ICT news

• Asteroids Named After Tom Lehrer and 'Weird Al' Yankovic

  25-09-2026 19:34 via science.slashdot.org
  "Weird Al" Yankovic's name has just been approved for a new asteroid — (14331) Alyankovic = 1981 EC26 — by the International Astronomical Union, reports Space.com.
  Yankovic's asteroid was championed by planetary scientist Allison McGraw joined by "several heavy hitters in the planetary science field, according to the Tucson Star. (Astrophysicist Steve Desch from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University; Tim McCoy, one of the main curators of meteorites at
  
  Read more

• Raspberry Pi Stock Jumps 30% as Demand Surges. (And Boards Now Locked to Their Original RAM Size)

  25-09-2026 15:04 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Raspberry Pi's stock shot up over 30% in the last week. Why are investors so excited? For the six months ending June 30, revenue for Raspberry Pi Holdings "jumped 90% to $256.9 million," reports Investing.com, "while adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to $40.3 million, and profit before tax leapt 216% to $19.6 million."
  Underpinning the strong numbers was an acceleration in OEM adoption: direct unit shipments rose 26% to 3.4 million, total unit shipments climbed 17% to 4.2 million, and the custom
  
  Read more

• F-Droid 2.0: FOSS Android Appstore Continues Updating Despite Google's Pending 'Developer Verification' Plan

  25-09-2026 10:34 via news.slashdot.org
  "F-Droid, a third-party app repository that only distributes free and open-source software packages for Google's Android mobile platform, on Thursday announced version 2.0 of its Android app," reports The Register.
  Though they also note "a big banner across the top of the F-Droid site" pointing to a site describing pending changes from Google that threaten the future of F-Droid...[D]evelopers who want their apps broadly distributed outside the official Google Play Store will need to register wit
  
  Read more

• How Believable is Google's New 'Live Avatar' Capability?

  25-09-2026 06:04 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google has synthesized "expressive face-to-face experiences" for its speech agent Gemini 3.8 Live. They're now offering a Live Avatar "with precise lip-syncing, natural expressions, and fluid turn-taking" for Google Enterprise accounts wanting "engaging customer service" or for offering interactive walkthroughs. (Check out the not-creepy-at-all video in Google's announcement.)
  "Though Google will offer a library of preset avatars for customers to choose from, it will also allow organizations to
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• People Training OpenAI's AI Fired For Using AI To Train the AI

  25-09-2026 01:34 via slashdot.org
  404 Media reports "multiple contractors hired to improve OpenAI's models have been fired for using AI to train the AI:That's not great for the models themselves, but there is also obviously a great irony in AI training companies working for OpenAI firing people for using AI when OpenAI's whole thing is to make people use AI at work... OpenAI declined to comment on its contractors being fired for using AI.
  Their article cites internal documents and three contractors working on OpenAI-related proj
  
  Read more

Follow @newslocke_ict on Twitter!