ICT news

• 'Exponential Spin-up' In Geothermal Energy Projects Brings Hope for Green Power

  02-03-2025 23:12 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Earth's core "burns with an estimated forty-four trillion watts of power," the New Yorker reminds us — enough to "satisfy the entire world's energy needs" with a power source that's carbon-free, ubiquitous — and unlimited. (Besides running 24 hours a day, one of geothermal energy's key advantages is "it can be used for both electricity and heating, which collectively account for around 38% of global climate emissions...")And one drilling expert tells them there's been an "exponential
  
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• How Buildings Are Staying Cool and Saving Money - with Batteries Made of Ice

  02-03-2025 21:17 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  "Thousands of buildings across the United States are staying cool with the help of cutting-edge batteries made from one of the world's simplest materials," reports the Washington Post — ice.When electricity is cheap, the batteries freeze water. When energy costs go up, building managers turn off their pricey chillers and use the ice to keep things cool. A typical building uses about a fifth of its electricity for cooling, according to the International Energy Agency. By shifting their ener
  
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• What Happened When Conspiracy Theorists Talked to OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo?

  02-03-2025 19:34 via slashdot.org
  
  A "decision science partner" at a seed-stage venture fund (who is also a cognitive-behavioral decision science author and professional poker player) explored what happens when GPT-4 Turbo converses with conspiracy theorists:
  Researchers have struggled for decades to develop techniques to weaken the grip of conspiracy theories and cult ideology on adherents. This is why a new paper in the journal Science by Thomas Costello of MIT's Sloan School of Management, Gordon Pennycook of Cornell Universit
  
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• Ask Slashdot: Would You Accept a Free Ride Into Space?

  02-03-2025 18:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  How confident are we about the safety of commercial space tourism? Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:It's one thing for Microsoft to boast that they dare to use Outlook instead of Gmail. But it took a whole other level of commitment for Jeff Bezos to join his brother Mark aboard Blue Origin's first passenger-carrying mission in July 2021.
  So, while Bezos is unhesitant about sending himself and other celebrities and loved ones into space aboard Blue Origin, how confident are you about the c
  
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• Fast New 3D Printing Technique Shines Holograms into Resin

  02-03-2025 17:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Can a new 3D-printing technique shorten 3D printing times to just seconds? A team of researchers in Europe has modified Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing, which can "create entire objects in one shot by shining light patterns into liquid resin," according to the 3D Printing Industry blog. (The liquid resin then solidifies when the light intensity is high enough...)While this approach can fabricate support-free, micro-scale parts within tens of seconds, it is "highly inefficient." Thi
  
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• First Petawatt Electron Beam Arrives, Ready To Rip Apart Matter and Space

  02-03-2025 16:04 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Petawatt lasers have already allowed scientists to "manipulate materials in new ways, emulate the conditions inside planets, and even split atoms," reports Science magazine. "Now, accelerator physicists have matched that feat, producing petawatt pulses of electrons that could also have spectacular applications..."
  Described in a paper published Thursday in Physical Review Letters, the electron pulses last one-quadrillionth of a second but carry 100 kiloamps of current. "It's a supercool experime
  
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• Malicious PyPI Package Exploited Deezer's API, Orchestrates a Distributed Piracy Operation

  02-03-2025 12:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  A malicious PyPi package effectively turned its users' systems "into an illicit network for facilitating bulk music downloads," writes The Hacker News.
  Though the package has been removed from PyPI, researchers at security platform Socket.dev say it enabled "coordinated, unauthorized music downloads from Deezer — a popular streaming service founded in France in 2007."Although automslc, which has been downloaded over 100,000 times, purports to offer music automation and metadata retrieval,
  
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• Watch 'Blue Ghost' Attempt Its Landing on the Moon

  02-03-2025 08:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Watch the "Blue Ghost" lunar lander attempt its moon landing.
  The actual landing is scheduled to happen at 3:34 a.m. Eastern time, according to CNN, while "The first images from the mission should be delivered about a half hour after..."
  Success is not guaranteed... [B]roadly speaking, about half of all lunar landing attempts have ended in failure. Jason Kim, Firefly's CEO, told CNN in December that his company's experience building rockets has given him a high degree of confidence in Blue Ghost
  
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• 27-Year-Old EXE Became Python In Minutes. Is AI-Assisted Reverse Engineering Next?

  02-03-2025 05:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Adafruit managing director Phillip Torrone (also long-time Slashdot reader ptorrone) shared an interesting blog post. They'd spotted a Reddit post "detailing how someone took a 27-year-old visual basic EXE file, fed it to Claude 3.7, and watched as it reverse-engineered the program and rewrote it in Python."It was an old Visual Basic 4 program they had written in 1997. Running a VB4 exe in 2024 can be a real yak-shaving compatibility nightmare, chasing down outdated DLLs and messy workarounds. S
  
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• Utah Could Become America's First State To Ban Fluoride In Public Water

  02-03-2025 03:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  NBC News reports that Utah could make history as America's first state to ban fluoride in public water systems — even though major medical associations supporting water fluoridation:
  If signed into law [by the governor], HB0081 would prevent any individual or political subdivision from adding fluoride "to water in or intended for public water systems..." A report published recently in JAMA Pediatrics found a statistically significant association between higher fluoride exposure and lower c
  
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• Microsoft Outage Leaves Tens of Thousands Unable to Access Email and Other Apps

  02-03-2025 00:51 via slashdot.org
  
  "Tens of thousands of users were unable to access various Microsoft programs on Saturday afternoon," reports CNBC:
  "We're investigating an issue in which users may be unable to access Outlook features and services," Microsoft 365 Status, the official Microsoft account for 365 service incidents, said in a post on X...
  The number of reports that services such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure were down spiked after 3:30 p.m. ET. More than
  
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