ICT news

• Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Talks Succession - 'I Don't Want To Pass It To a Committee'

  04-03-2025 23:20 via slashdot.org
  
  WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg said on a podcast he aims to eventually hand over leadership to a single successor rather than "a committee," amid growing calls for him to step down following his legal battle with hosting company WP Engine. On a recent episode of Lenny's Podcast, Mullenweg discussed his succession strategy for Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, WooCommerce and Tumblr. "I want to pass it to someone else who could have a role similar to mine, and really sort of t
  
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• Judges Are Fed Up With Lawyers Using AI That Hallucinate Court Cases

  04-03-2025 22:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: After a group of attorneys were caught using AI to cite cases that didn't actually exist in court documents last month, another lawyer was told to pay $15,000 for his own AI hallucinations that showed up in several briefs. Attorney Rafael Ramirez, who represented a company called HoosierVac in an ongoing case where the Mid Central Operating Engineers Health and Welfare Fund claims the company is failing to allow the union a full audit of its bo
  
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• Citi Copy-Paste Error Almost Sent $6 Billion to Wealth Account

  04-03-2025 20:52 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Citigroup nearly credited about $6 billion to a customer's account in its wealth-management business by accident. From a report: The near-error occurred after a staffer handling the transfer copied and pasted the account number into a field for the dollar figure, which was detected on the next business day, the report added. The wealth division's near-miss was reported to regulators and the company has since set up a tool to help vet large, anomalous payments and transfers, according to the repo
  
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• Australia, With No Auto Industry To Protect, is Awash With Chinese EVs

  04-03-2025 19:44 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is rapidly gaining market share in Australia, with sales rising 65% last year as nearly one in four EVs sold in the country was a BYD, according to EVDirect CEO David Smitherman. Chinese EVs now comprise roughly one-third of electric vehicles sold in Australia, which has no domestic auto industry to protect with tariffs, unlike the United States where both Trump and Biden administrations have effectively blocked Chinese EV imports.
  The Biden administration impo
  
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• Apple Launches Legal Challenge To UK 'Back Door' Order

  04-03-2025 18:43 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple is stepping up its fight with the British government over a demand to create a "back door" in its most secure cloud storage systems, by filing a legal complaint that it hopes will overturn the order. Financial Times: The iPhone maker has made its appeal to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent judicial body that examines complaints against the UK security services, according to people familiar with the matter. The Silicon Valley company's legal challenge is believed to be the f
  
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• After Exam Fiasco, California State Bar Staff Recommend Reverting To In-person Exams

  04-03-2025 18:27 via it.slashdot.org
  
  After California's bar exams were plagued last week with technical problems, the State Bar of California is recommending that the agency return to in-person tests as it scrutinizes whether the vendor behind the new testing system met the obligations of its contract. From a report: "Based on the administration of the February Bar Exam, staff cannot recommend going forward with Meazure Learning," Donna Hershkowitz, chief of admissions for the State Bar, wrote to the agency's Board of Trustees in a
  
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• Scientists Create 'Woolly Mice'

  04-03-2025 17:40 via science.slashdot.org
  
  EmagGeek shares a report: Scientists have genetically engineered mice with some key characteristics of an extinct animal that was far larger -- the woolly mammoth. This "woolly mouse" marks an important step toward achieving the researchers' ultimate goal -- bringing a woolly mammoth-like creature back from extinction, they say.
  "For us, it's an incredibly big deal," says Beth Shapiro, chief science officer at Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas company trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth and othe
  
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• Apple Unveils iPad Air With M3 Chip

  04-03-2025 17:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple today announced a significant update to its iPad Air lineup, integrating the M3 chip previously reserved for higher-end devices. The new tablets, available in both 11-inch ($599) and 13-inch ($799) configurations, deliver substantial performance gains: nearly 2x faster than M1-equipped models and 3.5x faster than A14 Bionic versions.
  The M3 brings Apple's advanced graphics architecture to the Air for the first time, featuring dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and ray trac
  
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• Europe's Biggest Battery Powered Up In Scotland

  04-03-2025 16:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  AmiMoJo shares a report: Europe's biggest battery storage project has entered commercial operation in Scotland [alternative source], promising to soak up surplus wind power and prevent turbines being paid to switch off.
  Zenobe said the first phase of its project at Blackhillock, between Inverness and Aberdeen, was now live with capacity to store enough power to supply 200 megawatts of electricity for two hours. It is due to be expanded to 300 megawatts by next year, enough to supply 3.1 million
  
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• China's Supreme Court Calls For Crack Down on Paper Mills

  04-03-2025 15:40 via science.slashdot.org
  
  China's highest court has called for a crack down on the activities of paper mills, businesses that churn out fraudulent or poor-quality manuscripts and sell authorships. Nature: Some researchers are cautiously optimistic that the court's guidance will help curb the use of these services, while others think the impact will be minimal. "This is the first time the supreme court has issued guidance on paper mills and on scientific fraud," says Wang Fei, who studies research-integrity policy at Dali
  
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• Realme Charts Path To 10,000mAh Phone Batteries by 2026

  04-03-2025 15:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  Realme plans to double smartphone battery capacity to 10,000mAh within its three-year strategic roadmap, the company said at tradeshow MWC on Tuesday. Current flagship devices typically offer 5,000mAh, while Realme's latest models already ship with 6,000mAh cells. The company expects to implement 7,500mAh batteries next year before reaching the 10,000mAh target, PCMag reported, citing the firm.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Google Releases SpeciesNet, an AI Model Designed To Identify Wildlife

  04-03-2025 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google has open sourced an AI model, SpeciesNet, designed to identify animal species by analyzing photos from camera traps. Researchers around the world use camera traps -- digital cameras connected to infrared sensors -- to study wildlife populations. But while these traps can provide valuable insights, they generate massive volumes of data that take days to weeks to sift through. In a bid to help, Google launched Wildlife Insights, an initia
  
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• CISA Tags Windows, Cisco Vulnerabilities As Actively Exploited

  04-03-2025 11:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  CISA has warned U.S. federal agencies about active exploitation of vulnerabilities in Cisco VPN routers and Windows systems. "While the cybersecurity agency has tagged these flaws as actively exploited in the wild, it has yet to provide specific details regarding this malicious activity and who is behind it," adds Bleeping Computer. From the report: The first flaw (tracked as CVE-2023-20118) enables attackers to execute arbitrary commands on RV016, RV042, RV042G, RV082, RV320, and RV325 VPN rout
  
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• Private Lunar Lander Blue Ghost Aces Moon Touchdown

  04-03-2025 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander successfully touched down on the moon, making it the first private company to achieve a stable lunar landing without crashing. The craft is carrying various NASA-funded experiments, including a "vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface," reports the Associated Press. There's also "a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust -- a scourge for NASA's long-ago Apollo moonwalkers,
  
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• Researchers Find Less-Educated Areas Adopting AI Writing Tools Faster

  04-03-2025 04:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, experts have debated how widely AI language models would impact the world. A few years later, the picture is getting clear. According to new Stanford University-led research examining over 300 million text samples across multiple sectors, AI language models now assist in writing up to a quarter of professional communications across sectors. It's having a large impact, especially in less-educated part
  
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• NASA Photo Captures Sound Barrier Being Broken

  04-03-2025 02:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  NASA used specialized Schlieren photography to capture an image of Boom Supersonic's XB-1 demonstrator aircraft breaking the sound barrier on February 10, 2025 and producing shock waves as it exceeded Mach 1. The flight produced no audible sonic boom, marking progress toward the goal of quiet supersonic travel. CNN reports: "This image makes the invisible visible," said Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, in a press release. In order to capture the Schlieren images, Boom chief test
  
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• Google Play Is Going To Start Highlighting Apps With Widgets

  04-03-2025 01:50 via devices.slashdot.org
  
  Google Play on Android devices is being updated to include a new search filter for widgets, widget badges on app detail pages, and a curated editorial page dedicated to widgets. The Verge reports: With the search filter, users will be able to more easily search for apps with widgets. The badge "eliminates guesswork for users and highlights your widget offerings, encouraging them to explore and utilize this capability," Taiwo-Peters says. And the curated editorial page will show off "collections
  
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• US To Halt Offensive Cyber Operations Against Russia

  04-03-2025 01:10 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The United States has suspended its offensive cyber operations against Russia, according to reports, amid efforts by the Trump administration to grant Moscow concessions to end the war in Ukraine. The reported order to halt U.S.-launched hacking operations against Russia was authorized by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to The Record. The new guidance affects operations carried out by U.S. Cyber Command, a division of the Depart
  
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• Driverless Race Car Sets a New Autonomous Speed Record

  04-03-2025 00:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A fully driverless Maserati MC20 Coupe set a new autonomous land speed record, reaching 197.7 mph at the Kennedy Space Center. The Verge reports: The Maserati was running self-driving software developed by Politecnico di Milano, Italy's largest scientific and technological university. The team also worked with the Indy Autonomous Challenge, which most recently ran at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway during CES 2025. In the shadow of NASA's iconic Space Shuttles, the race car flew down the 2.8-mile r
  
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