ICT news

• Author Granted Copyright Over Book With AI-Generated Text - With a Twist

  18-04-2024 20:00 via slashdot.org
  
  The U.S. Copyright Office has granted a copyright registration to Elisa Shupe, a retired U.S. Army veteran, for her novel "AI Machinations: Tangled Webs and Typed Words," which extensively used OpenAI's ChatGPT in its creation. The registration is among the first for creative works incorporating AI-generated text, but with a significant caveat - Shupe is considered the author of the "selection, coordination, and arrangement" of the AI-generated content, not the text itself.
  Shupe, who writes und
  
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• Mysterious 'gpt2-chatbot' AI Model Appears Suddenly, Confuses Experts

  01-05-2024 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Sunday, word began to spread on social media about a new mystery chatbot named "gpt2-chatbot" that appeared in the LMSYS Chatbot Arena. Some people speculate that it may be a secret test version of OpenAI's upcoming GPT-4.5 or GPT-5 large language model (LLM). The paid version of ChatGPT is currently powered by GPT-4 Turbo. Currently, the new model is only available for use through the Chatbot Arena website, although in a limited way. In
  
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• China Launches World's Largest Electric Container Ship

  01-05-2024 12:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  AmiMoJo shares a report from Tech Times: China has reached a major landmark in green transportation with the launch of the world's largest fully electric container ship. Developed and manufactured by China Ocean Shipping Group (Cosco), the vessel is now operating a regular service route between Shanghai and Nanjing, aiming to reduce emissions significantly along its journey. The Greenwater 01, an all-electric container ship, is positioning itself to be a shipping industry pioneer. Equipped with
  
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• Satellite Operator SES Acquiring Intelsat In $3.1 Billion Deal

  01-05-2024 09:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Satellite operator SES plans to buy fellow satellite operator Intelsat, in a $3.1 billion deal that's expected to close next year. According to Space Magazine, the combined company could help it "compete with SpaceX's huge Starlink broadband network." From the report: SES and Intelsat both operate communications satellites in geostationary orbit, which lies 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above Earth. SES also runs a constellation called O3b in medium Earth orbit, at an altitude of about 5,000
  
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• America's Wind Power Production Drops For the First Time In 25 Years

  01-05-2024 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: U.S. wind power slipped last year for the first time in a quarter-century due to weaker-than-normal Midwest breezes, underscoring the challenge of integrating volatile renewable energy sources into the grid. Power produced by turbines slipped 2% in 2023, even after developers added 6.2 gigawatts of new capacity, according to a government report Tuesday. The capacity factor for the country's wind fleet -- how much energy it's actually generating
  
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• Is Self Hosting Going Mainstream?

  01-05-2024 03:48 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader shares that IPv6rs has debuted a new one-click self hosting system:Everyone seemed like they were talking about self hosting, but we didn't understand why it wasn't more prolific. Thus, we conducted a survey to hear reasons. It turned out the two most common reasons were:
  1. Lack of an external IP address
  2. Too difficult to setup and maintain
  Our service already solves the first issue. We set out with a self-hostathon to figure out what the blockers were in setting up and ru
  
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• 13.4 Million Kaiser Insurance Members Affected by Data Leak to Online Advertisers

  01-05-2024 03:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Kaiser Permanente is the latest healthcare giant to report a data breach. Kaiser said 13.4 million current and former insurance members had their patient data shared with third-party advertisers, thanks to an improperly implemented tracking code the company used to see how its members navigated through its websites. Dark Reading reports: The shared data included names, IP addresses, what pages people visited, whether they were actively signed in, and even the search terms they used when visiting
  
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• Google Removes RISC-V Support From Android Common Kernel, Denies Abandoning Its Efforts

  01-05-2024 02:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Mishaal Rahman reports via Android Authority: Earlier today, a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google who, according to their LinkedIn, leads the Android Systems Team and works on Android's Linux kernel fork, submitted a series of patches to AOSP that "remove ACK's support for riscv64." The description of these patches states that "support for risc64 GKI kernels is discontinued."ACK stands for Android Common Kernel and refers to the downstream branches of the official kernel.org Linux kernels
  
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• Dave & Buster's To Allow Customers To Bet On Arcade Games

  01-05-2024 01:40 via games.slashdot.org
  
  Arcade giant Dave & Buster's said it will begin allowing customers to bet on arcade games. "Customers can soon make a friendly $5 wager on a Hot Shots basketball game, a bet on a Skee-Ball competition or on another arcade game," reports CNBC. "The betting function, expected to launch in the next few months, will work through the company's app." From the report: Dave & Buster's, started in 1982, now has more than 222 venues in North America, offering everything from bowling to laser tag,
  
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• Systemd Announces 'run0' Sudo Alternative

  01-05-2024 01:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Foss Outpost: Systemd lead developer Lennart Poettering has posted on Mastodon about their upcoming v256 release of Systemd, which is expected to include a sudo replacement called "run0". The developer talks about the weaknesses of sudo, and how it has a large possible attack surface. For example, sudo supports network access, LDAP configurations, other types of plugins, and much more. But most importantly, its SUID binary provides a large attack service
  
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• Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao Sentenced To 4 Months In Prison

  01-05-2024 00:20 via slashdot.org
  
  Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has been sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to charges related to enabling money laundering through his cryptocurrency exchange. CNBC reports: The sentence handed down to Zhao in Seattle federal court was significantly less than the three years that federal prosecutors had been seeking for him. The defense had asked for five months of probation. The sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of 12 to 18 months. In November, Zhao struck a d
  
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• Bruce Perens Emits Draft Post-Open Zero Cost License

  30-04-2024 23:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  After convincing the world to buy open source and give up the Morse Code test for ham radio licenses, Bruce Perens has a new gambit: develop a license that ensures software developers receive compensation from large corporations using their work. The new Post-Open Zero Cost License seeks to address the financial disparities in open source software use and includes provisions against using content to train AI models, aligning its enforcement with non-profit performing rights organizations like AS
  
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• Change Healthcare Hackers Broke In Using Stolen Credentials, No MFA

  30-04-2024 23:00 via it.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The ransomware gang that hacked into U.S. health tech giant Change Healthcare used a set of stolen credentials to remotely access the company's systems that weren't protected by multifactor authentication (MFA), according to the chief executive of its parent company, UnitedHealth Group (UHG). UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty provided the written testimony ahead of a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday into the February ransomware attack that
  
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• Extreme Heat Continues To Scorch Large Parts of Asia

  30-04-2024 22:20 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Large swathes of Asia are sweltering through a heatwave that has topped temperature records from Myanmar to the Philippines and forced millions of children to stay home from school. From a report: In India, record temperatures have triggered a deadly heatwave and concerns about voter turnout in the nation's marathon election. Extreme heat has also forced Bangladesh to close all schools across the country. Extreme temperatures have also been recorded in Myanmar and Thailand, while huge areas of t
  
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• Supreme Court Declines To Block Texas Porn Restriction

  30-04-2024 21:40 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block on free speech grounds a provision of Texas law aimed at preventing minors from accessing pornographic content online. From a report: The justices turned away a request made by the Free Speech Coalition, a pornography industry trade group, as well as several companies. The challengers said the 2023 law violates the Constitution's First Amendment by requiring anyone using the platforms in question, including adults, to submit personal information.
  One
  
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• How an Empty S3 Bucket Can Make Your AWS Bill Explode

  30-04-2024 21:10 via slashdot.org
  
  Maciej Pocwierz, a senior software engineer Semantive, writing on Medium: A few weeks ago, I began working on the PoC of a document indexing system for my client. I created a single S3 bucket in the eu-west-1 region and uploaded some files there for testing. Two days later, I checked my AWS billing page, primarily to make sure that what I was doing was well within the free-tier limits. Apparently, it wasn't. My bill was over $1,300, with the billing console showing nearly 100,000,000 S3 PUT requ
  
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• Biden Administration Moves To Speed Up Permits for Clean Energy

  30-04-2024 20:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  The Biden administration on Tuesday released rules designed to speed up permits for clean energy while requiring federal agencies to more heavily weigh damaging effects on the climate and on low-income communities before approving projects like highways and oil wells. From a report: As part of a deal to raise the country's debt limit last year, Congress required changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, a 54-year-old bedrock law that requires the government to consider environmental effe
  
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• Even Walmart Thinks American Healthcare Is Too Expensive

  30-04-2024 19:20 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Walmart isn't making enough money off its new health centers, so it decided to close up shop. From a report: The retail giant announced today that it'll shutter all 51 health centers it opened up across five states since 2019. Walmart is also getting rid of its virtual care program after acquiring telehealth provider MeMD in 2021. "We determined there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue," Walmart said in an announcement today.
  "This is a difficult decision, and like others, th
  
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• Cyber Criminal Jailed For Blackmailing Therapy Patients

  30-04-2024 18:41 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  One of Europe's most wanted cyber criminals has been jailed for attempting to blackmail 33,000 people whose confidential therapy notes he stole. From a report: Julius Kivimaki obtained them after breaking into the databases of Finland's largest psychotherapy company, Vastaamo. After his attempt to extort the company failed, he emailed patients directly, threatening to reveal what they had told their therapists. At least one suicide has been linked to the case, which has shocked the country.
  Kivi
  
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• Bill Gates Is Still Pulling the Strings At Microsoft

  30-04-2024 18:00 via slashdot.org
  
  theodp writes: Reports of the death of Bill Gates' influence at Microsoft have been greatly exaggerated: "Publicly, [Bill] Gates has been almost entirely out of the picture at Microsoft since 2021, following allegations that he had behaved inappropriately toward female employees. In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft's AI revolution from behind the scenes. Current and former executives say Gates remains intimately involved in the company's
  
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• Major US Newspapers Sue OpenAI, Microsoft For Copyright Infringement

  30-04-2024 17:20 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Eight prominent U.S. newspapers owned by investment giant Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, in a complaint filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York. From a report: Until now, the Times was the only major newspaper to take legal action against AI firms for copyright infringement. Many other news publishers, including the Financial Times, the Associated Press and Axel Springer, have instead opted to strike paid deals with AI companies for mil
  
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• Apple Confirms iPhone Alarm Failure Reports

  30-04-2024 16:30 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has confirmed reports [video link] of a software glitch causing some iPhone alarms to fail to play a sound.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Apple Targets Google Staff To Build AI Team

  30-04-2024 16:01 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  Apple has poached dozens of AI experts from Google and has created a secretive European laboratory in Zurich, as the tech giant builds a team to battle rivals in developing new AI models and products. From a report: According to a Financial Times analysis of hundreds of LinkedIn profiles as well as public job postings and research papers, the $2.7tn company has undertaken a hiring spree over recent years to expand its global AI and machine learning team. The iPhone maker has particularly targete
  
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• Copilot Workspace Is GitHub's Take On AI-Powered Software Engineering

  30-04-2024 15:00 via slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Ahead of its annual GitHub Universe conference in San Francisco early this fall, GitHub announced Copilot Workspace, a dev environment that taps what GitHub describes as "Copilot-powered agents" to help developers brainstorm, plan, build, test and run code in natural language. Jonathan Carter, head of GitHub Next, GitHub's software R&D team, pitches Workspace as somewhat of an evolution of GitHub's AI-powered coding assistant Copilot into
  
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• NASA's Psyche Hits 25 Mbps From 140 Miles Away

  30-04-2024 12:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  
  Richard Speed reports via The Register: NASA's optical communications demonstration has hit 25 Mbps in a test transmitting engineering data back to Earth from 140 million miles (226 million kilometers) away. The payload is riding aboard the Psyche probe, which is headed for an asteroid of the same name. On December 11, when the spacecraft was 19 million miles (30 million kilometers) away, it reached 267 Mbps, which NASA described as "comparable to broadband internet download speeds."However, as
  
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• Russia Clones Wikipedia, Censors It, Bans Original

  30-04-2024 09:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Jules Roscoe reports via 404 Media: Russia has replaced Wikipedia with a state-sponsored encyclopedia that is a clone of the original Russian Wikipedia but which conveniently has been edited to omit things that could cast the Russian government in poor light. Real Russian Wikipedia editors used to refer to the real Wikipedia as Ruwiki; the new one is called Ruviki, has "ruwiki" in its url, and has copied all Russian-language Wikipedia articles and strictly edited them to comply with Russian laws
  
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• G7 Reaches Deal To Exit From Coal By 2035

  30-04-2024 05:30 via news.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Energy ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies reached a deal to shut down their coal-fired power plants in the first half of the 2030s, in a significant step towards the transition away from fossil fuels. "There is a technical agreement, we will seal the final political deal on Tuesday," said Italian energy minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who is chairing the G7 ministerial meeting in Turin. On Tuesday the ministers will issue
  
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• Tether Buys $200 Million Majority Stake In Brain-Computer Interface Company

  30-04-2024 04:02 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Crypto company Tether announced Monday that it has invested $200 million to acquire a majority stake in brain-computer interface company Blackrock Neurotech via its venture capital division Tether Evo. [The firm is not related to the asset management giant BlackRock.] CoinDesk reports: Blackrock Neurotech develops medical devices that are powered by brain signals and aims to help people impacted by paralysis and neurological disorders. The investment will fund the roll-out and commercialization
  
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• T2 Linux 24.5 Released

  30-04-2024 03:25 via news.slashdot.org
  
  ReneR writes: A major T2 Linux milestone has been released, shipping with full support for 25 CPU architectures and several C libraries, as well as restored support for Intel IA-64 Itanium. Additionally, many vintage X.org DDX drivers were fixed and tested to work again, as well as complete support for the latest KDE 6 and GNOME 46.T2 is known for its sophisticated cross compile support and support for nearly all existing CPU architectures: Alpha, Arc, ARM(64), Avr32, HPPA(64), IA64, M68k, MIPS(
  
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• The EU Will Force Apple To Open Up iPadOS

  30-04-2024 02:45 via apple.slashdot.org
  
  As reported by Bloomberg (paywalled), Apple's iPadOS will need to abide by EU's DMA rules, as it is now designated as a gatekeeper alongside the Safari web browser, iOS operating system and the App Store. "Apple now has six months to ensure full compliance of iPadOS with the DMA obligations," reads the EU's blog post about the change. Engadget reports: What does Apple have to do to ensure iPadOS compliance? According to the DMA, gatekeepers are prohibited from favoring their own services over ri
  
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