ICT news

• Ancient Lead-Covered Telephone Cables Have US Lawmakers Demanding Action

  14-07-2023 23:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Newly raised concerns about lead-covered telephone cables installed across the US many decades ago are putting pressure on companies like AT&T and Verizon to identify the locations of all the cables and account for any health problems potentially caused by the toxic metal. US Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to the USTelecom industry trade group this week after a Wall Street Journal investigative report titled, "America Is Wra
  
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• Florida Barn Will Be the World's Largest 3D-Printed Building

  14-07-2023 22:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A luxury horse barn in Florida is primed to be the world's largest 3D-printed building. From a report: Once it's complete, the 3D-printed luxury equestrian barn in Wellington, Florida will overtake a building in Oman as the world's largest 3D-printed structure. According to Printed Farms, the Florida-based startup developing the project, the building will have a total floor area of 10,678 square feet. While the team finished the 3D-printing portion of the site build Wednesday, the installation o
  
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• Reddit is Getting Rid of Its Gold Awards System

  14-07-2023 22:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Reddit is sunsetting its current coins and awards systems, meaning you soon won't be able to thank a kind stranger for giving you Reddit Gold for one of your posts. From a report: Awards are little icons on posts you might have come across while scrolling around Reddit, and they're given by other users to show appreciation for a post. Perhaps the most commonly-known award is Reddit Gold, which shows up as a gold medal with a star, but there also reaction awards and awards specific to certain com
  
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• BlackRock Has 'Responsibility To Democratize Investing', Including in Crypto, Larry Fink Says

  14-07-2023 21:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  BlackRock's move into crypto fits into the asset management giant's broader mission of creating products that are easy to use and cheap for investors, CEO Larry Fink said Friday. From a report: "We believe we have a responsibility to democratize investing. We've done a great job, and the role of ETFs in the world is transforming investing. And we're only at the beginning of that," Fink said. BlackRock applied for a spot bitcoin ETF on June 15, which appeared to spur a rally in cryptocurrencies a
  
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• Senate Lobbed a Tactical Nuke at NASA's Mars Sample Return Program

  14-07-2023 20:40 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The US Senate has slashed the budget for NASA's ambitious mission to return soil and rock samples from Mars' surface. From a report: NASA had asked for $949 million to support its Mars Sample Return mission, or MSR, in fiscal year 2024. In its proposed budget for the space agency, released Thursday, the Senate offered just $300 million and threatened to take that amount away. "The Committee has significant concerns about the technical challenges facing MSR and potential further impacts on confir
  
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• Reddit Removes Years of Chat and Message Archives From Users' Accounts

  14-07-2023 20:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The Reddit blackout protests didn't quite force the company to reverse course on its API changes that resulted in the shutdown of many popular third-party apps, but it did succeed in dominating the conversation around the platform for weeks. However, while everyone was paying attention to the protests, Reddit made some other big changes to its platform. One of those changes resulted in the removal of years of users' private conversations on the platform.
  Over
  
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• Bangladesh's Historic Heat Wave is Making Work 'Living Hell' For IT Workers

  14-07-2023 19:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: For two weeks in June, Nawshin Khan, a marketing and content management strategist at Dhaka-based outsourcing firm Datacrete, struggled to stay awake and alert at work. As Bangladesh experienced its longest heatwave in decades, temperatures in Dhaka soared to a 58-year-high of 40.6 degrees Celsius (around 105 degrees Fahrenheit). The capital city faced severe electricity cuts as power plants fell short of meeting a surging demand. Some areas reported load-she
  
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• AI Junk Is Starting To Pollute the Internet

  14-07-2023 18:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Online publishers are inundated with useless article pitches as websites using AI-generated content multiply. From a report: When she first heard of the humanlike language skills of the artificial-intelligence bot ChatGPT, Jennifer Stevens wondered what it would mean for the retirement magazine she edits. Months later, she has a better idea. It means she is spending a lot of time filtering out useless article pitches. People like Stevens, the executive editor of International Living, are among t
  
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• Europe Braces for Sweltering July

  14-07-2023 18:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Temperatures are sizzling across Europe this week amid an intense and prolonged period of heat. And it's only just begun. From a report: Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with air temperatures expected to climb to 48C on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia -- potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe. An anticyclone -- a high-pressure area -- named Cerberus (named after the monster from Dante's Inferno) coming from the south will cause tem
  
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• Drones Reach Stratospheric Heights in Race To Fly Higher, Longer

  14-07-2023 17:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  New military and commercial craft aim to go far higher than jumbo jets and stay there for months, offering more flexible alternative to satellites. From a report: This month a drone took off from a missile range in New Mexico and climbed into the stratosphere, joining a race to deliver unmanned aerial vehicles that can fly higher and longer than ever before. Drones have already shaken up warfare, recently playing a prominent role in the war in Ukraine. But militaries have long sought craft that
  
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• Climate Change is Making Our Oceans Change Color, New Research Finds

  14-07-2023 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The color of the ocean has changed significantly over the last 20 years and human-caused climate change is likely responsible, according to a new study. From a report: More than 56% of the world's oceans have changed color to an extent that cannot be explained by natural variability, said a team of researchers, led by scientists from the National Oceanography Center in the UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, in a statement. Tropical oceans close to the equator in particul
  
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• Li-Fi, Light-Based Networking Standard Released

  14-07-2023 15:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Today, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has added 802.11bb as a standard for light-based wireless communications. The publishing of the standard has been welcomed by global Li-Fi businesses, as it will help speed the rollout and adoption of the data-transmission technology standard. Advantages of using light rather than radio frequencies (RF) are highlighted by Li-Fi proponents including pureLiFi, Fraunhofer HHI
  
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• India Launches a Lander and Rover To Explore the Moon's South Pole

  14-07-2023 12:28 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An Indian spacecraft blazed its way to the far side of the moon Friday in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, the country's space agency said. From a report: Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota in southern India with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India's emerging space technology. The spacecraft is set to embark on a journey lasting slightl
  
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• Bipartisan Measure Aims to Force Release of UFO Records

  14-07-2023 12:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is proposing legislation to create a commission with the power to declassify government documents related to UFOs and extraterrestrial matters. The New York Times reports: The measure offers the possibility of pushing back against the conspiracy theories that surround discussions of U.F.O.s and fears that the government is hiding critical information from the public. The legislation, which Mr. Schumer will introduce as an amendment to the annual defense polic
  
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• Actors Say Hollywood Studios Want Their AI Replicas -- For Free, Forever

  14-07-2023 09:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: During today's press conference in which Hollywood actors confirmed that they were going on strike, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator, revealed a proposal from Hollywood studios that sounds ripped right out of a Black Mirror episode. In a statement about the strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said that its proposal included "a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors' digital liken
  
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• Aspartame Is Possibly Linked To Cancer In Humans, the WHO Says

  14-07-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: A World Health Organization agency declared on Thursday that aspartame, an artificial sweetener widely used in diet drinks and low-sugar foods, could possibly cause cancer. A second W.H.O. committee, though, held steady on its assessment of a safe level of aspartame consumption. By some calculations using the panel's standard, a person weighing 150 pounds could avoid a risk of cancer but still drink about a dozen cans of diet soda a da
  
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• SEO Expert Hired and Fired By Ashley Madison Turned on Company, Promising Revenge

  14-07-2023 04:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  In July 2015, the marital infidelity website AshleyMadison.com was hacked by a group called the Impact Team, threatening to release data on all 37 million users unless the site shut down. In an article published earlier today, security researcher Brian Krebs explores the possible involvement of a former employee and self-describe expert in search engine optimization (SEO), William Brewster Harrison, who had a history of harassment towards then-CEO Noel Biderman and may have had the technical ski
  
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• LG To Offer Subscriptions For Appliances And Televisions

  14-07-2023 03:25 via slashdot.org
  
  LG Electronics is planning to use ads streamed to its televisions and subscriptions services for its appliances to help boost revenue from $51 billion to $78 billion over the next six and a half years. The Register reports: "LG will innovate with a platform-based service business model that continuously generates profits, such as content and services, subscriptions and solutions, to the hardware-oriented businesses, which generate sales and profits at the time of purchase," the company said on W
  
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• Texas' TikTok Ban Hit With First Amendment Lawsuit

  14-07-2023 02:45 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Texas's ban on TikTok at state institutions violates the First Amendment, claims a lawsuit filed Thursday by a group of academics and civil society researchers. CNN reports: The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, which works to study the impact of technology on society. The lawsuit specifically challenges Texas' TikTok ban in relation to public universities, saying it compromises academic freed
  
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• Twitter Starts Sharing Ad Revenue With Verified Creators

  14-07-2023 02:07 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Twitter has started sending out the first payouts to creators on the platform who are part of the company's revenue sharing program. The largest payout reported thus far was to Billy Markus, the co-creator of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, which amounted to a whopping $37,050. TechCrunch reports: Users who subscribe to Twitter Blue and have earned more than 5 million tweet impressions each month for the last 3 months are eligible to join. According to owner Elon Musk, the first round of creator pa
  
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• FTC Asks Court To Temporarily Halt Microsoft's Acquisition of Activision

  14-07-2023 01:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The FTC has asked a federal court to temporarily halt Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard. Microsoft won its fight against the FTC on Tuesday, after a California judge said the agency had failed to show the deal would be illegal under antitrust law. The FTC appealed that loss yesterday, and Microsoft said it would fight that appeal. Reuters reports: In its motion, the FTC asked for an order that would prevent the deal from closing until after the 9th U
  
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• It's Official: Smartphones Will Need To Have Replaceable Batteries By 2027

  14-07-2023 00:40 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  In mid-June, the European Parliament voted in favor of new legislation that would, among other things, require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. This week, the European Council officially agreed to the new regulation. Now, when the European Council and Parliament sign on the dotted line, the clock will start ticking for manufacturers to ensure their devices have replaceable batteries by 2027 -- that is, if they want to sell their devices in th
  
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• Bungie Wins Landmark Lawsuit Against Player Who Harassed Destiny Staff

  14-07-2023 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: Bungie has won almost $500,000 in damages from a Destiny 2 player who harassed one of its community managers and his wife with abusive, racist, and distressing calls and messages, and sent an unsolicited pizza order to their home in a manner designed to intimidate and frighten the couple. According to members of Bungie's legal team, the judgment from a Washington state court sets important precedents that will empower employers to go after anyone
  
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