ICT news

• Reports of the PC's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated, Says IDC

  29-08-2023 23:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  The PC market is expected to return to growth in 2024, according to estimates from IDC analysts. From a report: Still, industry players might want to taper their enthusiasm. PC shipments are forecast to grow 3.7 percent year-on-year to hit 261.4 million units in 2024, putting them above 2018 levels, but not quite on par with 2019 demand. Meanwhile, 2023 is predicted to sink by 13.7 percent to 252 million units. Research manager Jitesh Ubrani called demand "tepid at best" and said 2023 will be th
  
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• FBI Dismantles a Malware System That Took Millions in Ransom

  29-08-2023 22:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  The FBI said Tuesday that it has taken down a network of hacked devices responsible for extorting tens of millions of dollars from victims around the world. From a report: US officials described the network known as Qakbot as one of the most notorious "botnets" in the world, referring to computer networks that have been infected with malicious software so that they can be controlled remotely without the owner's knowledge -- often to send phishing emails. These emails can in turn be used to hack
  
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• Google DeepMind Launches Watermarking Tool For AI-Generated Images

  29-08-2023 22:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google DeepMind has launched a new watermarking tool that labels whether images have been generated with AI. From a report: The tool, called SynthID, will initially be available only to users of Google's AI image generator Imagen, which is hosted on Google Cloud's machine learning platform Vertex. Users will be able to generate images using Imagen and then choose whether to add a watermark or not. The hope is that it could help people tell when AI-generated content is being passed off as real, o
  
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• First Bitcoin ETF Could Be Coming Soon as Court Rules in Favor of Grayscale Over SEC

  29-08-2023 21:20 via slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has paved the way for bitcoin exchange-traded funds. From a report: On Tuesday, the court sided with Grayscale in a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission which had denied the company's application to convert the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to an ETF. The decision could impact other companies that want to create bitcoin ETFs, like BlackRock and Fidelity. A spot bitcoin ETF would be traded through a traditional stock exchange, although th
  
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• The New Google Chat Borrows From Slack, Teams, Discord and Even ChatGPT

  29-08-2023 20:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is making some big changes to Google Chat, its answer to Slack and Microsoft Teams. The messaging app -- aka the product formerly known as hangouts -- is getting a new design, some features that will feel distinctly familiar to Slack and Teams users, and a lot of Google's new Duet AI collaboration tools. From a report: Most of the new features are rolling out later this year and early next, but they add up to a much more useful and competitive Chat platform. Duet is the flagship new featu
  
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• iFixit Petitions Government For the Right To Fix McDonald's Ice Cream Machines

  29-08-2023 20:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  samleecole writes: A group of right to repair activists and consumer rights advocates are petitioning the Librarian of Congress for the right to hack McDonald's notoriously unreliable McFlurry machines for the purposes of repair, according to a copy of the petition obtained by 404 Media.
  "This is a request to expand the repair exemption for consumer electronic devices to include commercial industrial equipment such as automated building management systems and industrial equipment (i.e. soft serv
  
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• Google Says Over Half of Generative AI Startups Use Its Cloud

  29-08-2023 19:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  When employees leave Google to join the artificial intelligence startup race, the search giant still has a way to benefit -- by keeping those former workers as cloud customers. From a report: More than half of venture-backed generative AI startups pay for Google's cloud computing platform, Alphabet, Google's parent company, said Tuesday. Of the startups valued at over $1 billion, 70% are Google Cloud customers, and about a third of those are helmed by former employees, including Anthropic, Chara
  
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• Apple To Launch the iPhone 15 on September 12

  29-08-2023 18:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple's next big product launch is nearly here. The company just sent invitations for an event on September 12th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, where the company is expected to announce the iPhone 15 lineup and new Apple Watches. The Verge: The iPhone 15 lineup will probably be the star of the show. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are expected to look a lot like the iPhone 14 but with a couple of key differences. The notch at the top of the screen will apparently be replaced by the Dynamic Island that fi
  
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• 'Life Or Death:' AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon

  29-08-2023 18:00 via slashdot.org
  
  samleecole writes: A genre of AI-generated books on Amazon is scaring foragers and mycologists: cookbooks and identification guides for mushrooms aimed at beginners. Amazon has an AI-generated books problem that's been documented by journalists for months. Many of these books are obviously gibberish designed to make money. But experts say that AI-generated foraging books, specifically, could actually kill people if they eat the wrong mushroom because a guidebook written by an AI prompt said it w
  
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• UK Air Travel Will Be Disrupted for 'Some Days' After Traffic Control Glitch

  29-08-2023 17:21 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Flights in and out of Britain will be disrupted for days, the U.K. government said on Tuesday, after a technical issue with the country's air traffic control system left thousands of passengers stranded abroad or facing severe delays. From a report: Around 280 flights were canceled on Tuesday, about 5 percent of the total scheduled to leave or arrive in Britain, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company, compounding travel woes for British holidaymakers after more than a thousand flight
  
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• Polluted Air Shortens Human Lifespans More Than Tobacco, Study Finds

  29-08-2023 16:40 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Cigarette smoking and other uses of tobacco shave an average of 2.2 years off lifespans globally. But merely breathing -- if the air is polluted -- is more damaging to human health. From a report: That is the conclusion of a report published Tuesday by the University of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute, which identified air pollution as the world's top threat to public health, responsible for reducing average life expectancy by 2.3 years worldwide. China, once the poster child for smog-filled s
  
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• Meta's Canada News Ban Fails To Dent Facebook Usage

  29-08-2023 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta's decision to block news links in Canada this month has had almost no impact on Canadians' usage of Facebook, data from independent tracking firms indicated on Tuesday, as the company faces scorching criticism from the Canadian government over the move. From a report: Daily active users of Facebook and time spent on the app in Canada have stayed roughly unchanged since parent company Meta started blocking news there at the start of August, according to data shared by Similarweb, a digital a
  
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• Dolby Atmos' Upcoming FlexConnect May Simplify Wireless Home Theater Audio

  29-08-2023 15:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dolby Laboratories today announced Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, a feature with the potential to add flexibility and simplicity to home theater audio setups. The company says FlexConnect allows supporting TVs to optimize Dolby Atmos audio output among the TV's speakers and paired wireless speakers. Currently, Dolby is only announcing the feature with upcoming TCL TVs, but it could expand elsewhere. FlexConnect, which will work with Atmos, 5.1, an
  
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• CISA Releases IOCs Associated with Malicious Barracuda Activity

  29-08-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA has released additional indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with exploitation of CVE-2023-2868. CVE-2023-2868 is a remote command injection vulnerability affecting Barracuda Email Security Gateway (ESG) Appliance, versions 5.1.3.001-9.2.0.006. Malicious threat actors exploited this vulnerability as a zero day as early as October 2022 to gain access to ESG appliances. 
  Download the newly released IOCs associated with this activity:IOCs Associated with Exploitation of Barracuda ES
  
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• Intel Says New 'Sierra Forest' Chip To More Than Double Power Efficiency

  29-08-2023 12:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Intel says its upcoming "Sierra Forest" data center chip due out next year will have 240% better performance per watt than its current generation chip. It's the first time the company has disclosed such figures, notes Reuters. From the report: The company is for the first time splitting its data center chips into two categories: A "Granite Rapids" chip that will focus on performance but consume more power, and the more efficient "Sierra Forest" chip. Ronak Singhal, a senior fellow at Intel, said
  
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• Pentagon Bets On Quick Production of Autonomous Systems To Counter China

  29-08-2023 09:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Under an ambitious program, dubbed Replicator, the Pentagon aims to field thousands of autonomous systems within two years to counter China. The effort is being spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. Politico reports: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion. "Industry is
  
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• Kias and Hyundais Keep Getting Stolen By the Thousands and Cities Are Suing

  29-08-2023 05:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Cities across the country are suing Kia and Hyundai for failing to install basic anti-theft technology, with a subsequent massive surge of stolen cars burdening police departments, according to lawsuits filed in recent months. Since the beginning of the year, Seattle, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbus have all sued Kia and Hyundai, which are owned by the same parent company, for selling cars without engine immob
  
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• Scientists Engineered a See-Through Squid With Its Brain In Plain View

  29-08-2023 04:02 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Scientists have genetically engineered a hummingbird bobtail squid to remove its pigment, creating an almost completely transparent animal with only its three hearts and brain showing when light hits it at the right angle. According to NPR, "The see-through squid are offering scientists a new way to study the biology of a creature that is intact and moving freely." From the report: The see-through version is made possible by a gene editing technology called CRISPR, which became popular nearly a
  
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• Google To Begin Selling Maps Data To Companies Building Solar Products

  29-08-2023 03:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  According to CNBC, Google is planning to license new sets of mapping data to companies building solar products, and is hoping to generate up to $100 million in its first year. From the report: The company plans to sell access to new APIs (application programming interfaces) with solar and energy information and air quality, according to materials viewed by CNBC. Among the new offerings will be a Solar API, which could be used by solar installers like SunRun and Tesla Energy and solar design comp
  
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• Foxconn Puts Its Empty Buildings In Wisconsin Up For Sale

  29-08-2023 02:45 via slashdot.org
  
  The Verge's Nilay Patel writes: Hey, remember when Foxconn bought a bunch of buildings around Wisconsin just before an election and said it was building "innovation centers" around the state in a transparent attempt to build support for the giant tax credits it was given to build an LCD factory that never arrived? Yeah, it's selling two of those buildings. The news was first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, which got a quote from Foxconn saying that "selling its Green Bay property, known as t
  
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• ASUS Reportedly Shuts Down Zenfone Division, No More Compact Flagships

  29-08-2023 02:02 via slashdot.org
  
  According to a report from Technews Taiwan, ASUS has shut down its Zenfone division responsible for making some of the best compact Android flagships on the market. The reason is due to "internal restructuring." Employees in the Zenfone division are being moved over to the ROG Phone team and other parts of the business. Android Authority reports: The report further asserts that the Zenfone 10 will be the last phone in the Zenfone series. Since the team no longer exists, there is unlikely to be a
  
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• OpenAI Launches a ChatGPT Plan For Enterprise Customers

  29-08-2023 01:20 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Seeking to capitalize on ChatGPT's viral success, OpenAI today announced the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise, a business-focused edition of the company's AI-powered chatbot app. ChatGPT Enterprise, which OpenAI first teased in a blog post earlier this year, can perform the same tasks as ChatGPT, such as writing emails, drafting essays and debugging computer code. But the new offering also adds "enterprise-grade" privacy and data analysis capabili
  
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• WordPress Now Has a 100-Year Domain Registration Option

  29-08-2023 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Hosting platform WordPress has announced a new century-long domain registration plan for users who want to ensure a lifelong digital legacy. From a report: Its new 100-year plan is designed to give users "the ultimate security and longevity for their digital presence" at a cost of $38,000 -- working out at $380 per year of the plan. While average domain registrations range from one year to a maximum of 10 years, WordPress's new plan allows users to secure their domain for 100 years.
  The plan com
  
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• Amazon Linux 2023 Virtual Machine Images Still MIA

  29-08-2023 00:01 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  When Amazon Linux 2023 was released on March 15, it was supposed to be offered as a virtual machine image that organizations could run on their own servers. From a report: "When Amazon Linux 2023 becomes generally available, it will be provided as a virtual machine image for on-premises use, enabling you to easily develop, test, and certify applications from a local development environment," the web titan's FAQs stated at the time. "This option is not available during the preview." But that comm
  
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