ICT news

• 'The People Stuck Using Ancient Windows Computers'

  18-05-2025 23:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  The BBC visits "the strange, stubborn world of obsolete Windows machines."Even if you're a diehard Apple user, you're probably interacting with Windows systems on a regular basis. When you're pulling cash out, for example, chances are you're using a computer that's downright geriatric by technology standards. (Microsoft declined to comment for this article.) "Many ATMs still operate on legacy Windows systems, including Windows XP and even Windows NT," which launched in 1993, says Elvis Montiero,
  
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• Why Two Amazon Drones Crashed at a Test Facility in a December

  18-05-2025 21:59 via tech.slashdot.org
  While Amazon won FAA approval to fly beyond an operators' visual line of sight, "the program remains a work in progress," reports Bloomberg:
  A pair of Amazon.com Inc. package delivery drones were flying through a light rain in mid-December when, within minutes of one another, they both committed robot suicide... [S]ome 217 feet (66 meters) in the air [at a drone testing facility], the aircraft cut power to its six propellers, fell to the ground and was destroyed. Four minutes later and 183 feet
  
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• When a Company Does Job Interviews with a Malfunctioning AI - and Then Rejects You

  18-05-2025 20:45 via it.slashdot.org
  IBM laid off "a couple hundred" HR workers and replaced them with AI agents. "It's becoming a huge thing," says Mike Peditto, a Chicago-area consultant with 15 years of experience advising companies on hiring practices. He tells Slate "I do think we're heading to where this will be pretty commonplace."
  Although A.I. job interviews have been happening since at least 2023, the trend has received a surge of attention in recent weeks thanks to several viral TikTok videos in which users share videos
  
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• 'Rust is So Good You Can Get Paid $20K to Make It as Fast as C'

  18-05-2025 19:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  The Prossimo project (funded by the nonprofit Internet Security Research Group) seeks to "move the Internet's security-sensitive software infrastructure to memory safe code." Two years ago the Prossimo project made an announcement: they'd begun work on rav1d, a safer high performance AV1 decoder written in Rust, according to a new update:
  We partnered with Immunant to do the engineering work. By September of 2024 rav1d was basically complete and we learned a lot during the process. Today rav1d w
  
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• Taiwan Shuts Down Its Last Nuclear Reactor

  18-05-2025 18:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  The only nuclear power plant still operating in Taiwan was shut down on Saturday, reports Japan's public media organization NHK:People in Taiwan have grown increasingly concerned about nuclear safety in recent years, especially after the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, northeastern Japan... Taiwan's energy authorities plan to focus more on thermoelectricity fueled by liquefied natural gas. They aim to source 20 percent of all electricity from renewables such as wind and solar power next year
  
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• Firefox Announces Same-Day Update After Two Minor Pwn2Own Exploits

  18-05-2025 17:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  During this year's annual Pwn2Own contest, two researchers from Palo Alto Networks demonstrated an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox, reports Cyber Security News, "earning $50,000 and 5 Master of Pwn points." And the next day another participant used an integer overflow to exploit Mozilla Firefox (renderer only).But Mozilla's security blog reminds users that a sandbox escape would be required to break out from a tab to gain wider system access "due to Firefox's robust security
  
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• OSU's Open Source Lab Eyes Infrastructure Upgrades and Sustainability After Recent Funding Success

  18-05-2025 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  It's a nonprofit that's provide hosting for the Linux Foundation, the Apache Software Foundation, Drupal, Firefox, and 160 other projects — delivering nearly 430 terabytes of information every month. (It's currently hosting Debian, Fedora, and Gentoo Linux.) But hosting only provides about 20% of its income, with the rest coming from individual and corporate donors (including Google and IBM). "Over the past several years, we have been operating at a deficit due to a decline in corporate do
  
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• YouTube Announces Gemini AI Feature to Target Ads When Viewers are Most Engaged

  18-05-2025 13:34 via news.slashdot.org
  
  A new YouTube tool will let advertisers use Google's Gemini AI model to target ads to viewers when they're most engaged, reports CNBC:Peak Points has the potential to enable more impressions and a higher click-through rate on YouTube, a primary metric that determines how creators earn money on the video platform... Peak Points is currently in a pilot program and will be rolling out over the rest of the year.
  The product "aims to benefit advertisers by using a tactic that aims to grab users' atte
  
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• 9 Months Later, Microsoft Finally Fixes Linux Dual-Booting Bug

  18-05-2025 09:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Last August a Microsoft security update broke dual-booting Windows 11 and Linux systems, remembers the blog Neowin. Distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Puppy Linux were all affected, and "a couple of days later, Microsoft provided a slightly lengthy workaround that involved tweaking around with policies and the Registry in order to fix the problem."
  The update "was meant to address a GRUB bootloader vulnerability that allowed malicious actors to bypass Secure Boot's safety mec
  
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• Ask Slashdot: Would You Consider a Low-Latency JavaScript Runtime For Your Workflow?

  18-05-2025 05:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Amazon's AWS Labs has created LLRT an experimental, lightweight JavaScript runtime designed to address the growing demand for fast and efficient serverless applications.
  Slashdot reader BitterEpic wants to know what you think of it:Traditional JavaScript runtimes like Node.js rely on garbage collection, which can introduce unpredictable pauses and slow down performance, especially during cold starts in serverless environments like AWS Lambda. LLRT's manual memory management, courtesy of Rust, el
  
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• Google Restores Nextcloud Users' File Access on Android

  18-05-2025 03:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Ars Technica:Nextcloud, a host-your-own cloud platform that wants to help you "regain control over your data," has had to tell its Android-using customers for months now that they cannot upload files from their phone to their own servers. Months of emails and explanations to Google's Play Store representatives have yielded no changes, Nextcloud .That blog post — and media coverage of it — seem to have moved the needle. In an update to the p
  
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• Stack Overflow Seeks Realignment 'To Support the Builders of the Future in an AI World'

  18-05-2025 00:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "The world has changed," writes Stack Overflow's blog. "Fast. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we build, learn, and solve problems. Software development looks dramatically different than it did even a few years ago — and the pace of change is only accelerating."
  And they believe their brand "at times" lost "fidelity and clarity. It's very much been always added to and not been thought of holistically. So, it's time for our brand to evolve too," they write, hoping to articulate a pe
  
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