ICT news

• Anthropic Warns Fully AI Employees Are a Year Away

  22-04-2025 23:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Anthropic predicts AI-powered virtual employees will start operating within companies in the next year, introducing new risks such as account misuse and rogue behavior. Axios reports: Virtual employees could be the next AI innovation hotbed, Jason Clinton, the company's chief information security officer, told Axios. Agents typically focus on a specific, programmable task. In security, that's meant having autonomous agents respond to phishing alerts and other threat indicators. Virtual employees
  
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• Man Buys Racetrack, Ends Up Launching the Netflix of Grassroots Motorsports

  22-04-2025 22:40 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In 2019, Garrett Mitchell was already an Internet success. His YouTube channel, Cleetus McFarland, had over a million followers. If you perused the channel at that time, you would've found a range of grassroots motorsports videos with the type of vehicular shenanigans that earn truckloads of views. Some of those older videos include "BLEW BY A COP AT 120+mph! OOPS!," "THERE'S A T-REX ON THE TRACK!," and "Manual Transmission With Paddle Shift
  
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• Walmart is Ditching ZIP Codes in Favor of Honeycomb-Style Maps As It Looks To Speed Up Deliveries

  22-04-2025 22:00 via slashdot.org
  
  Walmart is taking a lesson from the humble honeybee in its quest to make its deliveries as fast as possible. From a report: The retail giant already boasts a formidable store count of 4,700 locations across the US, which puts it within a short drive of more than 90% of households. But in order to grow its reach without necessarily having to build new supercenters, Walmart says it has been using a relatively new hexagonal map segmentation -- a change from the conventional ZIP code or radius-based
  
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• At Trial, Instagram Co-founder Says Zuckerberg Withheld Resources Over 'Threat' Fears

  22-04-2025 21:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Kevin Systrom, the co-founder of Instagram, testified on Tuesday in a landmark federal antitrust trial that he left Meta in 2018 because his company was denied resources. The government has argued that Meta purchased Instagram in 2012 as part of a "buy-or-bury strategy" to illegally cement its social media monopoly by killing off its rivals. Last week, current and former Meta executives testified that the social media giant, formerly known as Facebook, used i
  
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• Companies Ditch Fluorescent Lights in Battle for Office Return

  22-04-2025 20:40 via slashdot.org
  
  Offices nationwide are ditching harsh fluorescent lighting in favor of advanced systems designed to improve cognitive function and entice remote workers back to physical workplaces. Companies are investing in circadian-tuned lighting that adjusts intensity and color temperature throughout the day to mimic natural light patterns, syncing with employees' biological rhythms, according to WSJ.
  The technology arsenal includes faux skylights displaying virtual suns and moons, AI-controlled self-tintin
  
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• AI Floods Amazon With Strange Political Books Before Canadian Election

  22-04-2025 20:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Canada has seen a boom in political books created with generative artificial intelligence, adding to concerns about how new technologies are affecting the information voters receive during the election campaign.
  Prime Minister Mark Carney was the subject of at least 16 books published in March and listed on Amazon.com, according to a review of the site on April 16. Five of those were published on a single day. In total, some 30 titles were published about Car
  
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• Google Chrome To Continue To Use Third-Party Cookies in Major Reversal

  22-04-2025 19:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: In a shocking development, Google won't roll out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies in Chrome. It's a move that amounts to a U-turn on the Chrome team's earlier updated approach to deprecating third-party cookies, announced in July last year, with the latest development bound to cause ructions across the ad tech ecosystem."We've made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not
  
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• The Effect of Deactivating Facebook and Instagram on Users' Emotional State

  22-04-2025 18:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Abstract of a paper on National Bureau of Economic Research: We estimate the effect of social media deactivation on users' emotional state in two large randomized experiments before the 2020 U.S. election. People who deactivated Facebook for the six weeks before the election reported a 0.060 standard deviation improvement in an index of happiness, depression, and anxiety, relative to controls who deactivated for just the first of those six weeks. People who deactivated Instagram for those six we
  
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• Apple Removes 'Available Now' Claim from Intelligence Page Following NAD Review

  22-04-2025 18:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has quietly removed the "available now" designation from its Apple Intelligence marketing page following a National Advertising Division review. The change came after the NAD recommended Apple "discontinue or modify" the claim, which "reasonably conveyed the message" that all promoted AI features were immediately available with iPhone 16 devices.
  The NAD, part of the Better Business Bureau, determined Apple's footnote explaining feature availability was "neither sufficiently clear and cons
  
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• Movies Made With AI Can Win Oscars, Academy Says

  22-04-2025 17:20 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  Films made with the help of AI will be able to win top awards at the Oscars, according to its organisers. From a report: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued new rules on Monday which said the use of AI and other digital tools would "neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination."
  [...] The Academy said it would still consider human involvement when selecting its winners. The Academy said its new language around eligibility for films made using generative AI tools
  
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• US Scientists Flee Abroad as Research Funding Cuts Deepen: Nature

  22-04-2025 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  US scientists are fleeing abroad in record numbers as the Trump administration slashes research funding, according to exclusive data analysis by Nature. Applications from American researchers for international positions surged 32% between January and March 2025 compared to the same period last year, while US-based users browsing overseas jobs jumped 35%.
  The exodus accelerated in March as the administration intensified science cuts, with job views spiking 68% year-over-year. Applications to Cana
  
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• Google Pays Samsung 'Enormous Sums' for Gemini AI App Installs

  22-04-2025 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google pays Samsung an "enormous sum of money" every month to preinstall Google generative AI app, Gemini, on its phones and devices, according to court testimony, even though the company's practice of paying for installations has twice been found to violate the law. From a report: The company began paying Samsung for Gemini in January, according to Peter Fitzgerald, Google's vice president of platforms and device partnerships, who testified Monday in Washington federal court as part of the Just
  
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• Logitech Quietly Raises Prices By Up To 25%

  22-04-2025 15:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Logitech has quietly increased prices on several flagship products by as much as 25%, according to findings (video) by YouTuber Cameron Dougherty. The MX Master 3S mouse now costs $120, up 20% from its previous $100 price point, while the MX Keys S keyboard has jumped 18% to $130. The K400 Plus Wireless Touch keyboard saw the most dramatic percentage increase, rising from $28 to $35.
  These price adjustments, implemented without formal announcement, come amid ongoing tariff pressures from the Tru
  
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• Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China'

  22-04-2025 12:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Google has argued in court that the U.S. Department of Justice's proposal to break up its Chrome and Android businesses would weaken national security and harm the country's position in the global AI race, particularly against China. CNBC reports: The remedies trial in Washington, D.C., follows a judge's ruling in August that Google has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 y
  
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• NASA's Oldest Astronaut Celebrates 70th Birthday With Return To Earth

  22-04-2025 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  
  NASA's oldest active astronaut, Don Pettit, celebrated his 70th birthday by returning to Earth after a seven-month mission aboard the ISS. The Guardian reports: A Soyuz capsule carrying the American and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, Pettit's birthday. "Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said.Spending
  
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• The Quest To Build Islands With Ocean Currents In the Maldives

  22-04-2025 05:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Arete Glacier Initiative has raised $5 million to improve forecasts of sea-level rise and explore the possibility of refreezing glaciers in place.
  Off one atoll, just south of the Maldives' capital, Male, researchers are testing one way to capture sand in strategic locations -- to grow islands, rebuild beaches, and protect coastal communities from sea-level rise. Swim 10 minutes out into the En'boodhoofinolhu Lagoon and you'll find
  
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• AI Hallucinations Lead To a New Cyber Threat: Slopsquatting

  22-04-2025 03:40 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Researchers have uncovered a new supply chain attack called Slopsquatting, where threat actors exploit hallucinated, non-existent package names generated by AI coding tools like GPT-4 and CodeLlama. These believable yet fake packages, representing almost 20% of the samples tested, can be registered by attackers to distribute malicious code. CSO Online reports: Slopsquatting, as researchers are calling it, is a term first coined by Seth Larson, a security developer-in-residence at Python Software
  
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• Airbnb Now Shows the Full Price of Your Stay By Default

  22-04-2025 03:12 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Airbnb is rolling out a global update that displays the total cost of a stay upfront in search results. The only fee that won't be included are taxes. The Verge reports: The company first started showing the full price of its listings in some locations in 2019 after facing scrutiny from the European Union over how it displays its fees. It later launched a toggle in the US and hundreds of other countries that shows the total cost of a stay across Airbnb's search results, individual listings pages
  
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• Microsoft Implements Stricter Performance Management System With Two-Year Rehire Ban

  22-04-2025 03:08 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft is intensifying performance scrutiny through new policies that target underperforming employees, according to an internal email from Chief People Officer Amy Coleman. The company has introduced a formalized Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) system that gives struggling employees two options: accept improvement targets or exit the company with a Global Voluntary Separation Agreement.
  The policy establishes a two-year rehire blackout period for employees who leave with low performance r
  
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• China's CATL Says It Has Overtaken BYD On 5-Minute EV Charging Time

  22-04-2025 01:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  CATL has unveiled a second-generation Shenxing battery capable of delivering a 520km range in just five minutes of charging, surpassing BYD's recent breakthrough and positioning both Chinese firms ahead of Western rivals in EV battery tech. The battery manufacturer also introduced a sodium-ion battery called Naxtra, offering up to 500km range for EVs and potential to diversify global energy resources. The Financial Times reports: The claims by the Chinese battery groups would put them ahead of m
  
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• WD Launches HDD Recycling Process That Reclaims Rare Earth Elements, Cuts Out China

  22-04-2025 01:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: While most people enjoy PCs that are powered by SSDs, mechanical hard drives are still king in the datacenter. When these drives reach the end of their useful lives, they are usually shredded, and the key materials they're made of -- including several rare earth elements (REE) -- end up as e-waste. At the same time, countries are mining these same materials and emitting a lot of greenhouse gases in the process. And China, a major source of
  
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• Amazon Has Paused Some Data Center Lease Commitments, Wells Fargo Says

  22-04-2025 00:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Amazon has delayed some commitments around new data center leases, Wells Fargo analysts said Monday, the latest sign that economic concerns may be affecting tech companies' spending plans. From a report: A week ago, a Microsoft executive said the software company was slowing down or temporarily holding off on advancing early build-outs. Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are the leading providers of cloud infrastructure, and both have ramped up their capital expenditures in recent quarters to mee
  
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