ICT news

• Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals - and It's Proving Difficult To Detect

  21-08-2023 23:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The rapid rise of generative AI has stoked anxieties across disciplines. High school teachers and college professors are worried about the potential for cheating. News organizations have been caught with shoddy articles penned by AI. And now, peer-reviewed academic journals are grappling with submissions in which the authors may have used generative AI to write outlines, drafts, or even entire papers, but failed to make the AI use clear. Wired: Journals are taking a patchwork approach to the pro
  
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• Cellebrite Asks Cops To Keep Its Phone Hacking Tech 'Hush Hush'

  21-08-2023 22:41 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, cops and other government authorities all over the world have been using phone hacking technology provided by Cellebrite to unlock phones and obtain the data within. And the company has been keen on keeping the use of its technology "hush hush." As part of the deal with government agencies, Cellebrite asks users to keep its tech -- and the fact that they used it -- secret, TechCrunch has learned. This request concerns legal experts who argue that p
  
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• China Keeps Buying Hobbled Nvidia Cards To Train Its AI Models

  21-08-2023 22:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The US acted aggressively last year to limit China's ability to develop artificial intelligence for military purposes, blocking the sale there of the most advanced US chips used to train AI systems. From a report: Big advances in the chips used to develop generative AI have meant that the latest US technology on sale in China is more powerful than anything available before. That is despite the fact that the chips have been deliberately hobbled for the Chinese market to limit their capabilities,
  
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• Pioneering Wind-Powered Cargo Ship Sets Sail

  21-08-2023 21:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A cargo ship fitted with giant, rigid British-designed sails has set out on its maiden voyage. Shipping firm Cargill, which has chartered the vessel, hopes the technology will help the industry chart a course towards a greener future. From a report: The WindWings sails are designed to cut fuel consumption and therefore shipping's carbon footprint. It is estimated the industry is responsible for about 2.1% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The Pyxis Ocean's maiden journey, from China to B
  
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• Microsoft Takes Down a String of Embarrassing Travel Articles Created With 'Algorithmic Techniques'

  21-08-2023 20:54 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft took down a string of articles published by "Microsoft Travel" last week that included a bizarre recommendation for visitors to Ottawa to visit the Ottawa Food Bank and to "consider going into it on an empty stomach." From a report: The now-deleted article that included that recommendation -- "Headed to Ottawa? Here's what you shouldn't miss!" -- went viral after writer Paris Marx shared it as an example of an AI flop. The online chatter about the article, and the clearly offensive nat
  
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• Namecheap To Raise .COM and .XYZ Domain Price

  21-08-2023 20:04 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Namecheap, in a blog post: At Namecheap, we've consistently stood up for our users by challenging arbitrary domain price increases. As we approach another price increase for .COM and .XYZ domains this September, we wanted to ensure our customers are informed so you can continue to get the best value for your investments. All .COM domain renewals will see an approximate 9% increase. This price increase will happen across registrars, not just Namecheap. The new prices will take effect on September
  
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• South Korea's Biggest Telco Says 5G Has Failed To Deliver On Its Promise

  21-08-2023 19:35 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  SK Telecom, South Korea's dominant mobile carrier and sibling of chipmaker SK hynix, has declared that 5G was over-hyped, has under-delivered, and has failed to deliver a killer app. From a report: The telco offered that assessment in a recent white paper titled "5G Lessons Learned, 6G Key Requirements, 6G Network Evolution, and 6G Spectrum." The paper opens with an unflattering assessment of 5G, which the authors recall being sold as an enabler of autonomous driving, unmanned aerial vehicles (U
  
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• SanDisk Extreme SSDs Are 'Worthless,' Multiple Lawsuits Against WD Say

  21-08-2023 18:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Last week we wrote about a lawsuit against Western Digital that alleged that the firm's solid state drive didn't live up to its marketing promises. More lawsuits have been filed against the company since. ArsTechnica: On Thursday, two more lawsuits were filed against Western Digital over its SanDisk Extreme series and My Passport portable SSDs. That brings the number of class-action complaints filed against Western Digital to three in two days. In May, Ars Technica reported about customer compla
  
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• AI Unlikely To Destroy Most Jobs, But Clerical Workers at Risk, UN Study Says

  21-08-2023 18:07 via slashdot.org
  
  Generative AI probably will not take over most people's jobs entirely but will instead automate a portion of their duties, freeing them up to do other tasks, a U.N. study said on Monday. From a report: It warned, however, that clerical work would likely be the hardest hit, potentially hitting female employment harder, given women's over-representation in this sector, especially in wealthier countries. An explosion of interest in generative AI and its chatbot applications has sparked fears over j
  
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• Windows 11 Has Made the 'Clean Windows Install' an Oxymoron

  21-08-2023 17:24 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a column: You can still do a clean install of Windows, and it's arguably easier than ever, with official Microsoft-sanctioned install media easily accessible and Windows Update capable of grabbing most of the drivers that most computers need for basic functionality. The problem is that a "clean install" doesn't feel as clean as it used to, and unfortunately for us, it's an inside job -- it's Microsoft, not third parties, that is primarily responsible for the pile of un
  
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• US Announces More New Funding for Rural Broadband Infrastructure

  21-08-2023 16:43 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Biden administration on Monday continued its push toward internet-for-all by 2030, announcing about $667 million in new grants and loans to build more broadband infrastructure in the rural U.S. From a report: "With this investment, we're getting funding to communities in every corner of the country because we believe that no kid should have to sit in the back of a mama's car in a McDonald's parking lot in order to do homework," said Mitch Landrieu, the White House's infrastructure coordinato
  
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• UK To Spend $127M in Global Race To Produce AI Chips

  21-08-2023 16:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The UK government will spend $127m to try to win a toe-hold for the nation in the global race to produce computer chips used to power artificial intelligence. From a report: Taxpayer money will be used as part of a drive to build a national AI resource in Britain, similar to those under development in the US and elsewhere. It is understood that the funds will be used to order key components from major chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Intel. But an official briefed on the plans told the Guardian that t
  
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• CISA, NSA, and NIST Publish Factsheet on Quantum Readiness

  21-08-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a joint factsheet, Quantum-Readiness: Migration to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), to inform organizations—especially those that support Critical Infrastructure—of the impacts of quantum capabilities, and to encourage the early planning for migration to post-quantum cryptographic standards by developing a Quantum-Readin
  
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• Adobe Co-founder and Ex-CEO John Warnock Has Died

  21-08-2023 13:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader Dave Knott writes:John Warnock, co-founder and ex-CEO of Adobe, has died at the age of 82. Under his tenure, Adobe created Postscript, Acrobat, Photoshop, and many other technologies and software products that have become industry standards in publishing, graphic design, video editing, photography and more. A cause of death has not been released; he is survived by his wife, graphic designer Marva Warnock, and his three children
  Slashdot covered the death of Adobe co-founder Charl
  
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• Meta Threatens to Fire Workers for Return-to-Office Infractions in Leaked Memo

  21-08-2023 09:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  In a Thursday memo, Meta's "Head of People" told employees "that their managers would receive their badge data and that repeated violations of the new three-day-a-week requirement could cause workers to lose their jobs," writes SFGate (citing a report from Insider):In June, the Menlo Park-based firm announced its plan to require that most employees work from an office at least three days each week — it goes into effect Sept. 5... Meta confirmed the update to SFGATE... Goler's note on the r
  
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• Cheese-Makers Track Their Parmesans By Embedding Edible, Blockchain-Enabled Microchips

  21-08-2023 05:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "Italian producers of parmesan cheese have been fighting against imitations for years," writes the Wall Street Journal, adding "Their latest trick to beat counterfeiters is edible microchips."Now, makers of Parmigiano-Reggiano, as the original parmesan cheese is officially called, are slapping the microchips on their 90-pound cheese wheels as part of an endless cat-and-mouse game between makers of authentic and fake products."New methods to guarantee the origin of products are being used across
  
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• For the First Time, China's Lunar Rover Maps 1,000 Feet Below the Moon's Dark Side

  21-08-2023 03:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  LiveScience brings an update on China's Chang'e-4 — the first spacecraft to ever land on the far side of the moon.
  Its Lunar Penetrating Radar has now mapped the lunar subsurface "in finer detail than ever before" by bouncing radio signals deep underground:Their results, which were published Aug. 7 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, reveal billions of years of previously hidden lunar history. These new data suggest the top 130 feet of the lunar surface are made up of multiple
  
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• Increasing Wildfires Could Negate the Effects of Forest Carbon Offsets

  21-08-2023 00:59 via news.slashdot.org
  
  In 2022, the Financial Times reported:Wildfires have depleted almost all of the carbon credits set aside in reserve by forestry projects in the U.S. to protect against the risk of trees being damaged over 100 years, a new independent study has found.As a result of fires, six forest projects in California's carbon trading system had released between 5.7mn and 6.8mn tonnes of carbon since 2015, the non-profit research group CarbonPlan estimated. That was at least 95 per cent of the roughly 6mn off
  
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