ICT news

• Google AI Overviews Put People at Risk of Harm With Misleading Health Advice

  02-01-2026 22:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  A Guardian investigation published Friday found that Google's AI Overviews -- the generative AI summaries that appear at the top of search results -- are serving up inaccurate health information that experts say puts people at risk of harm. The investigation, which came after health groups, charities and professionals raised concerns, uncovered several cases of misleading medical advice despite Google's claims that the feature is "helpful" and "reliable."
  In one case described by experts as "rea
  
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• Trump Signs Defense Bill Prohibiting China-Based Engineers in Pentagon IT Work

  02-01-2026 21:01 via news.slashdot.org
  President Donald Trump signed into law this month a measure that prohibits anyone based in China and other adversarial countries from accessing the Pentagon's cloud computing systems. From a report: The ban, which is tucked inside the $900 billion defense policy law, was enacted in response to a ProPublica investigation this year that exposed how Microsoft used China-based engineers to service the Defense Department's computer systems for nearly a decade -- a practice that left some of the count
  
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• AMD Closes in on Intel in Latest Steam Hardware Survey

  02-01-2026 20:01 via slashdot.org
  AMD's share of processors among Steam users climbed to 47.27% in December 2025, a 4.66% jump in a single month that continues the company's steady encroachment on Intel's once-dominant position in the gaming CPU market. Intel held roughly 77% of the Steam Hardware Survey five years ago, and that lead has eroded considerably as AMD broke the 40% threshold in the third quarter of 2025 and kept climbing.
  The gains came despite an ongoing memory shortage that has pushed DDR5 prices to record highs -
  
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• Reading is a Vice

  02-01-2026 19:01 via news.slashdot.org
  The International Publishers Association spent the past year promoting the slogan "Democracy depends on reading," but Atlantic senior editor Adam Kirsch argues that this utilitarian pitch fundamentally misunderstands why people become readers in the first place.
  The most recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts found that less than half of Americans read a single book in 2022, and only 38% read a novel or short story. A University of Florida and University College London study found dai
  
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• A Decade of BBC Question Time Data Reveals Imbalance in Journalist Guests

  02-01-2026 18:01 via news.slashdot.org
  A new study [PDF] from Cardiff University analyzing a decade of the popular topical debate programme BBC Question Time found that the broadcaster's flagship political debate show relies disproportionately on journalists and pundits from right-wing media outlets, particularly those connected to The Spectator magazine.
  Researcher Matt Walsh examined 391 editions and 1,885 panellist appearances between 2014 and 2024. Journalists from right-leaning publications accounted for 59.59% of media guest sl
  
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• 'Results Were Fudged': Departing Meta AI Chief Confirms Llama 4 Benchmark Manipulation

  02-01-2026 17:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Yann LeCun, Meta's outgoing chief AI scientist and one of the pioneers credited with laying the groundwork for modern AI, has acknowledged that the company's Llama 4 language model had its benchmark results manipulated before its April 2025 release. In an interview with the Financial Times, LeCun said the "results were fudged a little bit" and that the team "used different models for different benchmarks to give better results."
  Llama 4 was widely criticized as a flop at launch, and the company
  
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• Ghana Tries To Regulate Online Prophecies

  02-01-2026 16:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  Ghana has decided to deal with the viral spread of prophetic content on social media by setting up an official reporting mechanism for sensitive predictions, a move triggered by the August 2025 helicopter crash that killed the country's defence and environment ministers along with six others.
  After the accident, TikTok clips circulated showing pastors who claimed to have foreseen the disaster before it happened. Elvis Ankrah, the presidential envoy for inter-faith and ecumenical relations, now a
  
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• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Prints Final Newspaper, Shifts To All-Digital Format

  02-01-2026 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  CBS News: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has printed its final newspaper, marking the end of a 157-year chapter in Georgia history and officially transitioning the longtime publication into a fully digital news outlet.
  The front-page story of the final print edition asks a fitting question: "What is the future of local media in Atlanta?" The historic last issue is also being sold for $8, a significant increase from the typical $2.00 price.
  Wednesday, Dec. 31, marks the last day The AJC will be
  
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• How Nokia Went From iPhone Victim To $1 Billion Nvidia Deal

  02-01-2026 13:00 via slashdot.org
  Nokia, the Finnish company whose iconic ringtone was played an estimated 1.8 billion times daily at the height of its mobile phone dominance and whose 3310 "brick" sold 126 million units, has reinvented itself again -- this time as a key piece of AI infrastructure. In October, Nvidia announced a $1 billion investment in Nokia and a strategic partnership to incorporate AI into telecommunications networks.
  The company that was once worth $335 billion and controlled more than a quarter of the globa
  
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• ASUS Announces Price Hikes Starting January 5

  02-01-2026 09:30 via it.slashdot.org
  ASUS has informed its partners that prices on certain products will increase starting January 5, just days before the company is expected to unveil new hardware at CES. In a letter dated December 30 and obtained by Digitimes, the Taiwanese manufacturer pointed to rising costs for memory and storage components as the primary driver behind the adjustment.
  The company specifically called out DRAM, NAND, and SSD pricing pressure stemming from what it described as "structural volatility" in the globa
  
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• Australia's Biggest Pension Fund To Cut Global Stocks Allocation on AI Concerns

  02-01-2026 06:31 via slashdot.org
  Australia's largest pension fund is planning to reduce its allocation to global equities this year, amid signs that the AI boom in the US stock market could be running out of steam. Financial Times: John Normand, head of investment strategy at the A$400bn (US$264bn) AustralianSuper, told the Financial Times that not only did valuations of big US tech companies look high relative to history, but the leverage being used to fund AI investment was increasing "very rapidly," as was the pace of fundra
  
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• No Standard iPhone 18 Launch This Year, Reports Suggest

  02-01-2026 03:30 via mobile.slashdot.org
  MacRumors: Apple is not expected to release a standard iPhone 18 model this year, according to a growing number of reports that suggest the company is planning a significant change to its long-standing annual iPhone launch cycle.
  Despite the immense success of the iPhone 17 in 2025, the iPhone 18 is not expected to arrive until the spring of 2027, leaving the iPhone 17 in the lineup as the latest standard model for over 18 months. This would mark the first time Apple skips an entire calendar yea
  
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• IDC Estimates Apple Shipped Just 45,000 Vision Pros Last Quarter

  02-01-2026 01:02 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple's Chinese manufacturing partner Luxshare halted production of the Vision Pro headset at the start of 2025, according to market research firm IDC, after the device shipped 390,000 units during its 2024 launch year. The $3,499 headset has also seen its digital advertising budget cut by more than 95% year to date in the US and UK, according to market intelligence group Sensor Tower.
  IDC expects Apple to ship just 45,000 new units in the fourth quarter of 2025. Apple launched an upgraded M5 ve
  
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