ICT news

• Google Reportedly Worked Directly With Israel's Military On AI Tools

  22-01-2025 23:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In the aftermath of Israel's October 2023 ground invasion of Gaza, Google reportedly worked with the Israeli military to provide AI services while racing against Amazon for contracts. This comes despite publicly denying collaboration with the military and punishing employees protesting its involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing agreement with Israel. The Verge reports: In the weeks after Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, employees at Google's cloud division worked dire
  
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• Samsung's Galaxy S25 Phones Once Again Lean Heavily on AI

  22-01-2025 23:02 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  At Galaxy Unpacked today in San Jose, California, Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy S25 series of flagship smartphones loaded with AI capabilities and LLMs. "Currently, the Galaxy S25 range is comprised of the Galaxy S25 ($800), Galaxy S25+ ($1,000), and Galaxy S25 Ultra ($1,300)," reports Wired. "The phones are available for preorder today and will officially go on sale February 7." Since the hardware is relatively unchanged from last year's Galaxy S24 series, here's what Wired has to say about t
  
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• Anthropic Chief Says AI Could Surpass 'Almost All Humans At Almost Everything' Shortly After 2027

  22-01-2025 22:25 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that AI models may surpass human capabilities "in almost everything" within two to three years, according to a Wall Street Journal interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Speaking at Journal House in Davos, Amodei said, "I don't know exactly when it'll come, I don't know if it'll be 2027. I think it's plausible it could be longer than that. I don't think it will be a whole
  
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• Mastercard DNS Error Went Unnoticed for Years

  22-01-2025 21:42 via it.slashdot.org
  
  A security researcher discovered and fixed a critical domain name server misconfiguration in Mastercard's systems that persisted undetected for nearly five years, potentially exposing the credit card giant to traffic interception risks.
  Philippe Caturegli, founder of security firm Seralys, found that one of Mastercard's five DNS servers incorrectly pointed to "akam.ne" instead of "akam.net" from June 2020 to January 2025. He spent $300 to register the domain through Niger's domain authority to p
  
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• YouTube Premium Adds 256kbps Audio 'Experiment' For Music Videos

  22-01-2025 21:01 via news.slashdot.org
  
  YouTube Premium subscribers can now stream music videos at 256kbps bitrate audio quality, matching the high-fidelity standard previously exclusive to YouTube Music, the video platform said.
  The audio upgrade comes as part of an expanded experimental features program that allows Premium users to test multiple new features simultaneously, departing from its previous single-experiment limitation, the company said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Salesforce Chief Predicts Today's CEOs Will Be the Last With All-Human Workforces

  22-01-2025 20:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Wednesday that current business leaders may be the last generation to manage an exclusively human workforce, as AI transforms the workplace. "We are really moving into a world now of managing humans and agents together," he told Axios.
  His company's Agentforce platform, launched in September, has taken over many customer support tasks, prompting plans to move support staff into sales roles. Speaking to Axios at the World Economic Forum, Benioff dismissed Microsof
  
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• South Carolina To Reboot Giant Nuclear Project to Meet AI Demand

  22-01-2025 19:41 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Santee Cooper, the big power provider in South Carolina, has tapped financial advisers to look for buyers that can restart construction on a pair of nuclear reactors that were mothballed years ago. From a report: The state-owned utility is betting interest will be strong, with tech giants such as Amazon.com and Microsoft in need of clean energy to fuel data centers for artificial-intelligence capabilities. The details Santee Cooper announced Wednesday it is seeking proposals for buyers to comple
  
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• Adobe Premiere Pro Now Lets You Find Video Clips By Describing Them

  22-01-2025 19:01 via slashdot.org
  
  Search in Premiere Pro has been updated with AI-powered visual recognition, allowing users to find videos by describing the contents of the footage. From a report: It's just one of several quality-of-life features Adobe is adding to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Frame.io that aim to save video editors time on their projects. Users can enter search terms like "a person skating with a lens flare" to find corresponding clips within their media library.
  Adobe says the media intelligence AI can au
  
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• Microsoft Secures Deal To Restore Amazon Rainforest and Offset AI Emissions

  22-01-2025 18:21 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft will pay to restore parts of Brazil's Amazon and Atlantic forests [non-paywalled source] in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of carbon credits, becoming the latest Big Tech player to bet that nature-based solutions can offset an artificial intelligence-driven surge in greenhouse gas emissions. Financial Times: The $3.2tn US company told the Financial Times it had signed a deal to buy 3.5mn credits over 25 years from Re.green, a Brazilian start-up which buys up farmin
  
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• ChatGPT-Maker To Launch Web Automation Tool 'Operator' This Week

  22-01-2025 17:25 via slashdot.org
  
  OpenAI will release "Operator" this week, letting ChatGPT users automate web tasks through a built-in browser, The Information reported Wednesday. The feature handles restaurant bookings, travel planning, shopping and deliveries, asking follow-up questions like party size for reservations. Users can watch Operator work, take control mid-task, and share workflows with others.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Plex Adds Public Reviews, Profiles in Social Push

  22-01-2025 16:54 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Streaming platform Plex has introduced public reviews and user profiles, expanding social features launched last October. Users can now comment on others' reviews and make their profiles, watchlists and viewing history searchable, with customizable privacy settings ranging from public to private. Plex Pass subscribers are additionally also gaining access to HEVC encoding for improved visual quality.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Netflix Raises Prices Again

  22-01-2025 16:22 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Netflix will raise prices on most U.S. and Canadian subscription tiers after adding a record 19 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2024, bringing its global total to 302 million users.
  The standard plan without ads will increase to $17.99 from $15.49, while its premium tier rises $2 to $24.99. The ad-supported tier will cost $7.99, up $1. The streaming service's quarterly revenue topped $10 billion for the first time, jumping 16%, while operating income rose 52% to $2.3 billion. The co
  
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• Google Invests Another $1 Billion in AI Developer Anthropic

  22-01-2025 15:41 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Alphabet's Google is backing AI developer Anthropic with a further $1 billion, building its stake in one of the most promising rivals to OpenAI. From a report: The new funding comes in addition to more than $2 billion that Google has already invested in Anthropic, according to a person familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named discussing a private matter. Google has a business agreement with Anthropic that covers the use of a suite of online tools and services.
  Amazon counts among its bi
  
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• DDoS Attacks Soar 53% To 21.3 Million, Cloudflare Reports

  22-01-2025 15:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Cloudflare blocked 21.3 million DDoS attacks in 2024, including a record-breaking 5.6 terabit-per-second strike that targeted an Asian internet service provider last October. The yearly total marked a 53% increase from 2023.
  The 80-second October attack, which originated from over 13,000 compromised Internet of Things devices running Mirai malware variant, highlighted an alarming trend: hyper-volumetric attacks exceeding 1 terabit per second grew by 1,885% in the fourth quarter compared to the p
  
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• CISA and FBI Release Advisory on How Threat Actors Chained Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Cloud Service Applications

  22-01-2025 13:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA, in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), released Threat Actors Chained Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Cloud Service Applications. This advisory was crafted in response to active exploitation of vulnerabilities—CVE-2024-8963, an administrative bypass vulnerability; CVE-2024-9379, a SQL injection vulnerability; and CVE-2024-8190 and CVE-2024-9380, remote code execution vulnerabilities—in Ivanti Cloud Service Appliances (CSA) in September 2024.
  CISA, and the use
  
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• Calm Tech Certification 'Rewards' Less Distracting Tech

  22-01-2025 13:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: [Amber Case is a speaker and author of Calm Technology.] Case's book, inspired by the work of Xerox PARC researchers Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, outlines eight principles for calm technology; examples include the idea that technology "should require the smallest possible amount of attention" while in use, and that it "should work even when it fails." The book's ideas gained the attention of major technology companies, including Micros
  
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• Men Have Grown Twice As Much As Women Over Past Century, Study Shows

  22-01-2025 10:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  According to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over the past century. The Guardian reports: "We're seeing insights into how sexual selection has shaped the male and female body and how improved environments, in terms of food and a lower burden of disease, have freed us from our shackles," said Prof Lewis Halsey at the University of Roehampton. Halsey and his colleagues used data from the World Health Or
  
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• Microsoft Loses Status as OpenAI's Exclusive Cloud Provider

  22-01-2025 07:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft, the biggest investor in OpenAI and its principal cloud partner, is losing its designation as exclusive provider of computing capacity for the artificial intelligence startup. CNBC: In a blog post on Tuesday, Microsoft said that it's still in a favorable position with OpenAI. Going forward, when OpenAI seeks additional capacity, Microsoft will have the "right of first refusal" before OpenAI checks with other parties. The change in their relationship was disclosed as part of President D
  
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• Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Pardoned

  22-01-2025 06:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Slashdot readers jkister and databasecowgirl share the news of President Donald Trump issuing a pardon to Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. An anonymous reader shares a report from the BBC: US President Donald Trump says he has signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, who operated Silk Road, the dark web marketplace where illegal drugs were sold. Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 in New York in a narcotics and money laundering conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. Trump posted
  
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• 'Decentralized Social Media Is the Only Alternative To the Tech Oligarchy'

  22-01-2025 04:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed from 404 Media's Jason Koebler: If it wasn't already obvious, the last 72 hours have made it crystal clear that it is urgent to build and mainstream alternative, decentralized social media platforms that are resistant to government censorship and control, are not owned by oligarchs and dominated by their algorithms, and in which users own their follower list and can port it elsewhere easily and without restriction. [...] Mastodon's ActivityPub and Bluesky's AT
  
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• macOS Sequoia 15.3 and iOS 18.3 Enable Apple Intelligence Automatically

  22-01-2025 02:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple's upcoming updates -- macOS Sequoia 15.3, iOS 18.3, and iPadOS 18.3 -- will enable Apple Intelligence by default on compatible devices, requiring users to manually disable it if undesired. From Apple's developer release notes: "For users new or upgrading to iOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence will be enabled automatically during iPhone onboarding. Users will have access to Apple Intelligence features after setting up their devices. To disable Apple Intelligence, users will need to navigate to the
  
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• IMDb Founder Steps Down As CEO After 35 Years

  22-01-2025 02:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  IMDb founder Col Needham is stepping down as CEO after 35 years, transitioning to executive chair. He will be succeeded by Nikki Santoro, who has served as the chief operating officer since 2021. TechCrunch reports: Santoro's appointment is significant, as she is the first woman to become the CEO and only the second person to hold the position. Needham founded IMDb in 1990 at the age of 23, steering the company into a powerhouse within the entertainment industry. After 35 years, he'll transition
  
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• Wine 10.0 Released

  22-01-2025 01:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: The Wine team has officially released Wine 10.0, marking a full year of extensive development with over 6,000 changes. This stable release introduces major updates designed to enhance performance, compatibility, and visual experience when running Windows applications on Linux and other non-Windows platforms. Here's a list of the new changes and features:- Full ARM64EC Support: Now on par with ARM64, allowing the creation of hybrid ARM64X modules blendi
  
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• Managing AI Agents As Employees Is the Challenge of 2025, Says Goldman Sachs CIO

  22-01-2025 00:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: This year, artificial intelligence will be dominated by the maturation of AI code as corporate "workers" that can take over corporate processes and be managed just like employees, according to a year-outlook blog post disseminated by investment bank Goldman Sachs featuring its chief information officer, Marco Argenti. "The capabilities of AI models to plan and execute complex, long-running tasks on humans' behalf will begin to mature," writes Argen
  
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• Trump To Announce Up To $500 Billion In AI Infrastructure Investment

  22-01-2025 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  According to CBS News, President Trump plans to announce billions of dollars in private sector investment to build AI infrastructure in the United States. From the report: OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle are planning a joint venture called Stargate, according to multiple people familiar with the deal. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is expected at the White House Tuesday afternoon, along with Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. Executives from the companies are expected to say they plan to
  
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