ICT news

• Amazon Made $1 Billion Through Secret Price Raising Algorithm, Says FTC

  02-11-2023 23:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Amazon used a secret algorithm to boost prices to U.S. households by more than $1 billion, says the FTC in ia new court filing. "The FTC lawsuit was filed in September but many details were withheld until Thursday when a version of the lawsuit with fewer redactions was made public in U.S. District Court in Seattle," notes Reuters. From the report: Amazon, which has 1 billion items in its online superstore, created a "secret algorithm internally code named 'Project Nessie' to identify specific pr
  
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• Apple Called Android a 'Massive Tracking Device' In 2013

  02-11-2023 23:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Coming out of the ongoing Google antitrust trial, an internal Apple presentation has surfaced (via The Verge) in which the company called Android a "massive tracking device." The presentation in question was regarding a push within Apple to start "Competing on Privacy." The slides, made in January 2013, dove into how Apple's competitors (Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft primarily) handled privacy matters and user data. A "privacy timeli
  
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• Brave Responds To Bing and ChatGPT With a New 'Anonymous and Secure' AI Chatbot

  02-11-2023 22:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Brave browser is rolling out a privacy-focused AI assistant named Leo, which the company claims provides "unparalleled privacy" compared to AI chatbot services likes Bing Chat, ChatGPT, Google Bard and others. The Verge reports: Following several months of testing, Leo is now available to use for free by all Brave desktop users running version 1.60 of the web browser. Leo is rolling out "in phases over the next few days" and will be available on Android and iOS "in the coming months."The cor
  
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• Max Removes 4K Streaming, Other Perks From Ad-Free Plan

  02-11-2023 21:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader Shakrai writes: Continuing the seemingly industry-wide trend towards enshitification of the Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) marketplace, Max today announced that it will be making changes to the current Ad-Free plan. To wit, 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos will be removed and concurrent streams will decrease from three to two.In other words, you are paying the same price for less features. If you wish to keep the features you've had all along, all you have to do is upgrade
  
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• Matic's Robot Vacuum Maps Spaces Without Sending Data To the Cloud

  02-11-2023 21:02 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A relatively new venture founded by Navneet Dalal, an ex-Google research scientist, Matic, formerly known as Matician, is developing robots that can navigate homes to clean "more like a human," as Dalal puts it. Matic today revealed that it has raised $29.5 million, inclusive of a $24 million Series A led by a who's who of tech luminaries, including GitHub co-founder Nat Friedman, Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison, Quora CEO Adam D'
  
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• Rishi Sunak Finds US Reluctant To Give Ground on AI Safety To UK

  02-11-2023 19:47 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Rishi Sunak convened this week's AI summit in an effort to position the UK at the forefront of global efforts to stave off the risks presented by the rapidly-advancing technology -- which in the prime minister's own words, could extend as far as human extinction. From a report: But the reality exposed during the 2-day gathering of politicians and industry experts at Bletchley Park, north of London, is the US is reluctant to cede much of a leadership role on artificial intelligence to its close a
  
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• The Final Beatles Song, 'Now and Then,' Featuring All Four Members and AI, Released

  02-11-2023 19:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  More than 50 years after the Beatles broke up, John, Paul, George and Ringo are back together, reunited for one final track that was released Thursday, officially closing the final chapter in the band's musical output and legacy. From a report: The song, titled "Now and Then," was played on BBC radio just after 2 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET) and simultaneously released on streaming platforms. With the help of digital technology, it features both John Lennon, who was shot dead in 1980, and George
  
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• Cloudflare Dashboard and APIs Down After Data Center Power Outage

  02-11-2023 18:15 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An ongoing Cloudflare outage has taken down many of its products, including the company's dashboard and related application programming interfaces (APIs) customers use to manage and read service configurations. From a report: The complete list of services whose functionality is wholly or partially impacted includes the Cloudflare dashboard, the Cloudflare API, Logpush, WARP / Zero Trust device posture, Stream API, Workers API, and the Alert Notification System. "This issue is impacting all servi
  
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• Arm Acquires Minority Stake in Raspberry Pi

  02-11-2023 17:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Arm today announced that it has made a strategic investment, a minority stake in Raspberry Pi -- the arm of Raspberry Pi responsible for the new Raspberry Pi 5 and past Raspberry Pi products. From a report: Arm's minority stake extends the long-term partnership between Arm and Raspberry Pi, which has seen Arm CPUs feature in all of the Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi Pico SoC. The partnership began way before the Raspberry Pi was available for sale, in 2008 -- when the original board was still jus
  
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• Amazon Boosted Junk Ads and Deleted Messages To Thwart Antitrust Probe, FTC Says

  02-11-2023 17:01 via slashdot.org
  
  Amazon doubled the number of junk ads to boost profits and deleted internal communications to thwart a federal antitrust probe, according to fresh details released by the US Federal Trade Commission in a less redacted complaint against the online retail giant Thursday. From a report: Amazon's founder and former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos personally ordered executives to accept more ads, even ones the company had internally labeled as "defects," indicating they weren't relevant to user se
  
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• Microsoft Overhauling Its Software Security After Major Azure Cloud Attacks

  02-11-2023 16:22 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has had a rough few years of cybersecurity incidents. It found itself at the center of the SolarWinds attack nearly three years ago, one of the most sophisticated cybersecurity attacks we've ever seen. Then, 30,000 organizations' email servers were hacked in 2021 thanks to a Microsoft Exchange Server flaw. If that weren't enough already, Chinese hackers breached US government emails via a Microsoft cloud exploit earlier this year. Something had to g
  
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• PayPal Receives SEC Subpoena Focused on Stablecoin Work

  02-11-2023 15:41 via slashdot.org
  
  PayPal received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission's division of enforcement related to its work on a dollar-linked stablecoin. From a report: The subpoena asked PayPal to produce documents tied to the project, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. The company is cooperating with the probe, the filing said. PayPal unveiled the stablecoin, known as PayPal USD (PYUSD), in August. The coin is pegged to the dollar and fully backed by US dollar deposits, short-term Trea
  
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• Mozilla's 'Failed' Bet on Yahoo Takes Spotlight in Google Trial

  02-11-2023 15:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Mozilla Foundation's decision to switch the search engine built into its Firefox browser to Yahoo from Google was a "failed" bet that degraded the user experience, the company's chief executive said. From a report: Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Baker said Mozilla decided to switch to Yahoo's technology in 2014 after CEO Marissa Mayer took over and promised "to make a big bet on us."
  "That bet failed," Baker said in a videotaped interview from 2022 played Wednesday in Google's defense during t
  
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• Disney To Acquire Remaining Stake In Hulu For Expected $8.6 Billion

  02-11-2023 14:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Disney will acquire Comcast's one-third stake in Hulu for an expected $8.61 billion, the company said Wednesday, in a deal that will put the streaming service entirely inside the Magic Kingdom when the transaction closes later this year. "The acquisition of Comcast's stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney's streaming objectives," the company said in a short statement. Wednesday's deal brings to an end long-running speculation about th
  
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• DoorDash Warns No Tipping May Result In Slower Delivery

  02-11-2023 11:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  quonset shares a report from CNN: If you try to place an order through the DoorDash app without leaving a tip, you may get this pop-up: "Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered -- are you sure you want to continue?" The note goes on: "Dashers can pick and choose which orders they want to do. Orders that take longer to be accepted by Dashers tend to result in a slower delivery." In other words, tip your drivers, or prepare to wait a long time for a cold meal. Customers are then give
  
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• Millions of Fruit Flies Will Be Dropped On Los Angeles

  02-11-2023 08:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "Earlier this month, the California Department of Food and Agriculture quarantined 69 square miles of metro L.A. after invasive and destructive Mediterranean fruit flies were found at a home in the Leimert Park neighborhood," notes The Hill. Officials are now planning to use small planes to drop millions of fruit flies over Los Angeles in an effort to eradicate an invasive and destructive species of the insects. From the report: Jay Van Rein, a spokesperson for the CDFA, told SFGATE that officia
  
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• Pennsylvania Court Permanently Blocks Effort To Make Power Plants Pay For Greenhouse Gas Emissions

  02-11-2023 04:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Pennsylvania cannot enforce a regulation to make power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, a state court ruled Wednesday, dealing another setback to the centerpiece of former Gov. Tom Wolf's plan to fight global warming. The Commonwealth Court last year temporarily blocked Pennsylvania from becoming the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program, and the new ruling makes
  
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• Offshore Wind Firm Cancels New Jersey Projects, As Industry's Prospects Dim

  02-11-2023 02:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Orsted, a Danish offshore wind company, canceled its plans to build two wind farms off the coast of New Jersey -- "a blow to the state's efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the latest shakeout in the U.S. wind industry," reports the New York Times. From the report: The move, which will force Orsted, a Danish company, to write off as much as $5.6 billion, will crimp the Biden administration's plans to make the wind industry a critical component of plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  
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• Instagram Head Says Threads API Is In the Works

  02-11-2023 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Ivan Mehta reports via TechCrunch: Instagram head Adam Mosseri said today that a Threads API is in the works. This will give developers a chance to create different apps and experiences around Threads. Mosseri was responding to journalist Casey Newton, who was conversing with a user about a TweetDeck-like experience for Threads. The Instagram head expressed apprehension about publishers posting a bunch of content and in turn, overshadowing creator content."We're working on it. My concern is that
  
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• First Benchmark Results Surface For M3 Chips In New Macs

  02-11-2023 00:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Joe Rossignol reports via MacRumors: The first benchmark results for the standard M3 chip surfaced in the Geekbench 6 database today, providing a closer look at the chip's CPU performance improvements. Based on the results so far, the M3 chip has single-core and multi-core scores of around 3,000 and 11,700, respectively. The standard M2 chip has single-core and multi-core scores of around 2,600 and 9,700, respectively, so the M3 chip is up to 20% faster than the M2 chip, as Apple claimed during
  
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