ICT news

• Everything You Say To Your Echo Will Be Sent To Amazon Starting On March 28

  14-03-2025 23:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon's cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of everything spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sen
  
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• Strava Bans User for Running in North Korea

  14-03-2025 22:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Fitness tracking platform Strava has terminated user accounts for uploading running activities recorded in North Korea, citing U.S. sanctions that prohibit offering online services to the country. A doctoral student researching North Korea had her account deleted after uploading a run recorded during a visit to the country. Another user was banned for a virtual treadmill workout set in North Korea, though their account was later reinstated.
  "In accordance with mandatory U.S. sanctions and export
  
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• AI Summaries Are Coming To Notepad

  14-03-2025 22:00 via slashdot.org
  
  way2trivial shares a report: Microsoft is testing AI-powered summaries in Notepad. In an update rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels, you'll be able to summarize information in Notepad by highlighting a chunk of text, right-clicking it, and selecting Summarize.
  Notepad will then generate a summary of the text, as well as provide an option to change its length. You can also generate summaries by selecting text and using the Ctrl + M shortcut or choosing Summarize from th
  
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• JPMorgan Engineers' Efficiency Jumps as Much as 20% From Using Coding Assistant

  14-03-2025 21:20 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Tens of thousands of JPMorgan Chase software engineers increased their productivity 10% to 20% by using a coding assistant tool developed by the bank, its global chief information officer Lori Beer said. From a report: The gains present "a great opportunity" for the lender to assign its engineers to other projects, Beer told Reuters ahead of DevUp, an internal conference hosted by JPMorgan, bringing together its top engineers in India this year. The largest lender in the U.S. had a technology bu
  
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• VAR Technology Faces Backlash Following Champions League Controversy

  14-03-2025 19:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  A controversial VAR (Video Assistant Referee) decision helped eliminate Atletico Madrid from the Champions League after Julian Alvarez's penalty was disallowed for a near-microscopic double touch. Despite referee Szymon Marciniak standing just feet away and missing the infraction, VAR officials intervened without the typically required "clear and obvious error" standard.
  This incident has exemplified the paradox of video review technology in football: introduced to reduce controversies, VAR has
  
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• China Announces Generative AI Labeling To Cull Disinformation

  14-03-2025 19:02 via slashdot.org
  
  China has introduced regulations requiring service providers to label AI-generated content, joining similar efforts by the European Union and United States to combat disinformation. The Cyberspace Administration of China and three other agencies announced Friday that AI-generated material must be labeled explicitly or via metadata, with implementation beginning September 1.
  "The Labeling Law will help users identify disinformation and hold service suppliers responsible for labeling their content
  
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• 'No One Knows What the Hell an AI Agent Is'

  14-03-2025 18:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Major technology companies are heavily promoting AI agents as transformative tools for work, but industry insiders say no one can agree on what these systems actually are, according to TechCrunch. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will "join the workforce" this year, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted they will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff declared his company's goal to become "the number one provider of digital labor in the world."
  The definition problem
  
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• Apple Plans AirPods Feature That Can Live-Translate Conversations

  14-03-2025 17:40 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple is planning a new AirPods feature that allows the earbuds to live-translate an in-person conversation into another language, Bloomberg reports, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: The capability will be offered as part of an AirPods software upgrade due later this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the effort is private. It will be tied to iOS 19, the upcoming update to Apple's mobile-device operating system.Read more of this story at Sla
  
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• Tariffs Are Proving 'Big Headache' For Tech Giants, Says Foxconn

  14-03-2025 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The US government's tariff announcements have become a "big headache" for technology companies such as iPhone maker Apple and cloud service provider Amazon, their manufacturing partner Foxconn said on Friday, in a rare public admission of the disruption caused by President Donald Trump's erratic trade policy. Financial Times: "The issue of tariffs is something that is giving the CEOs of our customers a big headache now," chief executive Young Liu told investors on an earnings call. "Judging by t
  
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• Windows Defender Now Flags WinRing0 Driver as Security Threat, Breaking Multiple PC Monitoring Tools

  14-03-2025 16:20 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Windows Defender has begun identifying WinRing0 -- a kernel-level driver used by numerous hardware monitoring applications -- as malicious software, causing widespread functionality issues for affected tools. The driver, which provides low-level hardware access necessary for reading fan speeds, controlling RGB lighting, and monitoring system components, is being quarantined due to potential security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malware.
  WinRing0 gained popularity among developers b
  
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• T-Mobile Raising Rates for More Legacy Customers

  14-03-2025 15:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  After raising rates last June for customers on some of its older plans, T-Mobile is pushing up costs again -- but it's not entirely clear how many people are affected. From a report: According to a memo obtained by CNET and sent to T-Mobile employees early this morning, some people will see a $5 per-line increase beginning with their April or May bills.
  The memo by Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile's consumer group, states that customers affected by the price hike should be notified by the end o
  
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• RCS Messaging Adds End-to-End Encryption Between Android and iOS

  14-03-2025 15:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  The GSM Association has released new specifications for RCS messaging incorporating end-to-end encryption (E2EE) based on the Messaging Layer Security protocol, six months after iOS 18 introduced RCS compatibility.
  The specifications ensure messages remain secure between Android and iOS devices, making RCS "the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers," said GSMA Technical Director Tom Van Pelt.
  The system combines
  
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• AI Coding Assistant Refuses To Write Code, Tells User To Learn Programming Instead

  14-03-2025 14:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Saturday, a developer using Cursor AI for a racing game project hit an unexpected roadblock when the programming assistant abruptly refused to continue generating code, instead offering some unsolicited career advice. According to a bug report on Cursor's official forum, after producing approximately 750 to 800 lines of code (what the user calls "locs"), the AI assistant halted work and delivered a refusal message: "I cannot generate code
  
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• Bill Gates' Climate Group Lays Off US, Europe Policy Teams

  14-03-2025 11:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Breakthrough Energy, the climate group founded by Bill Gates, has laid off dozens of employees in the U.S. and Europe, eliminating its public policy and partnerships teams as it shifts away from advocacy work. Its investment and grantmaking divisions will remain unaffected. The Detroit News reports: Breakthrough Energy is an umbrella organization founded by Gates that houses various initiatives aimed at accelerating the clean energy transition. It also encompasses Breakthrough Energy Ventures, o
  
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• Mars' Middle Atmosphere Appears Driven By Gravity Waves

  14-03-2025 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets reveals that atmospheric gravity waves play a crucial role in driving latitudinal air currents on Mars, particularly at high altitudes. Phys.Org reports: The study applied methods developed to explore Earth's atmosphere to quantitatively estimate the influence of gravity waves on Mars' planetary circulation. [...] "On Earth, large-scale atmospheric waves caused by the planet's rotation, known as Rossby waves, are the primary in
  
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• NASA, Yale, and Stanford Scientists Consider 'Scientific Exile'

  14-03-2025 04:30 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Last week, Aix Marseille University, France's largest university, invited American scientists who believe their work is at risk of being censored by Donald Trump administration's anti-science policies to continue their research in France. Today, the university announced that it is already seeing great interest from scientists at NASA, Yale, Stanford, and other American schools and government agencies, and that it wants to expand the program to
  
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• Chinese Hackers Sat Undetected in Small Massachusetts Power Utility for Months

  14-03-2025 03:02 via it.slashdot.org
  
  In late 2023, the FBI alerted the Littleton Electric Light and Water Departments (LELWD) that it had been breached by a Chinese-state-sponsored hacking group for over 300 days. With the help of cybersecurity firm Dragos and Department of Energy-funded sensors, LELWD confirmed the intrusion, identified the hackers' movements, and ultimately restructured its network to remove them. PCMag reports: At the time, LELWD had been installing sensors from cybersecurity firm Dragos with the help of Departm
  
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• Yale Suspends Palestine Activist After AI Article Linked Her To Terrorism

  14-03-2025 02:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Yale University has suspended a law scholar and pro-Palestinian activist after an AI-generated article from Jewish Onliner falsely linked her to a terrorist group. Gizmodo reports: Helyeh Doutaghi, the scholar at Yale Law School, told the New York Times that she is a "loud and proud" supporter of Palestinian rights. "I am not a member of any organization that would constitute a violation of U.S. law." The article that led to her suspension was published in Jewish Onliner, a Substack that says it
  
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• As Chromecast Outage Drags On, Fix Could Be Days To Weeks Away

  14-03-2025 01:45 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  On March 9, older Chromecast and Chromecast Audio devices stopped working due to an expired device authentication certificate authority that made them untrusted by Google's apps. While unofficial apps like VLC continue to function, Google's fix will require either updating client apps to bypass the issue or replacing the expired certificates, a process that could take weeks; however, Google has since announced it is beginning a gradual rollout of a fix. The Register reports: Tom Hebb, a former M
  
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• Meta Plans To Test and Tinker With X's Community Notes Algorithm

  14-03-2025 01:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta plans to test out X's algorithm for Community Notes to crowdsource fact-checks that will appear across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. In a blog, Meta said the testing in the U.S. would begin March 18, with about 200,000 potential contributors already signed up. Anyone over 18 with a Meta account more than six months old can also join a waitlist of users who will "gradually" and "randomly" be admitted to write and rate cross-platform
  
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• Mozilla Warns Users To Update Firefox Before Certificate Expires

  14-03-2025 00:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Mozilla is urging Firefox users to update their browsers to version 128 or later (or ESR 115.13 for extended support users) before March 14, 2025, to avoid security risks and add-on disruptions caused by the expiration of a key root certificate. "On 14 March a root certificate (the resource used to prove an add-on was approved by Mozilla) will expire, meaning Firefox users on versions older than 128 (or ESR 115) will not be able to use their add-ons," warns a Mozilla blog post. "We want develope
  
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