ICT news

• First 'Doctor Who' Writer Honored. His Son Contests BBC's Rights to 'Unearthly Child'

  14-10-2023 23:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The BBC reports:
  Doctor Who's first writer could finally be recognised 60 years after he helped launch the hugely-popular series. Anthony Coburn penned the first four episodes of the sci-fi drama in 1963 — a story called An Unearthly Child. But after his second story did not air, the writer has been seen as a minor figure among some Doctor Who fans.
  However, a campaign to erect a memorial to Coburn in his home town of Herne Bay, Kent, is gathering pace a month ahead of the show's 60th anni
  
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• Australian Student Invents Affordable Electric Car Conversion Kit.

  14-10-2023 22:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Australian design student Alexander Burton has developed a prototype kit for cheaply converting petrol or diesel cars to hybrid electric," reports Dezeen magazine, "winning the country's national James Dyson Award in the process."Titled REVR (Rapid Electric Vehicle Retrofits), the kit is meant to provide a cheaper, easier alternative to current electric car conversion services, which Burton estimates cost AU$50,000 (£26,400) on average and so are often reserved for valuable, classic vehic
  
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• Musicians Are Angry About Venues Taking T-shirt Money

  14-10-2023 21:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  The singer known as Tomberlin says their first five years in the music industry may have been a net loss, according to MarketWatch. Selling "merch[andise]" like t-shirts "is what really is covering your costs and hopefully helping you make, like, an actual profit."
  And then...After being told she would have to hand over more than 40% of the money she collected from selling T-shirts and other items, Tomberlin refused to sell her merchandise at the venue and publicly spoke about a practice she cal
  
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• Startup Aims to Build Hundreds of Chip Factories with Prefab Parts and AI

  14-10-2023 20:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "To meet the world's growing hunger for chips, a startup wants to upend the costly semiconductor fabrication plant with a nimbler, cheaper idea..." reports Fast Company, "an AI-enabled chip factory that can be assembled and expanded modularly with prefab pieces, like high-tech Lego bricks."
  In other words, they want to enable what is literally a fast company...
  "We're democratizing the ownership of semiconductor fabs," says Matthew Putman, referring to chip fabrication plants. Putman is the foun
  
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• Chinese Scientists Claim Record-Smashing Quantum Computing Breakthrough

  14-10-2023 19:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  From the South China Morning Post:Scientists in China say their latest quantum computer has solved an ultra-complicated mathematical problem within a millionth of a second — more than 20 billion years quicker than the world's fastest supercomputer could achieve the same task. The JiuZhang 3 prototype also smashed the record set by its predecessor in the series, with a one million-fold increase in calculation speed, according to a paper published on Tuesday by the peer-reviewed journal Phys
  
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• US Antitrust Enforcer Continues Fighting Microsoft/Activision Deal, Calls it 'A Threat to Competition'

  14-10-2023 18:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Yesterday America's Federal Trade Commission said it remained focused on its appeal opposing Microsoft's deal to buy Activision, reports Reuters.
  Reuters notes that Microsoft and Activision closed their transaction Friday "after winning approval from Britain on condition that they sell the streaming rights to Activision's games to Ubisoft Entertainment." But the U.S. Federal Trade Commission "has also fought the deal, and has an argument scheduled before an appeals court on December 6. The agenc
  
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• Third-party Reddit App Narwhal Hopes To Survive Reddit's App Purge With Subscriptions

  14-10-2023 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch:After a nasty battle between the developers of third-party apps and Reddit management, ultimately resulting in a site-wide protest, many app makers were put out of business due to Reddit's price increases related to the usage of its API. Though the changes meant the loss of popular apps like Apollo, RIF (Reddit is Fun), ReddPlanent, Sync and BaconReader, one app, Narwhal, is attempting to make a comeback. The company announced this week that
  
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• Could The Next Big Solar Storm Fry the Grid?

  14-10-2023 16:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared the Washington Post's speculation about the possibility of a gigantic solar storm leaving millions without phone or internet access, and requiring months or years of rebuilding:
  The odds are low that in any given year a storm big enough to cause effects this widespread will happen. And the severity of those impacts will depend on many factors, including the state of our planet's magnetic field on that day. But it's a near certainty that some form of th
  
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• FTX Thief Cashes Out Millions During Bankman-Fried Trial

  14-10-2023 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A thief who stole more than $470 million in cryptocurrency when FTX crashed is trying to cash it out while the exchange's founder is on trial. Sam Bankman-Fried's high-profile court case began last week. The former crypto mogul denies fraud. After lying dormant for nine months, experts say $20 million of the stolen stash is being laundered into traditional money every day. New analysis shows how the mystery thief is trying to hide their tracks. [
  
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• Audit Calls NASA's Goal To Reduce Artemis Rocket Costs 'Highly Unrealistic,' Threat To Deep Space Exploration

  14-10-2023 12:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Richard Tribou reports via Phys.Org: NASA's goal to reduce the costs of the powerful Space Launch System rocket for its Artemis program by 50% was called "highly unrealistic" and a threat to its deep space exploration plans, according to a report by NASA's Office of the Inspector General released (PDF) on Thursday. The audit says the costs to produce one SLS rocket through its proposed fixed-cost contract will still top $2.5 billion, even though NASA thinks it can shrink that through "workforce
  
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• Hydro Dams Are Struggling To Handle the World's Intensifying Weather

  14-10-2023 09:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Saqib Rahim reports via Wired: It's been one of the wettest years in California since records began. From October 2022 to March 2023, the state was blasted by 31 atmospheric rivers -- colossal bands of water vapor that form above the Pacific and become firehoses when they reach the West Coast. What surprised climate scientists wasn't the number of storms, but their strength and rat-a-tat frequency. The downpours shocked a water system that had just experienced the driest three years in recorded
  
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• Biden Awards $7 Billion For 7 Hydrogen Hubs In Climate Fight Plan

  14-10-2023 05:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to Philadelphia on Friday to announce the recipients of $7 billion in federal grants across 16 states for the development of seven regional hydrogen hubs, advancing a key part of a plan to decarbonize the U.S. economy. The announcement of the funding to boost manufacturing and blue-collar jobs was held in Pennsylvania -- a state that could decide the 2024 presidential election -- underscoring the power Biden wiel
  
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• Mathematician Warns US Spies May Be Weakening Next-Gen Encryption

  14-10-2023 04:02 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Matthew Sparkes reports via NewScientist: A prominent cryptography expert has told New Scientist that a US spy agency could be weakening a new generation of algorithms designed to protect against hackers equipped with quantum computers. Daniel Bernstein at the University of Illinois Chicago says that the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is deliberately obscuring the level of involvement the US National Security Agency (NSA) has in developing new encryption standards for "
  
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• Is Glass the Future of Storage?

  14-10-2023 03:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "If we carry on the way we're going, we're going to have to concrete the whole planet just to store the data that we're generating," explains a deputy lab director at Microsoft Research Cambridge in a new video.
  Fortunately, "A small sheet of glass can now hold several terabytes of data, enough to store approximately 1.75 million songs or 13 years' worth of music," explains a Microsoft Research web page about "Project Silica". (Data is retrieved by a high-speed, computer-controlled microscope fr
  
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• Netflix To Open Branded Retail Stores For Some Reason

  14-10-2023 03:25 via slashdot.org
  
  As reported by Bloomberg, Netflix plans to open a number of brick-and-mortar retail locations, called Netflix House, in 2025. Engadget reports: The stores will sell merchandise based on hit Netflix shows, so you can finally snag that Lincoln Lawyer coffee mug you've always dreamed of. Netflix House establishments will also offer dining and curated live experiences. To the latter point, the two initial locations are going to feature an obstacle course based on Squid Game. This seems to miss the p
  
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• Across US, Chinese Bitcoin Mines Draw National Security Scrutiny

  14-10-2023 02:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  According to the New York Times, Chinese-owned bitcoin mining operations in the United States are causing security concerns due to their proximity to important sites and the potential for cyber threats. The Crypto Times reports: There are some mining facilities close to critical sites such as Microsoft data center for Pentagon's Air Force nuclear's missile base in Wyoming USA. Officials in U.S. fear Chinese espionage activities at these places. These mining operations began after China banned bi
  
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• Tesla Releases Official API Documentation To Support Third-Party Apps

  14-10-2023 02:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Tesla has officially released its API documentation to support third-party apps -- after years of operating in a gray zone with an unofficial API. For now, it is geared toward fleet management, but developers are hoping it is a first step toward creating a healthy app ecosystem. [...] So far, it still only covers the command that you can send to your car through the Tesla app, and it can ping the data from your car that goes to the app. In short
  
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• Lenovo Will Soon Distribute Devices Powered By the Esper Foundation OS

  14-10-2023 01:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Keumars Afifi-sabet reports via TechRadar: Lenovo has the green light to see a portfolio of new enterprise-focused devices powered by Esper Foundation -- a custom Android operating system -- and bundled with a complementary mobile device management (MDM) platform. The firm's first device running Esper Foundation is the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70a, an all-in-one desktop PC fitted with an up to 12th-Gen Intel Core i9 CPU, alongside 16GB DDR4 RAM and up to 512GB SSD. It'll be followed by the Lenovo Thi
  
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• ChatGPT Is Being Used To Declassify Redacted Government Docs

  14-10-2023 00:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Last month, OpenAI launched GPT-4 with vision (GPT-4V), allowing the chatbot to read and respond to questions about images. One of the many ways AI users are using this new feature is to decode redacted government documents on UFO sightings. "ChatGPT-4V Multimodal decodes a redacted government document on a UFO sighting released by NASA," one tweet raves. "Maybe the truth isn't out there; it's right here in GPT-V." Decrypt reports: Trying to fill gaps in a string of text is basically what LLMs d
  
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• PC Shipments Decline Slows In Q3 2023, But Apple Plunges Over 23%

  14-10-2023 00:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: It hasn't been a great time in recent quarters for PC companies, but with IDC, Gartner and Canalys all reporting data for Q3 2023, it shows an improving landscape. While shipments still declined between 7% and 9%, depending on whose data you look at, the decline was slowing. But perhaps the biggest surprise in these numbers was the fact Apple was the biggest loser this quarter, with numbers declining between 23% and 29%.First, let's look at th
  
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