ICT news

• China Universities Waste Millions, Fail To Make Real Use of Research, Audit Finds in Indictment of Tech-Sufficiency Drive

  09-08-2023 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Universities in a southern Chinese region are not doing enough to turn academic research into market applications, and in maintaining large piles of idle funds, and the findings could raise questions about the nation's ambitious tech self-sufficiency drive. SCMP: According to a new audit report by the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region for 2022, nine universities in the region had extremely low conversion rates in bringing inventions to the market -- below 1 per cent -- from 2020 to 2022. Among th
  
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• Saudi Arabia Announces Standard USB-C Charging Ports for All Electronic Devices From 2025

  09-08-2023 22:41 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Saudi Arabia has announced its plans to standardise charging ports for all electronic devices to USB-C connectors. From a report: The decision will be put into effect from January 1, 2025 (for all except portable computers or laptops). It was announced by the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization and the Communications, Space and Technology Commission. The standardisation is set to happen in two stages. The first stage (from January 1, 2025) will cover mobile phones and other elect
  
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• Pentagon Launches AI Competition To Solicit Help Securing Computer Systems

  09-08-2023 22:01 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  DARPA, the Pentagon agency that funds moonshot technology innovations, is hosting a two-year competition for artificial intelligence experts to create new ways to bolster the world's cybersecurity. From a report: The competition launches Wednesday at the cybersecurity conference Black Hat in Las Vegas. It asks participants to create tools that can be used by anyone to help identify and fix holes in software to keep hackers from exploiting them. It will dole out a total of $18.5 million to winner
  
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• Heart Attacks Are Rising in Young Adults

  09-08-2023 21:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  National Geographic: Research does show that heart attacks, also called myocardial infarctions, are on the rise in younger people. Common symptoms include chest pain or discomfort; pain that radiates into the jaw, neck, back or arms; shortness of breath; and feeling weak or faint. A study of more than 2,000 young adults admitted for heart attack between 2000 and 2016 in two U.S. hospitals found that 1 in 5 were 40 years old or younger -- and that the proportion of this group has been increasing
  
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• Verizon Raises Prices Again as Wireless Customer Growth Slows

  09-08-2023 20:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Verizon Communications is raising prices on some existing wireless plans to help boost revenue and offset slumping subscriber growth. From a report: Starting with September bills, customers on Mix and Match plans will pay $3 more for single lines and $5 extra for multiple lines, Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said Wednesday during at an investor conference. The price hike is Verizon's third increase in two years. Last month the carrier marked up its wireless home internet prices by $10. Ri
  
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• Apple Can Keep App Store Rules for Now as Top Court Spurns Epic

  09-08-2023 20:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  The US Supreme Court let Apple keep its App Store payment rules in place for the time being, rejecting an Epic Games request that would have let developers start directing iPhone users to other purchasing options. From a report: Justice Elena Kagan said she wouldn't let a federal appeals court decision take effect immediately, as Epic had sought. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said earlier this year that Apple violated California's Unfair Competition Law by limiting the ability of developer
  
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• An Unintended Test of Geoengineering is Fueling Record Ocean Warmth

  09-08-2023 19:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers are now waking up to another factor why so many places on earth are getting warmer, one that could be filed under the category of unintended consequences: disappearing clouds known as ship tracks. From a report: 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 d
  
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• July Was World's Hottest Month on Record, Climate Scientists Say

  09-08-2023 18:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  July has been confirmed as the hottest month on record globally after several heatwaves in parts of Europe, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). From a report: The global average temperature was 16.95C last month, surpassing the previous record set in 2019 by a substantial 0.33C. Temperatures exceeded 40C last week in several countries across Europe including Greece, France, Italy and Spain. Wildfires forced the evacuation of thousands of residents and tourists from several
  
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• WeWork Raises 'Substantial Doubt' About Its Future

  09-08-2023 18:00 via slashdot.org
  
  WeWork warned there's "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue operating. The company cited sustained losses and canceled memberships to its office spaces. From a report: The co-working business will focus over the next 12 months on reducing rental costs, negotiating more favorable leases, increasing revenue and raising capital, WeWork said in a statement Tuesday. The warning comes mere months after WeWork struck a deal with some of its biggest creditors and SoftBank to cut its debt loa
  
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• ChatGPT Is Getting Dumber at Basic Math

  09-08-2023 17:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A recently released research reveals a fundamental challenge of developing artificial intelligence: ChatGPT has become worse at performing certain basic math operations. From a report: The researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley said the deterioration is an example of a phenomenon known to AI developers as drift, where attempts to improve one part of the enormously complex AI models make other parts of the models perform worse.
  [...] Thus far, they have test
  
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• US Reports Big Interest in $52 Billion Semiconductor Chips Funding

  09-08-2023 16:41 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday that more than 460 companies have expressed interested in winning government semiconductor subsidy funding in a bid to boost the country's competitiveness with China's science and technology efforts. From a report: The White House is marking the one-year anniversary on Wednesday of President Joe Biden's signing of the landmark "Chips for America" legislation providing $52.7 billion in subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production, research and workfor
  
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• China To Require All Apps To Share Business Details in New Oversight Push

  09-08-2023 16:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  China will require all mobile app providers in the country to file business details with the government, its information ministry said, marking Beijing's latest effort to keep the industry on a tight leash. From a report: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said late on Tuesday that apps without proper filings will be punished after the grace period that will end in March next year, a move that experts say would potentially restrict the number of apps and hit small develop
  
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• Intel DOWNFALL: New Vulnerability In AVX2/AVX-512 With Big Performance Hits

  09-08-2023 15:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phoronix: This Patch Tuesday brings a new and potentially painful processor speculative execution vulnerability... Downfall, or as Intel prefers to call it is GDS: Gather Data Sampling. GDS/Downfall affects the gather instruction with AVX2 and AVX-512 enabled processors. At least the latest-generation Intel CPUs are not affected but Tigerlake / Ice Lake back to Skylake is confirmed to be impacted. There is microcode mitigation available but it will be cos
  
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• Google Chrome Switching To Weekly Security Patch Updates

  09-08-2023 12:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google announced today that Chrome is now adopting weekly Stable channel updates in an effort to block major exploits quicker. 9to5Google reports: Google's browser gets major "milestone" updates every four (previously six) weeks, like going from version 100 to 101. In the past, Chrome would get a "Stable Refresh" update to "address security and other high impact bugs" in-between milestones every two weeks. This is now changing to occur weekly between milestones, starting with Google Chrome 116 o
  
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• Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Spies Perseverance Rover During 54th Red Planet Flight

  09-08-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  During its 54th flight on Mars, NASA's helicopter Ingenuity captured an image of the space agency's Perseverance rover. Space.com reports: Perseverance is nearly out of frame at the top of the photo, which Ingenuity took when it was about 16 feet (5 meters) above the red dirt. Unlike previous sorties, the Aug. 3 flight wasn't a scouting run to aid Perseverance's science activities. It lasted just 24 seconds, reached a maximum altitude of 16 feet and covered no ground laterally, according to Inge
  
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• Gizmodo Editor-In-Chief Sues Apple Over Tetris Movie

  09-08-2023 05:30 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Gizmodo editor-in-chief Daniel Ackerman has sued Apple and other parties over the 2023 Apple TV Plus film Tetris, alleging it rips off his 2016 book The Tetris Effect. Ackerman claims Apple, Tetris rightsholder the Tetris Company, the Tetris film's producers, and screenwriter Noah Pink copied "the exact same feel, tone, approach, and scenes" from The Tetris Effect -- particularly its framing of the game's release as a "Cold War spy thriller." I
  
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• US Supreme Court Allows Biden To Regulate 3D-Printed Firearms

  09-08-2023 04:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a report from NBC News: A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Biden administration to enforce regulations aimed at clamping down on so-called ghost guns -- firearm-making kits available online that people can assemble at home. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, in a brief order (PDF) put on hold a July 5 ruling by a federal judge in Texas that blocked the regulations nationwide. The vote was 5-4, with conservatives Chief Justice
  
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• White House Holds First-Ever Summit On the Ransomware Crisis Plaguing the Nation's Public Schools

  09-08-2023 03:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The White House on Tuesday held its first-ever cybersecurity "summit" on the ransomware attacks plaguing U.S. schools, in which criminal hackers have dumped online sensitive student data, including medical records, psychiatric evaluations and even sexual assault reports. PBS reports: At least 48 districts have been hit by ransomware attacks this year -- already three more than in all of 2022, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. All but 10 had data stolen, the firm reported. Typically,
  
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• GM Will Add Bidirectional Charging Capabilities To All Ultium-Based EVs

  09-08-2023 02:45 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Soon, all GM EV's on the Ultium platform will come equipped with bidirectional charging capabilities. Electrek reports: According to a release from GM this morning, the automaker has decided to roll out V2H capabilities to all of its incoming EV models, in addition to those already promised. [...] According to GM, all new EVs based upon the Ultium platform will feature bi-directional charging by model year 2026, so expect additional models beyond those above to also come equipped with the abilit
  
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• Google Launches Project IDX, a New AI-Enabled Browser-Based Development Environment

  09-08-2023 02:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google today announced the launch of Project IDX, its foray into offering an AI-enabled browser-based development environment for building full-stack web and multiplatform apps. It currently supports frameworks like Angular, Flutter, Next.js, React, Svelte and Vue, and languages like JavaScript and Dart, with support for Python, Go and others in the works. Google did not build a new IDE (integrated development environment) when it created IDX.
  
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• Germany Spends Big To Win $11 Billion TSMC Chip Plant

  09-08-2023 01:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  TSMC is committing $3.8 billion to establish its first European factory in Germany, benefiting from significant state support for the $11 billion project as Europe aims to shorten supply chains. Reuters reports: The plant, which will be TSMC's third outside of traditional manufacturing bases Taiwan and China, is central to Berlin's ambition to foster the domestic semiconductor industry its car industry will need to remain globally competitive. Germany, which has been courting the world's largest
  
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• Millions of UK Voters' Data Accessible In Cyber Attack

  09-08-2023 00:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The UK's Electoral Commission revealed that a cyber attack granted access to the data of 40 million voters. It went unnoticed for a year and was not disclosed to the public for an additional 10 months. The Guardian reports: The Electoral Commission apologized for the security breach in which the names and addresses of all voters registered between 2014 and 2022 were open to "hostile actors" as far back as August 2021. The attack was discovered last October and reported within 72 hours to the Inf
  
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• Pope Warns of AI Risks So 'Violence and Discrimination Does Not Take Root'

  09-08-2023 00:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Discussion about artificial intelligence is everywhere these days -- even the Vatican. On Tuesday, Pope Francis issued a communique announcing the theme for World Day of Peace 2024 as "Artificial Intelligence and Peace," emphasizing the potential impact of AI on human life and calling for responsible use, ethical reflection, and vigilance to prevent negative consequences. [...] In the communique, Pope Francis' office called for "an open dial
  
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