ICT news

• Forget 'Snow Sequoia'. Now I'm Cheering for Better Linux Hardware

  06-04-2025 18:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  It was long-time Slashdot reader uninet who argued "Apple Needs a Snow Sequoia." (That is, Apple needs an upgrade to MacOS Sequoia that's like it's earlier "Snow Leopard" upgrade to "Leopard" OS — an upgrade that's "all about how little it added and how much it took away".)"My recent column on Apple's declining software quality hit a nerve..." he writes in a follow-up. "So why do any of us put up with software that grows increasingly buggy?"
  "One word: hardware. And that's where I'd love t
  
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• An Amateur Codebreaker May Have Just Solved the Black Dahlia and Zodiac Killings

  24-12-2025 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Los Angeles Times (non-paywalled source): When police questioned Marvin Margolis following the murder of Elizabeth Short -- who became known as the Black Dahlia -- he lied about how well he had known her. The 22-year-old Short had been found mutilated in a weedy lot in South Los Angeles, severed neatly in half with what detectives thought was surgical skill. Margolis was on the list of suspects. He was a sullen 21-year-old premed student at USC, a shell-shocked World War II veteran who had expre
  
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• European Leaders Condemn US Visa Bans as Row Over 'Censorship' Escalates

  24-12-2025 20:30 via news.slashdot.org
  European leaders including Emmanuel Macron have accused Washington of "coercion and intimidation," after the US imposed a visa ban on five prominent European figures who have been at heart of the campaign to introduce laws regulating American tech companies. From a report: The visa bans were imposed on Tuesday on Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner and one of the architects of the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), and four anti-disinformation campaigners, including two in Germany and two
  
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• Russia Plans a Nuclear Power Plant on the Moon Within a Decade

  24-12-2025 20:01 via science.slashdot.org
  Russia plans to put a nuclear power plant on the moon in the next decade to supply its lunar space programme and a joint Russian-Chinese research station, as major powers rush to explore the earth's only natural satellite. Reuters: Ever since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space in 1961, Russia has prided itself as a leading power in space exploration, but in recent decades it has fallen behind the United States and, increasingly, China. Russia's ambitions suffer
  
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• Some of DOJ's Careful Redactions Can Be Defeated With Copy-Paste

  24-12-2025 19:01 via news.slashdot.org
  The Justice Department justified its delayed release of sensitive files by citing the need to carefully redact information that could identify victims, but at least some of those redactions have proven to be technically ineffective and can be bypassed by simply copying and pasting the blacked-out text into a new document.
  A 2022 complaint filed by the US Virgin Islands seeking damages from Jeffrey Epstein's estate appeared on the DOJ's "Epstein Library" website with black boxes throughout. Techd
  
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• What Rules Govern Hallmark Christmas Movies?

  24-12-2025 18:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Hallmark has released more than 300 Christmas-themed TV movies since 2000, and a detailed internal rulebook obtained by film data analyst Stephen Follows explains how the company manages to produce nearly one new holiday film per week during the final quarter of each year without the whole operation collapsing into creative chaos.
  The document, referred to as Hallmark's "bible" by writers and producers who have worked on these films, specifies everything from script length (105-110 pages across
  
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• 25.2% of Energy EU Used in 2024 Came From Renewables

  24-12-2025 17:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2024, 25.2% of gross final energy consumption in the EU came from renewable sources, up by 0.7 percentage points compared with 2023. This share is 17.3 pp short of meeting the 2030 target (42.5%), which would require an annual average increase of 2.9 pp from 2025 to 2030.
  Among the EU countries, Sweden recorded the highest share of its gross final energy consumption coming from renewable sources (62.8%). Sweden primarily relied on solid biomass, hydro and
  
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• YouTube Has a Firm Grip on Daytime TV

  24-12-2025 16:01 via news.slashdot.org
  YouTube has been winning the streaming wars for years, but its real competitive advantage comes not from prime-time viewing but from its stranglehold on daytime hours when Americans are meditating, exercising, cooking, or simply looking for background noise. At 11 a.m. in October, YouTube commanded an average audience of 6.3 million viewers compared to Netflix's 2.8 million, according to Nielsen data. Amazon drew about a million viewers at that hour, and HBO Max, Paramount+ and Peacock each pull
  
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• Why Are There No Large Market Cap Companies Globally in Edtech?

  24-12-2025 15:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Goldman Sachs, in a note this week, via India Dispatch: There are various reasons that explains this: (i) A large part of the global education spend goes towards formal education (schools, colleges and universities), which are typically either run by governments or are not-for-profit institutions;
  (ii) It is difficult to replicate education quality at scale in our view, since most teachers would have a different pedagogy, and thus standardization is harder to achieve vs that in other internet ca
  
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• US Bars Five Europeans It Says Pressured Tech Firms To Censor American Viewpoints Online

  24-12-2025 14:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure U.S. tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints. The Europeans, characterized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as "radical" activists and "weaponized" nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a new visa policy announced in May to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected s
  
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• 2015 Radio Interview Frames AI As 'High-Level Algebra'

  24-12-2025 11:00 via science.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader MrFreak shares a public radio interview from 2015 discussing artificial intelligence as inference over abstract inputs, along with scaling limits, automation, and governance models, where for-profit engines are constrained by nonprofit oversight: Recorded months before OpenAI was founded, the conversation treats intelligence as math plus incentives rather than something mystical, touching on architectural bottlenecks, why "reasoning" may not simply emerge from brute forc
  
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• What Might Adding Emojis and Pictures To Text Programming Languages Look Like?

  24-12-2025 08:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  theodp writes: We all mix pictures, emojis, and text freely in our communications. So why not in our code? That's the premise of "Fun With Python and Emoji: What Might Adding Pictures to Text Programming Languages Look Like?" (two-image Bluesky explainer; full slides), which takes a look at what mixing emoji with Python and SQL might look like. A GitHub repo includes a Google Colab-ready Python notebook proof of concept that does rudimentary emoji-to-text translation via an IPython input transfo
  
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• Inside Uzbekistan's Nationwide License Plate Surveillance System

  24-12-2025 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Across Uzbekistan, a network of about a hundred banks of high-resolution roadside cameras continuously scan vehicles' license plates and their occupants, sometimes thousands a day, looking for potential traffic violations. Cars running red lights, drivers not wearing their seatbelts, and unlicensed vehicles driving at night, to name a few. The driver of one of the most surveilled vehicles in the system was tracked over six months as he travele
  
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• iOS 26.3 Brings AirPods-Like Pairing To Third-Party Devices In EU Under DMA

  24-12-2025 03:10 via devices.slashdot.org
  Under pressure from the Digital Markets Act, Apple's iOS 26.3 adds AirPods-style proximity pairing and notification support for third-party accessories in the EU. The changes will roll out to European users in 2026. MacRumors reports: The Digital Markets Act requires Apple to provide third-party accessories with the same capabilities and access to device features that Apple's own products get. In iOS 26.3, EU wearable device makers can now test proximity pairing and improved notifications.Here a
  
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• John Carreyou and Other Authors Bring New Lawsuit Against Six Major AI Companies

  24-12-2025 02:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  A group of authors led by John Carreyrou has filed a new lawsuit against Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity, accusing the AI firms of training models on pirated copies of their books. TechCrunch reports: If this sounds familiar, it's because another set of authors already filed a class action suit against Anthropic for these same acts of copyright infringement. In that case, the judge ruled that it was legal for Anthropic and similar AI companies to train on pirated copies of b
  
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• Meta Is Using The Linux Scheduler Designed For Valve's Steam Deck On Its Servers

  24-12-2025 01:50 via linux.slashdot.org
  Phoronix's Michael Larabel writes: An interesting anecdote from this month's Linux Plumbers Conference in Tokyo is that Meta (Facebook) is using the Linux scheduler originally designed for the needs of Valve's Steam Deck... On Meta Servers. Meta has found that the scheduler can actually adapt and work very well on the hyperscaler's large servers. [...]The presentation at LPC 2025 by Meta engineers was in fact titled "How do we make a Steam Deck scheduler work on large servers." At Meta they have
  
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• ServiceNow To Buy Armis For $7.75 Billion As It Bets Big On Cybersecurity For AI

  24-12-2025 01:10 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: ServiceNow announced a deal to acquire cybersecurity company Armis on Tuesday, marking a new milestone in the software giant's artificial-intelligence business strategy. The $7.75 billion all-cash transaction is part of ServiceNow's goal of advancing governance and trust in autonomous AI agents, and the company's largest transaction to date. "The acquisition of Armis will extend and enhance ServiceNow's Security, Risk, and [Operational Techno
  
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• Ireland's Diarmuid Early Wins World Microsoft Excel Title

  24-12-2025 00:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  Irish competitor Diarmuid Early, dubbed the "Lebron James of Excel spreadsheets," has won the 2025 Microsoft Excel World Championship in Las Vegas, dethroning three-time champion Andrew Ngai. The BBC reports: The esport showpiece in December attracted competitors worldwide as 256 spreadsheet heads battled it out across knockout rounds to join the final 24 in Vegas. [...] A three-time champion in the financial Excel tournaments, this win was Diarmuid's first in the overall competition. He held th
  
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• Judge Blocks Texas App Store Age Verification Law

  23-12-2025 23:50 via yro.slashdot.org
  A federal judge blocked Texas' app store age-verification law, ruling it likely violates the First Amendment by forcing platforms to gate speech and collect data in an overly broad way. The law was set to go into effect on January 1, 2026. The Verge reports: In an order granting a preliminary injunction on the Texas App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420), Judge Robert Pitman wrote that the statute "is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the doo
  
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• LimeWire Re-Emerges In Online Rush To Share Pulled '60 Minutes' Segment

  23-12-2025 23:10 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: CBS cannot contain the online spread of a "60 Minutes" segment that its editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, tried to block from airing. The episode, "Inside CECOT," featured testimonies from US deportees who were tortured or suffered physical or sexual abuse at a notorious Salvadoran prison, the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism. "Welcome to hell," one former inmate was told upon arriving, the segment reported, while also highlighting a clip
  
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• 'Fragmented' Microsoft Tools Undercut Efficiency at Amazon and Whole Foods, Internal Deloitte Review Finds

  23-12-2025 22:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: It's been more than eight years since Amazon bought Whole Foods, but the two companies still haven't aligned their setup for the Microsoft software their employees use. That disconnect was flagged in an 8-week Deloitte review of Whole Foods' use of Microsoft 365 apps earlier this year, according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider. Deloitte found that Whole Foods relies on "fragmented" Microsoft toolsets, has loose security and data-retention
  
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• Is the Dictionary Done For?

  23-12-2025 21:51 via news.slashdot.org
  In the late 1980s, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary sat on the New York Times best-seller list for 155 consecutive weeks and eventually sold 57 million copies, a figure believed to be second only to the Bible in the United States -- but those days are thoroughly gone. Stefan Fatsis's new book "Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary" chronicles what Louis Menand describes in The New Yorker as "a losing struggle" for legacy dictionaries to survive in the internet ag
  
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• Europe's Public Institutions Are Quietly Ditching US Cloud Providers

  23-12-2025 21:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  European public institutions are quietly migrating away from American cloud providers and office software, driven less by policy ambitions in Brussels than by the mundane legal reality that GDPR-mandated risk assessments keep flagging the US CLOUD Act as an unacceptable threat to citizen data.
  Austria's Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism moved 1,200 employees to the open-source platform Nextcloud in four months. Germany's Schleswig-Holstein has already transitioned 24,000 of its 30
  
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• Samsung's 2026 Gaming Monitors Promise 6K, 3D, and Up To 1,040Hz

  23-12-2025 20:44 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung is breaking new ground with its 2026 lineup of gaming monitors, with the Odyssey 3D G90XH becoming the first to feature a 6K display with "glasses-free 3D." The new monitor comes with a 32-inch IPS panel, offering real-time eye-tracking that "adjusts depth and perspective" based on your position, along with a speedy 165Hz refresh rate that you can boost to 330Hz with a Dual Mode feature that switches to 3K.
  [...] A 6K 3D display isn't the only notable
  
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• Remote Work is Officially Dead, Says the World's Largest Recruiter

  23-12-2025 19:50 via slashdot.org
  The great return-to-office battle has effectively concluded and a clear pecking order has emerged, according to Sander van 't Noordende, the CEO of Randstad, a staffing giant that places around half a million workers in jobs every week. Remote work is becoming a status symbol reserved for star performers and those possessing rare skills. "You have to be very special to be able to demand a 100% remote job," van 't Noordende told Fortune. "That's increasingly the story. You have to have very speci
  
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• Australia Poised for Desalination Boom as Water Shortages Loom

  23-12-2025 19:16 via slashdot.org
  Australia is on track for a significant expansion of desalination capacity -- converting seawater to freshwater -- to meet the needs of a swelling population at a time of declining average rainfall. From a report: The world's driest inhabited continent is projected to build or expand 11 desalination plants worth more than A$23 billion ($15 billion) over the next 10 years, according to a research report by Dominic McNally at Oxford Economics.
  "Our population growth forecasts imply an additional 1
  
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• 5K Gaming Is Too Hard, Even for an RTX 5090D

  23-12-2025 18:28 via games.slashdot.org
  Asus has been showcasing its new 5K 27-inch ROG Strix 27 Pro gaming monitor running at 5,120 x 2,880 resolution and up to 180Hz, but even Nvidia's flagship RTX 5090 struggles to deliver smooth frame rates at this demanding pixel count. In testing conducted by Asus, the RTX 5090D -- a Chinese-exclusive variant with weaker AI performance -- achieved just 51 frames per second in a Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark at ultra ray traced settings. The test system ran an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D processor, had DLSS set
  
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• Ryanair Fined $301M Over 'Abusive Strategy' To Limit Ticket Sales By Online Travel Agencies

  23-12-2025 17:41 via slashdot.org
  Speaking of Italy's competition authority , it has fined Ryanair $301 million for abusing its dominant market position to limit sales of tickets by online travel agents. The Guardian: The authority said Europe's largest airline had "implemented an abusive strategy to hinder travel agencies" via an "elaborate strategy" of technical obstacles for agents and passengers to make it difficult for online travel agents to sell Ryanair tickets and instead force sales through its own website.
  The fine rel
  
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• Apple and Google Asking Some Employees With H-1B Visas To Avoid International Travel

  23-12-2025 17:01 via apple.slashdot.org
  Tech giants Google and Apple are asking some employees with H-1B visas to reconsider international travel, as their legal teams warned that visa processing delays could keep employees abroad for months, according to Business Insider. From a report: Law firms representing the tech giants sent memos advising staff who require visa stamps for reentry to stay in the U.S., warning that international travel could entangle them in visa screening delays following the introduction of a new social media s
  
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• Apple Fined $116 Million Over App Privacy Prompts

  23-12-2025 16:22 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple has been fined $116 million by Italy's antitrust regulator over the "excessively burdensome" privacy rules it imposes on third-party apps. From a report: The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) says that Apple abused its dominant app store market position by burdening developers with "disproportionate" terms around data collection that exceed privacy law requirements, compared to rules for native iOS apps.
  The fine specifically targets the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy Apple laun
  
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