ICT news

• Parents Rage Against New Fee To Keep Their Smart Bassinets Smart

  19-08-2024 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Smonster writes: The maker of the Snoo, a popular high-tech bassinet, touched off a firestorm of outrage after requiring a paid subscription to use several key features. Most new parents are looking for a way to reclaim even a hint of the sleep they used to get pre-infant. So a smart bassinet that uses sensors to detect when a crying baby needs pacifying, simulating the sounds and rhythms of the womb, offers an irresistible promise to sleep-strapped parents: another hour or two of shut-eye. The
  
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• UK Tech Entrepreneur Mike Lynch Among Missing In Sicily Yacht Sinking

  19-08-2024 22:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader whoever57 writes: A powerful storm sank the "Bayesian," a superyacht that was carrying Mike Lynch and some guests. In total, there is one confirmed death and another six missing, including Mike lynch and his daughter. It is believed that the yacht is effectively owned by Lynch. The 56-meter yacht had an aluminum hull and could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10. "Lynch co-founded Autonomy, a software firm that became one of the shining lights of the UK tech scene, in
  
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• Google Threatened Tech Influencers Unless They 'Preferred' the Pixel

  19-08-2024 22:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company's invite-only Team Pixel program -- which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability -- stipulated that participating influencers were not allowed to feature Pixel products alongside competitors, and those who showed a preference for competing phones risked being kicked o
  
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• Microsoft Closes Windows 11 Upgrade Loophole in Latest Insider Build

  19-08-2024 21:21 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has finally patched a workaround exploited by users seeking an upgrade path for Windows 11 that dodged the company's hardware requirements. From a report: The tweak arrived without fanfare in the Windows Insider build 27686. There were a few neat tweaks in the build, including updates to the Windows Sandbox Client preview and a much-needed bump from 32 GB to 2 TB for FAT32 when running the command line format function. However, the documentation did not mention an apparent end to one w
  
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• Virginia's Datacenters Guzzle Water Like There's No Tomorrow, Says FOI-based Report

  19-08-2024 20:41 via slashdot.org
  
  Concerns over the environmental impact of datacenters in the US state of Virginia are being raised again amid claims their water consumption has stepped up by almost two-thirds since 2019, and AI could make it worse. From a report: Virginia is described as the datacenter capital of the world, particularly Northern Virginia where it is understood there are about 300 facilities. According to the Financial Times, water consumption by bit barns in some areas has increased markedly over the past five
  
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• Google Denies Report That It's Discontinuing Fitbit Products

  19-08-2024 20:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google is denying a recent report that it is no longer making Fitbit smartwatches. From a report: A company spokesperson told Ars Technica today that Google has no current plans to discontinue the Fitbit Sense or Fitbit Versa product lines. On Sunday, TechRadar published an article titled "RIP Fitbit smartwatches -- an end we could see coming a mile away." The article noted last week's announcement of the new Google Pixel Watch 3. Notably, the watch from Google, which acquired Fitbit in 2019, gi
  
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• VPN Apps Vanish from Brazilian App Store

  19-08-2024 19:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Dozens of VPN apps have vanished from Brazil's Apple App Store, including popular services NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark. Simone Magliano, Head of Research at Top10VPN, reports that at least 30 VPN apps have become unavailable, though their store listings remained visible. Proton VPN, a major free VPN provider, confirmed the App Store issues, speculating it could be "a bug, or Apple implementing a secret censorship order." The move follows X, formerly Twitter, announcing over the weekend th
  
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• GM Cuts 1,000 Software Jobs As It Prioritizes AI

  19-08-2024 18:42 via slashdot.org
  
  General Motors is cutting around 1,000 software workers around the world in a bid to focus on more "high-priority" initiatives like improving its Super Cruise driver assistance system, the quality of its infotainment platform and exploring the use of AI. From a report: The job cuts are not about cost cutting or individual performance, GM spokesperson Stuart Fowle told TechCrunch. Rather, they are meant to help the company move more quickly as it tries to compete in the world of "software-defined
  
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• Procreate's Anti-AI Pledge Attracts Praise From Digital Creatives

  19-08-2024 18:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Many Procreate users can breathe a sigh of relief now that the popular iPad illustration app has taken a definitive stance against generative AI. "We're not going to be introducing any generative AI into our products," Procreate CEO James Cuda said in a video posted to X. "I don't like what's happening to the industry, and I don't like what it's doing to artists."
  The creative community's ire toward generative AI is driven by two main concerns: that AI models
  
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• Raspberry Pi Launches $50 2GB Model

  19-08-2024 17:21 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Raspberry Pi, the British computer manufacturer, unveiled a new 2GB variant of its flagship Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer on Monday, priced at $50. Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said the company aims to "bring high-performance general-purpose computing to the widest possible audience" with the new offering. The 2GB Raspberry Pi 5 utilizes a cost-optimized D0 stepping of the BCM2712 application processor, which removes non-essential functionality to reduce manufacturing costs.
  Upton stated t
  
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• AMD To Acquire Server Maker ZT Systems in $4.9 Billion Deal

  19-08-2024 16:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  AMD agreed to buy server maker ZT Systems in a cash and stock transaction valued at $4.9 billion, adding data center technology that will bolster its efforts to challenge Nvidia. From a report: ZT Systems, based in Secaucus, New Jersey, will become part of AMD's Data Center Solutions Business Group, according to a statement Monday. AMD will retain the business's design and customer teams and look to sell the manufacturing division. Closely held ZT has extensive experience making server computers
  
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• Attractive People Are Less Likely To Play Video Games, NBER Study Says

  19-08-2024 16:00 via games.slashdot.org
  
  From a paper on the National Bureau of Economic Research: We investigate the relationship between physical attractiveness and the time people devote to video/computer gaming. Average American teenagers spend 2.6% of their waking hours gaming, while for adults this figure is 2.7%. Using the American Add Health Study, we show that adults who are better-looking have more close friends. Arguably, gaming is costlier for them, and they thus engage in less of it. Physically attractive teens are less li
  
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• 'GitHub Actions' Artifacts Leak Tokens, Expose Cloud Services and Repositories

  19-08-2024 13:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Security Week brings news about CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions in build processes. Some workflows can generate artifacts that "may inadvertently leak tokens for third party cloud services and GitHub, exposing repositories and services to compromise, Palo Alto Networks warns."[The artifacts] function as a mechanism for persisting and sharing data across jobs within the workflow and ensure that data is available even after the workflow finishes. [The artifacts] are stored for up to 90 days a
  
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• Internet Archive Streams Re-Discovered 1980s Radio Show About Early Computers

  19-08-2024 09:34 via idle.slashdot.org
  
  In the 1980s, a radio show about home computers was broadcast on a handful of California radio stations. 40 years later, reel-to-reel tapes of the shows were re-discovered — and digitized — by an Internet Archive special collections manager.
  An Internet Archive blog post tells the story:
  Earlier this year archivist Kay Savetz recovered several of the tapes in a property sale, and recognizing their value and worthiness of professional transfer, launched a GoFundMe to have them digitiz
  
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• DOS's Last Stand? On a Modern Thinkpad X13 with an Intel 10th-Gen Core CPU

  19-08-2024 06:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader yeokm1 is the Singapore-based embedded security researcher whose side projects include installing Linux on a 1993 PC and building a ChatGPT client for MS-DOS.
  Today he writes:
  When one thinks of modern technologies like Thunderbolt, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet and modern CPUs, one would associate them with modern operating systems. How about DOS?
  It might seem impossible, however I did an experiment on a relatively modern 2020 Thinkpad and found that it can still run MS-DOS 6.22. MS-DOS
  
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• Apple is Building Its Own Cellular Modem, Playing 'Long Game' to Drop Qualcomm

  19-08-2024 03:34 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Bloomberg's Mark Gruman remembers how Apple's hardware group "allowed Apple to dump Intel chips from its entire Mac lineup."
  And they're now building an in-house cellular modem:For more than a decade, Apple has used modem chips designed by Qualcomm... But in 2018 — while facing a legal battle over royalties and patents — Apple started work on its own modem design.... It's devoting billions of dollars, thousands of engineers and millions of working hours to a project that won't really
  
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• Former Google Researcher's Startup Hopes to Teach AI How to Smell

  19-08-2024 02:39 via slashdot.org
  
  "AI is already able to mimic sight and hearing," writes CNBC. And now a startup named Osmo "wants to use the technology to digitize another: smell."Co-founded by a former Google research scientist, the company built an AI that's "superhuman in its ability to predict what things smelled like," the company's co-founder says. And he believes this might actually prove useful. "We've known that smell contains information we can use to detect disease. But computers can't speak that language and can't
  
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• India's Influencers Fear a New Law Could Make them Register with the Government

  19-08-2024 01:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Indian influencersIt's the largest country on earth — home to 1.4 billion people. But "The Indian government has plans to classify social media creators as 'digital news broadcasters,'" according to the nonprofit site RestofWorld.org.
  While there's "no clarity" on the government's next move, the proposed legislation would require social media creators "to register with the government, set up a content evaluation committee that checks all content before it is published, and appoint complain
  
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