RISE Project on their governing board are Andes, Google, Intel, Imagination Technologies, Mediatek, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Red Hat, Rivos, Samsung, SiFive, T-Head, and Ventana."
  It's top goal is "accelerate the development of open source software for RISC-V," accordin
  
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• Japan Vending Machines To Automatically Offer Free Food If Earthquakes Hit

  03-06-2023 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Japan has extended its natural disaster preparations to vending machines, which will offer free food and drink in the event of a major earthquake or typhoon. Two machines have been installed in the western coastal city of Ako, located in a region that seismologists say is vulnerable to a powerful earthquake that is expected to hit the country's central and south-west pacific coast in the next few decades. The machines, which contain about 30
  
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• Switzerland Is Turning the Gap Between Train Tracks Into a 'Solar Carpet'

  03-06-2023 12:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Swiss start-up Sun-Ways has developed a concept to install solar panels between train tracks, using a specially built train to "unroll" the panels during the night when fewer trains are running. Fast Company reports: As wild as it all sound, Sun-Ways actually has two competitors. Greenrail and Bankset Energy, respectively located in Italy and England, are already testing similar concepts. But Sun-Ways stands out in two ways. For one, it uses standard-size panels, whereas the others use smaller p
  
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• NASA UFO Team Calls For Higher Quality Data In First Public Meeting

  03-06-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The truth may be out there about UFOs, or what the government currently calls "unidentified anomalous phenomena" (UAPs). But finding it will require collecting data that are more rigorous than the anecdotal reports that typically fuel the controversial sightings, according to a panel of scientists, appointed by NASA to advise the agency on the topic, that held its first public meeting [on Wednesday].The 16-person panel, created last year at the
  
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• Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles

  03-06-2023 05:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader MightyMartian shares a report from the New York Times: Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions (Source paywalled, alternative source), a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies. The decision by state officials very likely
  
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• MS Paint Gets Its Long-Promised Dark Mode, Along With Other Improvements

  03-06-2023 04:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Windows Insiders in the Dev and Canary channels now have access to an updated version of MS Paint, featuring dark mode support and more granular zoom settings. The update also introduces a zoom slider in the lower-right corner of the app, a new Settings page, new keyboard shortcuts, and "many accessibility and usability improvements to dialogs throughout the app." Ars Technica reports: Paint's new dark mode is only subtly different from the version that Microsoft promised and pulled back in Augu
  
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• US To Stop Giving Russia Some New START Nuclear Arms Data

  03-06-2023 03:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  New submitter terrorubic shares a report from Reuters: The United States said it will stop providing Russia some notifications required under the New START arms control treaty from Thursday, including updates on its missile and launcher locations, to retaliate for Moscow's 'ongoing violations' of the accord. In a fact sheet on its website, the State Department said it would also stop giving Russia telemetry information - remotely gathered data about a missile's flight - on launches of U.S. inter
  
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• Meta Will Test Blocking News For Some Canadians

  03-06-2023 02:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  New submitter Peppercopia writes: CTV News is reporting that Meta will begin testing the blocking of news sites in Canada. If the argument is that the social media giants are unfairly benefitting from content from Canadian news organizations, this move should be moot as the 'stealing' would now be stopping. Unfortunately the opposite is likely the case, and the news organizations will find out how important the free traffic and promotion they are getting from social media giants really is. It fe
  
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• Music Pirates Are Not Terrorists, Record Labels Argue In Court

  03-06-2023 02:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: A Virginia jury held Cox liable for pirating subscribers because it failed to terminate accounts after repeated accusations, ordering the company to pay $1 billion in damages to the labels. This landmark ruling is currently under appeal. As part of the appeal, Cox informed the court of a supplemental authority that could support its position. The case in question is Twitter vs. Taamneh, in which the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the
  
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• YouTube Will Stop Removing False Presidential Election Fraud Claims

  03-06-2023 01:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  In a blog post today, YouTube said it will stop removing content that "advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US Presidential elections." The online video platform says that the "ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions, is core to a functioning democratic society -- especially in the midst of election season." The Verge reports: YouTube first introduced its election
  
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• Microsoft Is Finally Killing Cortana On Windows

  03-06-2023 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In a support document today, Microsoft announced its ending support for Cortana on Windows in late 2023. "Cortana continues to live on in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Teams display, and Teams rooms," notes XDA Developers. From the report: In the support document announcing the end of the Cortana era, Microsoft notes that you'll still be able to access AI experiences in Windows 11, and calls out Windows Copilot by name. Alongside that, there's the new Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and voice acces
  
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• US Judge Orders Lawyers To Sign AI Pledge, Warning Chatbots 'Make Stuff Up'

  03-06-2023 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge in Texas is now requiring lawyers in cases before him to certify that they did not use artificial intelligence to draft their filings without a human checking their accuracy. U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr of the Northern District of Texas issued the requirement on Tuesday, in what appears to be a first for the federal courts. In an interview Wednesday, Starr said that he created the requirement to warn lawyers that AI tools c
  
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