ICT news

• Amazon's Drones Will Soon Deliver to Nearly 500 US Cities and Towns

  19-08-2026 23:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Amazon says its Prime Air drone delivery service will expand sixfold to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026, including metro areas around Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Boise. According to Amazon Prime Air vice president David Carbon, the service has already delivered "hundreds of thousands of packages to customers" this year, typically within about an hour. The Verge reports: These will join 11 locations across the US where Amazon already offers drone deliveries, wit
  
  Read more

• Music Publisher Round Hill Files $1 Billion Copyright Infringement Suits Against Suno, Anthropic

  19-08-2026 22:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  Independent music publisher Round Hill is suing Suno and Anthropic for allegedly using hundreds of copyrighted songs without permission to train their AI systems. The company says potential damages could exceed $1 billion, arguing there is "nothing fair" about building multibillion-dollar AI businesses on copyrighted material while rights holders receive nothing. From The Hollywood Reporter: Round Hill is a prominent music publisher whose copyrights include the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," Bonnie Tyle
  
  Read more

• CISA: Medusa Ransomware Hit Over 500 Critical Infrastructure Orgs

  19-08-2026 21:00 via it.slashdot.org
  CISA says the Medusa ransomware operation has breached more than 500 U.S. critical infrastructure organizations since 2021, up from more than 300 reported last year. The group has targeted healthcare, government, defense, manufacturing, IT and financial organizations, evolving into a ransomware-as-a-service operation that recruits initial-access brokers and uses stolen data to pressure victims into paying. BleepingComputer reports: The three federal agencies recommended that network defenders se
  
  Read more

• Moderna, Merck Say mRNA Vaccine Prevents Melanoma From Returning

  19-08-2026 20:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Moderna and Merck say their personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine significantly reduced both cancer recurrence and spread in a late-stage trial. The treatment could reach patients as soon as next year if regulators approve it. Reuters reports: Moderna developed the vaccine with Merck and tested it together with immunotherapy drug Keytruda, a widely used treatment for melanoma. [...] This is the first positive late-stage trial result for an mRNA cancer vaccine, which trains a patient's immune system
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds

  19-08-2026 19:00 via politics.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: X's algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X's feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site's algorithm prioritized engagement above all else when it generated a user's For You Page. It also showed that X serves more ragebait to people who say they
  
  Read more

• Army Unit Offers 4-Day Pass to Play GTA VI As Reenlistment Incentive

  19-08-2026 18:12 via tech.slashdot.org
  A U.S. Army battalion at Fort Stewart is offering soldiers a four-day pass timed to the release of Grand Theft Auto VI if they reenlist for at least two years. The program is limited to one unit for now, but it fits the Army's broader effort to appeal to gamers as a recruiting and retention pool. CBS News reports: Twenty soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia in the Army's 9th Brigade Engineering Battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, have already chosen this incentive as part of their reenl
  
  Read more

• Chinese Robotics Giant Unitree Soars In Stock Market Debut

  19-08-2026 17:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Chinese robotics giant Unitree surged more than 600% in its Shanghai stock market debut, marking the first mainland Chinese listing by a humanoid robot maker and a major milestone for Beijing's robotics ambitions. The BBC reports: Unitree, officially known as Yushu Technology Co Ltd, was founded in 2016 and now plays a key role in Beijing's ambitions to develop advanced technology. It has become a robotics industry leader, selling devices from sensors and automated arms to four-legged and human-
  
  Read more

• Babies Born Under Sugar Rationing Grew Into Adults With Lower Cancer Risk

  19-08-2026 13:00 via science.slashdot.org
  A study of more than 64,000 people born around the end of Britain's postwar sugar rationing found that those exposed to less sugar during their first 1,000 days had lower rates of five cancers decades later, including roughly 69% lower liver cancer risk and 36% lower breast cancer risk. They also "showed signs of slower biological aging" and "continued to consume less sugar and had healthier diets overall," according to the authors of a new study published in The Conversation. From the report: A
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Physicists Entangle Quantum Memories Across a Record-Breaking 420 Kilometers

  19-08-2026 09:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Optical fibers are already the backbone of global communication systems. Recently, however, physicists have started to explore how their functionality could be boosted further by conveying information via entangled quantum particles -- potentially enabling instantaneous exchanges of information across vast distances. Such a system could eventually be the basis of a future 'quantum internet,' offering a level of security and computing power beyond
  
  Read more

• Top Album Releases Linked To Rise In Fatal Crashes

  19-08-2026 05:30 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The release of a new album by Taylor Swift might be a cause for celebration among her fans, but such events have also been linked to a more sombre phenomenon: an increase in fatal car crashes. The team behind a new study say it sheds light on the impact of distracted driving. Writing in the journal Jama Network Open, [Vishal Patel, first author of the study based at Harvard Medical School] and colleagues report how they focused on the releas
  
  Read more

• Cursor Launches 'Origin' Code Hosting Platform As GitHub Alternative

  19-08-2026 01:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  Cursor has launched Origin, a GitHub-style code hosting platform built directly into its AI coding environment. The company is initially positioning Origin as a low-risk layer on top of GitHub, keeping GitHub as the "source of truth," but the launch landed just as a major GitHub outage highlighted growing concerns about reliability in the age of AI-generated code. VentureBeat reports: Cursor began rolling out Origin, its own code hosting platform, to paid users on Monday morning. Roughly three a
  
  Read more

• Comcast Is Turning Millions of Its Routers Into Motion Detectors

  19-08-2026 00:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  Comcast is activating Wi-Fi motion sensing on millions of compatible Xfinity gateways, allowing the routers to detect movement by measuring disruptions in signals between the gateway and connected devices. The free feature, part of Xfinity Shield, can send activity alerts through the Xfinity app and offers Home, Away, and nighttime monitoring modes without requiring separate motion sensors. The Verge reports: Wi-Fi motion sensing is a technology that has been around for a while, but it's only re
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!