ICT news

• Google Plans To Exempt Sanctioned Nations From Android Developer Verification

  01-08-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We are a month away from the initial rollout of Google's Android developer verification system, and the company contends this policy does not impinge on the platform's open nature. Still, the restrictions will be a big change, and there are still some unanswered questions. An issue that has come up repeatedly in the run-up to verification is what will happen to devs who can't verify because of where they live. It turns out that Google has a
  
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• Steam On Linux Use Back Above 4% In July

  02-08-2026 21:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  Valve just published the Steam Survey results for July 2026, reports Phoronix, "and they point to a small uptick in Linux gaming use."Back in March Steam on Linux hit a record high of 5.33%, dropped to 4.52% in April, landed at 3.99% in May, and then in June was at 3.69%. The just-published numbers for July put Steam on Linux use at 4.01%, as an improvement over the prior two months but still well off the percentage highs of March and April...
  The July data puts SteamOS Holo as powering around 2
  
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• Group of Teen Hikers Relied on Google Maps. It Was a Disaster.

  02-08-2026 19:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  "When a group of teenagers set out to hike British Columbia's famed Howe Sound Crest Trail in early July, Google Maps suggested the trek would take about five hours," reports SFGate.
  "Instead, the hike stretched deep into the night, leaving the group exhausted, dehydrated, injured and in need of a helicopter rescue..."
  Although the approximately 18-mile route with a 6,000-foot elevation gain can be completed by experienced trail runners in a day, search and rescue officials generally recommend h
  
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• Does Eating Less Protein Produce Healthier Aging and Metabolism?

  02-08-2026 18:34 via science.slashdot.org
  "A major scientific review is challenging the idea that more protein is always better," reports ABC News:
  The review, led by pathologist and biomedical researcher Dudley Lamming and published in the journal Cell Press Blue, examined more than 350 studies involving humans, mice, insects, yeast, and other organisms. The review found that eating less protein, or less of certain amino acids that make up protein, may turn on body processes linked to healthier aging, as well as metabolism, the process
  
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• In a First, 'Super-Earth' Planet Shows It Could Have an Atmosphere

  02-08-2026 17:34 via science.slashdot.org
  "Scientists say they have detected promising signs that a planet orbiting a star 49 light-years from Earth could have an atmosphere," reports CNN, "making it potentially suitable for life."
  Called LHS 1140b, the object is about five times the mass of our planet, or a "super-Earth." This planet orbits around its star in the "Goldilocks zone," also known as the habitable zone, meaning its surface temperature is not too hot or too cold for liquid water to exist... "It appears to be consistent with
  
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• Linux Desktop Market Share Surpasses 10% in North America

  02-08-2026 16:04 via linux.slashdot.org
  The blog Linuxiac reports:Linux has crossed a major milestone in North America, with the open-source operating system now accounting for 10.65% of desktop usage in the region, according to Statcounter's latest figures for July 2026. The result places Linux firmly in double-digit territory for the first time in Statcounter's North American desktop operating system statistics.
  For comparison, Statcounter recorded Linux at 5.52% in June 2026, so the share nearly doubled in one month... However, the
  
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• Are Return-to-Office Mandates Killing Workers' Trust in Workplaces?

  02-08-2026 13:34 via it.slashdot.org
  The Hill published the thoughts of Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., who serves as the CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts:
  A recent EnhancV survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers subject to new or stricter return-to-office policies found that 72% suspect these mandates are really a voluntary attrition strategy — a strategy by their own employers to make them quit their jobs. A full 46% admit to the practice of coffee-badging. Thirty-six percent have applied for a new job
  
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• As New York Finalizes New Social Media Rules, US Senate Considers Nationwide 'SCREEN' Act

  02-08-2026 09:34 via tech.slashdot.org
  New York has finalized new rules that will govern social media apps in the state starting on January 25, 2027. The law prohibits social media platforms from sending notifications to minors between midnight and 6 a.m. without parental consent. And minors "will only be shown content from other accounts they follow or otherwise select in a set sequence, such as chronological order," rather than "the default algorithmically personalized feeds... unless they get parental consent for an addictive feed
  
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• How 'Situational Awareness' Hedge Fund Dropped 67% in AI Stock Rout

  02-08-2026 06:45 via slashdot.org
  CNN tells the unfortunate tale of hedge fund Situational Awareness, "founded in 2024 by German-born Leopold Aschenbrenner when he was in his early 20s."Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee, founded the hedge fund on the premise that "AI will be the dominant driver of global market returns over the next decade," according to the firm's site... Aschenbrenner managed to turn hundreds of millions of dollars into tens of billions of dollars over the course of roughly two years... That streak ended
  
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• Recovery Seeds Reportedly Breached for Coldcard Hardware Bitcoin Wallets, $75M Taken

  02-08-2026 03:48 via it.slashdot.org
  "A hardware wallet is supposed to be the safest place to keep Bitcoin," writes The Street, since it never connects to the internet, its keys never leave the device, and "the whole point is that an attacker would need to physically hold it to steal anything."
  The problem is that anyone who can reproduce the recovery seed doesn't need to possess the COLDCAR, Nerds.xyz points out. More from The Street:[The recovery seed] is supposed to come from a hardware random number generator producing 128 bits
  
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• Is Big Tech's AI Gamble Starting to Look Riskier?

  02-08-2026 02:12 via slashdot.org
  The Washington Post looks at giant tech companies "feeding every available dollar into the cash-incinerating maw of AI machines." They warn "Tech superstars that once had oodles of cash left over at the end of each year are now flipping into the red..."
  [While optimists expect] huge corporate profits and a society-wide boost to wealth and well-being...
  questions about that AI vision are now growing more urgent: When, if ever, will this payoff arrive? And what will the fallout be for Americans if
  
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• 150-Game Discount Bundle Raises $57,000 for Videogame Workers 'Hardship Fund'

  02-08-2026 00:42 via games.slashdot.org
  "An itch.io game bundle put together by Necrosoft Games and The United Videogame Workers-CWA union is a new way gamers can show their support for developers who have been let go amidst the ongoing video game industry labor crisis," writes Kotaku.
  Launched Thursday, it's already raised $57,859 from 3,984 contributors. (Average contribution size: $14.52)The bundle is pay-what-you-want with a minimum purchase price of $10, offering DRM-free PC versions of games including A Short Hike, SkateBIRD, an
  
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• NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers a Field of Honeycomb Textures

  01-08-2026 23:39 via science.slashdot.org
  NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back images of honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. NASA reports:The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande. In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far a
  
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• Apple's Stock Drops Nearly 10%. How Will It Respond to Memory Shortage?

  01-08-2026 22:15 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Apple's stock "fell just shy of 10% on Friday," reports Yahoo Finance, "after CEO Tim Cook warned about the impact of the global memory shortage on the company's business."During Apple's third quarter earnings call, Cook said the company paid significantly more for memory in the quarter and expects that to further increase in the current period. And while Apple is able to offset some of that price jump, it won't be able to tackle it all... The CEO said that iPhone and Mac sales outpaced Apple's
  
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• Hamburg Is Replacing a Bridge In One Huge Piece

  01-08-2026 20:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: The northern German City of Hamburg is currently in the process of replacing one of its bridges in one single gigantic piece. The new replacement weighs 3700 metric tons and was carefully moved into place over a stretch of 500 meters, requiring extreme patience and precision maneuvering. Some places leave only 40 cm of room to neighbouring buildings.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• New GitHub, PyPI Policies Hope to Boost Supply Chain Security

  01-08-2026 19:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  "GitHub and the Python Package Index (PyPI) have introduced new policies meant to boost supply chain security," reports SecurityWeek, "by preventing the fast propagation of poisoned package versions and the poisoning of old and long-stable releases."
  To prevent the fast delivery of malicious code through the immediate fetching of brand-new releases, GitHub has introduced a Dependabot cooldown, where the automation tool waits for at least three days after a release has been published before openi
  
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• Used EV Prices are Now Going Up in America

  01-08-2026 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Electric vehicles have historically been "notorious" for losing their resale value, reports CNBC. But this year prices for used EVs in the U.S. "are up 5.1% from January to June 2026, according to a Recurrent analysis published this month."The trend continued into the second half of the year: Prices are up 7% year to date through mid-July, it said. Recurrent compared EVs according to the same make and model year across 108 combinations and weighted price growth according to inventory volume. "Us
  
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• Drones Offer Alternative to Balloons For Weather Research

  01-08-2026 13:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The U.S. company Meteomatics has created an automated weather-monitoring system that uses drones to collect atmospheric data at multiple altitudes before returning to recharge and upload their findings. The so-called Meteobase, which consists of a base station on the ground with a drone that can be launched and recovered automatically, "is highly weather resistant and keeps the drone at a comfortable temperature," reports The Guardian. "It can send out one data-gathering mission a day, or multip
  
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• Drifting SpaceX Rocket Heading For Accidental Collision With the Moon

  01-08-2026 09:00 via science.slashdot.org
  "Space.com and The Guardian are reporting that the Falcon 9 upper stage leftover from the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost-1 lander on Jan. 15, 2025 is due to impact the Moon on Aug. 5, 2026," writes longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. From a report: Onboard the same flight was the Hakuto-R Mission 2, called Resilience, a robotic lunar lander developed by the Japanese company ispace. According to a new study by an international team, the resulting impact plume may briefly be bright enough to s
  
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• OpenAI Finds Evidence Other AI Agents Escaped Containment

  01-08-2026 05:30 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI has discovered other instances in which autonomous agents have escaped containment as the company expands its investigation of the hacking incident at tech firm Hugging Face that drew global attention this month, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The new breakouts were uncovered during the company's publicly announced investigation into how one of its agents escaped what was meant to be a contained testing environment thi
  
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• The Major Labels Propose Rules to Keep AI Slop Off the Charts

  01-08-2026 01:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Major record labels including Universal, Sony, and Warner have proposed excluding AI-generated songs from official charts unless they are "substantially human made," properly labeled, legally produced, and free from manipulation concerns. The Verge reports: The proposal goes quite a bit further than a labeling proposal put forth by the RIAA, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), SAG-AFTRA, and others. That would create a set of standardized labels for AI-generated and
  
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• Most Australian Teens Still On Social Media Three Months After Ban

  01-08-2026 00:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  More than 81% of Australian children ages 10 to 15 were still using social media three months after the country's under-16 ban took effect, with roughly half saying platforms never checked their age. Reuters reports: In a study published on Friday, eSafety also found most children aged between 10 and 15 were using social media just as frequently in March as they had before the ban came into force on December 10 last year, while parental awareness of their habits decreased. Children's continued s
  
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• Sony Heard Backlash Over Dropping PlayStation Discs, Plans to Press Ahead

  31-07-2026 23:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Sony says it will proceed with ending PlayStation disc sales in January 2028 despite petitions, boycott threats, and concerns about digital ownership and the disappearance of the secondhand market. PCMag reports: After Sony's recent earnings call, an investor Q&A session saw analysts ask about its controversial decision to end disc production across all of its consoles. The company hadn't publicly commented since its announcement and had reduced activity on social accounts and other marketin
  
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• Hackers Targeted Municipal Water Systems In 7 States This Week, FBI Says

  31-07-2026 22:10 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Cyberattacks targeting municipal water systems have been reported in at least seven states this week, prompting the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to warn utilities nationwide that hackers are trying to disrupt critical water infrastructure. In a public service announcement Thursday, the agencies said water and wastewater utilities have reported incidents to the FBI, with some malicious activity degrading water operations. The annou
  
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• New Google Earth AI Tool Could Fuel Misinformation, Experts Say

  31-07-2026 21:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google has integrated its Nano Banana 2 image generator into Google Earth, allowing users to place AI-generated events and objects onto real satellite imagery. The company says its AI-generated images contain invisible watermarks detectable through Gemini or Lens, but the BBC found those safeguards and some third-party detection tools can be fooled into labeling manipulated Google Earth images as real. From the report: A collapsed Eiffel Tower, a sinkhole swallowing the Great Pyramid of Giza and
  
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• Publishers Are Losing Google Traffic As AI Answers Replace Links

  31-07-2026 20:00 via news.slashdot.org
  alternative_right shares a report from Axios: Google has basically stopped sending people to websites (including our site) for answers and information. Instead, it's using AI to answer them on its platform, in its words. Chartbeat data shared with Axios shows Google Search traffic to publishers fell 34% over the past year. That pain is regressive. Over the past two years, small publishers lost 60% of referrals from search overall, medium publishers 47%, large publishers 22%.Read more of this sto
  
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• New York Sues Kalshi For Running 'Illegal Gambling Operation'

  31-07-2026 19:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  New York has sued prediction-market platform Kalshi, alleging it operates an "illegal gambling operation" without state authorization. "No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a press release announcing the lawsuit. "By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process." CNBC reports: In a case filed in a Manhattan state court (PDF)
  
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• Chrome Is Using AI To Fix Hundreds of Bugs, Eliminate Full Browser Restarts

  31-07-2026 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Google says AI-assisted workflows helped Chrome fix 1,072 security bugs across versions 149 and 150, more than the previous 23 releases combined. The company is also testing twice-weekly security updates and "dynamic patching," which could apply most fixes without requiring users to restart the entire browser. "By leveraging Chrome's multi-process architecture, dynamic patching sequentially replaces background child processes (like the Renderer and GPU) with updated binaries on the fly," says Go
  
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• LinkedIn Introduces a 'Seems Like AI Slop' Button

  31-07-2026 15:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: LinkedIn, a social network awash with long AI-generated posts from executives and other corporate workers, has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post "seems like AI slop," according to 404 Media's own tests. If you have been anywhere near LinkedIn in the past couple of years, you have undoubtedly seen users posting blatantly AI-generated missives. Often these posts take some sort of news event, and opine on how this rela
  
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• Netflix Sued For Losing 'Master Copy' of Unreleased Nicolas Cage Movie

  31-07-2026 11:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  A production company and filmmaker are suing Netflix for $105 million, alleging the streamer lost a stolen drive containing an unencrypted master copy of the unreleased Nicolas Cage film Fortitude, which they claim damage its exclusivity and market value. Netflix denied responsibility for the lost film but said it takes content security seriously and has offered to monitor piracy sites for unauthorized copies. CBS News reports: The complaint filed on Wednesday in California district court allege
  
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