ICT news

• Reddit Laying Off Employees and Slowing Hiring Amid Restructuring

  06-06-2023 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Social-media company Reddit is laying off roughly 90 employees and slowing hiring as it restructures key parts of its business. From a report: Reddit is making the moves to address priorities, including funding projects and achieving its goal of breaking even next year, Chief Executive Steve Huffman told employees in an email seen by The Wall Street Journal. The job cuts amount to around 5% of Reddit's workforce of approximately 2,000 people.
  "We've had a solid first half of the year, and this r
  
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• First Steps Agreed on Plastics Treaty After Breakthrough at Paris Talks

  06-06-2023 22:41 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Nation-state representatives have taken the first concrete step toward a legally binding treaty to regulate plastic, described as the most important green deal since the 2015 international climate agreement. From a report: The banging of a recycled-plastic gavel, on Friday night at Unesco headquarters in Paris, signalled the end of a fraught process, marked by accusations of exclusion and industrial lobbying. Talks threatened to fall apart, but in the end delegates were able to broadly agree on
  
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• Excel Spreadsheet Error Leads Austrian Party To Announce Wrong Leader

  06-06-2023 22:01 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  A major Austrian opposition political party on Monday corrected the results of a closely contested leadership election after it announced the wrong winner over the weekend due to a "technical" error: Someone had messed up an Excel spreadsheet. From a report: At a convention on Saturday, Austria's Social Democrats (SPO) declared that Hans Peter Doskozil, governor of the eastern Burgenland province, was the new leader of the center-left party. But on Monday, the party said Andreas Babler, a small-
  
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• Apple Buys AR Headset Startup Mira

  06-06-2023 21:20 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has acquired Mira, a Los Angeles-based AR startup that makes headsets for other companies and the US military, according to a post from the CEO's private Instagram account yesterday seen by The Verge and a person familiar with the matter. Apple confirmed the acquisition. From a report: The news comes just one day after Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, a $3,499 mixed reality headset that the company has billed as a new spatial computing platform. It's unclear how much Apple paid for Mira, whi
  
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• Why Millions of Usable Hard Drives Are Being Destroyed

  06-06-2023 20:45 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Millions of storage devices are being shredded each year, even though they could be reused. "You don't need an engineering degree to understand that's a bad thing," says Jonmichael Hands. From a report: He is the secretary and treasurer of the Circular Drive Initiative (CDI), a partnership of technology companies promoting the secure reuse of storage hardware. He also works at Chia Network, which provides a blockchain technology. Chia Network could easily reuse storage devices that large data ce
  
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• White House Quiet on National Cyber Director Choice, Senator Says

  06-06-2023 20:11 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The White House has not shared much of anything with lawmakers about who the administration thinks should be the next national cyber director, a top cyber-minded senator told Axios. From the report: It's been nearly four months since Chris Inglis stepped down as the first national cyber director inside the White House, and lawmakers and policy experts have been putting pressure on President Joe Biden in recent weeks to name a replacement.
  Last month, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Mike Galla
  
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• Japan Earmarks $107 Billion for Developing Hydrogen Energy To Cut Emissions, Stabilize Supplies

  06-06-2023 19:21 via slashdot.org
  
  Japan's government on Tuesday adopted a revision to the country's plans to use more hydrogen as fuel as part of the effort to reduce carbon emissions. From a report: The plan sets an ambitious target to increase the annual supply by six times from the current level to 12 million tons by 2040. It also pledges 15 trillion yen ($107 billion) in funding from both private and public sources to build up hydrogen-related supply chains over the next 15 years.
  Japan's decarbonization strategy centers on
  
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• Apple Accidentally Releases iOS 17 Developer Beta To the Public

  06-06-2023 18:53 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple is supposed to release an iOS 17 public beta in July, but the company inadvertently gave users an early peek. From a report: As AppleInsider explains, Connor Jewiss and other users have noticed that the iOS 17 developer beta was available to install in the Beta Updates section of Settings whether or not you paid for the necessary account. The macOS Sonoma and watchOS 10 previews have been available this way, too.
  We wouldn't count on any of the developer betas being available as we write t
  
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• CNET is Overhauling Its AI Policy and Updating Past Stories

  06-06-2023 18:12 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Months after news broke that tech outlet CNET had quietly begun producing articles with generative AI systems, the site is clarifying how it will -- and won't -- use the tools in the future. From a report: Among its promises: stories will not be written entirely using an AI tool, and hands-on reviews and testing of products will be done by humans. CNET will also not publish images and videos generated using AI "as of now." But the outlet says it will "explore leveraging" AI tools to sort and ana
  
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• Blatant Tech Frauds Run Amok on the Biggest Online Marketplaces

  06-06-2023 17:21 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Online retailers that host third-party sellers, like Amazon and Walmart, have extensive, competitively priced electronics selections. But for years, they have also served as playgrounds for fraudulent sellers, who list products with inflated or deceptive performance claims. Worse, some of these products pose a physical threat to customers. ArsTechnica: The problem has become so widespread that by the end of this month, the federal government will require online retailers to do a much better job
  
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• Reddit on New Pricing Plan: Company 'Needs To Be Fairly Paid'

  06-06-2023 16:44 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A number of Reddit forums plan to go dark for two days later this month to protest the company's decision to increase prices for third-party app developers. From a report: One developer, who makes a Reddit app called Apollo, said that under the new pricing policy he would have to pay Reddit $20 million a year to continue running the app as-is. Reddit's move comes after Twitter announced in February that the company would no longer support free access to its application programming interface, or
  
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• More Than 2,000 Families Suing Social Media Companies Over Kids' Mental Health

  06-06-2023 15:00 via meta.slashdot.org
  
  schwit1 shares a report from CBS News: When whistleblower Frances Haugen pulled back the curtain on Facebook in the fall of 2021, thousands of pages of internal documents showed troubling signs that the social media giant knew its platforms could be negatively impacting youth, and were doing little to effectively change it. With around 21 million American adolescents on social media, parents took note. Now, families are suing social media. Since we first reported this story last December, the nu
  
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• SEC Sues Coinbase Over Exchange and Staking Programs

  06-06-2023 14:44 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto exchange Coinbase in New York federal court on Tuesday morning, alleging that the company was acting as an unregistered broker and exchange and demanding that the company be "permanently restrained and enjoined" from continuing to do so. From a report: Coinbase's flagship prime brokerage, exchange and staking programs violate securities laws, the regulator alleged in its complaint. The company "has for years defied the regulatory structures and
  
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• CISA and Partners Release the Guide to Securing Remote Access Software

  06-06-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) published the Guide to Securing Remote Access Software to provide organizations with an overview of common remote access exploitations and associated tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
  The Guide to Securing Remote Access Software provides organizations with a remote access soft
  
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• CISA and Partners Release Joint Guide to Securing Remote Access Software

  06-06-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, CISA, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) released the Guide to Securing Remote Access Software. This new joint guide is the result of a collaborative effort to provide an overview of legitimate uses of remote access software, as well as common exploitations and associated tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and how to detect a
  
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• Crypto Catastrophe Strikes Some Atomic Wallet Users, Over $35 Million Thought Stolen

  06-06-2023 12:00 via slashdot.org
  
  The Atomic Wallet app has suffered a large-scale attack resulting in the potential theft of up to $35 million worth of cryptocurrency, with losses possibly exceeding $50 million. The Register reports: The Atomic Wallet app's makers first reported June 3 that some folks were complaining some crypto had been taken from their wallets and deposited in strangers' accounts, with others saying their wallets had been emptied completely. The biz tweeted Monday that less than one percent of their monthly
  
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• Military Whistleblower Claims US Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin

  06-06-2023 09:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  A former intelligence official turned whistleblower, David Charles Grusch, has provided extensive classified information to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General about covert programs involving the retrieval of intact and partially intact vehicles of non-human origin. Grusch alleges that this information has been illegally withheld from Congress, and he has filed a complaint claiming illegal retaliation for his disclosures. Other intelligence officials, both active and retire
  
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• Fungi Stores a Third of Carbon From Fossil Fuel Emissions, New Study Reveals

  06-06-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Mycorrhizal fungi have been supporting life on land for at least 450 million years by helping to supply plants with soil nutrients essential for growth. In recent years, scientists have found that in addition to forming symbiotic relationships with nearly all land plants, these fungi are important conduits to transport carbon into soil ecosystems. In a meta-analysis published June 5 in the journal Current Biology, scientists estimate that as muc
  
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• Apple Announces iOS 17 With StandBy Charging Mode, Better Autocorrect

  06-06-2023 02:45 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  At WWDC today, Apple debuted iOS 17. "Highlights include new safety features, a built-in journaling app, a new nightstand mode, redesigned contact cards, better auto-correct and voice transcription, and live voicemail," reports The Verge. "And you'll be able to drop the 'hey' from 'Hey Siri.'" From the report: Your contact book is getting an update with a new feature called posters, which turns contact cards into flashy marquee-like images that show up full-screen on your recipient's iPhone when
  
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• Stack Overflow Moderators Stop Work in Protest of Lax AI-Generated Content Guidelines

  06-06-2023 02:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Moderators of Stack Overflow have announced a strike in protest of the company's ban on moderating AI-generated content, claiming that this policy allows incorrect information and plagiarism to proliferate on the platform. Gizmodo reports: Last week in a post -- which has been downvoted at least 283 times -- Stack Overflow announced its new moderation policy that will only remove AI-generated content in specific instances, claiming that over-moderation of posts made with artificial intelligence
  
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• Apple Announces New Mac Pro With M2 Ultra, PCI Expansion Slots, and $6999 Price

  06-06-2023 01:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  At WWDC today, Apple announced a new Mac Pro powered by the M2 Ultra chip. 9to5Mac reports: The chassis design of the machine appears to be the same as the 2019 Intel Mac Pro. The Mac Pro features eight Thunderbolt ports and six PCI slots for modular expansion. The base model config Mac Pro starts at $6999. Mac Pro with M2 Ultra features a 24-core CPU, up to 76-core GPU and 192 GB RAM. It also features two HDMI ports, dual 10-gigabit Ethernet, and a 32-core Neural Engine for machine learning tas
  
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• UBI of Nearly $2,000 a Month To Be Trialed In England

  06-06-2023 00:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Thirty people in the U.K. could soon receive $1,983 each month if the trial (PDF) by independent think tank Autonomy secures funding. The basic income payments are estimated to cost 1.15 million pounds through the duration of the two-year project. During this time, researchers would assess the impact of the UBI cash on the lives of participants. A separate group who won't be receiving the money each month will be monitored through one on one intervi
  
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• Apple Announces macOS Sonoma With Desktop Widgets and Game Mode

  06-06-2023 00:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  At WWDC today, Apple announced macOS Sonoma, the latest version of its Mac operating system that includes new features like desktop widgets, aerial screensavers, a new Game mode, and enhancements to apps like Messages and Safari. MacRumors reports: The first feature that Apple detailed was new interactive widgets, which can now be placed right on your desktop. Widgets blend into your desktop wallpaper to not be obtrusive when you're working, and with Continuity you can use the same widgets from
  
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