ICT news

• Figma's Design Tools Are Now Free on Chromebooks For All US School Students

  22-06-2023 16:40 via news.slashdot.org
  
  Figma is expanding its partnership with Google for Education in a bid to introduce more school-age students to its product design and collaboration platforms. From a report: Announced during the Config event on Wednesday, June 21st, all K-12 students across the US can now access Figma for free on education Chromebooks. Figma is also expanding its educational partnership with Chromebooks outside of the US, starting with Google schools in Japan. Today's announcement effectively opens up the beta p
  
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• Microsoft Adds Another Year To Windows 10 Extended Update Program

  26-06-2026 22:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates for consumers by another year, pushing the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program's end date from October 12, 2026, to October 12, 2027. "The ESU support page was updated with that date, and Microsoft's blog post on the program has a new editor's note confirming the change," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The prevalence of Windows across so many devices and form factors has given Microsoft a massive customer base for decade
  
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• Airbus Is Ordered To Inspect 16 Jets After Cracks Are Found In Wings

  26-06-2026 17:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered (PDF) urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft (source paywalled; alternative source).. Cracks were found during earlier inspections of the wing spars structure, a key component of the wing, EASA said in a directive effective Wednesday. EASA determined that they "could reduce the structural int
  
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• Notion Mail Is Shutting Down

  26-06-2026 13:00 via slashdot.org
  Notion announced that it will shut down its email client on September 22. The company says more than half of users already manage email through Notion's AI agents without opening their inbox, so it is shifting its focus from a traditional email client to agent-run workflows. Engadget reports: It has published an FAQ for users to make sure that they don't lose any messages or data in the transition. Most emails will still exist in a Gmail inbox, but customers will need to manually export their dr
  
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• 'Fingerprints' of Black Hole's Event Horizon Detected For First Time

  26-06-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Researchers say they detected the first gravitational-wave "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon by analyzing the final moments of the powerful GW250114 merger. The findings support Einstein's general relativity and may eventually help probe frame dragging and quantum fluctuations near black holes. Phys.org reports: For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detected
  
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• Spain To Require Carriers To Keep Mobile Networks Live During Power Outages

  26-06-2026 05:30 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spain will require mobile networks to have backup systems that maintain connectivity when power outages occur. Per a royal decree that will be approved by the end of 2026, mobile network operators (MNOs) and infrastructure companies will need to install batteries or other backups to keep service active for at least four hours during a blackout.The mobile network rules will apply to businesses that serve at least 500,000 users or generate upwards
  
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• Polestar Banned From Selling Cars In US From Model Year 2027

  26-06-2026 01:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from autoevolution: The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security denied Polestar an authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule. Polestar will continue to sell its existing inventory of Polestar 3 and 4 crossovers in the United States and will continue to offer support to customers and access to its service network. But no new 2027 models will set wheels on American soil.The Connected Vehicle Rule is a regulation that restr
  
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• Trump Administration Asks OpenAI To Stagger Release of New Model

  26-06-2026 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  The Trump administration has reportedly asked OpenAI to stagger the release of GPT-5.6 over security concerns. The model will initially be offered to a small group of partners, with the government "approving access customer by customer during this preview period," reports The Information. The request came from conversations with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the report said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Linux Foundation Launches Akrites To Coordinate AI-Driven Open Source Security

  25-06-2026 23:00 via linux.slashdot.org
  BrianFagioli writes: The Linux Foundation has announced Akrites, a new initiative to coordinate vulnerability disclosure and remediation for critical open source software as AI dramatically speeds up vulnerability discovery. Founding members include AWS, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Red Hat, NVIDIA, IBM, Cisco, JPMorganChase, and others. Akrites will provide a shared Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), a standardized coordinated vulnerability disclosure process, and act as a "maintainer of las
  
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• Apple Raises Prices On Macs, iPads, and More By Hundreds of Dollars

  25-06-2026 22:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacB
  
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• LastPass Says Hackers Stole Customer Support Case Data During Klue Breach

  25-06-2026 21:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  LastPass says hackers stole customers' personal information, support case records, and sales data by breaching market research partner Klue. The password manager told TechCrunch that its own systems and password vaults were unaffected. However, the hackers used their access to obtain "reams of data about LastPass customers," the report says. From the report: In a blog post that shared information about the incident, LastPass said the hackers took customers' names, phone numbers, email addresses,
  
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• Anthropic Says Alibaba Must Be Punished For Largest Claude Cloning Attack

  25-06-2026 20:12 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent restriction from foreign markets. Ars obtained a June 10 letter sent to Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) one day ahead of a Senate committee hearing on "AI and the American Dream." In the letter, A
  
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• Ford Rehires 350 Engineers After AI Fails To Preserve Expertise or Train Juniors

  25-06-2026 19:00 via slashdot.org
  After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the
  
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• Micron Locks In Historically High Memory Prices For Five Years

  25-06-2026 18:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Micron has signed 16 "strategic customer agreements" (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with "a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle." Most of the deals run through 2030 and cover about 40% of Micron's revenue. The Register reports: Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company's Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most
  
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• Google Starts Lowering Play Store Fees, Making Good On Epic Games Settlement

  25-06-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google's stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning to implement app store changes as agreed in its settlement with Epic. The lower developer fees and new payment options that Google promised are rolling out in select markets this month before expanding. [...] Starting on
  
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• New Study Shows That Tall Vehicle Hoods Cause Hundreds More Deaths Per Year

  25-06-2026 13:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  joshuark shares a report from Car and Driver: A new study conducted by the New York Times shows that the increase in vehicle hood height seen over the last two and a half decades, mainly due to the rise in popularity of large SUVs and trucks, has resulted in several thousand deaths that otherwise may not have happened. The study shows that while automakers and regulators have focused on occupant safety, they have turned a blind eye to pedestrian safety, which has fallen since around 2009. Resear
  
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• NASA Rover Detects Potential Signatures of Ancient Microbial Life On Mars

  25-06-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  NASA's Perseverance rover has detected complex organic carbon in ancient Martian mudstones. The measurements were taken by the rover's Sherloc instrument and the organic carbon that was identified was from the Bright Angel outcrop, "a dried-up river that carried water into the planet's Jezero crater billions of years ago," notes The Guardian. From the report: The form of carbon detected, known as macromolecular carbon or MMC, can originate from living organisms. Geological processes can also pro
  
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• Stripe, Anthropic, and OpenAI Are Backing Effort To Stop Respiratory Infections

  25-06-2026 05:30 via science.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: [T]he payment company Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, says it will fund a new $500 million nonprofit whose goal is preventing both the common cold and the flu. Its eventual aim is to get rid of respiratory viruses altogether. The new organization, called Intercept, will use grants and investments to back prevention approaches, including vaccines, as well as large-scale air-cleaning systems for schools, offices
  
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• Slate Auto's Radically Simple Electric Truck Starts At $24,950

  25-06-2026 01:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Slate Auto says its stripped-down electric pickup will start at $24,950 before fees, with the base model's estimated range increased from 150 to about 205 miles. The company has started taking preorders on Wednesday. "The aggressive pricing -- half the average cost of a new car in the United States -- puts Slate in position to capture a share of the lowest end of the new car market, which has few gas and fewer electric options these days," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The price reveal co
  
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• Meta Pauses Employee-Tracking Program Following Internal Data Leak

  25-06-2026 00:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative that tracked employee mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screen content to train AI agents, after some of its collected data became accessible to more employees than intended. Meta says it has no evidence the information was improperly accessed and will not restart the program until it is confident in its safeguards. Wired reports: Meta rolled out the Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI) tool in April to US employees. The tool "collects co
  
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• GTA VI Is a Worrying Sign For the Future of Physical Games

  24-06-2026 23:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Rockstar Games has revealed the price of Grand Theft Auto VI to be $79.99, and confirmed that the physical versions of the game won't include a disc. Instead, they'll contain a one-time download code when it launches November 19. "Not only is that a disappointing decision for people who like to own physical games, but given the scale of the next GTA, it also sets a bad precedent for the rest of the industry," reports The Verge. From the report: There are a lot of advantages to buying digital. Yo
  
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• OpenAI Unveils First Chip As Part of Broadcom Deal

  24-06-2026 22:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  OpenAI and Broadcom have unveiled Jalapeno, OpenAI's first custom AI chip, designed primarily to handle inference for ChatGPT and other services. It's a major step in OpenAI's plan to "build the full stack behind its models and products," says OpenAI. "By designing more of the stack ourselves, we can serve more intelligence with greater efficiency and keep pushing advanced AI toward broader access." CNBC reports: The chip with Broadcom is an ASIC, which industry experts say is less flexible than
  
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• Walmart's First Nuclear Deal Shows Demand Beyond AI Data Centers

  24-06-2026 21:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Barron's: Walmart is signing a long-term contract to buy nuclear power for the first time ever, a promising sign that the industry's future is supported by more than just the AI data center boom. The retail giant agreed on Tuesday to buy power from a nuclear plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy for its operations in the area, including its stores and a high-tech warehouse in Illinois that stores and sorts perishable food.Walmart will buy 176 me
  
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• Bob Iger's Disney Wanted Apple, Twitter, and 007

  24-06-2026 20:00 via apple.slashdot.org
  In an exit interview with The Financial Times (paywalled), former Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company seriously considered buying Twitter, explored a potential merger with Apple, and pursued the James Bond franchise during his tenure. The Verge reports: According to Iger, Disney came close to buying Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey "at a very attractive price," sometime prior to Elon Musk buying the social media platform in 2022 and changing its name to X. Iger had plans to turn Twitter into
  
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• Boffin Claims Microsoft's 'Quantum Leap' Is Invalid Due To 'Basic Python Errors'

  24-06-2026 19:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  A peer-reviewed Nature critique argues that Microsoft's 2025 Majorana quantum-computing breakthrough -- and its claim that it could enable "a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years" -- is fundamentally flawed. According to Dr Henry Legg, a lecturer at the University of St Andrews, the claims were undermined by omitted data, selective plotting, and basic Python errors that concealed alternative results. Microsoft, for its part, says the bugs were mi
  
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• Trump Admin Announces $17.5 Billion In Loans For 10 New Large Nuclear Reactors

  24-06-2026 18:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The Trump administration is providing $17.5 billion to speed the development of 10 new large nuclear reactors to meet the skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited "tremendous interest" among developers of data centers that would buy the power, as well as utilities and energy companies. The nuclear plants could begin construction by 2030 and become operational in the mid-2030s, Wright an
  
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• A 25-Year-Old Blog Looks Back At 40 Years of Computing

  24-06-2026 17:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Ancient Slashdot reader Mark Round writes: Longtime reader here (since mid-1999 -- Hot Grits! Oog the Caveman! Beowulf clusters!), and I can still remember posting back on Slashdot's own 5th anniversary. Time's rolled on: my own blog just turned 25, and it's now roughly 40 years since I first sat down at a computer. So I went digging through archive.org, old backups, and a box of ZIP disks, and wrote up a long look back at four decades of computing through the one website that's been my online h
  
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• Mushroom Behind 'Tiny Human' Visions Lacks Genes For Known Psychedelics

  24-06-2026 13:00 via science.slashdot.org
  alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: If you consumed a wild mushroom and suddenly started seeing tiny people around you, you might reasonably assume it contained a familiar psychedelic. But that does not appear to be the case with Lanmaoa asiatica, known locally as jian shou qing, a mushroom species sold in markets in Yunnan, southwestern China. When eaten undercooked, the mushroom can produce vivid visions of miniature people -- not unlike Gulliver on his travels to Lilliput. To
  
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• Europe: The World's Fastest-Warming Continent

  24-06-2026 11:00 via news.slashdot.org
  fjo3 shares a report from the AFP: The latest heatwave sweeping across Europe is a stark reminder that it is the world's fastest-warming continent, stretching into an Arctic that is heating at an even greater pace. Britain, France, Italy and Spain have issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory this week as the region endures its second heat episode since May.Here is a look at why Europe is warming faster than elsewhere: The planet as a whole is around 1.4C warmer than in
  
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• US AI Stock Sell-Off Shakes Markets From Wall Street To Asia

  24-06-2026 08:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A tech sell-off shook global markets on Tuesday as attention turned away from developments in the US war with Iran and toward the future of AI companies and chipmakers that have driven stock markets to record highs. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed 2.2% lower on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was also down by Tuesday afternoon, dropping 1.43% while the Dow remained steady. All three major US indices have hit record highs this year, riding off a
  
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