ICT news

• Microsoft Recall Screenshots Credit Cards, Social Security Numbers

  12-12-2024 23:50 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware, written by Avram Piltch: Microsoft's Recall feature recently made its way back to Windows Insiders after having been pulled from test builds back in June, due to security and privacy concerns. The new version of Recall encrypts the screens it captures and, by default, it has a "Filter sensitive information," setting enabled, which is supposed to prevent it from recording any app or website that is showing credit card numbers, social securi
  
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• Gukesh Dommaraju Becomes Youngest World Chess Champion

  12-12-2024 23:10 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju made history by defeating China's Ding Liren to become the youngest world chess champion at 18, sealing a dramatic 7.5-6.5 victory in the 14-game match. The Guardian reports: The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resi
  
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• Yahoo Cybersecurity Team Sees Layoffs, Outsourcing of 'Red Team,' Under New CTO

  12-12-2024 22:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Yahoo laid off around 25% of its cybersecurity team -- known as The Paranoids -- over the last year, TechCrunch has learned. From the report: Overall, the company has laid off or lost through attrition 40 to 50 people from a total of 200 employees in the cybersecurity team since the start of 2024, according to multiple current and former Yahoo employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. (Yahoo is TechCrunch's parent company.)
  The Paranoids are not the only team affected by the l
  
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• A Controversial Plan To Refreeze the Arctic is Seeing Promising Results

  12-12-2024 21:56 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Deep in the Canadian Arctic, scientists and entrepreneurs brave sub-zero temperatures, whipping winds and snowstorms to drill holes through the sea ice to pump out the seawater below and freeze it on the surface. The group from the UK start-up Real Ice is in Cambridge Bay, a tiny coastal village in Nunavut, to try to prove they can grow and restore Arctic sea ice.
  Their ultimate plan is to thicken ice over more than 386,000 square miles of the Arctic -- an ar
  
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• Apple Nears Switch To In-House Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Chip for iPhone, Smart Home

  12-12-2024 21:13 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple's ambitious plan to create in-house components for its devices will include switching to a homegrown chip for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections starting next year, a move that will replace some parts currently provided by Broadcom. From a report: The chip, code-named Proxima, has been in development for several years and is now slated to go into the first products in 2025, according to people familiar with the matter. Like Apple's other in-house chips, Proxima will be produced by partner Tai
  
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• Tech Platforms Diverge on Erasing Criminal Suspects' Digital Footprints

  12-12-2024 18:23 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Social media giants confronted a familiar dilemma over user content moderation after murder suspect Luigi Mangione's arrest in the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO on Monday, highlighting the platforms' varied approaches to managing digital footprints of criminal suspects.
  Meta quickly removed Mangione's Facebook and Instagram accounts under its "dangerous organizations and individuals" policy, while his account on X underwent a brief suspension before being reinstated with a premium subscripti
  
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• Microsoft Hijacks Keyboard Shortcut To Bring Copilot To Your Attention

  12-12-2024 17:55 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Copilot has gone native for Windows Insiders and commandeered a popular keyboard shortcut in the process. The move from a Progressive Web App (PWA) to a native binary -- although most of it appears to still be a website, just not running as a PWA -- will be welcomed. Microsoft noted that once the app update has been installed, Copilot will appear in the system tray.
  However, the assistant's quick view feature has been given the Alt+Space keyboard shortcut. Th
  
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• BeReal Accused of Annoying Users Into Sharing Their Data

  12-12-2024 17:09 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: BeReal, the in the moment social media platform, is far from its 2022 heyday, but that hasn't stopped one organization from going after it. Austrian advocacy group Noyb has filed a complaint surrounding the platform's data consent banner practices. The organization claims that the banner disappears if users accept that their personal data can inform advertising practices, but if they click reject then the banner appears daily.
  Noyb filed its complaint with th
  
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• Amazon Paused Rollout of Microsoft Office for a Year After Hacks

  12-12-2024 16:24 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Amazon has postponed implementing Microsoft's cloud-based Office suite for its workforce by one year, citing security concerns following a Russian cyber attack on Microsoft's systems. The delay affects a $1 billion, five-year contract signed last year to provide Microsoft 365 to Amazon's 1.5 million employees, making the e-commerce giant one of the largest customers of Microsoft's cloud productivity suite.
  The decision came after Microsoft revealed that Midnight Blizzard, a Russia-linked hacking
  
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• YouTube TV Price Hike Coming January 2025

  12-12-2024 15:42 via news.slashdot.org
  
  BrianFagioli writes: In a move sure to rattle some subscribers, YouTube TV has announced a price increase for its Base Plan. Starting January 13, 2025, the monthly subscription cost will jump from $72.99 to $82.99. The search giant cites the rising costs of content and investments in service quality as the primary reasons for this adjustment.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Former Intel CEO Calls For Prayer and Fasting For Employees

  12-12-2024 13:05 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger, who stepped down from his leadership post a week ago, is inviting people to join him in prayer and fasting for the struggling chipmaker's employees.
  "Every Thursday I do a 24 hour prayer and fasting day," Gelsinger wrote on X on Sunday morning. "This week I'd invite you to join me in praying and fasting for the 100K Intel employees as they navigate this difficult period. Intel and its team is of seminal importance to the futu
  
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• LG Discontinues Blu-ray Players

  12-12-2024 11:01 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  FlatpanelsHD: LG has discontinued all Blu-ray players, including the UBK80 and UBK90 UHD Blu-ray players, with remaining units only available while stocks last.
  The announcement echoes similar moves from Oppo in 2018 and Samsung in 2019, when both companies exited the optical disc player market. LG has now officially discontinued its Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray players, as reflected on LG's online portals and confirmed by multiple sources to FlatpanelsHD.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Harvard Is Releasing a Massive Free AI Training Dataset Funded by OpenAI and Microsoft

  12-12-2024 08:35 via slashdot.org
  
  Harvard University announced Thursday it's releasing a high-quality dataset of nearly one million public-domain books that could be used by anyone to train large language models and other AI tools. From a report: The dataset was created by Harvard's newly formed Institutional Data Initiative with funding from both Microsoft and OpenAI. It contains books scanned as part of the Google Books project that are no longer protected by copyright.
  Around five times the size of the notorious Books3 datase
  
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• Amazon Says Developers Spend 'Just One Hour Per Day' on Actual Coding

  12-12-2024 05:30 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon Web Services said in a post earlier this month that developers report spending an average of "just one hour per day" on actual coding. But that doesn't mean these workers twiddle their thumbs the remaining seven hours per day. Instead, developers spend the majority of their time on "tedious, undifferentiated tasks such as learning codebases, writing and reviewing documentation, testing, managing deployments, troubleshooting issues or finding and fixing
  
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• Startup Will Brick $800 Emotional Support Robot For Kids Without Refunds

  12-12-2024 03:01 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked. From a report: Embodied blamed its closure on a failed "critical funding round." On its website, it explained: "We had secured a lead investor who was prepared to close the round. However, at the last minute, they withdrew, leaving us with no viable options to continue operations. Despite our best efforts to secure alternative funding, we were unable to find a replacement in time to sust
  
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• Photobucket Sued Over Plans To Sell User Photos, Biometric Identifiers To AI Companies

  12-12-2024 00:29 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users' photos -- including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans -- to companies training generative AI models. From a report: The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users' data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply with strict privacy laws in states like Illinois, New York, and California b
  
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