ICT news

• Reviewer Tests $3 SATA SSD, Gets Exactly What They Paid For

  10-10-2023 23:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: StorageReview went through the remarkable journey of testing a $3 SSD from AliExpress. The Goldenfir-brand SSD was reportedly given to the storage site by one of its Discord users for testing. The good news is that Goldenfir is actually using an SSD controller for its NAND drive. The controller is a Yeestor YS9083XT, which the Chinese company announced as a SATA3.2 controller in 2019. [...] StorageReview tested the drive by putting it into a Lenovo SR635 1U s
  
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• Climate Crisis Will Make Europe's Beer Cost More and Taste Worse, Say Scientists

  10-10-2023 22:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Climate breakdown is already changing the taste and quality of beer, scientists have warned. From a report: The quantity and quality of hops, a key ingredient in most beers, is being affected by global heating, according to a study. As a result, beer may become more expensive and manufacturers will have to adapt their brewing methods. Researchers forecast that hop yields in European growing regions will fall by 4-18% by 2050 if farmers do not adapt to hotter and drier weather, while the content
  
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• Finnish President Says Undersea Gas and Telecom Cables Damaged By 'External Activity'

  10-10-2023 22:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Damage to an undersea gas pipeline and telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia appears to have been caused by "external activity," Finnish officials said Tuesday, adding that authorities were investigating. From a report: Finnish and Estonian gas system operators on Sunday said they noted an unusual drop in pressure in the Balticconnector pipeline after which they shut down the gas flow. The Finnish government on Tuesday said there was damage both to the gas pipeline and to a tel
  
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• Sony's Smaller PS5 With a Detachable Disc Drive Lands in November

  10-10-2023 21:20 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Sony announced new PlayStation 5 models that will likely be unofficially called the "PS5 Slim." From a report: The new model has the same horsepower on the inside, but it has a smaller form factor with an attachable disc drive and a 1TB SSD. The new model's detachable drive means you can buy the Digital Edition and change your mind later, essentially adding the drive as an $80 modular accessory. [...] Sony says the new PS5 has 30 percent lower volume, and its weight is 18 percent and 24 percent
  
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• Adobe Unveils New Image Generation Tools in AI Push

  10-10-2023 20:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Adobe on Tuesday said it is rolling out new image-generation technology that can draw inspiration from an uploaded image and match its style, in its latest push to compete with startups challenging its core business. From a report: Image-generating technology from firms like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have threatened Adobe's customer base of creative professionals who use its tools like Photoshop. The San Jose, California-based company has responded by aggressively developing its own versio
  
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• Valve Says Counter-Strike 2 for macOS Not Happening Because There Aren't Enough Players on Mac To Justify It

  10-10-2023 20:00 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Valve says it has no plans for a macOS version of the recently released game Counter-Strike 2, the follow-up title replacing the hugely popular FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. From a report: Valve confirmed its decision and gave its reasons in a newly published Steam support FAQ: "As technology advances, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for older hardware, including DirectX 9 and 32-bit operating systems. Similarly, we will no longer support macOS. Combined, these
  
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• RISC-V Group Says Restrictions on Open Technology Would Slow Innovation

  10-10-2023 19:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The chief executive of RISC-V International says that possible government restrictions on the open-source technology will slow down the development of new and better chips, holding back the global technology industry. From a report: The comments come after Reuters last week reported that a growing group of U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to impose export control restrictions around RISC-V, the open-source technology overseen by the RISC-V International nonprofit foundation
  
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• Vintage Mac Community Begs Manufacturers for New Supply of Rare Dongle as Resellers Charge $250

  10-10-2023 18:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Members of the vintage Mac community are in desperate need of a new supply of a specific, discontinued dongle that has become increasingly rare and extremely expensive on the secondary market. From a report: "Bring Back the Belkin F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI Cable for Vintage Apple Macs!," a change.org petition created this week by vintage Mac enthusiast Grant Woodward reads. "I am deeply concerned about the discontinuation of the Belkin F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI cable. This essential piece of technolog
  
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• HTTP/2 Zero-Day Exploited To Launch Largest DDoS Attacks In History

  10-10-2023 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  wiredmikey writes: A zero-day vulnerability named 'HTTP/2 Rapid Reset' has been exploited by malicious actors to launch the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in internet history. One of the attacks seen by Cloudflare was three times larger than the record-breaking 71 million requests per second (RPS) attack reported by company in February. Specifically, the HTTP/2 Rapid Reset DDoS campaign peaked at 201 million RPS, while Google's observed a DDoS attack that peaked at 398 mill
  
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• IDC: AI is a Solution for a PC Industry With a Sales Problem

  10-10-2023 17:21 via slashdot.org
  
  Business interest in AI PCs is fizzing, at least according to IDC, even though the analyst admits "use cases have yet to be fully articulated." From a report: Such is the hype around generative AI since ChatGPT was made publicly available that big software and hardware brands are looking to shoe horn the tech into every nook and cranny. Just last week HP boss Enrique Lores and Lenovo exec Luca Rossi joined in by confirming both companies are working on a range of AI PCs for general availability
  
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• EU Will Do 'as Much as Possible' To Drive Out Fossil Fuels, Climate Chief Says

  10-10-2023 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The European Union will do all it can to halt fossil fuel use as part of its "ambitious" position at the upcoming COP28 climate summit despite some differences among EU countries, the bloc's new climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said on Monday. From a report: "Our ambition is indeed to do as much as possible, also in terms of driving out fossil fuels," Hoekstra told journalists after a meeting with Spain's acting Energy Minister Teresa Ribera. The European Union's own green agenda is facing growing p
  
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• UK Opposition Leader Targeted By AI-Generated Fake Audio Smear

  10-10-2023 15:00 via politics.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record: An audio clip posted to social media on Sunday, purporting to show Britain's opposition leader Keir Starmer verbally abusing his staff, has been debunked as being AI-generated by private-sector and British government analysis. The audio of Keir Starmer was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by a pseudonymous account on Sunday morning, the opening day of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. The account asserted that the clip, which has now bee
  
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• Google Makes Passkeys the Default Sign-in Method For All Users

  10-10-2023 14:35 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google has announced that passkeys, touted by the tech giant as the "beginning of the end" for passwords, are becoming the default sign-in method for all users. From a report: Passkeys are a phishing-resistant alternative to passwords that allow users to sign into accounts using the same biometrics or PINs they use to unlock their devices, or with a physical security key. This removes the need for users to rely on the traditional username-password combination, which has long been susceptible to
  
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• Microsoft Releases October 2023 Security Updates

  10-10-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Microsoft has released updates to address multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. A cyber threat actor can exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.
  CISA encourages users and administrators to review Microsoft’s October 2023 Security Update Guide and apply the necessary updates. 
  
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• HTTP/2 Rapid Reset Vulnerability, CVE-2023-44487

  10-10-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Researchers and vendors have disclosed a denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability in HTTP/2 protocol. The vulnerability (CVE-2023-44487), known as Rapid Reset, has been exploited in the wild in August 2023 through October 2023.
  CISA recommends organizations that provide HTTP/2 services apply patches when available and consider configuration changes and other mitigations discussed in the references below. For more information on Rapid Reset, see:
  Cloudflare: HTTP/2 Rapid Reset: deconstructing the re
  
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• CISA, FBI, NSA, and Treasury Release Guidance on OSS in IT/ICS Environments

  10-10-2023 14:00 via cisa.gov
  Today, CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury released guidance on improving the security of open source software (OSS) in operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS). In alignment with CISA’s recently released Open Source Security Roadmap, the guidance provides recommendations to OT/ICS organizations on:
  Supporting OSS development and maintenance,
  Managing and patching vulnerabilities in OT/ICS
  
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• A New Law of Physics Could Support the Idea We're Living In a Simulation

  10-10-2023 12:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A physicist from the University of Portsmouth has explored whether a new law of physics could support the theory that we're living in a computer simulation. Phys.Org reports: Dr. Melvin Vopson has previously published research suggesting that information has mass and that all elementary particles -- the smallest known building blocks of the universe -- store information about themselves, similar to the way humans have DNA. In 2022, he discovered a new law of physics that could predict genetic mu
  
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• SC Nuclear Plant Gets Yellow Warning Over Another Cracked Emergency Fuel Pipe

  10-10-2023 09:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Federal regulators have issued a preliminary "yellow" warning to Dominion Energy after cracks were discovered again in a backup emergency fuel line at their South Carolina nuclear plant. ABC News reports: Small cracks have been found a half-dozen times in the past 20 years in pipes that carry fuel to emergency generators that provide cooling water for a reactor if electricity fails at the V.C. Summer plant near Columbia, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is the second most
  
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• Vermont Utility Plans To End Outages By Giving Customers Batteries

  10-10-2023 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Many electric utilities are putting up lots of new power lines as they rely more on renewable energy and try to make grids more resilient in bad weather. But a Vermont utility is proposing a very different approach: It wants to install batteries at most homes to make sure its customers never go without electricity. The company, Green Mountain Power, proposed buying batteries, burying power lines and strengthening overhead cables in a f
  
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• South Korea Firms Get Indefinite Waiver On US Chip Gear Supplies To China

  10-10-2023 03:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  South Korea firms Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will be allowed to supply U.S. chip equipment to their Chinese factories indefinitely without separate U.S. approvals. Reuters reports: "Uncertainties about South Korean semiconductor firms' operations and investments in China have been greatly eased; they will be able to calmly seek long-term global management strategies," said Choi Sang-mok, senior presidential secretary for economic affairs. The U.S. has already notified Samsung and SK Hynix
  
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• Mastodon Actually Has 407K+ More Monthly Users Than It Thought

  10-10-2023 02:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A network connectivity error caused Mastodon to severely undercount its users. According to founder and CEO Eugen Rochko, the decentralized social network actually has 407,814 more monthly active users than it had been reporting previously. "The adjustment also included a gain of 2.34 million registered users across an additional 727 servers that had not been counted due to the error," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The issue was impacting the metrics reported on Mastodon's statistics aggr
  
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• Chinese Programmer Ordered To Pay 1 Million Yuan For Using VPN

  10-10-2023 02:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Amy Hawkins reports via The Guardian: A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China's "great firewall." The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty notice by the public security bureau of Chengde, a city in Hebei province, on August 18. The notice said Ma had used "unauthorised channels
  
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• Europe's First Exascale Supercomputer Will Run On ARM Instead of X86

  10-10-2023 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from ExtremeTech: One of the world's most powerful supercomputers will soon be online in Europe, but it's not just the raw speed that will make the Jupiter supercomputer special. Unlike most of the Top 500 list, the exascale Jupiter system will rely on ARM cores instead of x86 parts. Intel and AMD might be disappointed, but Nvidia will get a piece of the Jupiter action. [...] Jupiter is a project of the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (Eu
  
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• John Riccitiello Steps Down As CEO of Unity After Pricing Battle

  10-10-2023 00:40 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Dean Takahashi reports via VentureBeat: John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, has resigned from the company in the wake of a pricing controversy that left developers in open revolt. Unity said in a press release that James M. Whitehurst has been appointed interim CEO and president of the company. Meanwhile, hoping to avoid a stock panic, Unity said that it is reaffirming its previous guidance for its fiscal third quarter financial results, which will be reported on November 9.Roelof Botha, lead indepe
  
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• California Governor Signs Ban On Social Media 'Aiding or Abetting' Child Abuse

  10-10-2023 00:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Adi Robertson reports via The Verge: California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 1394, a law that would punish web services for "knowingly facilitating, aiding, or abetting commercial sexual exploitation" of children. It's one of several online regulations that California has passed in recent years, some of which have been challenged as unconstitutional. Newsom's office indicated in a press release yesterday that he had signed AB 1394, which passed California's legislature in late September.T
  
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