ICT news

• Google Can Now Alert You When Your Private Contact Info Appears Online

  03-08-2023 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is making it a lot easier to find and remove your contact information from its search results. From a report: The company will now send out notifications when it finds your address, phone number, or email on the web, allowing you to review and request the removal of that information from Search. All this takes place from Google's "results about you" dashboard on mobile and web, which it first rolled out last September. With the update, you can find your information on Google without actua
  
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• Backblaze Probes Increased Annualized Failure Rate For Its 240,940 HDDs

  03-08-2023 22:41 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  For over a decade, Backblaze's quarterly reports on the annualized failure rates (AFRs) of its substantial hard disk drives inventory have offered a peek into long-term storage utilization. The company, known for its backup and cloud storage services, has now disclosed data for the second quarter of 2023, revealing a fascinating rise in AFRs. ArsTechnica: Today's blog post details data for 240,940 HDDs that Backblaze uses for data storage around the world. There are 31 different models, and Back
  
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• Etsy Scrambling To Avert a Widespread Sellers' Strike

  03-08-2023 22:04 via slashdot.org
  
  An Etsy boycott initiated by UK-based sellers over its payment system has gotten the American company's attention. From a report: Etsy addressed criticism of its policy in a blog post on Aug. 1, and promised to "substantially" decrease the amount of funds held in reserve. Vendors have complained that the platform's policy, which can freeze up to 75% of earnings in reserve for as long as 45 to 90 days, is destroying businesses and placing sellers in dire financial straits. Etsy also takes fees ou
  
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• Excel's Esports Revolution is Coming Back To ESPN This Week

  03-08-2023 21:20 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  The Excel World Championship is coming back to ESPN this week. On Friday morning at 7AM ET, as part of ESPN's annual "The Ocho" event, a few of the world's foremost Excel experts will battle to solve puzzles on the biggest stage in sports. From a report: The Ocho is an ESPN event designed to show off otherwise un-televised sports -- Excel is on the docket alongside "2023 Slippery Stairs," the "Pillow Fight Championship," and competitions in everything from belt-sanding to sign spinning -- but it
  
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• Microsoft Accidentally Leaks Internal Utility for Testing New Windows 11 Features

  03-08-2023 20:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: When Microsoft releases new test builds of Windows, there are usually a handful of features that are announced but only actually enabled for a small subset of testers. Sometimes it's because the company is A/B testing a couple of different versions of the same thing or because Microsoft wants to roll out major changes to a few users before rolling them out to everyone. Users normally have little control over whether new features actually appear in their Windo
  
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• Generative AI Services Pulled From Apple App Store in China

  03-08-2023 20:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Multiple generative AI apps have been removed from Apple's China App Store, two weeks ahead of the country's new generative AI regulations that are set to take effect on August 15. From a report: The move came after Chinese developers received notices from Apple informing them of their apps' removal. In its letter to OpenCat, a native ChatGPT client, Apple cited "content that is illegal in China" as the reason for pulling the app. In July, China announced a set of measures to regulate generative
  
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• HBO Max Was Renamed Max, and Warner Bros. Discovery Lost Subscribers

  03-08-2023 19:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Warner Bros. Discovery lost 1.8 million subscribers in the three months following the launch of Max. From a report: The losses weren't exclusive to the Max streaming service, though. In its earnings report on Thursday, the company reported having 95.8 million global subscribers across all of its services -- down from 97.6 million at the end of the first quarter of this year. Despite this, the executives at Warner Bros. Discovery don't seem too worried. During an earnings call, the company's chie
  
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• FCC Fines Robocaller a Record $300 Million After Blocking Billions of Their Scam Calls

  03-08-2023 18:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The FCC's robocaller penalties are growing as the agency tracks down and terminates their operations -- this time resulting in a record $300 million forfeiture. From a report: But whether and when that money will be paid is, as always, something of an open question. The robocaller in this case was known by a variety of names and had been scamming people since 2018, as the FCC announcement explains: "This enterprise operated a complex scheme designed to facilitate the sale of vehicle service cont
  
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• AMD Announces Radeon Pro W7600 and W7500

  03-08-2023 18:15 via slashdot.org
  
  As AMD continues to launch their full graphics product stacks based on their latest RDNA 3 architecture GPUs, the company is now preparing their next wave of professional cards under the Radeon Pro lineup. Following the launch of their high-end Radeon Pro W7900 and W7800 graphics cards back in the second quarter of this year, today the company is announcing the low-to-mid-range members of the Radeon Pro W7000 series: the Radeon Pro W7500 and Radeon Pro W7600. From a report: Both based on AMD's m
  
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• South Korean Experts Seek To Verify Room-Temperature Superconductor Claim

  03-08-2023 17:21 via science.slashdot.org
  
  South Korean experts said on Thursday they would set up a committee to verify claims that a room temperature superconductor has been discovered, which has driven investor frenzy as well as peer skepticism since. From a report: The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics, a group of experts, said in a statement on Thursday it had asked Quantum Energy Research Centre to submit samples in order to verify its researchers' findings of a room-temperature superconductor material, made public
  
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• Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Fail To Catch On

  03-08-2023 16:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Ray-Ban smart glasses launched by Meta almost two years ago have struggled to catch on with owners, many of whom appear to be using the devices infrequently, according to internal company data. WSJ: Less than 10% of the Ray-Ban Stories purchased since the product's launch in September 2021 are used actively by purchasers, according to a company document from February reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Meta sold a total of 300,000 of the wearable devices through February, but the company on
  
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• India Restricts Import of Laptop, Tablets and Servers

  03-08-2023 16:00 via slashdot.org
  
  India restricted import of laptops, tablets, other personal computers and servers on Thursday, the local Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in an amendment, saying it will impose a licensing requirement for imports in a move that analysts say appears to be aimed at boosting the local manufacturing efforts.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Raspberry Pi Availability Is Visibly Improving After Years of Shortages

  03-08-2023 15:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton has been saying for months that 2023 would be a "recovery year" for Raspberry Pi supply -- the single-board computer, once known for its easy availability and affordability, has been hit with supply shortages for years. Hundreds of thousands of Pi boards were still being manufactured every month, but many were going to commercial buyers rather than retailers and end users. More recently, those manufacturing number
  
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• CISA, NSA, FBI, and International Partners Release Joint CSA on Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities of 2022 

  03-08-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and international partners are releasing a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA), 2022 Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities. This advisory provides details on the top Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) routinely exploited by malicious cyber actors in 2022, and the associated Common Weakness Enumeration(s) (CWE), to help organizations better understand
  
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• India Says Space Junk Found In Australia Is Theirs

  03-08-2023 12:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  India has confirmed that an object that washed up on a Western Australian beach recently was from one of its rockets. The BBC reports: The giant metal dome was found at Green Head beach, about 250km (155 miles) north of Perth, in mid-July -- prompting speculation about its origins. India's space agency spokesman told the BBC on Monday it was from one of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV). Sudhir Kumar added that it would be up to Australia to decide what to do with the object. He did not
  
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• Pollution Cuts Have Diminished 'Ship Track' Clouds, Adding To Global Warming

  03-08-2023 09:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Paul Voosen writes via Science: Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations's International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships' sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide. The reduction has also lessened the effect of sulfate particles in seeding and brightening the distinctive low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in the wake of ships and help cool the planet. The 2020 IMO rule "is a big natural experiment," says Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric ph
  
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• Internet Providers That Won FCC Grants Try To Escape Broadband Commitments

  03-08-2023 05:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A group of Internet service providers that won government grants are asking the Federal Communication Commission for more money or an "amnesty window" in which they could give up grants without penalty. The ISPs were awarded grants to build broadband networks from the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), which selected funding recipients in December 2020. A group calling itself the "Coalition of RDOF Winners" has been meeting with FC
  
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• Meta Releases AudioCraft AI Tool To Create Music From Text

  03-08-2023 04:02 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Meta on Wednesday introduced its open-source AI tool called AudioCraft that will help users to create music and audio based on text prompts. Reuters reports: The AI tool is bundled with three models, AudioGen, EnCodec and MusicGen, and works for music, sound, compression and generation, Meta said. MusicGen is trained using company-owned and specifically licensed music, it added. From Meta's press release: The AudioCraft family of models are capable of producing high-quality audio with long-term
  
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• Steam On Linux Spikes To Nearly 2% In July, Larger Marketshare Than Apple macOS

  03-08-2023 03:25 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  The Steam Survey results for July 2023 were just published and it points to a large and unexpected jump in the Linux gaming marketshare. Phoronix reports; According to these new numbers from Valve, the Linux customer base is up to 1.96%, or a 0.52% jump over June! That's a huge jump with normally just moving 0.1% or so in either direction most months... It's also near an all-time high on a percentage basis going back to the early days of Steam on Linux when it had around a 2% marketshare but at
  
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• ChromeOS Is Splitting the Browser From the OS, Getting More Like Linux

  03-08-2023 02:45 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Google's long-running project to split up ChromeOS and its Chrome browser is currently in beta and should be live in the stable channel later this month. The flags that turn on the feature by default were spotted by Kevin Tofel from About Chromebooks. Ars Technica reports: The project is called "Lacros" which Google says stands for "Linux And ChRome OS." This will split ChromeOS's Linux OS from the Chrome browser, allowing Google to update each one independently. Google documentation on the proj
  
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• IRS Vows To Digitize All Taxpayer Documents By 2025

  03-08-2023 02:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader writes: Today, the US Treasury Department announced that taxpayers will have the choice to go paperless for all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) correspondence in the upcoming 2024 filing season. By 2025, the IRS plans to achieve paperless processing for all tax returns, still accepting paper documents but immediately digitizing them, to "cut processing times in half" and "expedite refunds by several weeks," the Treasury Department said. "The IRS receives about 76 million paper
  
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• Cory Doctorow's New Book On Beating Big Tech At Its Own Game

  03-08-2023 01:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Cory Doctorow, author, digital rights advocate, and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for his next book, called The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation. "The book presents an array of policy solutions aimed at dismantling the monopolistic power of Big Tech, making the internet a more open and user-focused space," writes Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder. "Key among these solutions is the concept of interoperability, which would allow users to ta
  
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• Kenya Suspends Worldcoin Scans Over Security, Privacy, and Financial Concerns

  03-08-2023 00:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Kenya's Ministry of the Interior has issued a decree suspending Worldcoin enrollment in the country, citing concerns with the "authenticity and legality" of its activities in the areas of security, financial services and data protection. TechCrunch reports: The suspension covers both Worldcoin and "any other entity that may be similarly engaging the people of Kenya" and will remain in place until the authorities determine "the absence of any risks to the general public whatsoever." Up until toda
  
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• China Looks To Limit Children To Two Hours a Day On Their Phones

  03-08-2023 00:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: China's cyberspace regulator said on Wednesday children under the age of 18 should be limited to a maximum of two hours a day on their smartphones, sending shares in tech companies tumbling. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said it wanted providers of smart devices to introduce so-called minor mode programs that would bar users under 18 from accessing the internet on mobile devices from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Providers would also have to s
  
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