ICT news

• 'Invasive' Iranian Intelligence Group Believed to Be The Ones Who Breached Trump's Campaign

  24-08-2024 23:04 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Reuters reports that the Iranian hacking team which compromised the campaign of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump "is known for placing surveillance software on the mobile phones of its victims, enabling them to record calls, steal texts and silently turn on cameras and microphones, according to researchers and experts who follow the group."
  Known as APT42 or CharmingKitten by the cybersecurity research community, the accused Iranian hackers are widely believed to be associated with an in
  
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• NASA Says SpaceX Will Bring Boeing's Starliner Astronauts Back to Earth - in February

  24-08-2024 21:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Boeing "will return its Starliner capsule from the International Space Station without the NASA astronauts," reports CNBC. Though they've been on the space station since early June, the plan is to have them stay "for about six more months before flying home in February on SpaceX's Crew-9 vehicle."The test flight was originally intended to last about nine days."The decision to bring Starliner back from the ISS empty marks a dramatic about-face for NASA and Boeing, as the organizations were previo
  
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• What's 81-Year-Old John 'Captain Crunch' Draper Doing Now?

  24-08-2024 20:34 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  He was employee #13 at Apple Computers — after impressing Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with his "blue box" phone-phreaking technique. Now 81-year-old John "Captain Crunch" Draper has launched a new YouTube channel and web site.
  "I spent decades exploring the depths of communication technology," Draper says in a recent video, "always pushing the boundaries of what's possible, and challenging the status quo." The video is embedded at the top of the new web site, welcoming visitors to "your g
  
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• NASA Smashed into an Asteroid in 2022. The Debris Could End Up Reaching Earth

  24-08-2024 19:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  NASA's 2022 DART mission "successfully demonstrated how a fast-moving spacecraft could change an asteroid's trajectory by crashing into it," remembers Gizmodo, "potentially providing a way to defend Earth — though the asteroid in this test was never a real threat."
  But a followup study suggests debris from that 525-foot (160-meter) asteroid "could actually strike back," they add, "though we're not in any danger."
  The [DART] team posits that the collision produced a field of rocky ejecta th
  
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• Quantum Internet Prototype Runs For 15 Days Under New York City

  24-08-2024 18:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Under the streets of New York City, they're testing a "quantum network," reports Phys.org — where engineers from a Brooklyn company named Qunnect Inc are taking steps to "overcome the fragility of entangled states in a fiber cable and ensure the efficiency of signal delivery."For their prototype network, the Qunnect researchers used a leased 34-kilometer-long fiber circuit they called the GothamQ loop. Using polarization-entangled photons, they operated the loop for 15 continuous days, ach
  
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• RFA Explains How Its UK Rocket Engine Test Led to Monday's Spectacular Explosion

  24-08-2024 17:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Monday brought spectacular footage of an explosion at a UK rocket test site after an engine test went awry. The plan had been to test-fire all of a rocket stage's nine engines at the same time — they've successfully ignited the mores more than a hundred times — but this time one of the first eight had an "unusual" anomaly — "most likely a fire in the oxygen pump," according to a video posted by space company RFA on X.com.
  The trouble "spread onto neighboring engines," eventuall
  
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• 'Alien: Romulus' Director Unbanned from Subreddit After Erroneous Accusations He Was Impersonating... Himself

  24-08-2024 16:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Alien: Romulus director Fede Ãlvarez "briefly dropped into an Alien franchise subreddit this week to chat with fans about his new sequel," reports Deadline. "But the moderators weren't having it, flagging Ãlvarez as an imposter in a notice that he is 'permanently banned' from the subreddit."The moderator shared an update that Ãlvarez "was immediately reinstated and had a very friendly conversation with us. Awesome guy." They also shared the filmmaker's response. "I'm sorry,
  
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• As EV Sales Slump, Volkswagen Scales Back Battery Factories Buildout

  24-08-2024 15:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Volkswagen will wait to see what electric car demand is like before building out all six of its previously planned battery factories. Thomas Schmall, VW's board member in charge of technology, told a German newspaper that "building battery cell factories is not an end to itself" and that a goal of 200 GWh of lithium-ion cells by 2030 was not set in stone. [...] For VW, the previous goal of 200 GWh by 2030 from six factories (through a new su
  
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• Families Can Sue App Developer For Breaking Its Anti-Bullying Pledge, Says Court

  24-08-2024 12:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Verge's Adi Robertson reports: An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling (PDF) issued Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn't block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can't be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassme
  
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• Chinese Scientists Use Lunar Soil To Produce Water, State Media Reports

  24-08-2024 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Chinese scientists have developed a new method to produce significant quantities of water from lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e-5 mission in 2020, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The "brand-new method" involves heating moon minerals containing hydrogen to generate water vapor, which could be crucial for future lunar research stations and space exploration. Reuters reports: "After three years of in-depth research and repeated verification, a brand-new method of using lunar soil to produce
  
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• Megatsunami Risk On the Rise As Glacial Melt Drives Landslides

  24-08-2024 05:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Just under a year ago, the east coast of Greenland was hit by a megatsunami. Triggered by a large landslide entering the uninhabited Dickson Fjord, the resulting tsunami was 200 meters high -- equivalent to more than 40 double-decker buses. Luckily no one was hurt, though a military base was obliterated. Now analysis of the seismic data associated with the event has revealed that the tsunami was followed by a standing wave, which continued t
  
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• Workers at Google DeepMind Push Company to Drop Military Contracts

  24-08-2024 02:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Nearly 200 Google DeepMind workers signed a letter urging Google to cease its military contracts, expressing concerns that the AI technology they develop is being used in warfare, which they believe violates Google's own AI ethics principles. "The letter is a sign of a growing dispute within Google between at least some workers in its AI division -- which has pledged to never work on military technology -- and its Cloud business, which has contracts to sell Google services, including AI develope
  
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• iFixit: The Samsung Galaxy Ring Is $400 of 'Disposable Tech'

  24-08-2024 02:02 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  After a couple of years of regular use, Samsung's $400 Galaxy Ring will end up contributing to the growing e-waste problem. "The Galaxy Ring -- and all smart rings like it -- comes with a huge string attached," writes iFixit in a blog post. "It's 100% disposable, just like the AirPod-style Buds3 that Samsung just released. The culprit? The lithium ion batteries." ZDNet reports: The problem is the battery, and how they have a finite lifespan. Usually that's about 400 recharge cycles, and after th
  
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• Labor Board Confirms Amazon Drivers Are Employees, In Finding Hailed By Union

  24-08-2024 01:20 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon may be forced to meet some unionized delivery drivers at the bargaining table after a regional National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) director determined Thursday that Amazon is a joint employer of contractors hired to ensure the e-commerce giant delivers its packages when promised. This seems like a potentially big loss for Amazon, which had long argued that delivery service partners (DSPs) exclusively employed the delivery drivers, n
  
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• US Sues Georgia Tech Over Alleged Cybersecurity Failings As a Pentagon Contractor

  24-08-2024 00:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Register's Connor Jones reports: The U.S. is suing one of its leading research universities over a litany of alleged failures to meet cybersecurity standards set by the Department of Defense (DoD) for contract awardees. Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, and its contracting entity, Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC), are being investigated following whistleblower reports from insiders Christopher Craig and Kyle Koza about alleged (PDF) failures
  
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• Wyoming Is Pushing Crypto Payments, Trying To Beat the Fed To a Digital Dollar

  24-08-2024 00:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Wyoming is pioneering the next phase of crypto growth by creating its own U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, the Wyoming stable token. The state aims for an early 2025 launch and have it serve as a model for a digitized dollar at the federal level, while also using the token's reserves to fund public schools. CNBC reports: Wyoming is currently vetting potential partners and vendors with more tech expertise to help build the stable token. It will require an exchange and wallet providers -- Coinbase a
  
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