ICT news

• Could We Turn the Sun Into an Extremely Powerful Telescope?

  21-09-2024 23:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  It's hypothetically capable of "delivering an exquisite portrait of the detailed surface features of any exoplanet within 100 light-years..." writes Space.com.
  "It would be better than any telescope we could possibly build in any possible future for the next few hundred years..."
  While the sun may not look like a traditional lens or mirror, it has a lot of mass. And in Einstein's theory of general relativity, massive objects bend space-time around them. Any light that grazes the surface of the s
  
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• New X Court Filing Says It's Complying with Brazil's Orders to Block Accounts

  21-09-2024 22:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  X's struggles in Brazil got this update from the Guardian Wednesday:In a statement tweeted from X's global government affairs account, the company said the restoration of service was an "inadvertent and temporary" side-effect of switching network providers.
  But Friday "After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, Mr. Musk's social network, X, has capitulated," writes the New York Times. "In a court filing on Friday night, the company's lawyers said that X had complied with orders from B
  
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• Scientists Again Link Covid Pandemic Origin to Wuhan Market Animals

  21-09-2024 21:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports:An international team of scientists published a peer-reviewed paper Thursday saying genetic evidence indicates the coronavirus pandemic most likely originated with a natural spillover from an animal or animals sold in a market in Wuhan, China, where many of the first human cases of covid-19 were identified. The paper, which appears in the journal Cell, does not claim to prove conclusively that the pandemic began in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and it is unlike
  
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• Researcher Wins Award For Debunking Longer Life Expectancies in 'Blue Zones'

  21-09-2024 20:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot first covered Saul Justin Newman's work in 2019.
  Now a senior research fellow at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at University College London, Newman was recognized last week for research finding that most claims of people living over 105 are wrong. Newman's research was honored with an Ig Nobel Prize (awarded for research that makes people "laugh then think") — which led to a thought-provoking interview in the Conversation:
  Newman: In general, the claims about how long people
  
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• Meta and YouTube Ban Russian State Media for 'Foreign Interference'

  21-09-2024 19:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) announced Monday that Russian state media outlets like RT are now "banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity," reports CNN.
  CNN adds that Meta is alleging that the "Kremlin-controlled networks" have "engaged in deceptive influence operations and attempted to evade detection... Prior to Monday's ban, RT had 7.2 million followers on Facebook and 1 million followers on Instagram."The move comes days after the US Jus
  
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• As Companies Try 'Open Source Rug Pull', Open Source Foundations Considered Helpful

  21-09-2024 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  "In the era of the open source rug pull, the role of open source foundations is more important than ever," argues the co-founder of the developer-focused industry analyst firm RedMonk:
  The "rug pull" here refers to companies that have used open source as a distribution mechanism, building a community and user base, before changing the license to be restricted, rather than truly open source. "This is capitalism, yo. We've got shareholders to satisfy. It's time to relicense that software, move to
  
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• Qualcomm Approached Intel About a Takeover

  21-09-2024 17:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Friday the Wall Street Journal reported Qualcomm recently "made a takeover approach" to Intel, which has a market value of roughly $90 billion ("according to people familiar with the matter...")
  A deal is far from certain, the people cautioned. Even if Intel is receptive, a deal of that size is all but certain to attract antitrust scrutiny, though it is also possible it could be seen as an opportunity to strengthen the U.S.'s competitive edge in chips... Both Intel and Qualcomm have become U.S.
  
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• Do Self-Service Kiosks Actually Increase Employment at Fast-Food Restaurants?

  21-09-2024 16:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Instead of eliminating jobs, self-service kiosks at McDonald's and other fast-food chains "have added extra work for kitchen staff," reports CNN — and as a bonus, "pushed customers to order more food than they do at the cash register..."
  Kiosks "guarantee that the upsell opportunities" like a milkshake or fries are suggested to customers when they order, Shake Shack CEO Robert Lynch said on an earnings call last month. "Sometimes that is not always a priority for employees when you've got
  
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• Tech Giants Push To Dilute Europe's AI Act

  21-09-2024 14:31 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The world's biggest technology companies have embarked on a final push to persuade the European Union to take a light-touch approach to regulating AI as they seek to fend off the risk of billions of dollars in fines. From a report: EU lawmakers in May agreed the AI Act, the world's first comprehensive set of rules governing the technology, following months of intense negotiations between different political groups. But until the law's accompanying codes of practice have been finalised, it remain
  
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• US Awards $3 Billion To Boost Domestic Battery Production

  21-09-2024 13:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  American Battery Technology and lithium-producer Albemarle are among 25 companies getting more than $3 billion in funding from the Biden administration to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and components. From a report: The funding -- part of a broader White House goal of creating an American battery supply chain -- is going to projects that are building, expanding or retrofitting facilities to process critical minerals, build components and batteries and recycle materials, the Ene
  
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• Antarctic 'Doomsday Glacier' Melting Faster, Scientists Warn

  21-09-2024 09:31 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A massive Antarctic glacier, dubbed the "Doomsday Glacier," is melting at an accelerating rate and could be approaching irreversible collapse, international researchers are reporting. The Thwaites Glacier, holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by over two feet, has seen rapid retreat in the past 30 years.
  Scientists from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration used ice-breaking ships and underwater robots to study the glacier up close since 2018. Their findings reveal warm ocean
  
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• 'Butterfly Emergency' Declared as UK Summer Count Hits Record Low

  21-09-2024 06:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A national "butterfly emergency" has been declared by Butterfly Conservation after the lowest Big Butterfly Count since records began. From a report: An average of just seven butterflies per 15-minute count were recorded by participants in this summer's butterfly count, the lowest in the survey's 14-year history. It was the worst year on record for once-ubiquitous species, including the common blue, small tortoiseshell, small white and green-veined white. Eight out of the 10 most-seen species ha
  
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• Internet Surveillance Firm Sandvine Says It's Leaving 56 'Non-Democratic' Countries

  21-09-2024 03:13 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Sandvine, the makers of surveillance-ware that allowed authoritarian countries to censor the internet and spy on their citizens, announced that it is leaving dozens of "non-democratic" countries as part of a major overhaul of the company. From a report: The company, which was founded in Canada, published a statement on Thursday, claiming that it now wants to be "a technology solution leader for democracies." As part of this new strategy, Sandvine said it has already left 32 countries and is in t
  
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• Project Analyzing Human Language Usage Shuts Down Because 'Generative AI Has Polluted the Data'

  21-09-2024 01:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The creator of an open source project that scraped the internet to determine the ever-changing popularity of different words in human language usage says that they are sunsetting the project because generative AI spam has poisoned the internet to a level where the project no longer has any utility. 404 Media: Wordfreq is a program that tracked the ever-changing ways people used more than 40 different languages by analyzing millions of sources across Wikipedia, movie and TV subtitles, news articl
  
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• Automatic Takeoffs Are Coming For Passenger Jets

  21-09-2024 00:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  New submitter LazarusQLong shares a report: In late 1965, at what's now London Heathrow airport, a commercial flight coming from Paris made history by being the first to land automatically. The plane -- A Trident 1C operated by BEA, which would later become British Airways -- was equipped with a newly developed extension of the autopilot (a system to help guide the plane's path without manual control) known as "autoland." Today, automatic landing systems are installed on most commercial aircraft
  
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