ICT news

• France's Heat This Week Was Worse Than a Dire Scenario Imagined For 2050

  27-06-2026 23:48 via news.slashdot.org
  There's a deadly, record-breaking heat wave spreading east across Europe, reports the Washington Post — and it's even worse than a dire earlier forecast:The forecast was recorded in 2014 as part of a campaign coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that invited about 60 presenters worldwide to imagine a weather report from the year 2050. In one clip, Ãvelyne Dhéliat from French television network TF1 presented a hypothetical scenario of high temperatures 36
  
  Read more

• Max Planck Slapped With Two Paper Retractions By Suspected Rogue Algorithm

  27-06-2026 22:43 via science.slashdot.org
  Max Planck won 1918's Nobel Prize for physics. Yet two of his papers were retracted — a move now being criticized by Yves Gingras, a historian of physics at the University of Quebec and Mahdi Khelfaoui, a fellow historian of science at UQ Trois-Rivières. Science reports:The papers, both quietly retracted in 2011, originally appeared in the early 1940s in Naturwissenschaften, a German journal now owned by publishing giant Springer Nature. After some sleuthing, Khelfaoui determined on
  
  Read more

• Scroll Burned in 79 AD Volcanic Eruption Finally Deciphered Using AI

  27-06-2026 21:34 via science.slashdot.org
  When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried hundreds of papyrus
  scrolls. They were rediscovered in the mid-1700s, remembers Smithsonian magazine, "the only
  surviving collection of its kind from the Greco-Roman
  world..."
  "But when scholars tried to unroll them, the carbonized manuscripts
  crumbled to dust."
  Every generation that followed faced the same dilemma: They could wait for
  technology to advance, abandoning hope of reading the ancient texts
  in their own lifetime. Or they could try to op
  
  Read more

• California Sheriff Says Their Drone Disarmed a Suspect, Shares Video on Instagram

  27-06-2026 20:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  The Los Angeles Police Department says about 1,500 police agencies across America have drone programs, reports SFGate, and 58 of those drone-using police agencies are in California.
  The Sacramento County sheriff's office recently posted drone footage on Instagram set to theme from "Mission: Impossible," claiming "a nationwide first" where their drone successfully disarmed a felon "seen earlier with a firearm" (though now not moving, but holding a knife while lying face down in a garage). In the
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Non-Invasive Stimulation of the Brain Ended Opioid Addiction, Cigarette Craving

  27-06-2026 19:34 via science.slashdot.org
  The Jerusalem Post reports that doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus "have successfully treated their first Israeli opioid addiction patient using an experimental noninvasive brain technology, easing him through withdrawal in just 20 minutes..."[T]he team of specialists at the Haifa medical center intervened in the electrical activity of an area of the patient's brain called the nucleus accumbens, the core of the brain system responsible for feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, and reward
  
  Read more

• FSF 'LibreLocal' Organized From Prison by Iranian Man Jailed for 'Cyber-Crimes' After Promoting Free Software

  27-06-2026 18:34 via news.slashdot.org
  Thursday the Free Software Foundation blogged about this year's 47 'LibreLocal 2026' meetups, highlighting 10 that took place in Australia, Mexico, the United States, New Zealand, Cameroon, Switzerland, Spain, Argentina, China, and Iran. "Far from each other in many parts of the world, they came together around one unifying belief: free software."We envisioned LibreLocal as a collage of in-person community meetups that would bring people together to swap ideas, learn from each other, and celebra
  
  Read more

• Forget Prompt Engineering: 'Loop Engineering' Is All the Rage Now

  27-06-2026 17:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: For the most powerful voices in AI, it's all about being in the loop. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny recently said he doesn't write his own AI prompts much anymore. Thanks to loops, he doesn't have to. "It's an agent that prompts Claude," Cherny recently told CNBC, adding, "I don't write the prompt anymore. Claude writes the prompt, and now I'm talking to that new Claude that is kind of coordinating." In the same interview, Cherny said
  
  Read more

• SpaceX Plans To Build 'Starpipe' Natural Gas Pipeline To Fuel Starship Rockets

  27-06-2026 14:00 via science.slashdot.org
  SpaceX plans to begin building an eight-mile natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" next month to supply its Starbase launch site with fuel for a much higher cadence of Starship launches. The pipeline is expected to enter service in January 2027. Reuters reports: The pipeline plan, previously reported by Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, signals Musk's intent to accelerate Starship's development and lay the groundwork for a faster flight rate. The 40-story rocket is central to SpaceX's push to
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Bitcoin Drops Again. Skeptical Investment Strategist Calls It 'Useless'

  27-06-2026 10:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Friday Bitcoin closed at just $59,948 — dropping 19% just for June and more than 50% lower than its record high in October of $124,310.
  To commemorate the occasion CNBC interviewed long-time bitcoin skeptic Jeremy Grantham, reporting that the 87-year-old cofounder/chief investment strategist of the massive asset-management firm GMO is "predicting it will gradually fade into irrelevance over decades."[The] longtime market commentator known for his calls on asset bubbles said bitcoin is a "u
  
  Read more

• Astronomers Find Biggest Super-Puff Planets Yet That Are Lighter Than Cotton Candy

  27-06-2026 07:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest known worlds of their size. The rare "super-puffs," located about 1,110 light-years away, are likely composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope expected to probe their atmospheres. The Associated Press reports: [University of Oxford's George Dransfield] suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, d
  
  Read more

• US Government Allows Anthropic Limited Release of 'Mythos' AI Model, Saying 'Appropriate Safeguards are in Place"

  27-06-2026 04:09 via news.slashdot.org
  "The US government has allowed Anthropic to release its powerful Mythos AI model to select companies and organizations," reports CNN, "revising license requirements after ordering an export block earlier this month in the wake of national security fears."
  Since the export ban earlier in June, "Anthropic has worked with the US government to address risks associated with the Covered Models," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to the company in a letter dated Friday. In light of progress in th
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!