ICT news

• Nextcloud Cries Foul Over Google Play Store App Rejection

  13-05-2025 23:20 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Nextcloud has accused Google of sabotaging its Android Files app by revoking the "All files access" permission, which the company says
  cripples functionality for its 824,000 users and forces reliance on limited alternatives like SAF and MediaStore. The Register reports: Nextcloud's Android Files app is a file synchronization tool that, according to the company, has long had permission to read and write all file types. "Nextcloud has had this feature since its inception in 2016," it said, "and we
  
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• Republicans Try To Cram Decade-Long AI Regulation Ban Into Budget Reconciliation Bill

  13-05-2025 22:40 via politics.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Late last night, House Republicans introduced new language to the Budget Reconciliation bill that will immiserate the lives of millions of Americans by cutting their access to Medicaid, and making life much more difficult for millions more by making them pay higher fees when they seek medical care. While a lot of attention will be justifiably given to these cuts, the bill has also crammed in new language that attempts to entirely stop states fr
  
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• USENIX Sunsets Annual Technical Conference After 30 Years

  13-05-2025 21:10 via it.slashdot.org
  
  New submitter Synonymous Homonym writes: This year's USENIX ATC will be the last, but other USENIX conferences will keep happening.Since USENIX's inception in 1975, it has been a key gathering place for innovators in the advanced computing systems community. The early days of meetings evolved into the two annual conferences, the USENIX Summer and Winter Conferences, which in 1995 merged into the single Annual Technical Conference that has continued to evolve and serve thousands of our constituen
  
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• Google Says Over 1 Billion RCS Messages Sent in the US Daily

  13-05-2025 20:35 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares a report: During the Android Show leading up to Google I/O, Google on Tuesday offered a brief update on the adoption of the RCS (Rich Communication Services) protocol, an upgrade to SMS that offers high-resolution photos and videos, typing indicators, read receipts, improved group chat, and more. The company shared that the messaging standard now supports over a billion messages per day in the U.S.
  This metric is based on an average of the last 28 days, Google noted. T
  
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• Office Apps on Windows 10 No Longer Tied To October 2025 End-of-Support Date

  13-05-2025 19:21 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has quietly extended support for Office applications running on Windows 10 well beyond the operating system's October 14, 2025 end-of-support deadline. Microsoft 365 subscribers will now receive updates through October 2028, while perpetual license versions will follow their standard lifecycle policies -- Office 2021 until October 2026 and Office 2024 until October 2029.
  Windows Defender malware definitions will also continue "through at least October 2028" despite Windows 10's imminen
  
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• Trump Administration Scraps Biden's AI Chip Export Controls

  13-05-2025 18:42 via news.slashdot.org
  The Department of Commerce officially rescinded the Biden administration's Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule on Tuesday, just days before its May 15 implementation date. The rule would have imposed first-ever export restrictions on U.S.-made AI chips to dozens of countries while tightening existing controls on China and Russia.
  Instead of implementing blanket restrictions, the DOC signaled a shift toward direct country-by-country negotiations. The department released interim guidance remind
  
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• Intel Certifies Shell Lubricant for Cooling AI Data Centers

  13-05-2025 18:05 via tech.slashdot.org
  Intel has certified Shell's lubricant-based method for cooling servers more efficiently within data centers used for AI. From a report: The announcement on Tuesday, which follows the chipmaker's two-year trial of the technology, offers a way to use less energy at AI facilities, which are booming and are expected to double their electricity demand globally by 2030, consuming as much power then as all of Japan today, according to the International Energy Agency.
  So far, companies have largely used
  
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• Linus Torvalds Returns To Mechanical Keyboard After Making Too Many Typos

  13-05-2025 17:20 via it.slashdot.org
  Linux creator Linus Torvalds has abandoned his six-month experiment with a quieter low-profile keyboard in favor of his old mechanical one with Cherry MX Blue switches. In a post about Linux 6.15-rc6 on LKML.org, Torvalds explained that his typing accuracy suffered without the tactile feedback.
  "It seems I need the audible (or perhaps tactile) feedback to avoid the typing mistakes that I just kept doing," Torvalds wrote. The famously outspoken developer couldn't recall why he initially switched
  
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• Microsoft is Cutting 3% of All Workers

  13-05-2025 16:32 via slashdot.org
  Microsoft is laying off 3% of employees across all levels and geographies, the company said Tuesday. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace," a spokesperson told CNBC. Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Carmack: World Could Run on Older Hardware if Software Optimization Was Priority

  13-05-2025 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Gaming pioneer John Carmack believes we're not nearly as dependent on cutting-edge silicon as most assume -- we just lack the economic incentive to prove it. Responding to a "CPU apocalypse" thought experiment on X, the id Software founder and former Oculus CTO suggested that software inefficiency, not hardware limitations, is our greatest vulnerability. "More of the world than many might imagine could run on outdated hardware if software optimization was truly a priority," Carmack wrote, arguin
  
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• Apple Wants People To Control Devices With Their Thoughts

  13-05-2025 14:16 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple is embracing the world of brain computer interfaces, unveiling a new technology that one day could revolutionize how humans interact with their devices. From a report: The company is taking early steps to enable people to control their iPhones with neural signals captured by a new generation of brain implants. It could make Apple devices more accessible to tens of thousands of people who can't use their hands because of severe spinal cord injuries or diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sc
  
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• The Stealthy Lab Cooking Up Amazon's Secret Sauce

  13-05-2025 12:00 via slashdot.org
  Amazon's decade-old acquisition of Annapurna Labs has emerged as a pivotal element in its AI strategy, with the once-secretive Israeli chip design startup now powering AWS infrastructure. The $350 million deal, struck in 2015 after initial talks between Annapurna co-founder Nafea Bshara and Amazon executive James Hamilton, has equipped the tech giant with custom silicon capabilities critical to its cloud computing dominance.
  Annapurna's chips, particularly the Trainium processor for AI model tra
  
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• Universe Expected To Decay Much Sooner Than Previously Thought

  13-05-2025 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Dutch researchers have recalculated the timeline for cosmic decay via Hawking-like radiation and found that the universe may end much sooner than previously thought -- around 10^78 years, rather than 10^1100. Phys.Org reports: The research by black hole expert Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak, and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom (all from Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is a follow-up to a 2023 paper by the same trio. In that paper, they showed that not only blac
  
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• Creatives Demand AI Comes Clean On What It's Scraping

  13-05-2025 07:30 via news.slashdot.org
  Over 400 prominent UK media and arts figures -- including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Ian McKellen -- have urged the prime minister to support an amendment to the Data Bill that would require AI companies to disclose which copyrighted works they use for training. The Register reports: The UK government proposes to allow exceptions to copyright rules in the case of text and data mining needed for AI training, with an opt-out option for content producers. "Government amendments requiring an ec
  
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• Google Developing Software AI Agent

  13-05-2025 03:25 via developers.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: After weeks of news about Google's antitrust travails, the tech giant will try to reset the narrative next week by highlighting advances it is making in artificial intelligence, cloud and Android technology at its annual I/O developer conference.
  Ahead of I/O, Google has been demonstrating to employees and outside developers an array of different products, including an AI agent for software development. Known internally as a "software development lifecycle ag
  
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• Asking Chatbots For Short Answers Can Increase Hallucinations, Study Finds

  13-05-2025 02:42 via slashdot.org
  Requesting concise answers from AI chatbots significantly increases their tendency to hallucinate, according to new research from Paris-based AI testing company Giskard. The study found that leading models -- including OpenAI's GPT-4o, Mistral Large, and Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet -- sacrifice factual accuracy when instructed to keep responses short.
  "When forced to keep it short, models consistently choose brevity over accuracy," Giskard researchers noted, explaining that models lack suffici
  
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• Google Launches New Initiative To Back Startups Building AI

  13-05-2025 02:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google has launched the AI Futures Fund, a new initiative to invest in AI startups that are building with the latest tools from Google DeepMind. TechCrunch reports: The fund will back startups from seed to late stage and will offer varying degrees of support, including allowing founders to have early access to Google AI models from DeepMind, the ability to work with Google experts from DeepMind and Google Labs, and Google Cloud credits. Some startups will also have the opportunity to receive dir
  
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• Philips Debuts 3D Printable Components To Repair Products

  13-05-2025 01:20 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Philips has launched a new initiative called "Philips Fixables," offering free, officially drafted 3D-printable replacement parts to encourage self-repair and sustainability. The program is initially available in the Czech Republic but aims to expand over time. Tom's Hardware reports: This is a new idea, so only one component is available right now for download. The piece happens to be a 3mm comb for one of their shavers, but Philips assures there will be more components made available for more
  
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• VPN Firm Says It Didn't Know Customers Had Lifetime Subscriptions, Cancels Them

  13-05-2025 00:40 via it.slashdot.org
  The new owners of VPN provider VPNSecure have drawn ire after canceling lifetime subscriptions. From a report: The owners told customers that they didn't know about the lifetime subscriptions when they bought VPNSecure, and they cannot honor the purchases.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Nations Meet At UN For 'Killer Robot' Talks

  13-05-2025 00:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Countries are meeting at the United Nations on Monday to revive efforts to regulate the kinds of AI-controlled autonomous weapons increasingly used in modern warfare, as experts warn time is running out to put guardrails on new lethal technology. Autonomous and artificial intelligence-assisted weapons systems are already playing a greater role in conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza. And rising defence spending worldwide promises to provide a further b
  
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