ICT news

• Checks Will Be Phased Out in Australia By 2030

  07-06-2023 22:00 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Australia is set to be a cheque-less society by the end of the decade, if the federal government has its way. From a report Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced on Wednesday morning that his government would be moving to phase out cheques by no later than 2030. "We know that usage of cheques has been declining," he said. "This is largely because digital transactions are easier, cheaper and more accessible. "In fact, 98 per cent of retail cheques could be serviced through internet or mobile banking."
  
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• Judge Blocks First State Law That Would Have Banned Prediction Markets

  28-07-2026 21:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Minnesota, the first US state to prohibit prediction markets, was prevented from enforcing the law by a federal court ruling just days before the ban was scheduled to take effect. But while Minnesota was stopped from enforcing a total ban, the state may ultimately be allowed to prohibit some types of prediction-market wagers. The Trump administration and the two largest prediction markets -- Kalshi and Polymarket -- sued Minnesota after the
  
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• DEF CON Bans Meta-Style 'Pervert Glasses'

  28-07-2026 20:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  DEF CON has banned "Meta-style glasses with recording capabilities," with no exceptions being made even for those with prescription versions. "Be sure to pack non-violating eyewear if you need them," DEF CON said. The Register reports: [The conference's official photo policy] has not been updated since 2023, predating the recent growth of camera-equipped eyewear developed by Meta with EssilorLuxottica under its Ray-Ban and Oakley brands. It states that public photography is permitted but with se
  
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• GrapheneOS Defends Data-Wiping Function That Blocked US Border Search

  28-07-2026 19:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  GrapheneOS is defending its duress-password feature after an environmental activist used it to wipe his Pixel phone during a U.S. Customs search and was later indicted for allegedly destroying property under government control. The nonprofit says the operating system is "completely legal," cannot recover the erased data, and should not be weakened with encryption backdoors. Meanwhile, the activist faces up to five years in prison if found guilty. PCMag reports: In a post on Saturday, the Canadia
  
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• Review Roundup: Framework Laptop 13 Pro

  28-07-2026 18:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  The review embargo has lifted for the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro, and the consensus across the board is that it is a massive leap forward in terms of build quality and battery life. The main issue reviewers complained about is the sky-high price, with the higher-end model jumping dramatically from $2,100 up to $2,900 due to the memory shortage crisis. (Some note that the price "nearly doubled" overnight while they were in the middle of testing.)In his video review, Marques Brownlee says, "This
  
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• Tons of Peoples' Claude Chats and Creations Are Exposed On Google

  28-07-2026 17:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Claude is exposing a wealth of users' chats and creations in Google search results, meaning anyone can dig through conversations or other material that people used Claude to make but may not have realized were publicly available for strangers to see. The exposed data includes an AI-powered therapy app that someone appears to have vibe-coded, notes on meetings, and a dashboard someone made apparently to analyze medical billing data. Exposed chat
  
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• Arizona State Launches Influencer Degree Where Students Must Gain Real Followers

  28-07-2026 13:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Arizona State University has launched a 120-credit bachelor's degree in content creation that teaches video, podcasting, branding, analytics, media law, and social strategy. For their capstone, students are "expected to build a real social media account and demonstrate audience growth during the program," reports Dexerto. From the report: The Content Creation BA is housed within ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and appears in the university's 2026-2027 course cat
  
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• Earth's Biggest Disasters Strike In a Hidden Pattern Every 27 Million Years

  28-07-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  A new analysis of 89 major geological events over the past 260 million years found evidence that mass extinctions, volcanic eruptions, ocean crises, and other upheavals may cluster around a roughly 27.5-million-year cycle. The cause remains unknown, with possibilities ranging from mantle activity and orbital changes to speculative galactic influences. Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: One possibility lies deep within Earth itself. The planet's mantle is constan
  
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• A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man To Prison For 18 Months

  28-07-2026 05:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name "fus__ro_dah" (two underscores after "fus"), but they accidentally requested records for the username "fus_ro_dah" (
  
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• Peacock to Be Included With YouTube Premium In Major Streaming Tie-Up

  28-07-2026 01:00 via news.slashdot.org
  YouTube Premium will include Peacock Premium at no extra charge beginning in early 2027. "The deal brings a slew of premium content to the [$15.99 per month] YouTube Premium subscription, including live sports like the NFL, NBA and MLB and entertainment like Law & Order, Saturday Night Live and Love Island," reports The Hollywood Reporter. "It also has the potential to dramatically scale Peacock, which remains smaller than many of its streaming competitors." From the report: Peacock has 48 m
  
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• Amazon Trying to Launch a Global Satellite Cellphone Network In 2028

  28-07-2026 00:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Amazon has asked the FCC to approve a 5,105-satellite constellation launching in 2028 that would provide global direct-to-cell "voice, messaging, data, and emergency services," similar to Starlink's partnership with T-Mobile. The network would use Globalstar spectrum, support future Apple satellite services, and complement Amazon's existing Leo broadband constellation. The Verge reports: Advanced Television points out that the FCC application also includes a request to use spectrum assigned to I
  
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• Nvidia, Tech Giants Launch AI Safety Initiative

  27-07-2026 23:00 via it.slashdot.org
  wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Nvidia and a large group of technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software companies have launched new initiative aimed at developing and sharing open source tools, models, and techniques for securing AI systems and agents. The new Open Secure AI Alliance aims to give defenders more open tools for testing, auditing and protecting AI models and agents. Nvidia points to the recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, noting that whe
  
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• Codeberg Bans Cryptocurrency and LLM-Generated Code Projects

  27-07-2026 22:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Hackaday: Community-led open source project hosting site Codeberg has formally announced that projects whose code is largely or fully machine-generated through LLMs and other 'AI' tools will no longer be welcome. This follows on the heels of a similar ban on cryptocurrency-related projects. The community vote was on two issues, the first being the notion that scraping of project code for the use in LLMs should be forbidden, which was a motion
  
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• China Begins Mass Production of Homegrown DUV Chip Tools

  27-07-2026 21:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  According to The Information (paywalled), a state-backed Shanghai company has begun mass-producing China's first homegrown immersion DUV lithography machines, with about five units expected this year for SMIC, Hua Hong, and CXMT. Roughly 20 more units are expected in 2027. Tom's Hardware reports: The Information didn't name the manufacturer, but its sources described the operation as having pulled DUV development teams from several Chinese companies, one of them the state-backed startup Shanghai
  
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• ChatGPT Starts Blocking Direct Requests To Copy an Author's Style

  27-07-2026 20:10 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI's ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the "broad qualities" of those authors "while remaining distinct in its own voice," for example. This morning, Ars received the following response to a test prompt asking for a story introduction in the style of Stephen King: "I can definitely write with the
  
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• Apple Will 'Watch Everything Burn' When AI Bubble Bursts

  27-07-2026 19:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  MacRumors interviewed AI critic Ed Zitron, author of the Where's Your Ed At newsletter and host of the Better Offline podcast, about what could happen to Apple if the costly AI infrastructure boom collapses. Zitron argued that Apple is relatively well insulated because it has spent far less on data centers than rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. He said the company could use the downturn to make selective acquisitions, though it might simply continue operating largely as before. "I th
  
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• Big Tech Accused of Stonewalling European Social Media Researchers

  27-07-2026 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  European misinformation researchers say TikTok, X, and Meta are obstructing access to platform data required under the EU's Digital Services Act through rejections, restrictive quotas, costly APIs, and burdensome security demands. Although regulators have fined X and pushed platforms to improve access, researchers remain skeptical that the changes will provide reliable, reproducible data at scale. Ars Technica reports: In recent years, social media companies shut down public access tools like Me
  
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• Nvidia In Talks With OpenAI To Guarantee $250 Billion Financing For Data Center

  27-07-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Nvidia is in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The backstop from Nvidia would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project that SoftBank's energy subsidiary is developing in southern Ohio, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. For OpenAI, a deal would be the first step toward controlling its own
  
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• 'KVM Chainsaw' Expected to Hit Linux 7.3 For Dealing with 'God Data Structure'

  27-07-2026 13:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from Phoronix:
  A patch series that appears destined for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window is what's dubbed the "KVM Chainsaw" as a major code clean-up in dealing with the kvm_mmu "god data structure". Red Hat engineer and KVM maintainer Paolo Bonzini has merged the kvm-chainsaw branch to KVM's "next" Git branch. With this KVM Chainsaw work now in the next branch, it should be submitted for the upcoming Linux 7.3 cycle.
  The KVM Chainsaw work deals with the
  
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• A New Middle Class of Content Creators Is Quietly Quitting the 9-to-5

  27-07-2026 09:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "The rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels and Amazon storefronts has created a new kind of white-collar exit strategy," reports Bloomberg. Workers ditch office jobs not to become celebrities, necessarily, "but to piece together an income online through brand deals, affiliate links and highly personal videos documenting everyday life."In many cases, the followers necessary to sustain a living are smaller (and more attainable) than people might assume. A small but loyal audience can now generate enough
  
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• 2.1 Million People View Leaked 'Odyssey' Bootleg on X

  27-07-2026 06:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Variety reports:"The Odyssey" leaks have begun, as a high-quality bootleg of the film reached millions of people on X thanks to a viral tweet on July 25. At 2:25 p.m. PT, a post on X reading "Someone uploaded 'The Odyssey' full movie on X. Can you believe it?" amplified a message from a now-suspended account. The message included a high-quality version of the film, as confirmed by Variety, and climbed to over 2.1 million views within two and a half hours. By that time, the streaming film was rep
  
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• 'Inside the Dystopian World of Germany's Free Speech Crackdown'

  27-07-2026 03:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Thousands of Germans have been threatened with fines or prison sentences for social media posts, reports The Telegraph, calling the country's political speech laws "unusually stringent for an EU member state."
  One German had his home raided for calling a minister a "Schwachkopf [dummy]" while another was fined €2,000 (£1,700) for calling Friedrich Merz a "lying Fritz" under a law that, critics claim, makes it effectively illegal to make fun of politicians. The number of investigations
  
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• NASA Replaces ULA's Vulcan Centaur With SpaceX Falcon Heavy For Solar Storm Research

  26-07-2026 23:46 via science.slashdot.org
  There's been a change to NASA's launch of six satellites for solar storms research. Space.com reports that those satellites "were originally slated to lift off on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket but have now been assigned a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, according to a NASA mission update."
  [NASA's Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment mision — or SunRISE] will fly to space as part of a rideshare mission sponsored by the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command. Though it's not st
  
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• Apple's Smart Glasses Delayed, As Engineers Consider Privacy Concerns

  26-07-2026 22:41 via apple.slashdot.org
  Digital Trends reports:Apple could unveil its first smart glasses at WWDC in June 2027, followed by a consumer release toward the end of the year, according to Bloomberg... Part of the delay reportedly stems from Apple's engineering and marketing teams spending more time refining the product and deciding how to address the privacy concerns...
  Apple has reportedly considered glasses without cameras, as well as a version where the cameras can analyse the surroundings but cannot record photos or vi
  
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• Google's Anti-search-scraping Lawsuit Dismissed

  26-07-2026 21:41 via yro.slashdot.org
  A U.S. district court "has dismissed Google's case against SerpApi over that company's scraping of search results to train AI models," reports Computerworld. Google had claimed that it was protecting copyright holders — and that SerpApi's actions breached America's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):
  [Google] made two claims: first, that no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title, and second that no person s
  
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• Wildfires, Evacuations, and Smoke Hit Europe and North America

  26-07-2026 20:39 via news.slashdot.org
  270,000 people have been displaced by wildfires in France and Spain, reports the Guardian. A wildfire even forced evacuations in Scotland.
  And wildfires "have now scorched four million acres of land in the U.S.," reports NPR, as tens of millions of people in North America "are continuing to endure hazardous smoke from out of control wildfires burning across Canada and the Western U.S."
  At America's National Interagency Fire Center, NPR's wildfire correspondent says all of America's firefighting
  
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• AI-Equipped Garbage Trucks Could Soon Start Spying On People in the US

  26-07-2026 19:39 via news.slashdot.org
  America's garbage trucks can do more than just collect trash, reports Newsweek. They may also help identify code violations using AI.Officials in Cape Coral, Florida, recently considered equipping sanitation trucks with AI-powered cameras that would photograph properties as crews complete their normal collection routes. The system would have been designed to identify potential issues such as overgrown lawns, peeling paint, and illegal dumping, and to flag violations so the city staff can review
  
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• Is Huawei Building Its Own DRAM Fab?

  26-07-2026 18:39 via hardware.slashdot.org
  From the site tech-news site XDA Developers:
  The consumer tech economy needs more DRAM manufacturers, and it needs them more urgently than perhaps at any point in its history. Anyone keeping track of the pricing trends will know that memory prices have climbed into the stratosphere on the back of AI infrastructure's relentless demand, and every consumer device that depends on RAM has traveled from inflated to unaffordable, quarter after quarter, with almost no relief in sight. Which is exactly w
  
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• Three Astronauts Safely Return from Space Station, Landing in Kazakhstan Steppe

  26-07-2026 17:39 via science.slashdot.org
  "Welcome home!" NASA posted on X.com, sharing footage of a successful "parachute-assisted" landing on a Kazakhstan steppe for the Soyuz MS-28, carrying three astronauts who'd spent 241 days on the International Space Station. (And YouTube has a full two-hour video with NASA's coverage of the landing.)
  A NASA web page notes they orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles after docking with the Space Station on November 27. It was the first mission for NASA astronaut Chris
  
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• Typo-Squatting Scammers Con South Carolina Town Out of $545K

  26-07-2026 16:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  It started with some underground utility work for the South Carolina town of Surfside Beach (population: 4,155). "Public records confirm that a payment of $545,598.30 was issued," according to a local news station — but the CEO of Wildcat Contractors "stated that the account that received the money is a scammer account and that his company has an overdue invoice for underground utility work completed in Surfside Beach."
  Yahoo picks up the story:After the payment issue surfaced, Wildcat sai
  
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