ICT news

• Artists May 'Poison' AI Models Before Copyright Office Can Issue Guidance

  03-11-2023 23:40 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader writes: Artists have spent the past year fighting companies that have been training AI image generators—including popular tools like the impressively photorealistic Midjourney or the ultra-sophisticated DALL-E 3—on their original works without consent or compensation. Now, the United States has promised to finally get serious about addressing their copyright concerns raised by AI, President Joe Biden said in his much-anticipated executive order on AI, which was si
  
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• Jeff Bezos Moves To Florida

  03-11-2023 23:02 via news.slashdot.org
  
  schwit1 shares a report from Fortune: After launching Amazon from a garage in Seattle in 1994, centibilllionaire Jeff Bezos is leaving the Pacific Northwest behind and setting sail for Florida. In an Instagram post, the world's third wealthiest person -- with a net worth estimated at $160 billion -- said he wanted to be closer to my parents after they recently moved back to Miami. "My parents have always been my biggest supporters," he posted to his Instagram account, adding that his spacefaring
  
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• OpenELA Drops First RHEL, 'Enterprise Linux' Compatible Source Code

  03-11-2023 22:20 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader williamyf writes: In the ongoing battle between Red Hat and other "Enterprise Linux -- RHEL compatible" distros, today the OpenELA (Open Enterprise Linux Association), a body Consisting of CIQ (stewards of Rocky Linux), Oracle and Suse, released source code for a generic "Enterprise Linux Distro" (Sources available for RHEL 8 and RHEL 9). A Steering committee for the foundation was also formed.War between Red Hat and what they call "clones" (mostly Oracle; CentOS, Rocky
  
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• Ken Mattingly, Astronaut Scrubbed From Apollo 13, Is Dead At 87

  03-11-2023 21:40 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Ken Mattingly, who orbited the moon and commanded a pair of NASA shuttle missions, but who was remembered as well for the flight he didn't make -- the near-disastrous mission of Apollo 13 -- died on Tuesday in Arlington, Va. He was 87. His death was confirmed by Cheryl Warner, a NASA spokeswoman. She did not specify the cause or say whether he died at home in Arlington or in a hospital there. Mr. Mattingly, a former Navy jet pilot with
  
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• A Giant Leap for the Leap Second

  03-11-2023 21:01 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A top scientist has proposed a new way to reconcile the two different ways that our clocks keep time. Meet -- wait for it -- the leap minute. From a report: Later this month, delegations from around the world will head to a conference in Dubai to discuss international treaties involving radio frequencies, satellite coordination and other tricky technical issues. These include the nagging problem of the clocks. For 50 years, the international community has carefully and precariously balanced two
  
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• Meta's Free AI Isn't Cheap To Use, Companies Say

  03-11-2023 20:24 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Some companies that pay for OpenAI's artificial intelligence have been looking to cut costs with free, open-source alternatives. But these AI customers are realizing that oftentimes open-source tech can actually be more expensive than buying from OpenAI. The Information: Take Andreas Homer and Ebby Amir, co-founders of Cypher, an app that helps people create virtual versions of themselves in the form of a chatbot. Industry excitement this summer about the release of Llama 2, an open-source large
  
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• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Bets AI Will Shake Up Scientific Research

  03-11-2023 19:44 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Eric Schmidt is funding a nonprofit that's focused on building an artificial intelligence-powered assistant for the laboratory, with the lofty goal of overhauling the scientific research process. From a report: The nonprofit, Future House, plans to develop AI tools that can analyze and summarize research papers as well as respond to scientific questions using large language models -- the same technology that supports popular AI chatbots. But Future House also intends to go a step further. The "A
  
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• Intel's Failed 64-bit Itanium CPUs Die Another Death as Linux Support Ends

  03-11-2023 19:00 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Officially, Intel's Itanium chips and their IA-64 architecture died back in 2021, when the company shipped its last processors. But failed technology often dies a million little deaths. From a report: To name just a few: Itanium also died in 2013, when Intel effectively decided to stop improving it; in 2017, when the last new Itanium CPUs shipped; in 2020, when the last Itanium-compatible version of Windows Server stopped getting updates; and in 2003, when AMD introduced a 64-bit processor lineu
  
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• CIQ, Oracle and SUSE Unite Behind OpenELA To Take on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

  03-11-2023 18:20 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: When Mike McGrath, Red Hat's Red Hat Core Platforms vice president, announced that Red Hat was putting new restrictions on who could access Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s code, other Linux companies that depended on RHEL's code for their own distro releases were, in a word, unhappy. Three of them, CIQ, Oracle, and SUSE, came together to form the Open Enterprise Linux Association (OpenELA). Their united goal was to foster "the development of distributions c
  
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• Microsoft Employees Aren't Happy That They're Losing Free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

  03-11-2023 17:45 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft is removing the free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for most of its 238,000 employees and some aren't happy about it. From a report: Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the company started informing employees this week that in January 2024 the free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for permanent Microsoft employees will no longer be available. I understand that Xbox employees will continue to keep the benefit, but the vast majority of Microsoft employees who aren
  
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• Okta Breach: 134 Customers Exposed in October Support System Hack

  03-11-2023 17:08 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Okta says attackers who breached its customer support system last month gained access to files belonging to 134 customers, five of them later being targeted in session hijacking attacks with the help of stolen session tokens. From a report: "From September 28, 2023 to October 17, 2023, a threat actor gained unauthorized access to files inside Okta's customer support system associated with 134 Okta customers, or less than 1% of Okta customers," Okta revealed. "Some of these files were HAR files t
  
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• Google, Lendlease End Deals for San Francisco Bay Projects

  03-11-2023 16:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Alphabet's Google and property developer Lendlease Group have ended an agreement to build four projects in the San Francisco Bay Area as the technology firm reviews its real estate footprint. From a report: Lendlease said it will be compensated for its work during the planning process for the projects, which are located in San Jose, Sunnyvale and Mountain View, according to a statement Thursday. "The decision to end these agreements followed a comprehensive review by Google of its real estate in
  
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• 14 Big Landlords Used Software To Collude on Rent Prices, DC Lawsuit Says

  03-11-2023 15:44 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  DC's attorney general has sued 14 of the city's largest landlord firms, claiming they entered into agreements with a property management software firm to keep rent prices high in a city with a housing affordability crisis. From a report: The complaint, filed earlier today by Attorney General Brian Schwalb, focuses on the multifamily landlords' use of software from Texas-based firm RealPage, which suggests rental prices based on a pricing algorithm. Key to those models, according to the suit, is
  
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• Nicolas Cage Says AI Is Nightmare And His Cameo in 'The Flash' Deceptive

  03-11-2023 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Nicolas Cage weighed in on the debate over the use of artificial intelligence in movies, and had some critical words about his brief cameo in Warner Bros. The Flash, in a new interview published this week. From a report: On the subject of AI, the Renfield actor told Yahoo! Entertainment that he has a rather dim view of the technology. "AI is a nightmare to me," Cage said. "It's inhumane. You can't get more inhumane than artificial intelligence ... I would be very unhappy if people were taking my
  
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• 12 V Battery Problem Forces Toyota To Recall 1.8 Million SUVs

  03-11-2023 14:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's plenty of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about electric cars and the potential risk of battery fires, but the regular old 12 V battery is responsible for Toyota issuing a recall for more than 1.8 million cars this week. Toyota says the problem is due to differences in the sizes of replacement batteries -- some have smaller tops than others, and if a smaller-top battery isn't held in properly by its clamp, the battery could move under h
  
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• In a Surprising Finding, Light Can Make Water Evaporate Without Heat

  03-11-2023 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  David L. Chandler reports via MIT News: In recent years, some researchers have been puzzled upon finding that water in their experiments, which was held in a sponge-like material known as a hydrogel, was evaporating at a higher rate than could be explained by the amount of heat, or thermal energy, that the water was receiving. And the excess has been significant -- a doubling, or even a tripling or more, of the theoretical maximum rate. After carrying out a series of new experiments and simulati
  
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• Rats Have an Imagination, New Research Finds

  03-11-2023 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have found that rats posses an imagination. Phys.Org reports: A team from the Lee and Harris labs developed a novel system combining virtual reality and a brain-machine interface to probe a rat's inner thoughts. They found that, like humans, animals can think about places and objects that aren't right in front of them, using their thoughts to imagine walking to a location or moving a remote object to a specific spot. Like humans, when rodents experie
  
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• Researchers Revolt Against Weekend Conferences

  03-11-2023 06:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  In response to studies that relate high rates of female attrition from biomedical research fields to the obligations of motherhood, researchers concerned about inclusivity are now debating the issue of weekend conference duties. Nature: Because published findings are often old news in the rapidly changing biomedical fields, in-person conferences offer a crucial opportunity for scientists to stay current on trends that shape projects and funding outcomes. Yet fields often expect rock-star-like tr
  
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• Fusus' AI-Powered Cameras Are Spreading Across the United States

  03-11-2023 04:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Spread across four computer monitors arranged in a grid, a blue and green interface shows the location of more than 50 different surveillance cameras. Ordinarily, these cameras and others like them might be disparate, their feeds only available to their respective owners: a business, a government building, a resident and their doorbell camera. But the screens, overlooking a pair of long conference tables, bring them all together at once, allowi
  
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• FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty of Fraud

  03-11-2023 03:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot readers schwit1 and Another Random Kiwi share the breaking news that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of fraud. From the Associated Press: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's spectacular rise and fall in the cryptocurrency industry -- a journey that included his testimony before Congress, a Super Bowl advertisement and dreams of a future run for president -- hit a new bottom Thursday when a New York jury convicted him of fraud in a scheme that cheated customers and invest
  
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• US House Panel Seeks Ban On Federal Purchases of China Drones

  03-11-2023 02:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  David Shepardson reports via Reuters: The top members of a U.S. House committee on China are introducing a bill that seeks to ban the U.S. government from buying Chinese drones. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the committee, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking Democrat, are introducing the "American Security Drone Act" on Wednesday, the lawmakers said in a statement to Reuters. "This bill would prohibit the federal government from using American taxpayer dollars to purchase this equipme
  
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• Microsoft Warns It May 'Throttle' Its Generative AI Services for 'Excessive' Users

  03-11-2023 01:42 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has changed the terms and conditions for its online services to include a warning that "excessive" users of its generative AI services will have their access restricted. From a report: The new language appeared in a November 1 update to Microsoft's legalese spotted by licensing-watchers Cloudy With A Chance Of Licensing. The restrictions are described in a new clause of the document titled "Capacity Limitations," is: "Excessive use of a Microsoft Generative AI Service may result in tem
  
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• Mint Is Shutting Down, and It's Pushing Users Toward Credit Karma

  03-11-2023 01:02 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Emma Roth reports via The Verge: Mint, the budgeting app owned by Intuit, is shutting down. Intuit announced on Tuesday that Mint will get absorbed into Intuit's other service, Credit Karma, when it officially goes away on January 1st, 2024 (via Bloomberg). But it's still not clear whether Credit Karma will get the budgeting features that Mint is known for. [...] Mint had 3.6 million monthly active users as of 2021, Bloomberg reports, but the app's development has slowed down considerably in rec
  
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• Chrome Not Proceeding With Web Integrity API Deemed By Many To Be DRM

  03-11-2023 00:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Back in July, Google's work on a Web Integrity API emerged and many equated it to DRM. While prototyped, it was only at the proposal stage and the company announced today it's not going ahead with it. With this proposal, Google wanted to give websites a way to confirm the authenticity of the user and their device/browser.
  The Web Integrity API would let websites "request a token that attests key facts about the environment their client code is running in." It
  
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