ICT news

• Ultra-Processed Foods Should Be Treated More Like Cigarettes Than Food, Study Says

  03-02-2026 22:30 via science.slashdot.org
  Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report. The Guardian: UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.
  UPFs, which are widely available worldwide, are food products that have been industrially manufactured, often using emulsifiers or artific
  
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• NASA Delays Artemis II To March

  03-02-2026 21:00 via science.slashdot.org
  ClickOnThis writes: NASA has delayed the Artemis II launch to March of this year, after a wet dress-rehearsal uncovered a hydrogen leak. From the NASA article: During tanking, engineers spent several hours troubleshooting a liquid hydrogen leak in an interface used to route the cryogenic propellant into the rocket's core stage, putting them behind in the countdown. Attempts to resolve the issue involved stopping the flow of liquid hydrogen into the core stage, allowing the interface to warm up f
  
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• Google Plots Big Expansion in India as US Restricts Visas

  03-02-2026 20:02 via tech.slashdot.org
  Alphabet is plotting to dramatically expand its presence in India [non-paywalled source], with the possibility of taking millions of square feet in new office space in Bangalore, India's tech hub. From a report: Google's parent company has leased one office tower and purchased options on two others in Alembic City, a development in the Whitefield tech corridor, totaling 2.4 million square feet, according to people familiar with the deal. The first tower is expected to open to employees in the co
  
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• 'Vibe Coding Kills Open Source'

  03-02-2026 19:01 via news.slashdot.org
  Four economists across Central European University, Bielefeld University and the Kiel Institute have built a general equilibrium model of the open-source software ecosystem and concluded that vibe coding -- the increasingly common practice of letting AI agents select, assemble and modify packages on a developer's behalf -- erodes the very funding mechanism that keeps open-source projects alive.
  The core problem is a decoupling of usage from engagement. Tailwind CSS's npm downloads have climbed s
  
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• YouTube Kills Background Playback on Third-Party Mobile Browsers

  03-02-2026 18:00 via news.slashdot.org
  YouTube has confirmed that it is blocking background playback -- the ability to keep a video's audio running after minimizing the browser or locking the screen -- for non-Premium users across third-party mobile browsers including Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge.
  Users began reporting the issue last week, noting that audio would cut out the moment they left the browser, sometimes after a brief "MediaOngoingActivity" notification flashed before media controls disappeared. A Goo
  
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• PayPal's CEO Change Blindsided HP's Board

  03-02-2026 17:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: PayPal said on Tuesday it was booting its CEO and replacing him with its board chair Enrique Lores, sparing no ambiguity as to why: "The pace of change and execution was not in line with the Board's expectations," it said in a statement. One group that was blindsided was HP, where Lores was until Tuesday serving as CEO, according to people familiar with the matter.
  Lores' switchup sent them rushing to launch a search process, those people said. HP's board doe
  
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• Adobe Is Killing A Popular Animation And Game Development Program

  03-02-2026 16:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Adobe has emailed users of Adobe Animate to let them know the popular animation and game development program will be discontinued on March 1, an abrupt decision that has angered animators and game developers who say the tool remains an industry standard in television and game production.
  Animate, the successor to the once-popular Flash, is widely used for graphic creation, animation and building games in HTML5. The company has not offered a reason for the shutdown. On BlueSky, artist and animato
  
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• Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 Alum Charged for Alleged Fraud

  03-02-2026 15:00 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: By now, the Forbes 30 Under 30 list has become more than a little notorious for the amount of entrants who go on to be charged with fraud.[...] Gokce Guven, a 26-year-old Turkish national and the founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, was charged last week with alleged securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The New York-based fintech startup -- which uses the "Turn Your Rewards into [a] Revenue Engine" tagline -- says it
  
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• The Switch is Now Nintendo's Best-Selling Console of All Time

  03-02-2026 12:30 via games.slashdot.org
  The original Switch is officially Nintendo's best-selling console of all time after surpassing the DS handheld in lifetime sales. From a report: In its latest earnings release, Nintendo reports that the Nintendo Switch has, as of December 31, 2025, sold 155.37 million units since its launch in 2017, compared to 154.02 million units for the 2004 Nintendo DS.
  In November, Nintendo reported that the Switch and DS were neck and neck. We expected the holiday sales period would see the Switch surpass
  
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• Hidden Car Door Handles Are Officially Being Banned In China

  03-02-2026 08:01 via tech.slashdot.org
  sinij writes: Automakers have increasingly implemented door handles that retract into the bodywork for aerodynamic reasons, but they are now off limits in China.
  My issue is with electronic-only door latch mechanism. It should be possible to open the door from both inside and outside the car in case of complete power loss.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• SpaceX Acquires xAI in $1.25 Trillion All-Stock Deal

  03-02-2026 04:46 via slashdot.org
  Elon Musk's SpaceX has acquired his AI startup xAI in an all-stock deal that values the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, ahead of what would be the largest initial public offering in history. SpaceX pegged its own valuation at $1 trillion -- a markup from the $800 billion it commanded in a December secondary stock sale -- and priced xAI at $250 billion based on a recent $20 billion funding round that valued the two-year-old AI company at $230 billion.
  SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen told investors on
  
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• A Century of Hair Samples Proves Leaded Gas Ban Worked

  03-02-2026 03:30 via science.slashdot.org
  Scientists at the University of Utah have analyzed nearly a century's worth of human hair samples and found that lead concentrations dropped 100-fold after the EPA began cracking down on leaded gasoline and other lead-based products in the 1970s.
  The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drew on hair collected from Utah residents -- some preserved in family scrapbooks going back generations. Lead levels peaked between 1916 and 1969 at around 100 parts per mi
  
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• Leica Camera's Owners Weigh $1.2 Billion Sale of Controlling Stake

  03-02-2026 01:01 via slashdot.org
  The owners of Leica Camera AG -- Austrian billionaire Andreas Kaufmann and private equity giant Blackstone -- are considering a sale of a controlling stake in the German camera maker in a deal that could value the company at about $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
  HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, and Altor Equity Partners are among a handful of bidders. The Kaufmann family could re-invest following a transaction. Leica traces its roots roughly
  
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