ICT news

• China's New AI Model Halts New Subscriptions As Demand Swamps Capacity

  20-07-2026 23:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Moonshot AI has temporarily paused new subscriptions for its Kimi K3 model after demand surged beyond the company's current capacity within days of the launch. The open-source Chinese AI model, described as one of the largest of its kind at 2.8 trillion parameters, has rattled U.S. rivals by beating Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol in front-end coding tests. The Associated Press reports: "Kimi K3 has received far more love than we expected," Moonshot AI, which is Beijing-based, wrote
  
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• Head of US Safety Agency Resigns

  20-07-2026 22:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Chris Fall has resigned as director of the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation just three months after being appointed to lead the Commerce Department's federal AI testing institute. Arvind Raman, who oversees the Commerce office responsible for the institute, will serve temporarily in the role. "The Commerce Department did not provide a reason for Fall's departure," reports Reuters. From the report: Fall's exit marks the latest change in direction for Trump's approach to AI. The preside
  
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• AliExpress Hit With Record $625 Million Fine After Failing To Make EU-Ordered Fixes

  20-07-2026 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The European Commission has fined AliExpress more than $625 million, the largest penalty yet under the Digital Services Act, after finding that the marketplace failed to "diligently assess and mitigate risks relating to the sale of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products on its e-commerce platform." EU officials said flagged products repeatedly reappeared, sellers could evade safeguards, and AliExpress's recommendation and ad systems helped amplify dangerous goods. Ars Technica reports: For sha
  
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• LG Monitors Silently Install Adware-Like App On Windows PCs

  20-07-2026 20:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  VideoCardz reports that connecting certain LG monitors to Windows PCs can trigger Windows Update to automatically install the LG Monitor App Installer, which runs at startup and repeatedly displays McAfee trial promotions. From the report: Gamers Nexus reproduced the behavior with an LG UltraGear 34GX900A-B after receiving reports from monitor owners. Windows Update first installed LG extension and software component packages. Windows Reliability Monitor showed that LG Monitor App Installer appe
  
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• Hacker Wipes Romania's Entire Land Registry Database

  20-07-2026 19:05 via it.slashdot.org
  A hacker reportedly wiped Romania's entire land registry database after a failed extortion attempt, halting property transactions across the country and preventing notaries from issuing land extracts, authenticating sales, or registering mortgages. "On the dark web, the hacker also boasted to have begun backup copies of stolen data in an attempt to prevent it from being restored," reports Cybernews. "However, Romanian officials have managed to at least restore the ANCPI's website and post a mess
  
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• LSU Physicists Create First Room-Temperature Quantum Material

  20-07-2026 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Researchers at Louisiana State University have created a room-temperature quantum material made from a thin gold film on glass, patterned with microscopic slits that act like artificial atoms. "We call this robust transport. These quantum states carry information," says physicist Omar Magana-Loaiza. "Our crystal can distinguish them and move them from one point to another in a robust way without requiring cryogenic cooling. That's what opens the door to practical quantum technologies." ScienceAl
  
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• LibreOffice Once Again Slams Microsoft For Using 'Lock-In' With Office Files

  20-07-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from XDA Developers: One of the founding members of The Document Foundation and handler of LibreOffice's PR and media relations, Italo Vignoli, took to the LibreOffice blog to call out Microsoft's practices with its Office application. The last time we saw Vignoli take to the stage, we saw him accusing Euro-Office of being just as bad as Microsoft with its practices. Vignoli's new post focuses entirely on Microsoft's strategy. He says that "the dominant format
  
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• Hollywood Sci-fi Studio Lot Now Pitched As Site To Make Real Space-age Weapons

  20-07-2026 13:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  James Cameron filmed his Avatar sequels there. Marvel filmed Thor, Iron Man 2, and The Avengers. Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles even handled Star Wars' series like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian, which Bloomberg points out is about "a heavily armed bounty hunter in a galaxy far, far away."
  "Now lenders who are selling the property's $240 million mortgage are promoting the site to potential buyers as a hub for making real space-age weapons.""The project is strategically positioned wit
  
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• New Free Speech Concern: When AI Chatbots Won't Criticize Leaders from Repressive Regimes

  20-07-2026 09:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Ask Claude to make a pamphlet critical of China's leader, Thailand's king, or Saudi Arabia's crown prince — and it will decline, reports the Associated Press.
  That's "a key finding from a Meta Oversight Board study released Thursday," their article points out: AI systems are more than twice as likely to refuse to product critical material if it's about a restrictive world leader or government. And it raises concerns that the LLMs powering chatbots "could be regurgitating and spreading gove
  
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• Rust Will Help Linux Succeed and Makes Coding Fun, Says Greg Kroah-Hartman

  20-07-2026 06:20 via developers.slashdot.org
  ZDNet reports on June's Open Source Summit India 2026 in Mumbai, where Linux stable kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman gave a talk titled "Rust and Linux: How the Rust Language is Going to Help Linux Succeed."
  Kroah-Hartman said in his keynote that "the [Linux] kernel is moving toward Rust. Git is moving toward Rust. Lots of projects are starting to move toward Rust."
  He didn't always feel that way. Kroah-Hartman added, "A number of years ago, when a friend of mine said, 'Ah, you got to try th
  
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• As AI Transforms Silicon Valley, Some Tech Workers Face Evaporating Financial Security

  20-07-2026 04:15 via it.slashdot.org
  The Washington Post describes a mid-tier executive at Meta as one of Silicon Valley's "winners" whose financial security suddenly "evaporated" as their workforce "pushed headlong into AI and heavy job cuts," creating a transformed job market. "Her ex-husband, a designer at Meta who was laid off in 2020, eventually gave up looking for jobs in his profession. He now lifts boxes at a warehouse."
  Layoffs.fyi, which tracks announced job cuts, counts more than 800,000 tech workers laid off since 2022,
  
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• Zilog Z80 8-Bit CPU Turns 50, Open-source Replacement Heads To Drop-in DIP40 Silicon

  20-07-2026 02:50 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Tom's Hardware:
  The Zilog Z80 has just turned 50 years old. This iconic 8-bit processor first went on sale in July 1976 and stayed in production for 48 years until Zilog, now a Littelfuse subsidiary, stopped accepting orders in June 2024. However, there's an open-source replacement closer than ever to shipping in the chip's original 40-pin DIP package thanks to community-funded fabrication...
  The chip powered the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80, MSX machines, Nint
  
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• Dozens of Robotaxi Riders Are Falling Asleep, Sparking Frantic Calls For Emergency Services

  20-07-2026 01:09 via tech.slashdot.org
  "If tired or wasted passengers fall asleep in a traditional taxi or rideshare, the driver can shout or shake them awake," reports Bloomberg. "Not so in a robotaxi..."Ditto Kasendar remembers soft music drifting from the robotaxi's speakers as he rode home late at night from a friend's birthday party in 2025. The next moment, Los Angeles firefighters were opening the door and asking if he was OK. His six-minute trip had ended nearly an hour before. A remote Waymo assistant, dialling in through th
  
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