ICT news

• Company Claims 1,000% Price Hike Drove It From VMware To Open Source Rival

  02-12-2024 22:01 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Companies have been discussing migrating off of VMware since Broadcom's takeover a year ago led to higher costs and other controversial changes. Now we have an inside look at one of the larger customers that recently made the move.
  According to a report from The Register today, Beeks Group, a cloud operator headquartered in the United Kingdom, has moved most of its 20,000-plus virtual machines (VMs) off VMware and to OpenNebula, an open source cloud and edge
  
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• The Casual Moviegoer is a Thing of the Past

  02-12-2024 21:05 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  U.S. movie theaters are struggling to attract casual moviegoers, who once made up a significant portion of box office revenues, as shorter theatrical runs and changing consumer habits reshape the industry. The domestic box office, which regularly exceeded $10 billion in annual ticket sales before COVID-19, is expected to reach only $8.5 billion this year.
  Films now average 32 days in theaters compared to 80 days pre-pandemic, limiting opportunities for audiences to discover movies spontaneously.
  
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• Getty Images CEO Says Content-Scraping AI Groups Use 'Pure Theft' For Profit

  02-12-2024 20:10 via slashdot.org
  
  Getty Images CEO has criticized AI companies' stance on copyright, particularly pushing back against claims that all web content is fair use for AI training. The statement comes amid Getty's ongoing litigation against Stability AI for allegedly using millions of Getty-owned images without permission to train its Stable Diffusion model, launched in August 2022.
  Acknowledging AI's potential benefits in areas like healthcare and climate change, Getty's chief executive argued against the industry's
  
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• 'Brain Rot' Named Oxford Word of the Year 2024

  02-12-2024 19:10 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Oxford University Press: Following a public vote in which more than 37,000 people had their say, we're pleased to announce that the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024 is 'brain rot.'
  Our language experts created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, our experts came together to consider the public's input, voting results, and our language data, before declaring 'brain rot'
  
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• ChatGPT Refuses To Say One Specific Name

  02-12-2024 18:24 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: ChatGPT users have spotted an unusual glitch that prevents the AI chatbot from saying the name 'David Mayer.' OpenAI's hugely popular AI tool responds to requests to write the name with an error message, stating: "I'm unable to produce a response." The chat thread is then ended, with people forced to open a new chat window in order to keep interacting with ChatGPT.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Employee Lawsuit Accuses Apple of Spying on Its Workers

  02-12-2024 17:01 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  A new lawsuit filed by a current Apple employee accuses the company of spying on its workers via their personal iCloud accounts and non-work devices. From a report: The suit, filed Sunday evening in California state court, alleges Apple employees are required to give up the right to personal privacy, and that the company says it can "engage in physical, video and electronic surveillance of them" even when they are at home and after they stop working for Apple.
  Those requirements are part of a lo
  
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• Intel CEO Gelsinger Exits as Chip Pioneer's Turnaround Falters

  02-12-2024 15:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has stepped down amid the company's continued struggles against rivals, with shares losing over half their value this year. The chipmaker announced Monday that Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner and Executive Vice President Michelle Johnston Holthaus will serve as interim co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent replacement.
  Gelsinger, 63, was hired in 2021 to lead an ambitious turnaround aimed at reclaiming Intel's technological edge from competitors like Taiw
  
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• China Extends Dominance Over US in Critical Technology Race

  02-12-2024 15:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  China has overtaken the United States as the dominant force in critical technology research, according to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The study found China now leads in 57 of 64 critical technologies, up from just three technologies in 2003-2007, while U.S. leadership dropped from 60 to seven technologies over the same period.
  China has made significant gains in quantum sensors, high-performance computing, and semiconductor chip manufacturing. The U.S. maintains its
  
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• Bluesky's Open API Means Anyone Can Scrape Your Data for AI Training. It's All Public

  02-12-2024 13:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Bluesky says it will never train generative AI on its users' data. But despite that, "one million public Bluesky posts — complete with identifying user information — were crawled and then uploaded to AI company Hugging Face," reports Mashable (citing an article by 404 Media).
  "Shortly after the article's publication, the dataset was removed from Hugging Face," the article notes, with the scraper at Hugging Face posting an apology. "While I wanted to support tool development for the p
  
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• Exxon Lobbyist Investigated Over 'Hack-and-Leak' of Environmentalist Emails

  02-12-2024 09:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  America's FBI "has been investigating a longtime Exxon Mobil consultant," reports Reuters, "over the contractor's alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of the oil company's biggest critics, according to three people familiar with the matter."The operation involved mercenary hackers who successfully breached the email accounts of environmental activists and others, the sources told Reuters. The scheme allegedly began in late 2015, when U.S. authorities contend that the
  
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• For Moon Missions, Researchers Test a 3D-Printable, Waterless Concrete

  02-12-2024 07:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "If NASA establishes a permanent presence on the moon, its astronauts' homes could be made of a new 3D-printable, waterless concrete," writes MIT Technology Review. "Someday, so might yours.
  "By accelerating the curing process for more rapid construction, this sulfur-based compound could become just as applicable on our home terrain as it is on lunar soil..."Building a home base on the moon will demand a steep supply of moon-based infrastructure: launch pads, shelter, and radiation blockers. But
  
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• As Space Traffic Crowds Earth Orbit: a Push for Global Cooperation

  02-12-2024 05:17 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters:The rapid increase in satellites and space junk will make low Earth orbit unusable unless companies and countries cooperate and share the data needed to manage that most accessible region of space, experts and industry insiders said. A United Nations panel on space traffic coordination in late October determined that urgent action was necessary and called for a comprehensive shared database of orbital objects as well as an international framewo
  
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• Scientists Have Finally Found the Gene That Gives Cats Orange Fur

  02-12-2024 02:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader sciencehabit writes:
  Most orange cats are boys, a quirk of feline genetics that also explains why almost all calicos and tortoiseshells are girls. Scientists curious about those sex differences—or perhaps just cat lovers—have spent more than 60 years unsuccessfully seeking the gene that causes orange fur and the striking patchwork of colors in calicos and tortoiseshells. Now, two teams have independently found the long-awaited mutation and discovered a protein that in
  
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• Oxford's Word of the Year: 'Brain Rot'

  02-12-2024 01:06 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok?" asks the BBC. "If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which has become the Oxford word of the year."It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The word's usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024. Psychologist and Oxford University Professor, Andrew Przybylski says the popularity of the word
  
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