ICT news

• DirectX 12 Support Comes To CrossOver on Mac With Latest Update

  17-08-2023 23:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Codeweavers took to its official forums today to announce the release of CrossOver 23.0.0, the new version of its software that aims to make emulating Windows software and games easier on macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS systems. From a report: CrossOver 23 has updated to Wine 8.0.1, and it's loaded with improvements across all its platforms. The most notable, though, is the addition of DirectX 12 support under macOS via VKD3D and MoltenVK. This marks the first time most Mac users have had access to s
  
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• Microsoft CEO Says AI Is a Tidal Wave as Big as the Internet

  17-08-2023 22:41 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: In 1995, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates sent a memo calling the internet a "tidal wave" that would be crucial to every part of the company's business. Nearly two decades later, Microsoft's current leader, Satya Nadella, said he believes the impact of artificial intelligence will be just as profound. "The Bill memo in 1995, it does feel like that to me," Nadella said on this week's episode of The Circuit With Emily Chang. "I think it's as big." Central to the
  
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• White House Orders Federal Agencies To Shore Up Cybersecurity, Warns of Potential Exposure

  17-08-2023 22:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The White House ordered federal agencies to shore up their cybersecurity after agencies have lagged in implementing a key executive order President Joe Biden issued in 2021. From a report: Multiple federal departments and agencies have, as of the end of June, "failed to fully comply" with critical security practices prescribed by the executive order, "leaving the U.S. Government exposed to malicious cyber intrusions and undermining the example the Government must set for adequate cybersecurity p
  
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• Xbox 360 Digital Store Will Close Next July

  17-08-2023 21:20 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft will close its Xbox 360 digital store next July, though anything purchased will still be accessible. From a report: On 29th July 2024, Xbox 360 users will no longer be able to purchase new games, DLC, or other entertainment content from either the console store or the web-based marketplace. In addition, the Microsoft Movies & TV app on the Xbox 360 will no longer function. Of course, the store will continue as normal until that date next July. After that time, any games purchased w
  
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• Forgetting To Cancel Subscriptions Boosts Businesses' Revenue By 200%, Study Finds

  17-08-2023 20:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Subscription-based models dominate daily life and businesses profit from forgotten subscription payments. The problem of forgotten subscriptions is so large there's now a robust ecosystem of startups promising to save users money by ferreting out and canceling the subscriptions they forgot about. From a report: Now, researchers have put a number on the high value of customer inertia. Buyers' inattention can boost a business's revenue by as much as 200%, according to a new working paper from rese
  
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• Adyen Plummets as Sales Miss Erases $20 Billion of Market Value

  17-08-2023 20:01 via slashdot.org
  
  Adyen's shares plunged as aggressive competition in North America contributed to the slowest revenue growth since its initial public offering, erasing more than $19.6 billion of market value in a single day. From a report: Shares of the Dutch payment processing company fell a record 40.6% to $950 at 4:49 p.m. in Amsterdam, the lowest since May 2020. Trading was temporarily halted due to volatility multiple times in the day. Pricing competition, higher inflation and interest rates stunted revenue
  
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• China Pilots Digital Burials and Funeral Services as Population Ages

  17-08-2023 19:21 via slashdot.org
  
  Facing a rapidly aging population and land scarcity, the Chinese capital is piloting burial spaces with electronic screens instead of headstones. From a report: When someone dies in Beijing, the body is typically cremated and the ashes are buried behind a gravestone in one of the city's public cemeteries. Family and friends gather at the site to light candles and burn incense to pay their respects. Zhang Yin, a local resident in her 40s, chose a very different burial rite when her grandmother di
  
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• Debian Turns 30

  17-08-2023 18:40 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Debian blog: Over 30 years ago the late Ian Murdock wrote to the comp.os.linux.development newsgroup about the completion of a brand-new Linux release which he named "The Debian Linux Release." He built the release by hand, from scratch, so to speak. Ian laid out guidelines for how this new release would work, what approach the release would take regarding its size, manner of upgrades, installation procedures; and with great care of consideration for users without Internet connection. Unaware th
  
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• Microsoft Struggles to Gain on Google Despite Its Head Start in AI Search

  17-08-2023 18:00 via slashdot.org
  
  The new Bing with AI chatbot is "cute, but not a game changer," the data thus far suggests. From a report: When Microsoft unveiled an AI-powered version of Bing in February, the company said it could add $2 billion of revenue if the revamped search engine could pry away even a single point of market share from Google. Six months later, it looks as if even 1 percentage point could be a tough target, with some new data showing Bing's place in search has barely budged -- partly because of how Micro
  
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• LK-99 Isn't a Superconductor - How Science Sleuths Solved the Mystery

  17-08-2023 17:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers seem to have solved the puzzle of LK-99. Scientific detective work has unearthed evidence that the material is not a superconductor, and clarified its actual properties. Nature: The conclusion dashes hopes that LK-99 -- a compound of copper, lead, phosphorus and oxygen -- marked the discovery of the first superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Instead, studies have shown that impurities in the material -- in particular, copper sulfide -- were responsible
  
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• Tech Firms Are Slowing Layoffs But Still Not Yet Resuming Hiring

  17-08-2023 16:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Tech companies aren't yet ramping up hiring after massive layoffs over the past year, despite a surge in interest in artificial intelligence, requiring workers with special skills. From a report: Still, job cuts in the tech industry appeared to slow in June and July and are on track to be even lower this month, according to an analysis by research firm Jefferies, citing proprietary data as well as that from job marketplace TrueUp. The tech sector had some of the earliest and steepest workforce r
  
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• New AP Guidelines Lay the Groundwork For AI-Assisted Newsrooms

  17-08-2023 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The Associated Press published standards today for generative AI use in its newsroom. The organization, which has a licensing agreement with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, listed a fairly restrictive and common-sense list of measures around the burgeoning tech while cautioning its staff not to use AI to make publishable content. Although nothing in the new guidelines is particularly controversial, less scrupulous outlets could view the AP's blessing as a
  
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• Atlassian Releases Security Update for Confluence Server and Data Center

  17-08-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Atlassian has released its security bulletin for August 2023 to address a vulnerability in Confluence Server and Data Center, CVE-2023-28709. A remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial-of-service condition.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review Atlassian’s August 2003 Security Bulletin and apply the necessary update.
  
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• ChatGPT Leans Liberal, Research Shows

  17-08-2023 13:45 via slashdot.org
  
  A paper from U.K.-based researcher suggests that OpenAI's ChatGPT has a liberal bias, highlighting how artificial intelligence companies are struggling to control the behavior of the bots even as they push them out to millions of users worldwide. From a report: The study, from researchers at the University of East Anglia, asked ChatGPT to answer a survey on political beliefs as it believed supporters of liberal parties in the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil might answer them. They then
  
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• Snapchat's My AI Goes Rogue, Posts To Stories

  17-08-2023 12:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  On Tuesday, Snapchat's My AI in-app chatbot posted its own Story to the app that appeared to be a photo of a wall and ceiling. It then stopped responding to users' messages, which some Snapchat users found disconcerting. TechCrunch reports: Though the incident made for some great tweets (er, posts), we regret to inform you that My AI did not develop self-awareness and a desire to express itself through Snapchat Stories. Instead, the situation arose because of a technical outage, just as the bot
  
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• US Space Force Creates First Unit Dedicated To Targeting Adversary Satellites

  17-08-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The United States Space Force has activated its first and only unit dedicated to targeting other nations' satellites and the ground stations that support them. Space.com reports: The 75th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron (ISRS) was activated on Aug. 11 at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado. This unit is part of Space Delta 7, an element of the U.S. Space Force tasked with providing intelligence on adversary space capabilities. It'll do things like analyze the capabilitie
  
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• Scientists Recreate Pink Floyd Song By Reading Brain Signals of Listeners

  17-08-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Scientists have trained a computer to analyze the brain activity of someone listening to music and, based only on those neuronal patterns, recreate the song. The research, published on Tuesday, produced a recognizable, if muffled version of Pink Floyd's 1979 song, "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)." [...] To collect the data for the study, the researchers recorded from the brains of 29 epilepsy patients at Albany Medical Center in Ne
  
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• NYU Surgeons Claim Advance In Transplant of Pig Kidney To a Human

  17-08-2023 03:25 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A genetically altered pig kidney transplanted into a brain-dead man has continued to function for 32 days, an advance toward the possible use of animal organs in humans, surgeons at NYU Langone Health said Wednesday. The Washington Post reports: The kidney was not rejected in the minutes after it was transplanted -- a problem in xenotransplantation, the use of organs from a different species. It began producing urine and took over the functions of a human kidney such as filtering toxins, the phy
  
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• Adobe and Microsoft Break Some Old Files By Removing PostScript Font Support

  17-08-2023 02:02 via slashdot.org
  
  Recent developments, such as Adobe ending support for Type 1 fonts in 2023 and Microsoft discontinuing Type 1 font support in Office apps, may impact users who manage their own fonts, potentially leading to compatibility and layout issues in older files. Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham writes: If you want to know about the history of desktop publishing, you need to know about Adobe's PostScript fonts. PostScript fonts used vector graphics so that they could look crisp and clear no matter what s
  
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• Bambu's 3D Printers Started Printing While Owners Were Asleep

  17-08-2023 01:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Bambu's X1C and P1P 3D printers started printing unattended, overnight, and without any additional user input, according to user reports from r/BambuLab and X. The Verge reports: Some woke up to failed prints. Some found a second copy of a previous print. And at least a few found their Bambu X1C or P1P had started smacking itself apart -- damaging components -- while trying to print a second copy atop the object they'd actually asked for. What happened? In an official blog post, Bambu says it's
  
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• Microsoft May Store Your Conversations With Bing If You're Not an Enterprise User

  17-08-2023 00:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Microsoft prohibits users from reverse engineering or harvesting data from its AI software to train or improve other models, and will store inputs passed into its products as well as any output generated. The details emerged as companies face fresh challenges with the rise of generative AI. People want to know what corporations are doing with information provided by users. And users are likewise curious about what they can do with the conten
  
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• Major US Energy Organization Targeted In QR Code Phishing Attack

  17-08-2023 00:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  A phishing campaign has targeted a notable energy company in the U.S., bypassing email security filters to slip malicious QR codes into inboxes. BleepingComputer reports: Roughly one-third (29%) of the 1,000 emails attributed to this campaign targeted a large US energy company, while the remaining attempts were made against firms in manufacturing (15%), insurance (9%), technology (7%), and financial services (6%). According to Cofense, who spotted this campaign, this is the first time that QR co
  
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