ICT news

• Both KDE and GNOME To Offer Official Distros

  29-11-2024 21:55 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  king*jojo writes: KDE and GNOME have decided that because they're not big and complicated enough already, they might work better if they have their own custom distributions underneath. What's the worst that could happen?
  A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald Sitter, was entitled An Operating System of Our Own, and the idea sounds simple enough: Sitter proposed an official KDE Linux distribution. Now the propo
  
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• Meta Plans $10 Billion Global 'Mother of All' Subsea Cables

  29-11-2024 19:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Meta plans to build a $10 billion private, "mother of all" undersea fiber-optic cable network spanning over 40,000 kilometers around the world, according to TechCrunch. The project, dubbed "W" for its shape, would run from the U.S. east coast to the west coast via India, South Africa and Australia, avoiding regions prone to cable sabotage including the Red Sea and South China Sea.
  The social media giant, which co-owns 16 existing cable networks, aims to gain full control over traffic prioritizat
  
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• The New Climate Math on Hurricanes

  29-11-2024 18:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Climate change has intensified hurricane wind speeds by an average of 19 mph in 84% of North Atlantic hurricanes between 2019-2024, according to new research that links warming ocean temperatures to storm intensity for individual hurricanes.
  This year, Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed into Florida, breaking meteorological records and causing catastrophic damage. The study by Climate Central found that higher sea surface temperatures elevated most hurricanes by an entire category on the Saffi
  
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• Journal Scam Targets Top Science Publishers

  29-11-2024 17:01 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Major academic publishers including Elsevier and Springer Nature are grappling with a sophisticated new journal hijacking scam that precisely mimics their websites to deceive researchers.
  The fraudulent operation, reported by Retraction Watch, has cloned at least 13 legitimate journals through fake domains, according to Crossref data. The scam, the publication reports, features high-quality website clones that replicate even cookie consent popups. The operation assigns its own DOI prefix to publ
  
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• Big Tech Slams Australia's Youth Social Media Ban

  29-11-2024 16:01 via slashdot.org
  
  Major technology companies criticized Australia's new law banning social media access for users under 16, which passed parliament on Thursday with bipartisan support. The legislation threatens fines up to $32 million for platforms failing to block minors. TikTok warned the ban could drive young users to riskier online spaces, while Meta called it a "predetermined process," questioning the rushed parliamentary review that gave stakeholders only 24 hours for submissions. Reuters adds: Snapchat par
  
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• Crypto Entrepreneur Eats $6 Million Banana on Stage

  29-11-2024 14:23 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun consumed Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" artwork -- a banana taped to a wall -- during an event in Hong Kong on Friday, declaring "the real value is the concept itself." Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron, purchased the piece for $6.2 million at Sotheby's last week, significantly above its $1-1.5 million estimate.
  The acquisition included only a certificate of authenticity and assembly instructions, not the physical banana or tape. The Chinese-born entrepr
  
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• GIMP 3.0 - a Milestone For Open-Source Image Editing

  29-11-2024 14:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  LWN: The long-awaited release of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 3.0 is on the way, marking the first major update since version 2.10 was released in April 2018. It now features a GTK 3 user interface and GIMP 3.0 introduces significant changes to the core platform and plugins. This release also brings performance and usability improvements, as well as more compatibility with Wayland and complex input sources.
  GIMP 3.0 is the first release to use GTK 3, a more modern foundation than th
  
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• 'AI Ambition is Pushing Copper To Its Breaking Point'

  29-11-2024 12:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Datacenters have been trending toward denser, more power-hungry systems for years. In case you missed it, 19-inch racks are now pushing power demands beyond 120 kilowatts in high-density configurations, with many making the switch to direct liquid cooling to tame the heat. Much of this trend has been driven by a need to support ever larger AI models.
  According to researchers at Fujitsu, the number of parameters in AI systems is growing 32-fold approximately e
  
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• Japan's 'God of Management' Comes Back To Life as an AI Model

  29-11-2024 08:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Panasonic has created an AI clone of its late founder Konosuke Matsushita based on his writings, speeches, and over 3,000 voice recordings. From a local media report: Known as Japan's "god of management," the Panasonic icon is one of the most respected by the Japanese business community, and comes back to life in digital form to impart wisdom directly to those he never met in person.
  "As the number of people who received training directly from Matsushita has been on the decline, we decided to us
  
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• Intel Required To Keep Control of Foundries Under $7.9 Billion Chips Act Deal

  29-11-2024 06:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Intel must maintain majority control of its foundries as a condition of receiving $7.86 billion in U.S. CHIPS Act funding, according to terms disclosed in a regulatory filing [PDF]. The semiconductor giant will need to keep at least 50.1% ownership if the foundry unit is spun off privately, while no single shareholder can hold more than 35% of shares if it goes public unless Intel remains the largest stakeholder. The restrictions, which also require Intel to remain a customer, come as the compan
  
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• Footprints Suggest Different Human Relatives Lived Alongside One Another

  29-11-2024 04:01 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A million and a half years ago, amid giant storks and the ancestors of antelopes, two extinct relatives of humans walked along the same muddy lakeshore in what is today northern Kenya, new research suggests. From a report: An excavation team uncovered four sets of footprints preserved in the mud at the Turkana Basin, a site that has led to important breakthroughs in understanding human evolution. The discovery, announced on Thursday in a paper in the journal Science, is direct evidence that diff
  
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• Google's Chrome Worth Up To $20 Billion If Judge Orders Sale

  29-11-2024 03:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Alphabet's Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal to sell the business, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the world's biggest tech companies. From a report: The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to require measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system, according to people familiar with the plans.Read more of t
  
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• UK Lawmakers Vote in Support of Assisted Dying

  29-11-2024 03:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  British members of parliament have voted to legalize assisted dying, approving a contentious proposal that would make the United Kingdom one of a small handful of nations to allow terminally ill people to end their lives. From a report: Lawmakers in the House of Commons voted by 330 to 275 to support the bill, after an hours-long debate in the chamber and a years-long campaign by high-profile figures that drew on emotional first-hand testimony.
  Britain is now set to join a small club of nations
  
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• NHS Major 'Cyber Incident' Forces Hospitals To Use Pen and Paper

  29-11-2024 00:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The ongoing cybersecurity incident affecting a North West England NHS group has forced sites to fall back on pen-and-paper operations. From a report: The Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust updated its official line on the incident on Wednesday evening, revealing new details about the case, but remains coy about the true nature of the attack.
  "After detecting suspicious activity, as a precaution, we isolated our systems to ensure that the problem did not spread. This resulted in some I
  
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