ICT news

• Nvidia Launches RTX 50 Blackwell GPUs: From the $2,000 RTX 5090 To the $549 RTX

  07-01-2025 23:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "Nvidia has officially introduced its highly anticipated GeForce 50 Series graphics cards, accompanied by the debut of DLSS 4 technology," writes Slashdot reader jjslash. "The lineup includes four premium GPUs: the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are slated for release on January 30, with the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti following in February. TechSpot recount of the Jensen Huang keynote tries to differentiate between dubious performance claims and actual expected raw output": The new RTX 5090 flagship comes
  
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• Big Landlord Settles With US, Will Cooperate In Price-Fixing Investigation

  07-01-2025 23:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US Justice Department today announced it filed an antitrust lawsuit against "six of the nation's largest landlords for participating in algorithmic pricing schemes that harmed renters." One of the landlords, Cortland Management, agreed to a settlement "that requires it to cooperate with the government, stop using its competitors' sensitive data to set rents and stop using the same algorithm as its competitors without a corporate monitor,
  
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• Thailand Bans Imports of Plastic Waste To Curb Toxic Pollution

  07-01-2025 22:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Thailand has banned plastic waste imports over concerns about toxic pollution, as experts warn that failure to agree a global treaty to cut plastic waste will harm human health. From a report: A law banning imports of plastic waste came into force this month in Thailand, after years of campaigning by activists. Thailand is one of several south-east Asian countries that has historically been paid to receive plastic waste from developed nations. The country became a leading destination for exports
  
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• Hackers Claim Massive Breach of Location Data Giant, Threaten To Leak Data

  07-01-2025 21:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Hackers claim to have compromised Gravy Analytics, the parent company of Venntel which has sold masses of smartphone location data to the U.S. government. 404 Media: The hackers said they have stolen a massive amount of data, including customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data harvested from smartphones which show peoples' precise movements, and they are threatening to publish the data publicly.
  The news is a crystalizing moment for the location data industry. F
  
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• Crunchyroll Is Getting (Back) Into the Manga App Game

  07-01-2025 21:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Sony-owned anime streaming service Crunchyroll plans to launch a manga reading app in 2025, its second attempt at entering the digital manga market after shuttering a similar service in 2023. The new app, Crunchyroll Manga, will be available initially in the United States and Canada in English, as a premium add-on for subscribers.
  The move comes amid broader changes at Crunchyroll, including its recent decision to put popular anime series "One Piece" behind a paywall and Sony's pending merger wi
  
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• Chinese Venture Capitalists Force Failed Founders On To Debtor Blacklist

  07-01-2025 20:24 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Chinese venture capitalists are hounding failed founders [non-paywalled source], pursuing personal assets and adding the individuals to a national debtor blacklist when they fail to pay up, in moves that are throwing the country's startup funding ecosystem into crisis. The hard-nosed tactics by risk capital providers have been facilitated by clauses known as redemption rights, included in nearly all the financing deals struck during China's boom times.
  "My in
  
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• AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funding Valuing it at $60 Billion

  07-01-2025 19:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion dollars in a deal that would value it at $60 billion, making it the latest artificial-intelligence startup to seize upon investor euphoria for the technology. WSJ: The funding round is being led by the venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, people familiar with the matter said. The $60 billion valuation includes the money Anthropic plans to raise in the round.
  The deal would make Anthropic the fifth-most valuable U.S. startup after SpaceX, Op
  
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• Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram in Free-Speech Pitch

  07-01-2025 19:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Mark Zuckerberg built up Facebook's content-policing efforts in the wake of Donald Trump's first presidential election. Now the Meta Platforms CEO is reversing course as he embraces a second Trump presidency. Meta is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said in a video Tuesday, a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms.
  "We're going to get back to our roots and f
  
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• Popular DNA Sequencer Left Vulnerable By 7-Year-Old Firmware, Unfixed Security Flaws

  07-01-2025 18:28 via it.slashdot.org
  
  A widely used DNA sequencer lacks crucial firmware security protections, potentially exposing genetic research facilities to cyberattacks, security researchers said on Tuesday. The Illumina iSeq 100, deployed at 23andMe and thousands of laboratories worldwide, runs on outdated BIOS firmware from 2018 that doesn't enforce Secure Boot protection against malware infections, ArsTechnica reported today, citing researchers from Eclypsium.
  The device's manufacturer, IEI Integration Corp, supplies mothe
  
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• Apple's AI Is Proving It's Anything But Intelligent

  07-01-2025 17:50 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Complaints and ridicule have been mounting about mistakes by the iPhone maker's hyped feature, and its flaws risk a serious setback. Bloomberg: If you've seen any of Apple's marketing lately, you'll know the latest iPhone is billed as the first "built for Apple Intelligence." The "for" in that sentence is doing a great deal of work. It couldn't be "with" because Apple's AI features weren't ready when the device came out, and some are still yet to be released. The first were added to devices in i
  
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• Nvidia Unveils $3,000 Personal AI Supercomputer

  07-01-2025 17:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Nvidia will begin selling a personal AI supercomputer in May that can run sophisticated AI models with up to 200 billion parameters, the chipmaker has announced. The $3,000 Project Digits system is powered by the new GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip and can operate from a standard power outlet.
  The device delivers 1 petaflop of AI performance and includes 128GB of memory and up to 4TB of storage. Two units can be linked to handle models with 405 billion parameters. "AI will be mainstream in every
  
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• Nvidia To Deploy AI Teammates in Video Games this Year

  07-01-2025 16:27 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Nvidia has unveiled plans to introduce AI-powered autonomous characters in video games this year, starting with a virtual teammate in the battle royale game PUBG, the chip maker said at CES 2025 in Las Vegas.
  The technology, called ACE, enables in-game characters to communicate, make decisions and interact with players using small language models. The AI companions will also feature in Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile PC Version in March 2025 and other upcoming titles including inZOI and MIR5, Nvidia s
  
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• Getty Images and Shutterstock Agree To Merge

  07-01-2025 15:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Getty Images and Shutterstock have agreed to combine in a deal that creates a $3.7 billion visual content company. From a report: The deal underscores the soaring demand for images and related content from content creators and platforms. Getty CEO Craig Peters will remain chief executive of the combined business, which will trade under the GETY ticker symbol.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Instagram Begins Randomly Showing Users AI-Generated Images of Themselves

  07-01-2025 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Instagram has begun testing a feature in which Meta's AI will automatically generate images of users in various situations and put them into that user's feed. One Redditor posted over the weekend that they were scrolling through Instagram and were presented an AI-generated slideshow of themselves standing in front of "an endless maze of mirrors," for example. "Used Meta AI to edit a selfie, now Instagram is using my face on ads targeted at me,"
  
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• America Is Stuck With an Elevator Crisis

  07-01-2025 11:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  America's aging elevators are facing significant repair delays and rising costs, creating accessibility challenges and leaving vulnerable populations stranded. Experts argue that implementing federal standards and modernizing systems could address these issues. However, fixing the nation's approximately one million elevators is "becoming a heavy lift," reports Axios. From the report: America's aging elevators are time-consuming and costly to fix. The workforce of technicians who know how to fix
  
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• Microsoft Plans $3 Billion AI, Cloud Investment in India

  07-01-2025 10:52 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft plans to invest $3 billion to expand its artificial intelligence and cloud Azure services in India, turning to the world's most populous nation to fuel its revenue growth engine. From a report: The firm, which has been operating in India for more than two decades, will also train an additional 10 million people in the country with AI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at an event in Bengaluru Tuesday.
  "The investments in infrastructure and skilling we are announcing today reaffirm our c
  
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• Outgoing NASA Administrator Urges Incoming Leaders To Stick With Artemis Plan

  07-01-2025 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Before NASA Administrator Bill Nelson retires in a couple of weeks, he has one final message for the next administration: Don't give up on the agency's Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon. In an interview with Ars Technica's Eric Berger, Nelson discussed his time in office, the major decisions he made, and his concerns for the space agency's future under the Trump administration. Here's an excerpt from the interview: Ars: I wanted to start with the state of Artemis. You all had an event
  
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• John Deere Thinks Driverless Tractors Are the Answer To Labor Shortages

  07-01-2025 04:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: John Deere is going all in on autonomous tractors. The company, which first introduced a driverless vehicle in 2022, said self-driving machines will revolutionize the field and address labor shortages. It will soon be selling self-driving dump trucks, more driverless tractors, and a robot lawn mower. "When we talk about autonomy, we mean full autonomy," Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere, said at CES on Monday, according to The
  
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• US Records Its First Human Bird Flu Death

  07-01-2025 02:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A 65-year-old patient in the United States with underlying medical conditions has died from bird flu. According to NBC News, "health officials considered the case to be the "country's first severe human H5N1 infection." From the report: The Louisiana Department of Health said the patient had been exposed to a combination of a backyard flock and wild birds. "The Department expresses its deepest condolences to the patient's family and friends as they mourn the loss of their loved one," it said in
  
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• Google Is Forming a New Team To Build AI That Can Simulate the Physical World

  07-01-2025 02:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google DeepMind is forming a new team to develop AI models capable of simulating the physical world. It's being led by former OpenAI Sora co-lead Tim Brooks and builds on Google's Gemini, Veo, and Genie projects. "DeepMind has ambitious plans to make massive generative models that simulate the world," Brooks wrote on X. "I'm hiring for a new team with this mission." TechCrunch reports: According to job listings Brooks linked to in his post, the new modeling team will collaborate with and build o
  
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• AMD Reveals Next-Gen Handheld Gaming PC Chips

  07-01-2025 01:24 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  At CES 2025, AMD unveiled the Z2, Z2 Go, and Z2 Extreme chipsets -- all powered by Zen 5 CPU cores and designed for handheld gaming PCs. IGN reports: The AMD Zen 2 Extreme, along with lower-specced cousins the Z2 and Z2 Go, are powered by Zen 5 CPU cores. While the Zen 2 Extreme is using a RDNA 3.5-based GPU, the Z2 and Z2 Go are still using RDNA 3 and RDNA 2, respectively. This creates an entire family of APUs (Advanced Processing Units) for handheld gaming PCs that should hopefully cause the p
  
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• US Adds Tencent, CATL To List of Chinese Firms Aiding Beijing's Military

  07-01-2025 00:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Defense Department said on Monday it has added Chinese tech giants including gaming and social media leader Tencent Holdings and battery maker CATL to a list of firms it says work with China's military. The list also included chip maker Changxin Memory Technologies, Quectel Wireless and drone maker Autel Robotics, according to a document published on Monday. The annually updated list (PDF) of Chinese military companies, formally mandated
  
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• Toyota's Futuristic Woven City In Japan Is Ready For Its First Residents

  07-01-2025 00:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Toyota's Woven City, a $10 billion "living laboratory" on the site of a former car factory, is set to welcome its first 100 residents in fall 2025. The first residents will be Toyota employees and affiliates, but the city aims to expand to include "external inventors and their families." The Verge reports: Toyota said it completed "phase 1" of the construction, with the official launch planned for 2025. "Woven City is more than just a place to live, work, and play," Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda s
  
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