ICT news

• Paul Allen's Estate Auction Includes Vintage Apple-1, CP/M and DOS-Powered Computers

  17-08-2024 22:34 via slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Christie's this week announced the items that will be auctioned in three sales from the Paul G. Allen Collection, including historic computers and artifacts from the late Microsoft co-founder's former Living Computers Museum + Labs in Seattle.They include an Apple-1 from the desk of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, estimated at $500,000 to $800,000, to be auctioned as part of a live sale on Sept. 10 at Christie's Rockefeller Center in New York.
  Among the
  
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• 2024's Hugo Award Winners Announced

  17-08-2024 21:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader Dave Knott writes: After once again being plagued by controversy, this time due to a thwarted ballot-stuffing campaign, the 2024 Hugo Awards have been awarded at the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention. This year's winners are:* Best Novel: Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh
  * Best Novella: Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher
  * Best Novelette: "The Year Without Sunshine", by Naomi Kritzer
  * Best Short Story: "Better Living Through Algorithms", by Naomi Kritzer
  * Best Series: Imperial
  
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• To Fight Censorship Order, X.com Announces It's Ending Business Operations in Brazil

  17-08-2024 20:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  X.com "says it's ending business operations in Brazil effective immediately," reports Engadget, "but the service will remain available to users in the country."The company says Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the Superior Electoral Court and a justice of the Supreme Federal Court, threatened one of X's legal representatives with arrest if it did not "comply with his censorship orders." According to Reuters, de Moreas demanded that X remove certain content from its platform.
  Rather than com
  
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• Can the US Regulate Algorithm-Based Price Fixing on Rental Housing?

  17-08-2024 19:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  "Some corporate landlords collude with each other to set artificially high rental prices, often using algorithms and price-fixing software to do it."That's a U.S. presidential candidate, speaking yesterday in North Carolina to warn that the practice "is anticompetitive, and it drives up costs. I will fight for a law that cracks down on these practices."
  Ironically, it's a problem caused by technology that's impacting some of America's major tech-industry cities. Investopedia reports:
  Harris prop
  
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• Preparing to Monetize, Threads Launches New Tools for Users

  17-08-2024 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "We're testing a few new ways to plan and manage your presence on Threads," announced top Threads/Instagram executive Adam Mosseri, promising their 200 million-plus users "enhanced insights to help you better understand your followers and how posts perform, and the ability to save multiple drafts with scheduling coming soon."
  Axios reports:Helping creators avoid burnout has become a growing focus for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said in July that the company's new generative AI tools can allevi
  
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• Space Telescope Data Reignites Debate Over How Fast Our Universe Is Expanding

  17-08-2024 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "A new front has opened in the longstanding debate over how fast the universe is expanding," writes Science magazine:For years astronomers have argued over a gulf between the expansion rate as measured from galaxies in the local universe and as calculated from studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the Big Bang. The disparity was so large and persistent that some astronomers thought the standard theory of the universe might have to be tweaked. But over the past week,
  
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• GitHub Promises 'Additional Guardrails' After Wednesday's Update Triggers Short Outage

  17-08-2024 16:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Wednesday GitHub "broke itself," reports the Register, writing that "the Microsoft-owned code-hosting outfit says it made a change involving its database infrastructure, which sparked a global outage of its various services."
  Or, as the Verge puts it, GitHub experienced "some major issues" which apparently lasted for 36 minutes:
  When we first published this story, navigating to the main GitHub website showed an error message that said "no server is currently available to service your request," b
  
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• Ask Slashdot: What Network-Attached Storage Setup Do You Use?

  17-08-2024 13:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "I've been somewhat okay about backing up our home data," writes long-time Slashdot reader 93 Escort Wagon.
  But they could use some good advice:We've got a couple separate disks available as local backup storage, and my own data also gets occasionally copied to encrypted storage at BackBlaze. My daughter has her own "cloud" backups, which seem to be a manual push every once in a while of random files/folders she thinks are important. Including our media library, between my stuff, my daughter's,
  
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• An Insider's Perspective Into the Pentagon's UFO Hunt

  17-08-2024 12:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  In his new memoir, Imminent, former senior intelligence official Luis Elizondo claims that a supersecret program has been retrieving technology and biological remains of nonhuman origin for decades, warning that these phenomena could pose a serious national security threat or even an existential threat to humanity. The New York Times reports: Luis Elizondo made headlines in 2017 when he resigned as a senior intelligence official running a shadowy Pentagon program investigating U.F.O.s and public
  
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• NASA Citizen Scientists Spot Object Moving 1 Million Miles Per Hour

  17-08-2024 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Citizen scientists from NASA's Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project discovered a hypervelocity object, CWISE J1249, moving fast enough to escape the Milky Way. "This hypervelocity object is the first such object found with the mass similar to or less than that of a small star," reports NASA's Science Editorial Team, suggesting the object may have originated from a binary star system or a globular cluster. From the report: A few years ago, longtime Backyard Worlds citizen scientists Martin Kabatnik,
  
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• US Presses the 'Reset Button' On Technology That Lets Cars Talk To Each Other

  17-08-2024 05:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Safety advocates have been touting the potential of technology that allows vehicles to communicate wirelessly for years. So far, the rollout has been slow and uneven. Now the U.S. Department of Transportation is releasing a roadmap it hopes will speed up deployment of that technology -- and save thousands of lives in the process. "This is proven technology that works," Shailen Bhatt, head of the Federal Highway Administration, said at an event Friday
  
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• National Public Data Confirms Breach Exposing Social Security Numbers

  17-08-2024 03:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  BleepingComputer's Ionut Ilascu reports: Background check service National Public Data confirms that hackers breached its systems after threat actors leaked a stolen database with millions of social security numbers and other sensitive personal information. The company states that the breached data may include names, email addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers (SSNs), and postal addresses.In the statement disclosing the security incident, National Public Data says that "the informati
  
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• US Fines T-Mobile $60 Million, Its Largest Penalty Ever, Over Unauthorized Data Access

  17-08-2024 02:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) fined T-Mobile $60 million, its largest penalty ever, for failing to prevent and report unauthorized access to sensitive data tied to violations of a mitigation agreement from its 2020 merger with Sprint. "The size of the fine, and CFIUS's unprecedented decision to make it public, show the committee is taking a more muscular approach to enforcement as it seeks to deter future violations," reports Reuters. From the report: T-Mobile said in a statem
  
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• Dubai Court Recognizes Crypto As a Valid Salary Payment

  17-08-2024 02:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Dubai Court of First Instance has declared that cryptocurrency can be used as a legal form of salary under employment contracts. CoinTelegraph reports: Irina Heaver, a partner at UAE law firm NeosLegal, explained that the ruling in case number 1739 of 2024 shows a shift from the court's earlier stance in 2023, where a similar claim was denied because the crypto involved lacked precise valuation. Heaver believes this shows a "progressive approach" to integrating digital currencies into the co
  
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• Smart Sous Vide Cooker To Start Charging Monthly Fee For 10-Year-Old Companion App

  17-08-2024 01:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anova, a company that sells smart sous vide cookers, is getting backlash from customers after announcing that it will soon charge a subscription fee for the device's companion app. Anova was founded in 2013 and sells sous vide immersion circulators. Its current third-generation Precision Cooker 3.0 has an MSRP of $200. Anova also sells a $149 model and a $400 version that targets professionals. It debuted the free Anova Culinary App in 2014.
  
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• IKEA's Stock-Counting Warehouse Drones Will Fly Alongside Workers In the US

  17-08-2024 00:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  IKEA is expanding its stock-counting drone system to operate alongside workers in the U.S., starting with its Perryville, Maryland distribution center. The Verge reports: The Verity-branded drones also come with a new AI-powered system that allows them to fly around warehouses 24/7. That means they'll now operate alongside human workers, helping to count inventory as well as identify if something's in the wrong spot. Previously, the drones only flew during nonoperational hours. Parag Parekh, the
  
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• Judge Bars Disney, Warner, Fox From Launching Sports Streamer Venu

  17-08-2024 00:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  A federal judge blocked the launch of Venu, a sports streaming joint venture by Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, due to concerns it would substantially lessen competition and harm FuboTV. Variety reports: Fubo launched in 2015 as a start-up focused on streaming sports programming. [...] Venu, expected to launch in late August ahead of the start of the NFL's coming fall season and priced at an initial price tag of $42.99 per month, was to carry all of the sports offerings of ESPN, Fox Spo
  
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