ICT news

• Bose Acquires Premium Audio Brand McIntosh

  19-11-2024 23:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Bose has acquired the high-end audio brand McIntosh, a move the company says will "significantly" expand its product lineup and open "new opportunities in the automotive sector." The Verge reports: McIntosh has already designed a sound system for some Jeep models, but Bose's audio setups are found within a wider range of cars from automakers like Chevy, Honda, Nissan, Cadillac, and many others. It doesn't look like Bose or McIntosh will make any changes to their existing products. Bose says it w
  
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• Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Arrives With a 'Full Digital Twin' of Earth

  19-11-2024 23:02 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is out today (Xbox/PC, Steam), and it packs in a whole lot of simulation. It's hard to imagine topping the 2020 version, which contained the entire world, at scale, 3D modeled and able to be flown over. It had real-time weather and rather detailed physics. You could theoretically fly a helicopter back to your high school football field and land on it, like 15-year reunion royalty.What could come next? A lot, i
  
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• Minecraft Enters Real World With $110 Million Global Theme Park Deal

  19-11-2024 22:21 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The global gaming phenomenon Minecraft is coming to the real world for the first time in a global deal to open themed rides, attractions, hotel rooms and retail outlets, starting with the UK and US. Minecraft has struck a deal with UK-headquartered Merlin Entertainments -- Europe's largest theme park operator and the second biggest globally after Disney -- which runs more than 135 attractions in 23 countries including Alton Towers, Legoland, Sea Life, Madame
  
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• Microsoft Rolls Out Recovery Tools After CrowdStrike Incident

  19-11-2024 21:42 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has announced sweeping changes to Windows security architecture, including new recovery capabilities designed to prevent system-wide outages following July's CrowdStrike incident that disabled 8.5 million Windows devices.
  The Windows Resiliency Initiative introduces Quick Machine Recovery, allowing IT administrators to remotely fix unbootable systems through an enhanced Windows Recovery Environment. Microsoft is also mandating stricter testing and deployment practices for security vend
  
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• The US Patent and Trademark Office Banned Staff From Using Generative AI

  19-11-2024 21:01 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: The US Patent and Trademark Office banned the use of generative artificial intelligence for any purpose last year, citing security concerns with the technology as well as the propensity of some tools to exhibit "bias, unpredictability, and malicious behavior," according to an April 2023 internal guidance memo obtained by WIRED through a public records request. Jamie Holcombe, the chief information officer of the USPTO, wrote that the office is "committed to p
  
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• Indian News Agency Sues OpenAI Alleging Copyright Infringement

  19-11-2024 20:21 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  One of India's largest news agencies, Asian News International, has sued OpenAI in a case that could set a precedent for how AI companies use copyrighted news content in the world's most populous nation. From a report: Asian News International filed a 287-page lawsuit in the Delhi High Court on Monday, alleging the AI company illegally used its content to train its AI models and generated false information attributed to the news agency. The case marks the first time an Indian media organization
  
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• Pokemon Go Players Have Unwittingly Trained AI To Navigate the World

  19-11-2024 19:43 via slashdot.org
  
  Augmented reality gaming company Niantic plans to develop an AI system for navigating physical spaces using data from millions of unsuspecting players of its games "Pokemon Go" and "Ingress," the company announced in a blog post. The "Large Geospatial Model" (LGM), named after language models like GPT, will process geolocated images to predict and understand physical environments.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Embattled Superconductivity Scientist Is Out

  19-11-2024 19:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Ranga Dias, a physics professor who made headlines with claims that he had discovered a room-temperature superconductor and then was found to have engaged in research misconduct, is no longer employed by the University of Rochester. WSJ: A spokeswoman for the university confirmed on Monday that Dias is out but declined to comment on the terms of his departure. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Rochester President Sarah Mangelsdorf had called for terminating his position in an Augu
  
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• Court Documents: Spyware Group NSO's Pegasus Targeted Up To 'Tens of Thousands'

  19-11-2024 18:21 via it.slashdot.org
  
  WhatsApp's newly unsealed court documents have exposed the extensive reach of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware operation, which targeted "between hundreds and tens of thousands" of devices, according to testimony from the company's head of research and development. The Israeli surveillance firm charged government customers up to $6.8 million for one-year licenses, generating at least $31 million in revenue in 2019 alone, TechCrunch first reported.
  The documents detail previously unknown hacking tools
  
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• Bhutan, After Prioritizing Happiness, Now Faces an Existential Crisis

  19-11-2024 17:42 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Bhutan, the tiny kingdom that introduced Gross National Happiness to the world, has a problem: young people are leaving the country in record numbers. CNN: The country boasts free health care, free education, a rising life expectancy and an economy that's grown over the last 30 years -- still, people are leaving. Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay believes it is ironically the success of Gross National Happiness that has made young Bhutanese so sought after abroad. "It is an existential crisis," he
  
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• Spirit Airlines Files For Bankruptcy

  19-11-2024 17:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Spirit Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection and will attempt to reboot as it struggles to recover from the pandemic-caused swoon in travel, stiffer competition from bigger carriers, and a failed attempt to sell the airline to JetBlue. From a report: Spirit, the biggest U.S. budget airline, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition after working out terms with bondholders.
  The airline has lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020 and faces looming debt payments totaling more than $
  
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• Windows 365 Link is a $349 Mini PC That Streams Windows From the Cloud

  19-11-2024 16:22 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft is planning to launch a new purpose-built miniature PC for its Windows 365 cloud service next year. The Verge: Windows 365 Link is a $349 device that acts like a thin client PC to connect to the cloud and stream a version of Windows 11. The Link device is designed to be a compact, fanless, and easy-to-use cloud PC for your local monitors and peripherals. It's meant to be the ideal companion to Microsoft's Windows 365 service, which lets businesses transition employees over to virtual m
  
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• Coca-Cola Faces Creative Backlash Over AI Christmas Campaign

  19-11-2024 15:41 via slashdot.org
  
  Coca-Cola's latest AI-generated Christmas advertisement has sparked criticism from creative professionals who say the promotional video lacks authenticity and artistic merit.
  The video, which depicts Coca-Cola trucks in snowy landscapes and people drinking the beverage, reimagines the company's 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" campaign using AI. Three AI studios - Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card - produced different versions using four generative AI models, according to Forbes.
  Critics, incl
  
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• After 30 Years, We Finally Know Why Windows 95's Installer Juggled Three Operating Systems

  19-11-2024 15:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In a technical blog post, Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen has explained why Windows 95's installation process required users to pass through three different operating systems -- MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95. The design choice stemmed from the need to support upgrades from multiple starting points while maintaining a graphical user interface throughout the process.
  Rather than creating separate installers for MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95 users, developers opted for a unified approach
  
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• Perplexity's AI Search Engine Can Now Buy Products For You

  19-11-2024 14:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Perplexity is rolling out a new feature that will let Pro subscribers purchase a product without leaving its AI search engine. When searching for a product using Perplexity, Pro members based in the US can now choose a "Buy with Pro" button that will automatically order the product using saved shipping and billing information. Perplexity says all products purchased through Buy with Pro come with free shipping. For products that don't support Bu
  
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• India Plans To Build a Moon-Orbiting Space Station By 2040

  19-11-2024 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  India plans to build a moon-orbiting space station by 2040 that will support crewed missions to the moon and serve as a hub for scientific research. Space Magazine reports: If all goes according to plan, the lunar space station will be completed around the same time the nation's astronauts land on the moon, with construction of a permanent base on the surface before 2050. The lunar space station appears to be the third and final phase of India's moon exploration efforts. [...]The lunar space sta
  
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• China Activates World's Most Advanced Hypergravity Facility

  19-11-2024 08:00 via slashdot.org
  
  China has activated the world's most advanced hypergravity machine to advance studies in geological processes, material behavior, and deep-sea energy exploration. Located in Hangzhou, The Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary Experiment Facility (CHIEF) will be able to produce forces thousands of times stronger than Earth's gravity. Interesting Engineering reports: The facility will house three primary hypergravity centrifuges and 18 onboard units. These centrifuges, machines designed t
  
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• Twenty Is Building an Open Source Alternative To Salesforce

  19-11-2024 04:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: For the past couple of years, the startup has been iterating on a brand-new CRM platform and making everything available on GitHub under a permissive AGPLv3 license. While Twenty doesn't have all the features that you can find in Salesforce, the company is slowly building a community of CRM and open source enthusiasts around it, with more than 300 contributors in the last year and 20,000 stars on GitHub. [...] Twenty is trying to build a flexi
  
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• London Bus Crashes Are the Result of an Unsafe Model

  19-11-2024 03:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier this year I had one of those encounters which, afterwards, I just couldn't stop thinking about. Eight months and some digging later, I have decided to write about it. My meeting was with an American businessman called Tom Kearney, who was on a pavement in central London one Christmas when he was whacked on the head so hard that he fell to the ground, spent weeks in a coma, and only just survived. Had he been mugged? Not quite. He'd been hit by the gia
  
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• 'El Capitan' Ranked Most Powerful Supercomputer In the World

  19-11-2024 02:25 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's "El Capitan" supercomputer is now ranked as the world's most powerful, exceeding a High-Performance Linpack (HPL) score of 1.742 exaflops on the latest Top500 list. Engadget reports: El Capitan is only the third "exascale" computer, meaning it can perform more than a quintillion calculations in a second. The other two, called Frontier and Aurora, claim the second and third place slots on the TOP500 now. Unsurprisingly, all of these massive machines live w
  
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• Roblox No Longer Allows Users Under 13 To Message Others Outside of Games

  19-11-2024 01:45 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Roblox has introduced stricter safety measures for users under 13, including restricting direct messaging outside of games and experiences, regardless of parental permission. These updates aim to address criticism over child safety and regain trust, following a Bloomberg investigation highlighting predator risks on the platform. TechCrunch reports: During a press briefing, the company explained that users under the age of 13 will still be able to access in-game chats because Roblox believes that
  
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• DOJ Wants Google To Sell Chrome To Break Search Monopoly

  19-11-2024 01:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Justice Department wants Google to sell off its Chrome browser as part of its ongoing search monopoly case. The recommendations will be made official on Wednesday. 9to5Google reports: At the top of the list is having Google sell Chrome "because it represents a key access point through which many people use its search engine." There are many questions about how that works, including what the impact on the underlying Chromium codebase would be. Would Google still b
  
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• Framework Laptops Get Modular Makeover With RISC-V Main Board

  19-11-2024 00:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Framework CEO Nirav Patel had one of the bravest tech demos that we've seen at a conference yet -- modifying a Framework Laptop from x86 to RISC-V live on stage. In the five-minute duration of one of the Ubuntu Summit's Lightning Talks, he opened up a Framework machine, removed its motherboard, installed a RISC-V-powered replacement, reconnected it, and closed the machine up again. All while presenting the talk live, and pretty much without
  
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