ICT news

• 'Why Did the Government Declare War on My Adorable Tiny Truck?'

  29-03-2025 23:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Automotive historian Dan Albert loves the "adorable tiny truck" he's driving. It's one of the small Japan-made "kei" pickups and minivans that "make up about a third of car sales in Japan." Americans can legally import older models for less than $10,000, and getting 40 miles per gallon they're "Cheap to buy and run... rugged, practical, no-frills machines — exactly what the American-built pickup truck used to be."
  But unfortunately, kei buyers face "bureaucratic roadblocks that states like
  
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• Are Tech-Driven 'Career Meltdowns' Hitting Generation X?

  29-03-2025 21:44 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "I am having conversations every day with people whose careers are sort of over," a 53-year-old film and TV director told the New York Times:If you entered media or image-making in the '90s — magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV — there's a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That's because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once
  
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• Why a Lost Cellphone Forced an Airplane to Turn Around in Mid-Flight

  29-03-2025 20:34 via mobile.slashdot.org
  
  Last week an Air France flight to the Caribbean had to turn around and return to Paris, reports the Washington Post, "after a passenger could not locate their cellphone."
  Because of fears that an unattended cellphone could overheat — and because the passenger and crew couldn't find the phone — the Boeing 777 turned around off the coast of France "and returned to the airport, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware. It landed back where it started a little more than two h
  
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• 'An Open Letter To Meta: Support True Messaging Interoperability With XMPP'

  29-03-2025 19:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  In 1999 Slashdot reader Jeremie announced "a new project I recently started to create a complete open-source platform for Instant Messaging with transparent communication to other IM systems (ICQ, AIM, etc)." It was the first release of the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, and by 2008 Slashdot was asking if XMPP was "the next big thing." Facebook even supported it for third-party chat clients until 2015.
  And here in 2025, the chair of the nonprofit XMPP Standards Foundation is long-ti
  
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• Scientists May Have Discovered How To Extract Power From the Earth's Rotation

  29-03-2025 18:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam writes:No more burning fossil fuels, playing with fissile material, damming rivers, erecting wind mills, or making solar panels. All of our energy needs could potentially be supplied by the angular kinetic energy of the Earth — and because of the mass of the planet, doing so would slow its rotation down by a mere 7ms per century. [Which is similar to speed changes caused by natural phenomena such as the Moon's pull and changing dynamics inside the planet
  
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• Scientists Create New Heavy-Metal Molecule: 'Berkelocene'

  29-03-2025 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from the Mercury News:After a year of fastidious planning, a microscopic sample of the ultra-rare radioactive element berkelium arrived at a Berkeley Lab. With just 48 hours to experiment before it would become unusable, a group of nearly 20 researchers focused intently on creating a brand-new molecule. Using a chemical glove box, a polycarbonate glass box with protruding gloves that shields substances from oxygen and moisture, scientists combined the berke
  
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• As the Arctic's Winter Sea Ice Hits a New Record Low - What Happens Next?

  29-03-2025 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Washington Post reports that after months of polar darkness, the extent of sea ice blanketing the Arctic this winter "fell to the lowest level on record, researchers announced this week... the smallest maximum extent in the 47-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
  "Since then, the ice has already begun to melt again."
  "Sea ice is acting like the old canary in the coal mine," Dartmouth University geophysicist Don Perovich said. "It's saying loud and clear
  
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• New Ubuntu Linux Security Bypasses Require Manual Mitigations

  29-03-2025 15:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from BleepingComputer:Three security bypasses have been discovered in Ubuntu Linux's unprivileged user namespace restrictions, which could be enable a local attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in kernel components. The issues allow local unprivileged users to create user namespaces with full administrative capabilities and impact Ubuntu versions 23.10, where unprivileged user namespaces restrictions are enabled, and 24.04 which has them active by default...
  
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• First Trial of Generative AI Therapy Shows It Might Help With Depression

  29-03-2025 14:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The first clinical trial of a therapy bot that uses generative AI suggests it was as effective as human therapy for participants with depression, anxiety, or risk for developing eating disorders. Even so, it doesn't give a go-ahead to the dozens of companies hyping such technologies while operating in a regulatory gray area. A team led by psychiatric researchers and psychologists at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College
  
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• NASA Adds SpaceX's Starship To Launch Services Program Fleet

  29-03-2025 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Despite recent test failures, NASA has added SpaceX's Starship to its Launch Services Program contract, allowing it to compete for future science missions once it achieves a successful orbital flight. Florida Today reports: NASA announced the addition Friday to its current launch provider contract with SpaceX, which covers the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. This opens the possibility of Starship flying future NASA science missions -- that is once Starship reaches a successful orbital flight."NASA ha
  
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• Martian Dust May Pose Health Risk To Humans Exploring Red Planet, Study Finds

  29-03-2025 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  A new study warns that toxic Martian dust contains fine particles and harmful substances like silica and metals that pose serious health risks to astronauts, making missions to Mars more dangerous than previously thought. The Guardian reports: During Apollo missions to the moon, astronauts suffered from exposure to lunar dust. It clung to spacesuits and seeped into the lunar landers, causing coughing, runny eyes and irritated throats. Studies showed that chronic health effects would result from
  
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• Madison Square Garden Bans Fan After Surveillance System IDs Him as Critic of Its CEO

  29-03-2025 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A concert on Monday night at New York's Radio City Music Hall was a special occasion for Frank Miller: his parents' wedding anniversary. He didn't end up seeing the show -- and before he could even get past security, he was informed that he was in fact banned for life from the venue and all other properties owned by Madison Square Garden (MSG). After scanning his ticket and promptly being pulled aside by security, Miller was told by staff that
  
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• Giant, Fungus-Like Organism May Be Completely Unknown Branch of Life

  29-03-2025 02:10 via science.slashdot.org
  
  New research suggests that Prototaxites, once believed to be a giant fungus, may actually represent an entirely extinct and previously unknown branch of complex life, distinct from fungi, plants, animals, and protists. Live Science reports: The researchers studied the fossilized remains of one Prototaxites species named Prototaxites taiti, found preserved in the Rhynie chert, a sedimentary deposit of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of early land plants and animals in Scotland. This species
  
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• FDIC Rescinds Guidance Around Banks and Crypto

  29-03-2025 01:30 via slashdot.org
  
  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says banks no longer need prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities, such as holding digital currency assets or partnering with companies in the industry. Axios reports: After publishing a general caution against banks participating in the industry just two years ago, the FDIC is the latest Trump administration regulator to change its tune entirely amid the president's warm embrace of crypto. "With today's action, the FDIC is tur
  
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• A New Image File Format Efficiently Stores Invisible Light Data

  29-03-2025 00:50 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Imagine working with special cameras that capture light your eyes can't even see -- ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn, infrared heat signatures that reveal hidden writing, or specific wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. Or perhaps using a special camera designed to distinguish the subtle visible differences that make paint colors appear just right under specific lighting. Scientists and engineers do this every day, and they're
  
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• DOGE To Rewrite SSA Codebase In 'Months'

  29-03-2025 00:10 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Longtime Slashdot reader frank_adrian314159 writes: According to an article in Wired, Elon Musk has appointed a team of technologists from DOGE to "rewrite the code that runs the SSA in months." This codebase has over 60 million lines of COBOL and handles record keeping for all American workers and payments for all Social Security recipients. Given that the code has to track the byzantine regulations dealing with Social Security, it's no wonder that the codebase is this large. What is in questio
  
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