ICT news

• China's EV Sales Set To Overtake Traditional Cars Years Ahead of West

  04-01-2025 23:43 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Electric vehicles are expected to outsell cars with internal combustion engines in China for the first time next year," reports the Financial Times, calling it "a historic inflection point that puts the world's biggest car market years ahead of western rivals."China is set to smash international forecasts and Beijing's official targets with domestic EV sales — including pure battery and plug-in hybrids — growing about 20 per cent year on year to more than 12mn cars in 2025, accordin
  
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• How AI-Based Military Intelligence Powered Israel's Attacks on Gaza

  04-01-2025 22:43 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  It's "what some experts consider the most advanced military AI initiative ever to be deployed," reports the Washington Post.
  But the Israeli military's AI-powered intelligence practices are also "under scrutiny. Genocide charges against Israel brought to The Hague by South Africa question whether crucial decisions about bombing targets in Gaza were made by software, an investigation that could hasten a global debate about the role of AI technology in warfare."After the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attac
  
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• 'Why the World Needs Lazier Robots'

  04-01-2025 21:41 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "Robots and AI models share one crucial characteristic," writes the Washington Post. "Whether to move around, conduct conversations or solve problems, they function by constantly taking in and computing increasingly vast quantities of data. It's a brute-force approach to automation. Processing all that data makes them such energy guzzlers that their planet-warming pollution could outweigh any benefits they offer."
  But then the article visits the robot soccer team of René van de Molengraft
  
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• 'Starlink Mini': High-Speed Internet, Fits in a Backpack, Now Available in the US

  04-01-2025 20:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  It's weighs less than 15 pounds. It's 17 inches wide. And in June Elon Musk said it was "easily carried in a backpack. This product will change the world."And now, CNET reports:Calling all digital nomads and van-lifers: SpaceX's Starlink Mini is now available everywhere in the US. The small antenna costs $599 and requires a monthly subscription of either $50 or $165, depending on which plan you choose. Thanks to thousands of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink has the unique ability to send hig
  
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• Dire Predictions for 2025 Include 'Largest Cyberattack in History'

  04-01-2025 19:41 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Politico asked an "array of thinkers — futurists, scientists, foreign policy analysts and others — to lay out some of the possible 'Black Swan' events that could await us in the new year: What are the unpredictable, unlikely episodes that aren't yet on the radar but would completely upend American life as we know it?"
  Here's one from Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist and author of the book Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works For Us:2025 could easily see the larges
  
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• Can We Make Oceans Absorb More Carbon Dioxide with a Giant Antacid?

  04-01-2025 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  If we dissolve acid-neutralizing rocks in the ocean, will it absorb more carbon dioxide?
  Climate ventures and philanthropic funders have been spending millions of dollars to find out, reports the Washington Post. "Researchers have been exploring this technology for the last five years, but over the last two months, at least a couple of start-ups have begun operation along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts."Planetary, a start-up based in Nova Scotia, removed 138 metric tons of carbon last month for
  
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• Advertisers Expand Their Avoidance to News Sites, Blacklisting Specific Words

  04-01-2025 17:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  "The Washington Post's crossword puzzle was recently deemed too offensive for advertisers," reports the Wall Street Journal. "So was an article about thunderstorms. And a ranking of boxed brownie mixes.
  "Marketers have long been wary about running ads in the news media, concerned that their brands will land next to pieces about terrorism or plane crashes or polarizing political stories." But "That advertising no-go zone seems to keep widening."
  It is a headache that news publishers can hardly af
  
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• US Sanctions Chinese Firm Linked to Seized Botnet

  04-01-2025 16:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Remember that massive botnet run by Chinese government hackers? Flax Typhoon "compromised computer networks in North America, Europe, Africa, and across Asia, with a particular focus on Taiwan," according to the U.S. Treasury Department. (The group's botnet breaching this autumn affected "at least 260,000 internet-connected devices," reports the Washington Post, "roughly half of which were located in the United States.")
  Friday America's Treasury Department sanctioned "a Beijing-based cybersecur
  
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• UK Bosses Try To Turn Back Clock On Hybrid Working

  04-01-2025 14:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  As UK workers face a tougher-than-usual January return to offices, many large employers, including Amazon, BT, PwC, and Santander, are enforcing stricter in-person attendance mandates. The Guardian reports: As of 1 January, BT is requiring its 50,000 office-based employees across the UK and several other countries to attend three days a week in what it calls a "three together, two wherever" approach. Workers at the telecoms company have been told that office entry and exit data will be used to m
  
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• Americans Are Spending Less On Streaming As Fatigue and Options Grow

  04-01-2025 11:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  In 2024, Americans spent 23% less on streaming subscriptions compared to 2023, driven by rising costs, streaming fatigue, and increased password-sharing restrictions. The findings have been reported in Review's annual State of Consumer Media Spending Report. TechSpot reports: Of those surveyed, 27.8 percent said they are experiencing streaming fatigue - or the feeling of being overwhelmed by the growing number of streaming apps on the market. And with the cost of goods and services at an all-tim
  
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• New Device's Radio Waves Reveal Lead Contamination In Soil

  04-01-2025 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Cornell Tech researchers have developed a portable device called SoilScanner that uses radio frequency signals and machine learning to detect lead contamination in soil. It offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional methods of testing that "generally involves either sending samples to a lab for analysis, which relies upon harsh chemicals and can be expensive, or using a portable X-ray fluorescence device," notes Phys.org. From the report: "In recent years, especially during COVID, a lot
  
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• China Proposes Further Export Curbs On Battery, Critical Minerals Tech

  04-01-2025 04:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: China's commerce ministry has proposed export restrictions on some technology used to make battery components and process critical minerals lithium and gallium, a document, opens new tab issued on Thursday showed. If implemented, they would be the latest in a series of export restrictions and bans targeting critical minerals and the technology used to process them, areas in which Beijing is globally dominant. Their announcement precedes the inaug
  
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• Getty Images Explores Merger With Shutterstock

  04-01-2025 02:00 via slashdot.org
  
  According to Bloomberg (paywalled), Getty Images is exploring a merger with its rival Shutterstock. Following the news, Getty's shares were up 20.3% in afternoon trading, while shares of Shutterstock were up 7.7%. Reuters reports: The development comes at a time when Getty Images has struggled to retain customers and replace the lost customers. Its creative and editorial products, two of its largest revenue segments, declined year-over-year in 2023, according to its annual report. The decline in
  
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• A New Year's Gift From Microsoft: Surprise, Your Scanners Don't Work

  04-01-2025 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Windows 11 24H2 continues to experience issues with multifunction devices using the eSCL scan protocol, despite Microsoft marking the problem as resolved. According to a Register reader, "It works on a Windows 10 machine, but not on Windows 11, unless both the computer and the scanner are on wired Ethernet." From the report: Microsoft issued a compatibility safeguard hold on USB-connected devices using the Scanner Communication Language (eSCL) protocol in November after users who installed the W
  
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• Samsung and Google's New Spatial Audio Format Will Take On Dolby Atmos

  04-01-2025 00:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Samsung and Google are introducing Eclipsa Audio, an open-source 3D audio standard set to debut on select YouTube videos and Samsung's 2025 TVs and soundbars. The new format "could eventually serve as a free alternative to Dolby Atmos, the dominant 3D audio format that hardware makers like Samsung pay to license for TVs and other equipment," reports The Verge. "Samsung says that similar to Atmos, this audio format supports adjusting 'audio data such as the location and intensity of sounds, along
  
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• OnlyFangs Has Made 'World of Warcraft' Into Twitch's Best Soap Opera

  04-01-2025 00:00 via games.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Rolling Stone: Sun pours through the lush foliage of a jungle, bleaching the pale limestone as a rotting man stands in the center of an otherwise empty arena, his yellow eyes leering from beneath a fringe of limp, blonde hair. Positioned around the edge are a hundred bodies, Orcs and Trolls and bipedal oxen shouting, demanding, the death of the dishonorable. Their voices swell into a cacophony of noise before one rings out above the rest, howling, 'Kill t
  
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