ICT news

• Russian Satellite Linked to Its Nuclear Anti-Satellite Weapon Program Appears Out of Control, Analyst says

  27-04-2025 23:59 via science.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters:
  The secretive Russian satellite in space that U.S. officials believe is connected to a nuclear anti-satellite weapon program has appeared to be spinning uncontrollably, suggesting it may no longer be functioning in what could be a setback for Moscow's space weapon efforts, according to U.S. analysts... [The Cosmos 2553 satellite launched in 2022] has had various bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year, according to Doppl
  
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• Starbucks Opens Its First 3D-Printed Store

  27-04-2025 22:43 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  What can you build with a 3D printer? Starbucks just printed itself a new store — a drive-through location in the southern tip of Texas.
  Fast Company says it's a store that "looks more like the future of construction than your average café."Built with layers of concrete piped out by a giant robotic printer, the 1,400-square-foot structure is part of the company's ongoing effort to modernize operations and trim costs... Peri-3D, a German company, used a giant 3D printer to pump out l
  
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• Consumers Aren't Flocking to Microsoft's AI Tool 'Copilot'

  27-04-2025 21:34 via slashdot.org
  
  Microsoft Copilot "isn't doing as well as the company would like," reports XDA-Developers.com (citing a report from startup/VC industry site Newcomer).The Redmond giant has invested billions of dollars and a lot of manpower into making it happen, but as a recent report claims, people just don't care. In fact, if the report is to be believed, Microsoft's rise in the AI scene has already come to a screeching halt:
  At Microsoft's annual executive huddle last month, the company's chief financial off
  
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• Google's DeepMind UK Team Reportedly Seeks to Unionize

  27-04-2025 20:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "Google's DeepMind UK team reportedly seeks to unionize," reports TechCrunch:Around 300 London-based members of Google's AI-focused DeepMind team are seeking to unionize with the Communication Workers Union, according to a Financial Times report that cites three people involved with the unionization effort.
  These DeepMind employees are reportedly unhappy about Google's decision to remove a pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance from its website. They're also concerned about the company
  
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• WSJ: Tech-Industry Workers Now 'Miserable', Fearing Layoffs, Working Longer Hours

  27-04-2025 18:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  "Not so long ago, working in tech meant job security, extravagant perks and a bring-your-whole-self-to-the-office ethos rare in other industries," writes the Wall Street Journal.
  But now tech work "looks like a regular job," with workers "contending with the constant fear of layoffs, longer hours and an ever-growing list of responsibilities for the same pay."Now employees find themselves doing the work of multiple laid-off colleagues. Some have lost jobs only to be rehired into positions that ar
  
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• Canadian University Cancels Coding Competition Over Suspected AI Cheating

  27-04-2025 17:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The university blamed it on "the significant number of students" who violated their coding competition's rules.
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp quotes this report from The Logic: Finding that many students violated rules and submitted code not written by themselves, the University of Waterloo's Centre for Computing and Math decided not to release results from its annual Canadian Computing Competition (CCC), which many students rely on to bolster their chances of being accepted into Waterloo's p
  
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• Lenovo May Be Avoiding the 'Windows Tax' By Offering Cheaper Laptops With Pre-Installed Linux

  27-04-2025 16:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  "The U.S. and Canadian websites for Lenovo offered U.S. $140 and CAD $211 off on the same ThinkPad X1 Carbon model when choosing any one of the Linux-based alternatives," reports It's FOSS News:
  This was brought to my attention thanks to a Reddit post... Others then chimed in, saying that Lenovo has been doing this since at least 2020 and that the big price difference shows how ridiculous Windows' pricing is...Not all models from their laptop lineup, like ThinkPad, Yoga, Legion, LOQ, etc., featu
  
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• Yoda Bloopers Released - and George Lucas Reveals Why Yoda Talks Backwards

  27-04-2025 13:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  
  80-year-old George Lucas appeared this week at a 45th anniversary screening of The Empire Strikes Back, reports CNN — and finally gave a good explanation for why Yoda speaks the way he does. "He explained that it came about in order to ensure that the little alien's usually profound messages really landed with audiences."
  "Because if you speak regular English, people won't listen that much," Lucas said at the 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival, per Variety . "But if he had an accent, or it's r
  
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• Linus Torvalds Expresses His Hatred For Case-Insensitive File-Systems

  27-04-2025 09:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Some patches for Linux 6.15-rc4 (updating the kernel driver for the Bcachefs file system) triggered some "straight-to-the-point wisdom" from Linus Torvalds about case-insensitive filesystems, reports Phoronix.
  Bcachefs developer Kent Overstreet started the conversation, explaining how some buggy patches for their case-insensitive file and folder support were upstreamed into the Bcachefs kernel driver nearly two years ago:When I was discussing with the developer who did the implementation, I note
  
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• 4chan Returns, Details Breach, Blames Funding Issues, Ends Shockwave Board

  27-04-2025 06:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  "4chan, down for more than a week after hackers got in through an insecure script that handled PDFs, is back online," notes BoingBoing. (They add that Thursday saw 4chan's first blog postin years — just the words "Testing testing 123 123...") But 4chan posted a much longer explanation on Friday," confirming their servers were compromised by a malicious PDF upload from "a hacker using a UK IP address," granting access to their databases and administrative dashboard.The attacker "spent sever
  
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• iPad Jammed in Seat Forces Emergency Landing of Airplane Carrying 400 Passengers

  27-04-2025 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Business Insider:A Lufthansa flight carrying 461 passengers had to divert after someone's tablet became "jammed" in a business-class seat.
  The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had been flying for around three hours when the pilots diverted to Boston Logan International Airport. In a statement to Business Insider, an airline spokesperson said the tablet had become "jammed in a Business Class seat" and had "alread
  
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• Can Solar Wind Make Water on the Moon? A NASA Experiment Shows Maybe

  27-04-2025 00:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  "Future moon astronauts may find water more accessible than previously thought," writes Space.com, citing a new NASA-led experiment:Because the moon lacks a magnetic field like Earth's, the barren lunar surface is constantly bombarded by energetic particles from the sun... Li Hsia Yeo, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, led a lab experiment observing the effects of simulated solar wind on two samples of loose regolith brought to Earth by the Apollo 17 missio
  
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