ICT news

• Communications of the ACM Asks: Is It Ethical To Work For Big Tech?

  28-12-2024 23:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:Back in January, Rice University professor and former CACM Editor-in-Chief Moshe Y. Vardi wrote of the unintended consequences of social media and mobile computing in "Computing, You Have Blood on Your Hands!" To close out the year, Vardi addresses the role tech workers play in enabling dubious Big Tech business models — including now-powered-by-AI Big Tech Surveillance Capitalism — in an opinion piece titled "I Was Wrong about the Ethics Crisi
  
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• 'Universal Basic Income' Isn't a Silver Bullet, Says Lead Researcher on Sam Altman's Study

  28-12-2024 22:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Business Insider reports:The lead researcher for Sam Altman's basic-income study says guaranteed no-strings payments are not a silver bullet for issues facing lower-income Americans. Elizabeth Rhodes, the research director for the Basic Income Project at Open Research, told Business Insider that while basic-income payments are "beneficial in many ways," the programs also have "clear limitations...."
  Rhodes headed up one of the largest studies in the space, which focused specifically on those on
  
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• What Happens to Relicensed Open Source Projects and Their Forks?

  28-12-2024 21:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A Linux Foundation project focused on understanding the health of the open source community just studied the outcomes for three projects that switched to "more restrictive" licenses and then faced community forks.
  The data science director for the project — known as Community Health Analytics in Open Source Software (or CHAOSS) — is also an OpenUK board member, and describes the outcomes for OpenSearch, Redis with fork Valkey, and Terraform:
  The relicensed project (Redis) had signifi
  
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• Magnus Carlsen Quits Chess Tournament After Refusing to Change Out of Jeans

  28-12-2024 20:34 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Magnus Carlsen quit the World Rapid Chess Championship on Friday, reports CNN, "after he refused to change out of the jeans he was wearing..."
  "Carlsen, the world champion from 2013 until 2023, allegedly replied, 'I'm out, f*** you,' after being informed that he would not be permitted to continue," reports the Hindustan Times.
  The International Chess Federation (or FIDE) "said in a statement that Carlsen breached the tournament's dress code by wearing jeans," reports CNN:
  As a result, Carlsen wo
  
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• New York Passes Law Making Fossil Fuel Companies Pay $75 Billion for 'Climate Superfund'

  28-12-2024 19:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Thursday New York's governor signed new legislation "to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment" by establishing a Climate Superfund that's paid for by big fossil-fuel companies.
  The money will be used for "climate change adaptation," according to New York state senator Liz Krueger, who notes that the legislation follows "the polluter-pays model" used in America's already-existing federal and state superfund laws. Spread out over 25 years, the legislation collects an av
  
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• 'Raspberry Pi Holdings' Stock Price Nearly Doubles In December

  28-12-2024 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: This year the London Stock Exchange got a new listing for "Raspberry Pi Holdings plc." It's the computer-making commercial subsidiary of their larger educational charity, the Raspberry Pi Foundation. "Access to the public market will enable us to build more of the products you love, faster," explained CEO Eben Upton in June. And in May Foundation head Philip Colligan added that beyond the $50 million already donated to their educational charity by the commercia
  
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• Journal's Editors Resign Over Elsevier Meddling, Budget Cuts, and Errors Introduced by AI

  28-12-2024 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  ewhac (Slashdot reader #5,844) writes:
  Retraction Watch is reporting that the entire editorial staff (save one) for the Journal of Human Evolution has resigned in protest over creeping harmful changes imposed by its publisher, Elsevier.
  In an open letter posted to social media, the editors recount Elsevier's changes to their journal's scientific and editorial processes (inserting itself into those processes) — along with staff and budget reductions negatively impacting their ability to rev
  
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• Millions of US Seniors Still Owe Student Loan Debt

  28-12-2024 16:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Valerie Warner is 71 years old — and owes $268,000 in student loans.
  Roughly 40 years ago she went to law school, but was only able to find work as a legal aid and later work in the public school system, which the Washington Post calls "a rewarding job but one that didn't pay enough to wipe out her loans." Later she earned a masters of education degree:
  All told, Warner borrowed a total of about $60,000 for her two advanced degrees. The amount seemed reasonable given the career trajectory
  
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• Lyft Says San Francisco Overcharged It $100 Million In Taxes

  28-12-2024 14:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Lyft is suing the city of San Francisco, claiming the city unfairly charged the ride-hailing company over $100 million in taxes, Bloomberg reports. The lawsuit alleges that, over the course of five years, San Francisco unfairly labeled money earned by Lyft drivers as company revenue. In the complaint, Lyft maintains that its drivers are its customers, not employees. "Accordingly, Lyft recognizes revenue from rideshare as being comprised of fee
  
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• Massive VW Data Leak Exposed 800,000 EV Owners' Movements

  28-12-2024 11:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A new report reveals that the VW Group left sensitive data for 800,000 electric vehicles from Audi, VW, Seat, and Skoda poorly secured on an Amazon cloud, exposing precise GPS locations, battery statuses, and user habits for months. Carscoops reports: It gets worse. A more tech-savvy user could reportedly connect vehicles to their owners' personal credentials, thanks to additional data accessible through VW Group's online services Crucially, in 466,000 of the 800,000 cases, the location data was
  
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• Missiles Are Now the Biggest Killer of Airline Passengers

  28-12-2024 08:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Accidental missile attacks on commercial airliners have become the leading cause of aviation fatalities in recent years (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), driven by rising global conflicts and the proliferation of advanced antiaircraft weaponry. Despite improvements in aviation safety overall, inconsistent risk assessments, political complexities, and rapid military escalations make protecting civilian flights in conflict zones increasingly difficult. The Wall Street Journal report
  
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• Taxi Drivers Offer a Clue to Lowering Alzheimer's Risk

  28-12-2024 04:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: The two professions associated with the lowest levels of death due to Alzheimer's disease may be surprising. Taxi and ambulance drivers were found to have the lowest proportion of deaths of more than 440 occupations that were considered in a new observation-based study from Massachusetts physicians. Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking, and behavior. It impacts millions of Americans and is one of the top
  
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• Why Do We Live at 10bits/s?

  28-12-2024 03:02 via science.slashdot.org
  
  BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: It might sound unbelievable, but the human brain processes information at just 10 bits per second! Yes, folks, that's slower than the internet speeds many of us endured during the early days of dial-up. While our senses take in billions of bits of data every second, our brain intelligently sifts through the chaos, letting through only what's important.This is no accident. Researchers Jieyu Zheng and Markus Meister explain in their study, The Unbearable
  
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• Valve Makes More Money Per Employee Than Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix Combined

  28-12-2024 02:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  jjslash shares a report from TechSpot: A Valve employee recently provided PC Gamer with a rough calculation of the company's per-employee income, revealing that Valve generates more money per person than several of the world's largest companies. While the data is a few years old and doesn't account for some significant recent trends in the tech sector, Valve's ranking in this metric likely hasn't shifted much over that time. Exact figures for Valve's per-hour and per-employee net income remain r
  
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• New Law Requiring Businesses To Report Who Owns Them Is Put on Hold Again

  28-12-2024 01:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  The implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act -- a law aimed at getting shell companies to disclose their true ownership -- was paused again just days before a reporting deadline was set to take effect, as a federal appeals court handed the case to a panel for further consideration. From a report: In a court filing late Thursday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a stay on a national injunction the court had issued Monday that reinstated the Jan. 1 reporting deadline for millions
  
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• Bluesky Adds Trending Topics

  28-12-2024 01:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  On Christmas Day, the social media app Bluesky added a list of Trending topics to its mobile app, allowing users to see which subjects are popular among its community. The Verge reports: The new feature can be found by selecting the search icon (the magnifying glass), which appears at the bottom of the screen on the mobile app and on the left sidebar on the web. Lists of Trending and Recommended subjects now appear below the search bar. Tap on any topic, and you will be able to access the associ
  
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• Older Music Has Been Getting a Second Life On TikTok, Data Shows

  28-12-2024 00:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Despite having an endless amount of music to pair with their short, scrollable videos, TikTok users have been raiding the back catalogues of artists from yesteryear including Bronski Beat and Sade to soundtrack their posts. This year set a new high for use of old tracks on British TikTok posts, with tunes more than five years old accounting for 19 out of its 50 top tracks this year. It is the highest proportion since TikTok started monitorin
  
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