ICT news

• Amazon Ads Launches a New AI Video Generator

  22-09-2024 23:12 via slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: On Thursday, Amazon Ads announced Video Generator and Live Image, "our first generative AI-powered technology designed to remove creative barriers and enable brands to produce lifestyle imagery that enhances ad performance."
  Amazon's blog post calls it "a new feature that uses generative AI technology to make it easier for advertisers to create more interesting and relevant video ads for customers. The new feature, Video generator, creates visually rich v
  
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• Internal Google Emails Presented at Antitrust Trial

  22-09-2024 22:12 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In the antitrust trial alleging Google had an ad-selling monopoly, "government lawyers have said some of their strongest evidence is in Google's own internal communications," reports the Wall Street Journal:
  [In 2010] a new crop of ad-tech companies were threatening Google's bottom line. "One way to make sure we don't get further behind in the market is picking up the one with the most traction and parking it somewhere..." [wrote YouTube Chief Executive Neal Mohan, who previously ran Google's di
  
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• AI Smackdown: How a New FTC Rule Also Fights Fake Product Reviews

  22-09-2024 21:12 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Salon looks closer at a new $51,744-per-violation AI regulation officially approved one month ago by America's FTC — calling it a financial blow "If you're a digital media company whose revenue comes from publishing AI-generated articles and fake product reviews.
  But they point out the rules also ban "product review suppression."Per the ruling, that means it's a violation for "anyone to use an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusati
  
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• A California Boy Was Kidnapped from a Park in 1951. He's Just Been Found Alive

  22-09-2024 19:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this story from SFGate:A boy who was kidnapped from an Oakland playground in 1951 has been found alive on the East Coast, a remarkable resolution to a mystery that has haunted his family for over half a century.
  On February 21, 1951, 6-year-old Luis Armando Albino was playing with his older brother Roger at Jefferson Square Park. The boys had recently immigrated with their mother and four other siblings from Puerto Rico... That afternoon, Luis and 10-year-old Roger wal
  
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• 'Compile and Run C in JavaScript', Promises Bun

  22-09-2024 18:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  The JavaScript runtime Bun is a Node.js/Deno alternative (that's also a bundler/test runner/package manager).
  And Bun 1.1.28 now includes experimental support for ">compiling and running native C from JavaScript, according to this report from The New Stack:"From compression to cryptography to networking to the web browser you're reading this on, the world runs on C," wrote Jarred Sumner, creator of Bun. "If it's not written in C, it speaks the C ABI (C++, Rust, Zig, etc.) and is available as
  
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• GM Electric Vehicles Can Now Use Tesla Superchargers

  22-09-2024 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports that electric vehicles made by General Motors now can use Tesla's Superchargers. (GM's charger adapters "will first be made available to customers in the United States, followed by availability for Canadian customers later this year.") The Post writes that the move "expands the number of vehicles compatible with the North American Charging Standard developed by Tesla" — and also marks "another step forward for efforts to settle on a universal public charger netw
  
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• Vaporizing Plastics Recycles Them Into Nothing But Gas, Researchers Find

  22-09-2024 16:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Polypropylene and polyethylene plastics "can be recycled," reports Ars Technica. But as "polyolefin" polymers, "the process can be difficult and often produces large quantities of the greenhouse gas methane.
  "Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have come up with a method of recycling these polymers that uses catalysts that easily break their bonds, converting them into propylene and isobutylene, which are gasses at room temperature. Those gasses can then be recycled into n
  
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• How NASA Could Find Evidence of Life on Another Planet Within 25 Years

  22-09-2024 13:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "In all likelihood, in the next 25 years, we'll find evidence of life on another planet..." begins a new essay by author Dave Eggers in the Washington Post.
  "In more than a dozen conversations with some of the best minds in astrophysics, I did not meet anyone who was doubtful about finding evidence of life elsewhere — most likely on an exoplanet beyond our solar system. It was not a matter of if. It was a matter of when."
  [A]ll evidence points to us getting closer, every year, to identifyi
  
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• Why the UK's Power Grid is Sidelining Clean-Energy Battery Storage

  22-09-2024 10:04 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The administrators of Great Britain's power grid admit that it's often unable to use energy-storage batteries due to old computer systems and an old network with "not enough cables", according to the Financial Times — though the system operator says they're making progress after upgrading their system last December:The company has plans to lower the rate at which batteries are sidelined to single figures by early next year [said Craig Dyke, from National Grid's electricity system operator]
  
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• Car Parts, Fiberglass and a Dream: How a Teacher Built a Hovercraft

  22-09-2024 07:41 via news.slashdot.org
  
  "The cab was cut from a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee," writes the New York Times. "The engine once revved up a 1985 Toyota Celica; and 107 hand-sewn rubber segments, courtesy of Mr. Tymofichuk's wife, help to direct low-pressure air beneath the craft so that it rises eight inches above the ground..."On a cold spring day in a small garage in Alberta, Canada, an engine revved up and an improbable machine — fabricated from auto parts, a hand-sewn rubber skirt and an abandoned fiberglass hull &mda
  
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• California Drivers May Soon Get Mandatory In-Car Speed Warnings Like the EU

  22-09-2024 04:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Exceed the speed limit in one of the 27 European Union countries, and you may get some pushback from your vehicle," reports Car and Driver. "As of July, new cars sold in the EU must include a speed-warning device that alerts drivers if they exceed the posted limit."
  The warnings can be ither acoustic or haptic, "though the European Commission gives automakers the latitude to supplant those passive measures with either an active accelerator pedal that applies counterpressure against the driver's
  
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• America's FTC Sues Insulin Middlemen Who 'Artificially Inflated' Drug Price

  22-09-2024 00:51 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Friday America's Federal Trade Commission brought action against three companies for "anticompetitive and unfair" practices "that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin."
  For years, many of the millions of Americans who need insulin to survive "have been forced to pay exorbitant prices for a product that's inexpensive to make," writes NPR. "Now, the federal government is targeting one part of the system behind high insulin prices."
  While out-of-pocket costs have gone down for many
  
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