ICT news

• Robot Vacuums Hacked To Shout Slurs At Their Owners

  11-10-2024 23:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Ecovacs robot vacuums have been hacked across the U.S. to shout racial slurs at unsuspecting people. VICE News reports: The issue is specifically with Ecovacs' Deebot X2 model. The hackers gained control of the devices and used the onboard speakers to blast racial slurs at anyone within earshot. One such person was a lawyer from Minnesota named Daniel Swenson. He was watching TV when he heard some odd noises coming from the direction of his vacuum. He changed the password and restarted it. But t
  
  Read more

• Steam Adds the Harsh Truth That You're Buying 'A License,' Not the Game Itself

  11-10-2024 22:50 via games.slashdot.org
  
  In response to California's new law targeting "false advertising" of "digital goods," Valve has added the following language to its checkout page: "A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam." Ars Technica reports: California's AB2426 law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Sept. 26, excludes subscription-only services, free games, and digital goods that offer "permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet." Other
  
  Read more

• Silicon Valley Is Debating If AI Weapons Should Be Allowed To Decide To Kill

  11-10-2024 22:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In late September, Shield AI cofounder Brandon Tseng swore that weapons in the U.S. would never be fully autonomous -- meaning an AI algorithm would make the final decision to kill someone. "Congress doesn't want that," the defense tech founder told TechCrunch. "No one wants that." But Tseng spoke too soon. Five days later, Anduril cofounder Palmer Luckey expressed an openness to autonomous weapons -- or at least a heavy skepticism of argument
  
  Read more

• Have We Reached Peak Human Life Span?

  11-10-2024 21:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  The oldest human on record, Jeanne Calment of France, lived to the age of 122. What are the odds that the rest of us get there, too? Not high, barring a transformative medical breakthrough, according to research published this week in the journal Nature Aging. From a report: The study looked at data on life expectancy at birth collected between 1990 and 2019 from some of the places where people typically live the longest: Australia, France, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• European Govt Air-Gapped Systems Breached Using Custom Malware

  11-10-2024 20:11 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An APT hacking group known as GoldenJackal has successfully breached air-gapped government systems in Europe using two custom toolsets to steal sensitive data, like emails, encryption keys, images, archives, and documents. From a report: According to an ESET report, this happened at least two times, one against the embassy of a South Asian country in Belarus in September 2019 and again in July 2021, and another against a European government organization between May 2022 and March 2024. In May 20
  
  Read more

• Ukraine Arrests VPN Operator Facilitating Access to Russian Internet

  11-10-2024 19:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  penciling_in writes: Ukrainian authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man in Khmelnytskyi for running an illegal VPN service that allowed users to bypass Ukrainian sanctions and access the Russian internet (Runet). The VPN, active since Russia's invasion, enabled Russian sympathizers and people in occupied territories to reach blocked Russian government sites, social media, and news.
  Handling over 100GB of data daily and linking to 48 million Russian IP addresses, the VPN may have been exploite
  
  Read more

• Former Google Chief Urges AI Investment Over Climate Targets

  11-10-2024 18:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt urged prioritizing AI infrastructure over climate goals at a Washington AI summit this week. Schmidt, who led Google until 2011, argued that AI's rapid growth will outpace environmental mitigation efforts. "We're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it," Schmidt told attendees, addressing concerns about AI's surging energy demands.
  Data centers powering AI are projected to consume 35 gigawatts annually by 2030, up from 17 giga
  
  Read more

• The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes

  11-10-2024 18:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A group of Wikipedia editors have formed WikiProject AI Cleanup, "a collaboration to combat the increasing problem of unsourced, poorly-written AI-generated content on Wikipedia." From a report: The group's goal is to protect one of the world's largest repositories of information from the same kind of misleading AI-generated information that has plagued Google search results, books sold on Amazon, and academic journals. "A few of us had noticed the prevalence of unnatural writing that showed cle
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Microsoft To Sell Xbox Games Directly Through Android App

  11-10-2024 17:22 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft will offer direct game purchases through its Xbox app for Android starting November, following a U.S. court ruling against Google's app store monopoly. The move allows Microsoft to circumvent Google's revenue cut on in-app purchases and signals renewed focus on mobile gaming, bolstered by its recent $75.4 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  Read more

• US Officials Race To Understand Severity of China's Salt Typhoon Hacks

  11-10-2024 16:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  U.S. officials are racing to understand the full scope of a China-linked hack of major U.S. broadband providers, as concerns mount from members of Congress that the breach could amount to a devastating counterintelligence failure. From a report: Federal authorities and cybersecurity investigators are probing the breaches of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies. A stealthy hacking group known as Salt Typhoon tied to Chinese intelligence is believed to be responsible. The compro
  
  Read more

• OpenAI's GPT Store has Left Some Developers in the Lurch

  11-10-2024 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI's GPT Store, launched in January 2024, has failed to deliver on promised revenue-sharing for most small developers. Despite CEO Sam Altman's earlier statements about paying creators, only a select few have been invited to a pilot program, Wired is reporting.
  Developers like Josh Brent Villocido, whose Books GPT was featured at launch, remain excluded from monetization opportunities. Many GPT creators report lack of analytics and unclear performance metrics. Some have devised workarounds,
  
  Read more

• Asahi Linux Brings Support For AAA Gaming To Apple Silicon Macs

  11-10-2024 13:00 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Liliputing: The Fedora Asahi Remix GNU/Linux distribution is now shipping with alpha versions of OpenGL, OpenCL, and Vulkan graphics drivers that allow you to play some games on Macs with M1 or M2 series processors. But there are a few things to keep in mind. One is that most of the PC games you're likely going to want to play are designed to run on Windows PCs with DirectX drivers and x86 processors. So there's some emulation required to get them to run
  
  Read more

• US Military Spaceplane To Perform Orbital Maneuvers

  11-10-2024 10:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In a rare disclosure, the U.S. Space Force announced that its secretive X-37B spaceplane will execute a series of maneuvers before returning back to Earth. SpaceNews reports: The reusable spacecraft, which has been in orbit since December 28, 2023, will perform aerobraking maneuvers to alter its trajectory around Earth, the Space Force said Oct. 10. This technique involves making multiple passes through the planet's upper atmosphere, using atmospheric drag to modify the vehicle's orbit while con
  
  Read more

• Man Learns He's Being Dumped Via 'Dystopian' AI Summary of Texts

  11-10-2024 07:30 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, NYC-based software developer Nick Spreen received a surprising alert on his iPhone 15 Pro, delivered through an early test version of Apple's upcoming Apple Intelligence text message summary feature. "No longer in a relationship; wants belongings from the apartment," the AI-penned message reads, summing up the content of several separate breakup texts from his girlfriend -- that arrived on his birthday, no less. Spreen shared a
  
  Read more

• Elon Musk Unveils Tesla Cybercab, Robovan and Updated Optimus Robot

  11-10-2024 05:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  At Tesla's "We, Robot" event at Warner Bros. Studios tonight, Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybercab, Robovan, and an updated version of the Optimus robot. Slashdot is at the event capturing photos and getting demos of everything announced. You can follow along on X. Below is a summary of each of the offerings.Tesla Cybercab: The Tesla Cybercab is a futuristic, fully autonomous robotaxi designed without a steering wheel or pedals, positioned to revolutionize mass transit with extremely low operat
  
  Read more

• AMD Launches AI Chip To Rival Nvidia's Blackwell

  11-10-2024 02:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  AMD is launching a new chip to rival Nvidia's upcoming Blackwell chips, which Nvidia called the "world's most powerful chip" for AI when unveiled earlier this year. CNBC reports: The Instinct MI325X, as the chip is called, will start production before the end of 2024, AMD said Thursday during an event announcing the new product. If AMD's AI chips are seen by developers and cloud giants as a close substitute for Nvidia's products, it could put pricing pressure on Nvidia, which has enjoyed roughly
  
  Read more

• Fidelity Says Data Breach Exposed Personal Data of 77,000 Customers

  11-10-2024 02:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  TechCrunch's Carly Page reports: Fidelity Investments, one of the world's largest asset managers, has confirmed that over 77,000 customers had personal information compromised during an August data breach, including Social Security numbers and driver's licenses. The Boston, Massachusetts-based investment firm said in a filing with Maine's attorney general on Wednesday that an unnamed third party accessed information from its systems between August 17 and August 19 "using two customer accounts th
  
  Read more

• Amazon Dreams of AI Agents That Do the Shopping For You

  11-10-2024 01:20 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Amazon might not have ChatGPT, but it has a roadmap that includes developing even more advanced forms of artificial intelligence -- including AI agents that are hell-bent on helping you buy stuff. The ecommerce company is already sprinkling ChatGPT-like AI over its website and apps -- today announcing, among other enhancements, AI-generated shopping guides for hundreds of different product categories. Executives at the company say its engineers are
  
  Read more

• Ubuntu 24.10 'Oracular Oriole' Released, Celebrating 20 Years of Ubuntu

  11-10-2024 00:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Ubuntu 24.10 'Oracular Oriole', the latest version of the popular Linux distro, introduces several enhancements including a revamped GNOME Initial Setup for ARM64 devices, updated file management features, and a more seamless experience with dialog boxes that adjust to aspect ratios. Celebrating Ubuntu's 20th anniversary, this release also "offers a few touches for those who want to go down memory lane," reports Tom's Hardware. "When the system boots up, you'll see the 20 Years Ubuntu logo right
  
  Read more

• Windows 11's New Passkey Design Includes Cloud Syncing, 1Password Integration

  11-10-2024 00:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft is enhancing passkey support in Windows 11 with a redesigned Windows Hello experience that allows users to sync passkeys to their Microsoft account or third-party providers like 1Password and Bitwarden. The Verge reports: A new API for third-party password and passkey managers means developers can plug directly into the Windows 11 experience, so you can use the same passkey from your mobile device to authenticate on your PC. Right now it's possible in some apps to do this through QR co
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!