ICT news

• Video Game Actors Are Officially On Strike Over AI

  05-08-2024 23:40 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) are striking against the video game industry due to failed negotiations over AI-related worker protections. "The guild began striking on Friday, July 26th, preventing over 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members from taking new video game projects and impeding games already in development from the biggest publishers to the smallest indie studios," notes The Verge. From the report: Negotiations broke down due to disagreements over worker protections around AI. The
  
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• Apple Debuts New 'Distraction Control' Feature For Safari

  05-08-2024 23:01 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has introduced a new feature for Safari that allows users to block distracting elements on web pages, such as sign-in popups, some autoplay videos and even ads (temporarily). The feature is called "Distraction Control" and is rolling out today in iOS 18 beta 5. 9to5Mac reports: Distraction Control is accessible via the same Page Menu interface in Safari as Reader and Viewer. Here, users will find a new "Hide Distracting Items" option to enable Distraction Control. Users will then be prompt
  
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• Indonesia Bans Search Engine DuckDuckGo On Gambling, Pornography Concerns

  05-08-2024 22:24 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Indonesia said it has banned the privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo, citing concerns that it could be used to access pornography and online gambling websites which are illegal in the country, the communications ministry said on Friday. Indonesia, with the world's biggest Muslim population, has strict rules that ban the sharing online of content deemed obscene. Social media platform Reddit and video-hosting platform Vimeo are blocked.Usman
  
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• Google Loses DOJ Antitrust Suit Over Search

  05-08-2024 20:59 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google's payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing a key victory to the Justice Department. From a report: Judge Amit Mehta in Washington said that the Alphabet unit's $26 billion in payments effectively blocked any other competitor from succeeding in the market. Antitrust enforcers alleged that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly over online search and related advertising. The government said
  
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• Design Flaw Has Microsoft Authenticator Overwriting MFA Accounts, Locking Users Out

  05-08-2024 20:50 via it.slashdot.org
  
  snydeq writes: CSO Online's Evan Schuman reports on a design flaw in Microsoft Authenticator that causes it to often overwrite authentication accounts when a user adds a new one via QR scan. "But because of the way the resulting lockout happens, the user is not likely to realize the issue resides with Microsoft Authenticator. Instead, the company issuing the authentication is considered the culprit, resulting in wasted corporate helpdesk hours trying to fix an issue not of that company's making.
  
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• Illinois Governor Approves Business-Friendly Overhaul of Biometric Privacy Law

  05-08-2024 20:10 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill into law that will significantly curb the penalties companies could face for improperly collecting and using fingerprints and other biometric data from workers and consumers. From a report: The bill passed by the legislature in May and signed by Pritzker, a Democrat, on Friday amends the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) so that companies can be held liable only for a single violation per person, rather than for each time biometric
  
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• Every Microsoft Employee Is Now Being Judged on Their Security Work

  05-08-2024 19:25 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Reeling from security and optics issues, Microsoft appears to be trying to correct its story. An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft made it clear earlier this year that it was planning to make security its top priority, following years of security issues and mounting criticisms. Starting today, the software giant is now tying its security efforts to employee performance reviews. Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft's chief people officer, has outlined what the company expects of employees in an in
  
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• Nvidia Allegedly Scraped YouTube, Netflix Videos for AI Training Data

  05-08-2024 18:48 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Nvidia scraped videos from YouTube, Netflix and other online platforms to compile training data for its AI products, 404 Media reported Monday, citing internal documents. The tech giant used this content to develop various AI projects, including its Omniverse 3D world generator and self-driving car systems, the report said. Some employees expressed concerns about potential legal issues surrounding the use of such content, the report said, adding that the management assured them of executive-leve
  
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• Elon Musk Revives Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Sam Altman

  05-08-2024 18:05 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Elon Musk has reignited his legal battle against OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, by filing a new lawsuit in a California federal court. The suit, which revives a six-year-old dispute, accuses OpenAI founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of breaching the company's founding principles by prioritizing commercial interests over public benefit.
  Musk's complaint alleges that OpenAI's multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft contradicts the original mission to develop AI responsibly for humanity
  
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• CrowdStrike To Delta: Stop Pointing the Finger at Us

  05-08-2024 17:31 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  CrowdStrike says that it isn't to blame for Delta Air Lines' dayslong meltdown following the tech outage caused by the cybersecurity company, and that it isn't responsible for all of the money that the carrier says it lost. From a report: In a letter responding to the airline's recent public comments and hiring of a prominent lawyer, CrowdStrike said Delta's threats of a lawsuit have contributed to a "misleading narrative" that the cybersecurity company was responsible for the airline's tech dec
  
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• Schwab, Fidelity Traders Report Outages During Stock Meltdown

  05-08-2024 16:42 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Charles Schwab and other retail brokerage users reported outages as a global stocks selloff surged when trading in the US market opened on Monday. From a report: More than 14,000 users reported an outage at Schwab at 9:50 a.m. in New York, according to the website Downdetector. The outage comes at a time when global financial markets are experiencing a significant downturn as a widespread sell-off intensified following Friday's disappointing US employment data, which heightened concerns about a
  
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• OpenAI Grapples With Unreleased AI Detection Tool Amid Cheating Concerns

  05-08-2024 16:14 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI has developed a sophisticated anticheating tool for detecting AI-generated content, particularly essays and research papers, but has refrained from releasing it due to internal debates and ethical considerations, according to WSJ.
  This tool, which has been ready for deployment for approximately a year, utilizes a watermarking technique that subtly alters token selection in ChatGPT's output, creating an imperceptible pattern detectable only by OpenAI's technology. While boasting a 99.9% ef
  
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• Are EV 'Charger Hogs' Ruining the EV Experience?

  05-08-2024 13:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A CNN reporter spent more than two hours waiting for EV chargers — thanks to "ill-mannered charger hogs who don't respect EV etiquette."
  [T]o protect batteries from damage, charging speeds slow way down once batteries get beyond 80% full. In fact, it can take as long, or even longer, to go from 80% charged to completely full than to reach 80%. Meanwhile, lines of electric vehicles wait behind almost-full cars. I was waiting behind people with batteries that were 92%, 94% and even 97% full,
  
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• Founder of Collapsed Social Media Site 'IRL' Charged With Fraud Over Faked Users

  05-08-2024 09:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  This week America's Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against the former CEO of the startup social media site "IRL"The BBC reports:IRL — which was once considered a potential rival to Facebook — took its name from its intention to get its online users to meet up in real life. However, the initial optimism evaporated after it emerged most of IRL's users were bots, with the platform shutting in 2023...
  The SEC says it believes [CEO Abraham] Shafi raised about $170m
  
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• DARPA Wants to Automatically Transpile C Code Into Rust - Using AI

  05-08-2024 05:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  America's Defense Department has launched a project "that aims to develop machine-learning tools that can automate the conversion of legacy C code into Rust," reports the Register — with an online event already scheduled later this month for those planning to submit proposals:The reason to do so is memory safety. Memory safety bugs, such buffer overflows, account for the majority of major vulnerabilities in large codebases. And DARPA's hope [that's the Defense Department's R&D agency]
  
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• Whatever Happened to MySpace?

  05-08-2024 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In 2006 MySpace reportedly became America's most-visited web site — passing both Google and Yahoo Mail.
  So what happened? TribLive reports:
  The co-founders, Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, sold MySpace to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580 million in 2005, and that company sold it to the online advertising company Specific Media and Justin Timberlake in 2011, which later became the ad tech firm Viant, according to SlashGear. Viant was bought by Time in 2016, which was acquired by M
  
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• Neuralink Has Successfully Implanted a Second Brain Chip, Musk Says

  05-08-2024 00:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Late Friday Elon Musk appeared on Lex Fridman's podcast for a special eight-hour episode about Neuralink.
  It's already been viewed 1,702,036 times on YouTube — and resulted in this report from Reuters:Neuralink has successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give paralyzed patients the ability to use digital devices by thinking alone, according to the startup's owner Elon Musk... [Musk] gave few details about the second participant beyond saying the person had a spina
  
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