ICT news

• FCC Says 'Too Bad' To ISPs Complaining That Listing Every Fee is Too Hard

  30-08-2023 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Federal Communications Commission yesterday rejected requests to eliminate an upcoming requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees. From a report: Five major trade groups representing US broadband providers petitioned the FCC in January to scrap the requirement before it takes effect. In June, Comcast told the FCC that the listing-every-fee rule "impose[s] significant administrative burdens and unnecessary complexity in complying with the broadband label requir
  
  Read more

• Hundreds of Thousands Trafficked To Work as Online Scammers in Southeast Asia, Says UN Report

  30-08-2023 22:41 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly engaged by organised criminal gangs into online criminality in Southeast Asia - from romance-investment scams and crypto fraud to illegal gambling - a report issued today by the UN Human Rights Office shows. From a report: Victims face a range of serious violations and abuses, including threats to their safety and security; and many have been subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary detention, sexu
  
  Read more

• OpenAI Disputes Authors' Claims That Every ChatGPT Response is Derivative Work

  30-08-2023 22:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI has responded to a pair of nearly identical class-action lawsuits from book authors -- including Sarah Silverman, Paul Tremblay, Mona Awad, Chris Golden, and Richard Kadrey -- who earlier this summer alleged that ChatGPT was illegally trained on pirated copies of their books. From a report: In OpenAI's motion to dismiss (filed in both lawsuits), the company asked a US district court in California to toss all but one claim alleging direct copyright infringement, which OpenAI hopes to defea
  
  Read more

• Leaked Microsoft Memo Tells Managers Not To Use Budget Cuts as Explainer for Lack of Pay Rises

  30-08-2023 21:22 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft employees were already expecting lackluster pay rises. In a company-wide email sent earlier this year, the tech company's CEO Satya Nadella warned staff of salary freezes and cuts to the bonusbudget. But despite previous transparency around the cost-cutting measures, employees enquiring about how the budget cuts have impacted their performance review will now be fobbed off. According to leaked guidance, managers are being ordered to dodge such quest
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• UN Backs New Term For Conservation Talks

  30-08-2023 20:42 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The word "funga" should be used alongside flora and fauna when discussing conservation issues to reflect the importance of fungi to ecosystem health, a UN body has said. From a report: The secretariat of the UN convention on biological diversity (UNCBD) said it was time that fungi were "recognised and protected on an equal footing with animals and plants in legal conservation frameworks."
  "Whenever referring to the macroscopic diversity of life on Earth, we should use 'flora, fauna and funga,' a
  
  Read more

• EU Fossil Fuel Burning for Electricity Fell To Lowest on Record in 2023, Data Shows

  30-08-2023 20:03 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The European Union is stoking its power plants with fewer lumps of coal and barrels of oil and gas than it has ever recorded, data shows. From a report: The 27 member states burned 17% less fossil fuel to make electricity between January and June 2023 than over the same period the year before, a study from the clean energy thinktank Ember found. The EU made 410TWh of electricity from sources that release planet-heating gases, which analysts say is the lowest level since 2015 -- the first year fo
  
  Read more

• Amazon CEO Says 'It's Probably Not Going To Work Out' For Employees Who Defy Return-to-Office Policy

  30-08-2023 19:25 via slashdot.org
  
  Amazon employees have been pushing back against the company's return-to-office policy for months -- and it seems CEO Andy Jassy has had enough. From a report: During a pre-recorded internal Q&A session earlier this month, Jassy told employees it was "past the time to disagree and commit" with the policy, which requires corporate employees to be in the office three days a week. The phrase "disagree and commit" is one of Amazon's leadership principles, and was used often by the company's found
  
  Read more

• Sony Jacking Up Annual PlayStation Plus Plans By as Much as $40

  30-08-2023 18:50 via games.slashdot.org
  
  A couple months after Microsoft revealed plans to increase Game Pass subscription prices, Sony is getting in on the act. From a report: The company is bumping up the annual prices of all three PlayStation Plus plans on September 6th. An annual Essential subscription will soon cost $80 per year, up from $60. The Extra plan is going up by $35 to $135 per year, while an annual Premium plan will soon cost $40 more at $160. The price changes won't take effect for current PS Plus users on an annual pl
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Microsoft is Using Malware-like Pop-Ups in Windows 11 To Get People To Ditch Google

  30-08-2023 18:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader writes: I thought I had malware on my main Windows 11 machine this weekend. There I was minding my own business in Chrome before tabbing back to a game and wham a pop-up appeared asking me to switch my default search engine to Microsoft Bing in Chrome. Stunningly, Microsoft now thinks it's ok to shove a pop-up in my face above my apps and games just because I dare to use Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge. This isn't a normal notification, either. It didn't appear in the notifi
  
  Read more

• FreeBSD Can Now Boot in 25 Milliseconds

  30-08-2023 17:24 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Replacing a sort algorithm in the FreeBSD kernel has improved its boot speed by a factor of 100 or more... and although it's aimed at a micro-VM, the gains should benefit everyone. From a report: MicroVMs are a hot area of technology R&D in the last half decade or so. The core idea is a re-invention of some of concepts and technology that IBM invented along with the hypervisor in the 1960s: designing OSes specifically to run as guests under another OS. This means building the OS specifically
  
  Read more

• Visa, Mastercard Prepare To Raise Credit-Card Fees

  30-08-2023 16:47 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Visa and Mastercard are planning to increase fees that many merchants pay when they accept customers' credit cards. From a report: The fee increases are scheduled to start in October and April, according to people familiar with the matter and documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Many of the increases are for online purchases. The changes could result in merchants paying an additional $502 million annually in fees, according to CMSPI, a consulting company that works with merchants.
  Increa
  
  Read more

• Google Discontinues Pixel Pass Subscription

  30-08-2023 16:07 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is discontinuing its Pixel Pass subscription service that allowed people to get a Pixel phone combined with premium services including YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass, and YouTube Premium for a monthly fee. The company said on its support page that it will stop offering purchases or renewals for the Pixel Pass.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  Read more

• Meet Aleph Alpha, Europe's Answer To OpenAI

  30-08-2023 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Europe wants its own Open AI. The bloc's politicians are sick of regulating American tech giants from afar. They want Europe to build its own generative AI, which is why so many people are rooting for Jonas Andrulis, an easy-going German with a carefully pruned goatee. Ask people within Europe's tech bubble which AI companies they're excited about and the names that come up most are Mistral, a French startup that has raised $100 million without rel
  
  Read more

• VMware Releases Security Updates for Aria Operations for Networks

  30-08-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  VMware has released security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Networks. A cyber threat actor can exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2023-0018 and apply the necessary updates.
  
  Read more

• CISA and FBI Publish Joint Advisory on QakBot Infrastructure

  30-08-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA), Identification and Disruption of QakBot Infrastructure, to help organizations detect and protect against newly identified QakBot-related activity and malware. QakBot—also known as Qbot, Quackbot, Pinkslipbot, and TA570—is responsible for thousands of malware infections globally. 
  Originally used as a banking trojan to steal b
  
  Read more

• Meta Is Researching Turning Any Flat Surface Into a Virtual Keyboard

  30-08-2023 12:00 via meta.slashdot.org
  
  Mark Zuckerberg posted a video to his personal Instagram profile showing clips of himself and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth trying a surface-locked virtual keyboard in a Quest 2 headset. UploadVR reports: Zuckerberg claims he was able to achieve around 100 words per minute, while Bosworth says he reached 119 words per minute. The average person types at around 40 words per minute on a traditional keyboard, whereas professional typists reach between 70 and 120 words per minute depending on their skill
  
  Read more

• NASA To Demonstrate Laser Communications From Space Station

  30-08-2023 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  SonicSpike shares a report from NASA: In 2023, NASA is sending a technology demonstration known as the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) to the space station. Together, ILLUMA-T and the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which launched in December 2021, will complete NASA's first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. With ILLUMA-T, NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office will demonstrate the power of laser commun
  
  Read more

• Woman's Mystery Illness Turns Out To Be 3-Inch Snake Parasite In Her Brain

  30-08-2023 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A neurosurgeon in Australia pulled a wriggling 3-inch roundworm from the brain of a 64-year-old woman last year -- which was quite the surprise to the woman's team of doctors and infectious disease experts, who had spent over a year trying to identify the cause of her recurring and varied symptoms. A close study of the extracted worm made clear why the diagnosis was so hard to pin down: the roundworm was one known to infect snakes -- specifi
  
  Read more

• Benevolent Hackers Clear Stalking Spyware From 75,000 Phones

  30-08-2023 03:25 via it.slashdot.org
  
  According to TechCrunch, unnamed hackers reportedly breached the spyware firm WebDetetive, deleting device information to protect surveillance victims and denying spyware users new data. Engadget reports: Users of the spyware won't get any new data from their targets. "Because #fuckstalkerware," the hackers wrote in a note obtained by TechCrunch. The WebDetetive breach compromised more than 76,000 devices belonging to customers of the stalkerware, and more than 1.5 gigabytes of data freed from a
  
  Read more

• Apple To Buy TSMC's Entire Supply of 3nm Chips For 2023

  30-08-2023 02:45 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  According to DigiTimes, Apple will receive all TSMC's first-generation 3-nanometer process chips this year for its upcoming devices. MacRumors reports: As early as May, Apple was known to have booked nearly 90% of the Taiwanese pure-play foundry for its upcoming next-gen devices. However, Apple is now projected to take 100% of TSMC's capacity in 2023, due to delays in Intel's wafer needs owing to later modifications to the company's CPU platform design plans. Intel's lack of orders means TSMC's
  
  Read more

• Google Launches BigQuery Studio, a New Way To Work With Data

  30-08-2023 02:02 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Companies increasingly see the value in mining their data for deeper insights. According to a NewVantage survey, 97.6% of major worldwide organizations are focusing investments into big data and AI. But challenges stand in the way of executing big data analytics. One recent poll found that 65% of organizations feel they have "too much" data to analyze. Google's proposed solution is BigQuery Studio, a new service within BigQuery, its fully mana
  
  Read more

• Linux 6.5 Kernel Released

  30-08-2023 01:20 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols shares what's new in the release of Linux 6.5: The biggest news for servers -- and cloud Linux users -- is AMD Ryzen processors' P-State support. This support should mean better performance and power use across CPU cores. Intel Alder Lake CPUs have also received improved load balancing in a related development. RISC-V architecture fans will be pleased to find Linux now has Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support. ACPI is used in Linux and other op
  
  Read more

• Netflix Added 2.6 Million US Subscribers In July Despite Password-Sharing Crackdown

  30-08-2023 00:40 via slashdot.org
  
  According to research firm Antenna, Netflix had 2.6 million gross subscriber additions in July. "The company also saw the highest percentage of new sign-ups going to its advertising tier since the $7-a-month offering hit the market last November," reports Deadline. "About 23% of new subscribers opted for the ad tier, a gain of four percentage points over June levels." From the report: The overall July gains represented a 26% downturn from June's record-breaking numbers, but they still show momen
  
  Read more

• Sports Leagues Ask US For 'Instantaneous' DMCA Takedowns and Website Blocking

  30-08-2023 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Sports leagues are urging the US to require "instantaneous" takedowns of pirated livestreams and new requirements for Internet service providers to block pirate websites. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 requires websites to "expeditiously" remove infringing material upon being notified of its existence. But pirated livestreams of sports events often aren't taken down while the events are ongoing, said comments submitted last wee
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!