ICT news

• Canada's Antitrust Watchdog Sues Google Alleging Anti-Competitive Conduct in Advertising

  28-11-2024 23:38 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Canada's Competition Bureau is suing Alphabet's Google over alleged anti-competitive conduct in online advertising, the antitrust watchdog said on Thursday. From a report: The Competition Bureau, in a statement, said it had filed an application with the Competition Tribunal seeking an order that, among other things, requires Google to sell two of its ad tech tools. It is also seeking a penalty from Google to promote compliance with Canada's competition laws, the statement said.
  Google said the c
  
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• Coffee at Highest Price in 47 years

  28-11-2024 19:32 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Coffee beans hit their highest price in 47 years, driven by bad weather in Vietnam and Brazil, the biggest producers of robusta and arabica beans respectively.
  Brazil saw its worst drought in 70 years this year followed by heavy rains, raising fears that next season's output will drop, further pinching already tight global supplies. Vietnam has itself had three years of low output.
  Arabica beans hit $3.18 a pound on Wednesday, leading Nestle, the world's bigg
  
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• French Porn Block Fails on Site URL Detail

  28-11-2024 18:12 via it.slashdot.org
  
  A Paris court order to block porn website xHamster in France over insufficient age verification has resulted in an unintended loophole. The ruling only restricted "fr[dot]xhamster[dot]com" subdomain following nonprofits' complaint, leaving the main site accessible despite the DNS-level block by internet providers.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Even Central Banks Are Losing Faith in CBDCs

  28-11-2024 17:08 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Central bank support for digital currencies appears to have fallen sharply, with only 13% of central bankers surveyed by OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute backing CBDCs as a cross-border payment solution, down from 31% in 2023.
  The survey found just 10% of respondents are actively developing CBDCs, compared with 21% last year. The decline comes despite major initiatives including the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agora and China's Project mBridge. The BIS recently withdrew from mBri
  
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• Plastics Lobbyists Make Up Biggest Group at Vital UN Treaty Talks

  28-11-2024 16:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Record numbers of plastic industry lobbyists are attending global talks that are the last chance to hammer out a treaty to cut plastic pollution around the world. From a report: The key issue at the conference will be whether caps on global plastic production will be included in the final UN treaty. Lobbyists and leading national producers are furiously arguing against any attempt to restrain the amount that can be produced, leaving the talks on a knife-edge.
  New analysis by the Center for Inter
  
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• Australia To Ban Under-16s From Social Media After Passing Landmark Law

  28-11-2024 15:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Australia will ban children under 16 from using social media after its senate approved what will become a world-first law. From a report: Children will be blocked from using platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, a move the Australian government argue is necessary to protect their mental health and wellbeing.
  The online safety amendment (social media minimum age) bill will impose fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($32.5 million) on platforms for systemic failure
  
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• NASA Aircraft Uncovers Cold War Nuclear Missile Tunnels Under Greenland Ice

  28-11-2024 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: NASA scientists conducting surveys of arctic ice sheets in Greenland got an unprecedented view of an abandoned "city under the ice" built by the U.S. military during the Cold War. During a scientific flight in April 2024, a NASA Gulfstream III aircraft flew over the Greenland Ice Sheet carrying radar instruments to map the depth of the ice sheet and the layers of bedrock below it. The images revealed a new view of Camp Century, a Cold War-era U
  
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• Ryugu Asteroid Sample Rapidly Colonized By Terrestrial Life

  28-11-2024 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Phys.org: Researchers from Imperial College London have discovered that a space-returned sample from asteroid Ryugu was rapidly colonized by terrestrial microorganisms, even under stringent contamination control measures. In the study, [...] researchers analyzed sample A0180, a tiny (1 x 0.8 mm) particle collected by the JAXA Hayabusa 2 mission from asteroid Ryugu.Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened in
  
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• PFAS and Microplastics Become More Toxic When Combined, Research Shows

  28-11-2024 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A University of Birmingham study reveals that PFAS and microplastics have a synergistic effect that significantly increases their toxicity. "The study's authors exposed water fleas to mixtures of the toxic substances and found they suffered more severe health effects, including lower birth rates, and developmental problems, such as delayed sexual maturity and stunted growth," reports The Guardian. From the report: The enhanced toxic effects raise alarm because PFAS and microplastics are research
  
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• Denmark Will Plant 1 Billion Trees, Convert 10% Farmland Into Forest

  28-11-2024 04:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Danish lawmakers on Monday agreed on a deal to plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest and natural habitats over the next two decades in an effort to reduce fertilizer usage. The government called the agreement "the biggest change to the Danish landscape in over 100 years." Under the agreement, 43 billion kroner ($6.1 billion) have been earmarked to acquire land from farmers over the next two decades, the govern
  
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• Senators Say TSA's Facial Recognition Program Is Out of Control

  28-11-2024 03:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A bipartisan group of 12 senators has urged the TSA inspector general to investigate the agency's use of facial recognition technology, citing concerns over privacy, civil liberties, and its expansion to over 430 airports without sufficient safeguards or proven effectiveness. Gizmodo reports: "This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology's precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in plac
  
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• Data Broker Leaves 600K+ Sensitive Files Exposed Online

  28-11-2024 02:25 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A security researcher discovered an unprotected database belonging to SL Data Services containing over 600,000 sensitive files, including criminal histories and background checks with names, addresses, and social media accounts. The Register reports: We don't know how long the personal information was openly accessible. Infosec specialist Jeremiah Fowler says he found the Amazon S3 bucket in October and reported it to the data collection company by phone and email every few days for more than tw
  
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• Google Opens AI Campus In London

  28-11-2024 01:45 via news.slashdot.org
  
  British Prime Minister Keir Starmer inaugurated London's first Google-funded AI Campus in Camden, aiming to equip young people with AI and machine learning skills. Reuters reports: The center, based in Camden, an area which Starmer represents in parliament and which is also home to Google's future offices in Kings Cross, has already started a two-year pilot project for local students. An first cohort of 32 people aged 16-18 will have access to resources in AI and machine learning and receive men
  
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• Tornado Cash Sanctions Overturned By US Appeals Court

  28-11-2024 01:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A U.S. federal appeals court ruled that sanctions against Tornado Cash, a crypto transaction anonymization service, must be abandoned, stating that its immutable smart contracts do not constitute "property" under U.S. law and that the Treasury overstepped its authority. The ruling is available here (PDF). CoinDesk reports: The decision answers a controversial privacy debate on whether the government -- via a sanctions list maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department -- has a right to target the t
  
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• The World's First Unkillable UEFI Bootkit For Linux

  28-11-2024 00:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Over the past decade, a new class of infections has threatened Windows users. By infecting the firmware that runs immediately before the operating system loads, these UEFI bootkits continue to run even when the hard drive is replaced or reformatted. Now the same type of chip-dwelling malware has been found in the wild for backdooring Linux machines. Researchers at security firm ESET said Wednesday that Bootkitty -- the name unknown threat ac
  
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