ICT news

• OpenAI Announces Benchmarks for AI Life Sciences Research. Its Best Model Failed 63.9% of the Test

  20-06-2026 23:34 via science.slashdot.org
  This week OpenAI announced a 750-task test to to measure "whether AI systems can support realistic life science research tasks, not just answer biology questions."
  But while OpenAI's top-performing GPT-Rosalind model led the rankings, Slashdot reader BrianFagioli notes that "it achieved a pass rate of just 36.1 percent, failing nearly two-thirds of benchmark tasks." Nerds.xyz points out that means "the best-performing model failed nearly two-thirds of the benchmark's tasks."
  The benchmark also r
  
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• Remembering When Alan Turing Developed a Portable Voice Encryption Device

  20-06-2026 22:34 via it.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat writes: Alan Turing, one of the more famous people who worked at Bletchley Park to decipher the German Enigma coding machine, was also working on a separate project. His private papers, known as the Bayley papers for his assistant Donald Bayley who held onto the papers until his death in 2020, reveal Turning had produced a working model of a portable voice encryption device. He even demonstrated it by using a Winston Churchill speech recording. "Weighing j
  
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• Tech Pundit Cringely Co-Founds Startup '2Brains Inc' to Solve LLM Hallucinations

  20-06-2026 21:34 via slashdot.org
  Long-time tech pundit Robert Cringely started his career at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab back in 1978. Last month 73-year-old Cringely explained why his site went on a two-year hiatus — and it's not just because of a heart attack and a stroke last July:
  Just like everyone else, I've been busy all this time on Artificial Intelligence, founding with two partners a company called 2Brains... The work we were doing together is unfinished, but it's not stopped. The patents are filed,
  
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• Waymo Recalls About 3,900 Robotaxis After Some Drove Into 'Freeway Construction Zones'

  20-06-2026 20:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  CNBC reports:Waymo is recalling almost 3,900 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues after some cars drove into freeway construction zones, according to notices filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The voluntary recall, the Alphabet-owned company's second in just over a month, followed 13 known incidents where Waymo robotaxis drove into construction zones on freeways in Phoenix, or entered freeway lanes with active construction in the San Francisco area, the filing
  
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• Cellphone Alert System Breached in Brazil, Message Sent in Leetspeak

  20-06-2026 19:34 via mobile.slashdot.org
  CNN reports:
  An unauthorized alert bearing a mysterious message that was sent to cell phones in several states across Brazil on Saturday morning is suspected to be the work of hackers, the Brazilian government said. Devices lit up with the word "misantropi4," an alphanumeric spelling of the Portuguese word "misantropia," which in English translates to "misanthropy". The final letter "a" was substituted with a number '4' — a practice often used by hackers and termed "leetspeak.". The alert
  
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• SMPTE Opens Entire Standards Catalog for Free, Removing Century-Old Paywall

  20-06-2026 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers has published over 800 technical standards over the years (as a professional association for the media and entertainment industry).
  But this week SMPTE "announced that its complete Standards catalog, the technical backbone behind everything from SDI and timecode to IP-based broadcast workflows, is now freely available to anyone in the global media technology community," reports the filmmaking news site CineD, arguing it's "one of the more me
  
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• Microsoft Discovers Cryptocurrency Stealer That Spreads Through USB Drives and Uses Tor

  20-06-2026 17:34 via it.slashdot.org
  Ars Technica's senior security editor reports:Microsoft says it has detected new self-propagating malware that spreads through USB drives in search of cryptocurrency credentials, which it then sends to attacker-controlled servers.
  The company named the worm Crypto Clipper because it monitors the contents of device clipboards for patterns consistent with wallet addresses or seed phrases. When found, the malware also takes five screenshots over a 10-second period... "The execution of this clipper
  
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• FSF Patches Two-Year-Old Vulnerability Found by AI Researchers in GNU Savannah Repository

  20-06-2026 16:34 via news.slashdot.org
  The Free Software Foundation's GNU Savannah hosts thousands of free software projects — both GNU and non-GNU projects, including Drupal.
  But in early May, security researchers from Hacktron.AI reported vulnerabilities and demonstrated an exploit, according to a new statement Friday from the FSF:We have been working with these researchers since their initial report, and have also addressed additional security issues they submitted. All reported issues have been patched thanks to the hard wo
  
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• Student Loan Borrowers Will Get Interest Rate Cut If They Sign Up For Auto Pay

  20-06-2026 13:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Student loan borrowers who enroll in automatic payments will get a much bigger discount on interest starting July 1, the U.S. Department of Education says. Auto pay has long offered a modest discount off borrowers' interest rate -- .25 percentage points -- but after millions of borrowers opted out during the long COVID repayment pause, with some making no payments for years, the nation's student debt portfolio swelled to $1.7 trillion. On Thursday, t
  
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• Amazon Retaliated Against Workers Who Supported Regulating Data Centers, Complaint Says

  20-06-2026 09:00 via slashdot.org
  Three Amazon employees have filed a civil-rights complaint alleging the company retaliated against them for publicly supporting Seattle regulations on data centers. "The complaint was filed on the workers' behalf by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an independent group of corporate employees at Amazon that since 2018 has organized around climate issues," reports The New York Times. "It said the company started investigations and told the employees that they could face discipline, in one cas
  
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• Using Sound Waves To Make Espresso Could Cut Coffee-Brewing Energy Use By 75%

  20-06-2026 05:30 via developers.slashdot.org
  Researchers developed an ultrasonic espresso process that uses high-frequency sound waves instead of hot water to produce espresso-strength coffee at room temperature. And, not only did coffee drinkers find it comparable to traditional espresso, but the brewing process cut energy use by up to 75%. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: We have developed what we call an ultrasonic espresso: a room-temperature brewing process that uses high-frequency sound waves to extract the
  
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• Amazon Drops Sam Altman Movie After Announcing OpenAI Partnership

  20-06-2026 01:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Amazon MGM has dropped Luca Guadagnino's nearly completed Sam Altman biopic Artificial and is seeking another distributor for the film. The move comes months after Amazon expanded its multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, fueling speculation about a potential conflict given the movie's reportedly unflattering portrayal of Altman. The Independent reports: Artificial would have marked the Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name director's third Amazon film, following the critically acclaimed Z
  
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• Norway Imposes Near Ban On AI In Elementary School

  20-06-2026 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  Norway will largely prohibit generative AI use for elementary kids ages 6 to 13 beginning with the new school year, while allowing limited, teacher-supervised use for older students. The government says the restrictions are intended to prevent children from skipping foundational reading, writing, and mathematics skills amid declining test scores. Reuters reports: Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and has given teachers back mo
  
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