ICT news

• Western Digital Sparks Panic, Anger For Age-Shaming HDDs

  12-06-2023 23:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When should you be concerned about a NAS hard drive failing? Multiple factors are at play, so many might turn to various SMART (self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology) data. When it comes to how long the drive has been active, there are backup companies like Backblaze using hard drives that are nearly 8 years old. That may be why some customers have been panicked, confused, and/or angered to see their Western Digital NAS hard dr
  
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• Nature Bans AI-generated Art From Its 153-Year-Old Science Journal

  12-06-2023 22:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Renowned scientific journal Nature has announced in an editorial that it will not publish images or video created using generative AI tools. From a report: The ban comes amid the publication's concerns over research integrity, consent, privacy, and intellectual property protection as generative AI tools increasingly permeate the world of science and art. Founded in November 1869, Nature publishes peer-reviewed research from various academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It is on
  
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• UK Communications Regulator Ofcom Says Hackers Stole Confidential Data

  12-06-2023 22:07 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The hackers responsible for the MOVEit cyberattack downloaded confidential information from UK communications regulator Ofcom about companies it regulates, as well as its own employees -- adding to a string of victims which includes IAG SA's British Airways and the British Broadcasting Corporation. From a report: "A limited amount of information about certain companies we regulate -- some of it confidential -- along with personal data of 412 Ofcom employees, was downloaded during the attack," an
  
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• Ex-Samsung Executive Accused of Stealing Secrets for China Chip Factory

  12-06-2023 21:17 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A former executive at South Korea's Samsung Electronics was indicted on Monday on suspicion of stealing company technology for a copy-cat chip factory in China and jeopardising national economic security, prosecutors said. From a report: South Korea is a chipmaking powerhouse, increasingly pressed by the geopolitical and economic rivalry between the United States and China. Last week, President Yoon Suk Yeol described chip industry competition as "all-out war". The defendant, who also formerly w
  
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• Edge Sends Images You View Online To Microsoft

  12-06-2023 20:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Not so long ago, Microsoft Edge ended up in hot waters after users discovered a bug leaking your browser history to Bing. Now you may want to toggle off another feature to ensure Edge is not sending every picture you view online to Microsoft. Edge has a built-in image enhancement tool that, according to Microsoft, can use "super-resolution to improve clarity, sharpness, lighting, and contrast in images on the web." Although the feature sounds exciting, recent
  
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• Google To Get Hit With EU Antitrust Charges for Ad Tech Abuses

  12-06-2023 19:21 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is set to be hit with a formal antitrust complaint from the European Union that could lead to massive new fines and strike at the heart of the advertising technology that drives most of the US firm's revenue. From a report: The so-called statement of objections, to be announced as soon as Wednesday, will mark another escalation in a long-running saga that's already led to a trio of EU penalties totaling more than $8.6 billion. The new charges will target the core of the Alphabet unit's ad
  
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• FTC To File Injunction Seeking To Block Microsoft's Acquisition of Activision Blizzard

  12-06-2023 18:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Federal Trade Commission is set to file for an injunction on Monday seeking to block Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, CNBC reported Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter. From the report: By filing for an injunction, the FTC is seeking to stop the acquisition from going through before the deal's July 18 deadline.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Reddit is Crashing Because of the Growing Subreddit Blackout

  12-06-2023 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Reddit has been going through some issues for many on Monday, with the outage happening the same day as thousands of subreddits going dark to protest the site's new API pricing terms. From a report: According to Reddit, the blackout is responsible for the problems. "A significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues, and we've been working on resolving the anticipated issue," spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt tells The Verge. Reddit's status page reported a "
  
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• OpenAI, DeepMind Will Open Up Models To UK Government

  12-06-2023 17:21 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed to open up their AI models to the U.K. government for research and safety purposes, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced at London Tech Week on Monday. From a report: The priority access will be granted in order "to help build better evaluations and help us better understand the opportunities and risks of these systems," Sunak said. The announcement came in a speech that championed the promise of AI to transform areas such as education and health
  
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• Pizza Startup Shuts Down After Raising $445 Million

  12-06-2023 16:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Zume, a Silicon Valley-based robotic pizza-making and delivery startup, has shut down and is liquidating its assets. From a report: The company had raised $445 million in venture capital funding, including $375 million from SoftBank in 2018 at a $2.25 billion valuation. That's a whole lotta pepperoni. And cheese, which Zume apparently couldn't stop from sliding off its pies.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Fortinet Releases Security Updates for FortiOS and FortiProxy

  12-06-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Fortinet has released security updates to address a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability CVE-2023-27997 in FortiOS and FortiProxy. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review Fortinet security advisory FG-IR-23-097 and apply the necessary updates.
  
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• Will Submerging Computers Make Data Centers More Climate Friendly?

  12-06-2023 13:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  20 miles west of Portland, engineers at an Intel lab are dunking expensive racks of servers "in a clear bath" made of motor oil-like petrochemicals, reports the Oregonian, where the servers "give off a greenish glow as they silently labor away on ordinary computing tasks."Intel's submerged computers operate just as they would on a dry server rack because they're not bathing in water, even though it looks just like it. They're soaking in a synthetic oil that doesn't conduct electricity. So the co
  
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• 71-Year-Old Mark Hamill Interviewed, Remembers 1977 'Star Wars' Audition

  12-06-2023 10:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: CBS News interviewed 71-year-old Mark Hamill, who remembers that in his first audition for Star Wars, they didn't give him the whole script. So "I couldn't figure out, is this like a send-up of Flash Gordon or whatever? You couldn't tell. Because nobody talks like this!"
  Hamill also does impressions of the other actors he worked with. "I was asking Harrison, because he had been in American Graffiti. I said, 'You know George. Is this like a joke, or &
  
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• UBS Completes Credit Suisse Takeover to Create Swiss Bank Titan

  12-06-2023 08:00 via slashdot.org
  
  UBS Group completed the deal to acquire former rival Credit Suisse Group, sealing the biggest merger in banking since the 2008 financial crisis and creating a global wealth-management titan. From a report: The Swiss bank announced the closing of the deal in an open letter in local and international newspapers on Monday. The takeover of Credit Suisse ends the lender's 167-year independent existence. The announcement caps more than two months of uncertainty for employees after UBS finalized negoti
  
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• 'He's About to Graduate College and Join SpaceX as an Engineer. He's 14.'

  12-06-2023 07:37 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "Kairan Quazi will probably need someone to drive him to work at SpaceX," writes the Los Angeles Times — because "He's only 14."The teen is scheduled to graduate this month from the Santa Clara University School of Engineering before starting a job as a software engineer at the satellite communications and spacecraft manufacturer... The soft-spoken teen said working with Starlink — the satellite internet team at SpaceX — will allow him to be part of something bigger than himsel
  
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• Does the US Government Want You to Believe in UFOs?

  12-06-2023 04:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A New York Times columnist considers alternate reasons for the upcoming House hearings with a whistleblower former intelligence official, David Grusch, who claims the US government possesses "intact and partially intact" alien vehicles:This whistle-blower's mere existence is evidence of a fascinating shift in public U.F.O. discourse. There may not be alien spacecraft, but there is clearly now a faction within the national security complex that wants Americans to think there might be alien spacec
  
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• Intel Demos Its New 'Backside' Power-Delivery Chip Tech

  12-06-2023 02:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Next year Intel introduces a new transistor — RibbonFET — and a new way of powering it called "PowerVia."
  This so-called "backside power" approach "aims to separate power and I/O wiring, shifting power lines to the back of the wafer," reports Tom's Hardware, which "eliminates any possible interference between the data and power wires and increases logic transistor density." IEEE Spectrum explains this approach "leaves more room for the data interconnects above the silicon," while "th
  
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• Will Tech Layoffs Trigger a Wave of Unionization?

  12-06-2023 00:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Insider:The recent tsunami of tech layoffs could leave a wave of union organizing in its wake. That's according to Skylar Hinnant, a senior QA tester at Microsoft's ZeniMax, who supported a successful union campaign at the gaming unit of the software giant... Within tech companies, roles such as quality assurance testers and contractors are less revered, so those workers are more likely to unionize, Hinnant explained. "In these roles, people will be tr
  
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• Adventure in Space: ISS Astronauts Install Fifth Roll-out Solar Blanket to Boost Power

  12-06-2023 00:13 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The international space station is equpped with four 39-foot blankets (11.8-meters), reports CBS News. The first one was delivered in December of 2000 — and now it's time for some changes:Two astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station Friday and installed the fifth of six roll-out solar array blankets — iROSAs — needed to offset age-related degradation and micrometeoroid damage to the lab's original solar wings.
  Floating in the Quest airlock, veteran Stephen Bo
  
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