ICT news

• Valve Rejoins the VR Hardware Wars With Standalone Steam Frame

  12-11-2025 23:40 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Valve is ready to rejoin the VR hardware race with the Steam Frame, a lightweight standalone SteamOS headset that can run games locally or stream wirelessly from a PC using new "foveated streaming" tech. It's set to launch in early 2026. Ars Technica reports: Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 16 GB of RAM, the Steam Frame sports a 2160 x 2160 resolution display per eye at an "up to 110 degrees" field-of-view and up to 144 Hz. That's all roughly in line with 2023's Meta Quest 3, whic
  
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• OpenAI Fights Order To Turn Over Millions of ChatGPT Conversations

  12-11-2025 23:02 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI asked a federal judge in New York on Wednesday to reverse an order that required it to turn over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT chat logs amid a copyright infringement lawsuit by the New York Times and other news outlets, saying it would expose users' private conversations. The artificial intelligence company argued that turning over the logs would disclose confidential user information and that "99.99%" of the transcripts have nothing to d
  
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• OpenAI's GPT-5.1 Brings Smarter Reasoning and More Personality Presets To ChatGPT

  12-11-2025 22:25 via slashdot.org
  OpenAI today released GPT-5.1, an update to its flagship model line. The update includes two versions: GPT-5.1 Instant, which OpenAI says adds adaptive reasoning capabilities and improved instruction following, and GPT-5.1 Thinking, which adjusts its processing time based on query complexity.
  The Thinking model responds roughly twice as fast on simple tasks and twice as slow on complex problems compared to its predecessor. The company began rolling out both models to paid subscribers and plans t
  
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• Valve Enters the Console Wars

  12-11-2025 21:45 via games.slashdot.org
  Valve has unveiled a new Steam Machine console, taking a second shot at living room gaming a decade after its 2015 Steam Machine initiative failed. The 6-inch cube runs Linux-based SteamOS but plays Windows games through Proton, a compatibility layer built on Wine that translates Microsoft graphical APIs.
  Valve spent over a decade working on SteamOS and ways to run Windows games on Linux after the original Steam Machines failed. The device promises six times the performance of the Steam Deck han
  
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• Microsoft Is Offering Rewards Points for Using Edge Instead of Google Chrome

  12-11-2025 21:05 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft employs various schemes to stop Edge users from switching to Chrome, and the latest includes financial rewards for sticking with the browser. As spotted by Windows Latest, select users who search on Bing within Microsoft Edge for a link to download Google Chrome are now shown an offer to stay with the browser. It gives users 1,300 Microsoft Rewards points, which can be redeemed for gift cards (examples include Amazon, Roblox, and Spotify) or donated
  
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• US Ends Penny-Making Run After More Than 230 Years

  12-11-2025 20:25 via news.slashdot.org
  The US is set to make its final penny. The Philadelphia Mint will strike its last batch of one-cent coins on Thursday, after more than 230 years of production. From a report: The coins will remain in circulation but the phase-out has already prompted businesses to start adjusting prices, as they say pennies are becoming harder to find. The government says the move will save money, or as President Donald Trump put it in February when he first announced the plans: "Rip the waste out of our great n
  
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• UC San Diego Reports 'Steep Decline' in Student Academic Preparation

  12-11-2025 19:45 via news.slashdot.org
  The University of California, San Diego has documented a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering freshmen over the past five years, according to a report [PDF] released this month by the campus's Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of students whose math skills fall below middle-school level increased nearly thirtyfold, from roughly 30 to 921 students. These students now represent one in eight members of the entering cohort.
  The
  
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• Apple Study Finds Mandated Fee Reductions Never Reached European Consumers

  12-11-2025 19:06 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple said Wednesday that European Union developers pocketed the savings from mandated commission reductions rather than lowering prices for consumers. The iPhone maker commissioned Analysis Group to study pricing behavior [PDF] after the Digital Markets Act forced Apple to cut its App Store fees from up to 30% to an average of 20%. The research examined 41 million transactions across 21,000 products between March and September 2024, generating 403 million euros in sales. Developers maintained o
  
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• Synopsys Plans 10% Job Cuts After Ansys Deal Closure

  12-11-2025 18:30 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Synopsys will lay off about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 2,000 employees, as the chip-design software maker looks to redirect investment towards growth opportunities, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The move comes after the company completed its $35 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of engineering design firm Ansys earlier this year and missed analysts' estimates for third-quarter revenue in September.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Amazon Steps Up Attempts To Block Illegal Sports Streaming Via Fire TV Sticks

  12-11-2025 17:50 via yro.slashdot.org
  Amazon is rolling out a tougher approach to combat illegal streaming, with the United States-based tech company aiming to block apps loaded onto all its Fire TV Stick devices that are identified as providing pirated content. From a report: Exclusive data provided to The Athletic from researchers YouGov Sport highlighted that approximately 4.7 million UK adults watched illegal streams in the UK over the past six months, with 31% using Fire Stick (this has become a catch-all term for plug-in devic
  
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• Google Relaunches Cameyo To Entice Businesses From Windows To ChromeOS

  12-11-2025 17:07 via tech.slashdot.org
  After acquiring software virtualization company Cameyo last year, Google has relaunched a version of the service that makes it easier for Windows-based organizations to migrate over to ChromeOS. From a report: Now called "Cameyo by Google," the Virtual App Delivery (VAD) solution allows users to run legacy Windows apps in the Chrome browser or as web apps, preventing organizations from being tied to Microsoft's operating system. Google says the new Cameyo experience is more efficient than switch
  
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• Airbnb Rival Sonder Abruptly Shuts Down, Orders Guests To Leave

  12-11-2025 16:27 via slashdot.org
  Sonder, a short-term rental company and former Airbnb rival, abruptly went out of business after Marriott ended its licensing deal on Nov. 9 -- leaving guests scrambling as they were told to vacate their rooms immediately. From a report: Paul Strack, 63, visiting Boston from Little Rock, Arkansas, told CBS News he received an email from Marriott on Sunday about his Sonder stay, but he initially mistook it for a scam. The email said that Marriott's agreement with Sonder had ended, and that "we ar
  
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• AI Bubble Is Ignoring Michael Burry's Fears

  12-11-2025 15:50 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Costing tens of thousands of dollars each, Nvidia's pioneering AI chips make up a hefty chunk of the $400 billion that Big Tech plans to invest this year -- a bill expected to hit $3 trillion by 2029. But unlike 19th-century railroads, or the Dotcom boom's fiber-optic cables, the GPUs fueling today's AI mania are short-lived assets with a shelf life of perhaps five years.
  As with your iPhone, this stuff tends to lose value and may need upgrading soon because
  
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• Researchers Surprised That With AI, Toxicity is Harder To Fake Than Intelligence

  12-11-2025 15:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Researchers from four universities have released a study revealing that AI models remain easily detectable in social media conversations despite optimization attempts. The team tested nine language models across Twitter/X, Bluesky and Reddit, developing classifiers that identified AI-generated replies at 70 to 80% accuracy rates. Overly polite emotional tone served as the most persistent indicator. The models consistently produced lower toxicity scores than authentic human posts across all three
  
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• Ryanair Tries Forcing App Downloads By Eliminating Paper Boarding Passes

  12-11-2025 14:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ryanair is trying to force users to download its mobile app by eliminating paper boarding passes, starting on November 12. As announced in February and subsequently delayed from earlier start dates, Europe's biggest airline is moving to digital-only boarding passes, meaning customers will no longer be able to print physical ones. In order to access their boarding passes, Ryanair flyers will have to download Ryanair's app."Almost 100 percent
  
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• Update: Implementation Guidance for Emergency Directive on Cisco ASA and Firepower Device Vulnerabilities

  12-11-2025 13:00 via cisa.gov
  CISA has released Emergency Cisco Directive 25-03 Implementation Guidance to assist federal agencies in addressing critical vulnerabilities in Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) and Firepower devices. Emergency Directive 25-03: Identify and Mitigate Potential Compromise of Cisco Devices, issued on Sept. 25, identified known vulnerabilities CVE-2025-20333 and CVE-2025-20362, and mandated immediate action to mitigate risks. Threat actors continue to target these devices, p
  
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• Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun Plans To Exit To Launch Startup

  12-11-2025 11:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  According to the Financial Times (paywalled), Meta's Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun, a deep-learning pioneer and Turing Award winner, is reportedly leaving the company to launch his own startup. Reuters reports: The owner of Facebook and Instagram has significantly increased its investments in artificial intelligence, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg reorganizing the company's AI initiatives under Superintelligence Labs. Zuckerberg hired Alexandr Wang, former CEO of data-labeling startup Scale AI to lead
  
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• Sun Unleashes Strongest Solar Flare of 2025

  12-11-2025 08:00 via news.slashdot.org
  New submitter UsRanger175 shares a report from Space.com: The sun erupted in spectacular fashion this morning (Nov. 11), unleashing a major X5.1-class solar flare, the strongest of 2025 so far and the most intense since October 2024. The eruption peaked at 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) from sunspot AR4274, which has been bursting with activity in recent days. The blast triggered strong (R3-level) radio blackouts across Africa and Europe, disrupting high-frequency radio communications on the sunlit side
  
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• China's EV Market Is Imploding

  12-11-2025 04:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Atlantic: In China, you can buy a heavily discounted "used" electric car that has never, in fact, been used. Chinese automakers, desperate to meet their sales targets in a bitterly competitive market, sell cars to dealerships, which register them as "sold," even though no actual customer has bought them. Dealers, stuck with officially sold cars, then offload them as "used," often at low prices. The practice has become so prevalent that the Chinese Com
  
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• Google Is Introducing Its Own Version of Apple's Private AI Cloud Compute

  12-11-2025 02:40 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google has unveiled Private AI Compute, a cloud platform designed to deliver advanced AI capabilities while preserving user privacy. As The Verge notes, the feature is "virtually identical to Apple's Private Cloud Compute." From the report: Many Google products run AI features like translation, audio summaries, and chatbot assistants, on-device, meaning data doesn't leave your phone, Chromebook, or whatever it is you're using. This isn't sustainable, Google says, as advancing AI tools need more
  
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• YouTube TV Blackout Is Costing Disney an Estimated $4.3 Million Per Day In Lost Revenue

  12-11-2025 01:30 via news.slashdot.org
  Disney is losing an estimated $4.3 million per day (about $30 million per week) from the ongoing YouTube TV blackout of ESPN, ABC, and other networks amid a contract dispute over carriage fees. Of course, YouTube is also feeling financial pressure from users who have already canceled or intend to cancel their service. Variety reports: Disney is losing an estimated $30 million per week from its networks being pulled off YouTube TV, which works out to nearly $4.3 million per day, according to Morg
  
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• ClickFix May Be the Biggest Security Threat Your Family Has Never Heard Of

  12-11-2025 00:50 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: ClickFix often starts with an email sent from a hotel that the target has a pending registration with and references the correct registration information. In other cases, ClickFix attacks begin with a WhatsApp message. In still other cases, the user receives the URL at the top of Google results for a search query. Once the mark accesses the malicious site referenced, it presents a CAPTCHA challenge or other pretext requiring user confirmatio
  
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• Visual Studio 2026 Released

  12-11-2025 00:20 via developers.slashdot.org
  Dave Knott writes: Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2026, the first major version of their flagship compiler in almost four years. Release notes are available here. The compiler has also been updated, including improved (but not yet 100%) C++23 core language and standard library implementations.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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