ICT news

• Microsoft Unveils New Voice-Activated AI Assistant For Doctors

  03-03-2025 23:50 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft has introduced Dragon Copilot, a voice-activated AI assistant for doctors that integrates dictation and ambient listening tools to automate clinical documentation, including notes, referrals, and post-visit summaries. The tool is set to launch in May in the U.S. and Canada. CNBC reports: Microsoft acquired Nuance Communications, the company behind Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot, for about $16 billion in 2021. As a result, Microsoft has become a major player in the fiercely competit
  
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• TSMC Pledges To Spend $100 Billion On US Chip Facilities

  03-03-2025 23:10 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Chipmaker TSMC said that it aims to invest "at least" $100 billion in chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next four years as part of an effort to expand the company's network of semiconductor factories. President Donald Trump announced the news during a press conference Monday. TSMC's cash infusion will fund the construction of several new facilities in Arizona, C. C. Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said during the briefing. "We are
  
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• Former Intel CEO Barrett Calls for Board Dismissal and Gelsinger's Return

  03-03-2025 22:30 via slashdot.org
  
  Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett urged the rehiring of Pat Gelsinger, who was abruptly fired two months ago, arguing he should "finish the job he has aptly handled over the past few years."
  "Pat Gelsinger did a great job resuscitating the technology development team," Barrett wrote, criticizing the company's current leadership under "a CFO and a product manager." He suggested firing the Intel board rather than splitting the company.
  Barrett's comments come in response to proposals from four former
  
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• Call Centers Using AI To 'Whiten' Indian Accents

  03-03-2025 21:50 via slashdot.org
  
  The world's biggest call center company is using artificial intelligence to "neutralise" Indian accents for Western customers. From a report: Teleperformance said it was applying real-time AI software on phone calls in order to increase "human empathy" between two people on the phone. The French company's customers in the UK include parts of the Government, the NHS, Vodafone and eBay.
  Teleperformance has 90,000 employees in India and tens of thousands more in other countries. It is using softwar
  
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• The US Cities Whose Workers Are Most Exposed to AI

  03-03-2025 21:11 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Silicon Valley, the place that did more than any other to pioneer artificial intelligence, is the most exposed to its ability to automate work. That's according to an analysis by researchers at the Brookings Institution, a think tank, which matched the tasks that OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 could do with the jobs that are most common in different US cities. From a report: The result is a sharp departure from previous rounds of automation. Whereas technologies like robotics came for middle-class jobs -- a
  
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• How the British Broke Their Own Economy

  03-03-2025 19:10 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, now suffers from its opposite: profound energy shortages and deep affordability crises [non-paywalled link]. A new report titled "Foundations" identifies the root cause -- "it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere" in the UK.
  Housing exemplifies this malaise. Since the 1990s, homeownership among young British workers has halved while housing prices doubled. The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act effectively nationalized development
  
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• Waiting For the Paperback? Good Luck.

  03-03-2025 18:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  U.S. publishers are increasingly abandoning paperback editions of nonfiction books, eliminating a traditional second chance for authors to reach readers with lower-priced versions of their work. New adult nonfiction paperback titles plummeted 42% between 2019 and 2024 [non-paywalled source] to under 40,000, while hardcover titles fell just 9% during the same period, according to Bowker Books in Print.
  "It's profoundly demoralizing that a book that might have taken four years to write and was pub
  
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• Graduates From Top MBA Programs Are Struggling To Land Jobs

  03-03-2025 17:52 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Job placement rates have declined at all top U.S. business schools [non-paywalled source] since 2021, leaving MBA graduates anxious about their expensive degrees' return on investment. Harvard Business School, which produced Wall Street titans like Bill Ackman and Ray Dalio, saw the percentage of graduates without job offers three months post-graduation rise from 4% in 2021 to 15% currently.
  Similar trends are evident at Stanford, Chicago Booth, MIT Sloan, and Wharton, where 7% of 2024 graduates
  
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• Nvidia and Broadcom Testing Chips on Intel Manufacturing Process

  03-03-2025 17:05 via slashdot.org
  
  Nvidia and Broadcom are conducting manufacturing tests using Intel's advanced 18A chip production process, according to Reuters, signaling potential confidence in the struggling chipmaker's contract manufacturing ambitions. The previously unreported tests could lead to significant manufacturing contracts for Intel, whose foundry business has suffered delays and lacks major chip designer customers.
  AMD is also evaluating Intel's 18A technology, which competes with Taiwan's dominant TSMC, accordin
  
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• Lenovo's ThinkBook Flip Puts an Extra-Tall Folding Display On a Laptop

  03-03-2025 16:29 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Speaking of some concept devices that Lenovo has unveiled, the company today teased its ThinkBook "codename Flip" AI PC Concept at Mobile World Congress, featuring a flexible 18.1-inch OLED display that can transform between three configurations: a traditional 13.1-inch clamshell, a folded 12.9-inch tablet, or a laptop with an extra-tall vertical screen.
  Unlike the motorized ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 expected in June, the Flip uses the display's flexibility to fold behind itself, eliminating motors w
  
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• How Many Episodes Should You Watch Before Quitting a TV Show? A Statistical Analysis

  03-03-2025 15:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Daniel Parris: Some TV shows take a while to "get good." Modern classics like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Community, and Bojack Horseman are notorious for "starting slow" and are often recommended with a disclaimer like "Give it a few episodes; I promise it gets good!"
  At the same time, some shows never get good. Recently, I started a spy series called The Agency, which could best be characterized as premium mediocre (at least so far). There are big-name actors (Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, R
  
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• China May Be Ready To Use Nuclear Fusion for Power by 2050

  03-03-2025 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  China aims to commercialize nuclear fusion technology for use in emissions-free power generation by 2050, according to the countryâ(TM)s state-owned atomic company. From a report: China National Nuclear Corp., which runs an experimental device dubbed the 'artificial sun,' could start commercial operation of its first power generation project about five years after a demonstration phase starting around 2045, it said in a media briefing on Friday.
  The Asian nation has recently stepped up its
  
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• 'Why Can't We Screenshot Frames From DRM-Protected Video on Apple Devices?'

  03-03-2025 13:34 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple users noticed a change in 2023, "when streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and the Criterion Channel imposed a quiet embargo on the screenshot," noted the film blog Screen Slate:At first, there were workarounds: users could continue to screenshot by using the browser Brave or by downloading extensions or third-party tools like Fireshot. But gradually, the digital-rights-management tech adapted and became more sophisticated. Today, it is nearly impossible to take a scree
  
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• Can TrapC Fix C and C++ Memory Safety Issues?

  03-03-2025 09:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "TrapC, a fork of the C language, is being developed as a potential solution for memory safety issues that have hindered the C and C++ languages," reports InfoWorld.But also being developed is a compiler named trapc "intended to be implemented as a cybersecurity compiler for C and C++ code, said developer Robin Rowe..."Due by the end of this year, trapc will be a free, open source compiler similar to Clang... Rowe said. TrapC has pointers that are memory-safe, addressing the memory safety issue
  
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• Blender-Rendered Movie 'Flow' Wins Oscar for Best Animated Feature, Beating Pixar

  03-03-2025 06:04 via news.slashdot.org
  
  It's a feature-length film "rendered on a free and open-source software platform called Blender," reports Reuters. And it just won the Oscar for best animated feature film, beating movies from major studios like Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks.
  In January Blender.org called Flow "the manifestation of Blender's mission, where a small, independent team with a limited budget is able to create a story that moves audiences worldwide, and achieve recognition with over 60 awards, including a Golden Globe f
  
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• Linux's Marketshare Drops in Monthly Steam Survey

  03-03-2025 03:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  What's Linux's marketshare on Steam? The Steam Survey numbers tell this story:
  11/24: 2.03%
  12/24: 2.29%
  01/25: 2.06%
  02:25: 1.45%
  "The February numbers show a staggering 0.61% drop to Linux use..." reports Phoronix. But they attribute this to an sampling error:
  According to the survey, it shows 50% of Steam users using the Simplified Chinese language pack [a 20% increase from the month before]. In prior months where there has been drops to Linux use, it's been correlated to wild swings in the C
  
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• Lenovo Teases Solar-Powered and Foldable-Screen Laptops in Latest Concepts

  03-03-2025 01:31 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  Lenovo demonstrated "a laptop with a foldable screen and one that can get extra battery life from solar power," reports CNBC, emphasizing that "These laptops are just concepts, meaning they are not commercially available."But "Lenovo, the world's biggest PC maker, has a history of showing off imaginative concepts with some becoming reality, so it's worth keeping an eye on what the Chinese technology giant is up to..."
  The latest concepts were unveiled at the Mobile World Congress trade show in B
  
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• Trump Names Cryptocurrencies for 'Digital Asset Stockpile' in Social Media Post

  03-03-2025 00:29 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Despite a January announcement that America would explore the idea of a national digital asset stockpile, the exact cryptocurrecies weren't specified. Today on social media the president posted that it would include bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana's SOL token and Cardano's ADA, reports CNBC — prompting a Sunday rally in cryptocurrencies trading.XRP surged 33% after the announcement while the token tied to Solana jumped 22%. Cardano's coin soared more than 60%. Bitcoin rose 10% to $94,425.29, a
  
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