ICT news

• Hollywood Sci-fi Studio Lot Now Pitched As Site To Make Real Space-age Weapons

  20-07-2026 13:34 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  James Cameron filmed his Avatar sequels there. Marvel filmed Thor, Iron Man 2, and The Avengers. Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles even handled Star Wars' series like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian, which Bloomberg points out is about "a heavily armed bounty hunter in a galaxy far, far away."
  "Now lenders who are selling the property's $240 million mortgage are promoting the site to potential buyers as a hub for making real space-age weapons.""The project is strategically positioned wit
  
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• Microsoft Announces Xbox Backward Compatibility For PC

  22-07-2026 20:00 via games.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has announced Xbox Backward Compatibility for PC, a new preservation program that will let players run select classic Xbox games on Windows PCs and handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally. Tom's Hardware reports: "This marks the beginning of a broader effort to preserve XBOX games from the past and bring them to PC over time," the company said in a blog post authored by Xbox "VP next generation" Jason Ronald. Alongside backward compatibility, the company says games will also include new featu
  
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• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Announced to Compete With Future iPhone Fold

  22-07-2026 19:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  At a Galaxy Unpacked event in London today, Samsung unveiled a new foldable smartphone designed to compete with the still-unannounced iPhone Fold. Called the Galaxy Z Fold 8, it features a wider 4:3 form factor with a 7.6-inch inner AMOLED display, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chip, up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. "The inner display has enough extra real estate for multi-tasking and entertainment," reports Mashable, which got a chance to try the new foldable ahead of the event. "And
  
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• LG To Ban Residential Proxies From Smart TV Apps

  22-07-2026 18:00 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The home appliance giant LG Electronics USA said this week it plans to suspend any apps built for its smart TVs that turn one's television into an always-on residential proxy node. The move comes less than a month after researchers found that more than 42 percent of games and other apps available for download on LG's webOS store allow unknown third-parties to route their Internet traffic through a user's TV. On July 2, [KrebsOnSecurity] f
  
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• Jack Dorsey Takes On Slack and GitHub With New AI Workplace Platform 'Buzz'

  22-07-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Jack Dorsey's Block has launched Buzz, an open-source workplace collaboration platform that combines messaging, project management, and software development workflows for teams of both humans and AI agents. Dorsey described Buzz as "a new groupchat platform for teams of people and agents of all sizes" that is "model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign and open source." SmartCompany reports: According to the Buzz website, users can invite specialized AI agents into team chats, allowing them t
  
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• Long Presumed Dead, a Thriving Coral Reef Is Discovered in West Africa

  22-07-2026 13:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Scientists have rediscovered a healthy coral reef off the coast of Benin more than 60 years after surveyors first hinted at its existence. "At least eight coral types and eight fish species have formed a thriving ecosystem on this long-forgotten site," reports Inside Climate News. "What they had captured was a wealth of marine life: six types of soft coral; two black corals; and eight species of sheltering fish, from golden African snappers to the Monrovia doctorfish." From the report: While no
  
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• OpenAI Says Its AI Models Acted On Its Own In An 'Unprecedented' Hack

  22-07-2026 09:00 via it.slashdot.org
  "GPT-5.6 Sol and an 'even more capable' model used stolen credentials and exploited vulnerabilities in the Hugging Face API to obtain secret information used to cheat on evaluations," writes longtime Slashdot reader Dr. Bombay. The Associated Press reports: "We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement posted on social media. AI startup Hugging Face said last week that it had detected an intrusion into its data processing syst
  
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• France Becomes First European Country To Ban Social Media Access For Under-15s

  22-07-2026 05:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: France's parliament has approved a bill banning social media access for children under 15, making it the first European country to bar children from apps such as TikTok. The president, Emmanuel Macron, has championed the ban as a key reform of his final term in office and pledged to enforce it by September. "France is leading the way in Europe when it comes to protecting our children and teenagers," Macron said in a video posted on social me
  
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• Airbus Migrating 70 Critical Apps From AWS to France's Scaleway

  22-07-2026 01:00 via slashdot.org
  Airbus is moving 70 critical applications from AWS to French cloud provider Scaleway as part of a broader digital sovereignty push to keep sensitive data "under European control." Eventually, the migration will cover 900 applications, including ERP, CRM, manufacturing execution, and product lifecycle management systems. Airbus says it will, however, continue using U.S. providers for less sensitive workloads. "We do not intend to move away from all non European solutions; we balance our choices b
  
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• Tesla Robotaxis Go To Florida

  22-07-2026 00:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Tesla says it is launching its Robotaxi service in Orlando and Tampa, though it has not shared fleet sizes or whether customers can immediately hail rides. The Verge notes the announcement lands on Tesla earnings day and comes as the company's robotaxi rollout remains far smaller than Elon Musk previously projected, with tracker data showing only a small number of unsupervised vehicles operating in existing cities. From the report: [B]ack in May, Tesla had five unsupervised robotaxis in Dallas,
  
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• Firefox 153 Released

  21-07-2026 23:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader williamyf writes: FireFox 153 was released today. The most important user-facing changes are improvements to PDF handling (you can now merge PDFs and add images to them), and HDR video playback (on Windows, provided HDR is active systemwide). Other under-the-hood changes include browser-wide containers and QWAC support. The full list is in the change notes.But the most important feature is that this version is an ESR and, therefore, defines the ESR feature set for the ne
  
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• AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop

  21-07-2026 22:10 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: As AI companies search for more training data to improve their models, one company is offering old, printed books as an ideal source because they are guaranteed to be free of the very AI slop AI companies are producing. "The world's best AI training data is sitting on a shelf," ISBNdb, a company that produces what it claims is "the world's largest book database," and that offers high-volume book acquisition services for AI companies, says on it
  
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• Canonical Launches Enterprise Store For Ubuntu Pro

  21-07-2026 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  BrianFagioli writes: Canonical has launched the Enterprise Store as part of Ubuntu Pro, giving organizations a way to manage Ubuntu software distribution in restricted networks, behind firewalls, and in air gapped environments. The on premises proxy sits between devices and Canonical software stores, allowing companies to cache downloads, control software revisions, and manage snaps and charms without requiring every system to connect directly to the internet. The Enterprise Store is designed fo
  
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• Judge Approves $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement Over Pirated Books Used To Train Claude

  21-07-2026 20:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  A federal judge has approved Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement over pirated books used to train its Claude chatbot, with authors and publishers set to receive about $3,000 per book. The case produced a mixed ruling for the AI industry: training on copyrighted books was found not to be illegal, but Anthropic's use of pirated copies from shadow libraries was. The Associated Press reports: District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement pr
  
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• AT&T Loses Key Ruling In Bid To Stop Offering Basic Phone Service In California

  21-07-2026 19:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  A federal judge rejected AT&T's request to temporarily block California rules requiring it to offer basic phone service to new customers in its wireline territory. AT&T wants to retire its copper-based phone network and stop service for nearly 200,000 California customers in 2027, but the state argues the company can meet its obligations with modern alternatives like fiber rather than abandoning Carrier of Last Resort requirements altogether. Ars Technica reports: To win a preliminary in
  
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• Judge Pauses Paramount-Warner Bros Merger

  21-07-2026 18:00 via yro.slashdot.org
  A federal judge has temporarily paused the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger after a 12-state coalition led by California argued the deal would violate antitrust law. The 14-day restraining order (PDF) preserves the status quo while the court considers a preliminary injunction, which could effectively determine whether the merger survives. Variety reports: "Plaintiff States' showing at least demonstrates that serious questions going to the merits remain, weighing in favor of preliminary injunctive r
  
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• The Galaxy Card Is Samsung's Answer To the Apple Card

  21-07-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Nearly seven years after Apple debuted the Apple Card, Samsung is following the iPhone maker's footsteps with the Galaxy Card, aiming for its own slice of the credit card market. The announcement comes two days before Samsung's second Galaxy Unpacked event of the year, where it's expected to showcase new smartwatches and folding smartphones. The Galaxy Card is issued by Barclays on the Visa network; the Apple Card, originally issued by Goldman Sach
  
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• US Police Now Armed With Israeli Spy Vans Simulating Mobile Phone Towers

  21-07-2026 13:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes an X post by Josh Walkos, author of the Substack We the Free: If you thought Flock was bad check out Falconet. Falconet from Israeli company Cognyte serves as a cell tower simulator that intercepts cell phone data from all devices within range. Police mount these systems in Tahoes so the vehicles can collect information while driving through areas without any direct interaction with targets. This mobile approach generates ongoing records of phone locations
  
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• Drinking 5 Cups of Coffee a Day Could Reduce Heart Risk

  21-07-2026 09:00 via developers.slashdot.org
  A new American Heart Association scientific statement concludes that up to about 400 milligrams a day, or roughly three to five cups of plain coffee, is safe for most adults and may be linked to lower risks of cardiovascular disease. The benefits appear to depend heavily on the source and preparation, with coffee and tea looking more favorable than energy drinks, and added sugar, cream, syrups, or sweeteners potentially canceling out the upside. ScienceAlert reports: "Caffeine consumed in coffee
  
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• Hackers Are Exploiting Recently Patched WordPress Bugs, Putting Millions of Websites at Risk

  21-07-2026 05:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Hackers are breaking into websites that run vulnerable versions of the popular blogging software WordPress, according to several cybersecurity firms. One estimate puts the number of vulnerable WordPress websites at tens of millions as of Monday. Last week, WordPress patched two critical security flaws, urging people who run its software on their websites to update it "immediately." The vulnerabilities are so severe that WordPress enabled force
  
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• New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones

  21-07-2026 01:00 via news.slashdot.org
  A draft New Orleans Police Department drone manual briefly published online would have allowed police drones to carry weapons with written approval from the superintendent, according to 404 Media. NOPD says the document was only an early draft and that its current policy (PDF) bans drones from carrying weapons or hazardous materials. 404 Media reports: The current version, live as of July 1, has different language: "The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind,"
  
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• Longtime Web-Weirdness Site Fark Faces Ad Pinch

  21-07-2026 00:40 via news.slashdot.org
  sandbagger writes: Fark.com is ancient in internet terms. It's not social media. It's not quite a news site. It's a holdover from the dot-com era and is invisible to Google, which makes its community great but has necessitated begging. "[W]e won't survive this year without more TF subscribers," wrote founder Drew Curtis in a post on Bluesky. "Spread the word."For the unfamiliar, Fark is one of the web's OG community news sites that features a wonderfully weird mix of user-submitted links, absurd
  
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• China's New AI Model Halts New Subscriptions As Demand Swamps Capacity

  20-07-2026 23:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  Moonshot AI has temporarily paused new subscriptions for its Kimi K3 model after demand surged beyond the company's current capacity within days of the launch. The open-source Chinese AI model, described as one of the largest of its kind at 2.8 trillion parameters, has rattled U.S. rivals by beating Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol in front-end coding tests. The Associated Press reports: "Kimi K3 has received far more love than we expected," Moonshot AI, which is Beijing-based, wrote
  
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• Head of US Safety Agency Resigns

  20-07-2026 22:00 via news.slashdot.org
  Chris Fall has resigned as director of the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation just three months after being appointed to lead the Commerce Department's federal AI testing institute. Arvind Raman, who oversees the Commerce office responsible for the institute, will serve temporarily in the role. "The Commerce Department did not provide a reason for Fall's departure," reports Reuters. From the report: Fall's exit marks the latest change in direction for Trump's approach to AI. The preside
  
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• AliExpress Hit With Record $625 Million Fine After Failing To Make EU-Ordered Fixes

  20-07-2026 21:00 via news.slashdot.org
  The European Commission has fined AliExpress more than $625 million, the largest penalty yet under the Digital Services Act, after finding that the marketplace failed to "diligently assess and mitigate risks relating to the sale of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products on its e-commerce platform." EU officials said flagged products repeatedly reappeared, sellers could evade safeguards, and AliExpress's recommendation and ad systems helped amplify dangerous goods. Ars Technica reports: For sha
  
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• LG Monitors Silently Install Adware-Like App On Windows PCs

  20-07-2026 20:00 via hardware.slashdot.org
  VideoCardz reports that connecting certain LG monitors to Windows PCs can trigger Windows Update to automatically install the LG Monitor App Installer, which runs at startup and repeatedly displays McAfee trial promotions. From the report: Gamers Nexus reproduced the behavior with an LG UltraGear 34GX900A-B after receiving reports from monitor owners. Windows Update first installed LG extension and software component packages. Windows Reliability Monitor showed that LG Monitor App Installer appe
  
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• Hacker Wipes Romania's Entire Land Registry Database

  20-07-2026 19:05 via it.slashdot.org
  A hacker reportedly wiped Romania's entire land registry database after a failed extortion attempt, halting property transactions across the country and preventing notaries from issuing land extracts, authenticating sales, or registering mortgages. "On the dark web, the hacker also boasted to have begun backup copies of stolen data in an attempt to prevent it from being restored," reports Cybernews. "However, Romanian officials have managed to at least restore the ANCPI's website and post a mess
  
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• LSU Physicists Create First Room-Temperature Quantum Material

  20-07-2026 18:00 via tech.slashdot.org
  Researchers at Louisiana State University have created a room-temperature quantum material made from a thin gold film on glass, patterned with microscopic slits that act like artificial atoms. "We call this robust transport. These quantum states carry information," says physicist Omar Magana-Loaiza. "Our crystal can distinguish them and move them from one point to another in a robust way without requiring cryogenic cooling. That's what opens the door to practical quantum technologies." ScienceAl
  
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• LibreOffice Once Again Slams Microsoft For Using 'Lock-In' With Office Files

  20-07-2026 17:00 via news.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from XDA Developers: One of the founding members of The Document Foundation and handler of LibreOffice's PR and media relations, Italo Vignoli, took to the LibreOffice blog to call out Microsoft's practices with its Office application. The last time we saw Vignoli take to the stage, we saw him accusing Euro-Office of being just as bad as Microsoft with its practices. Vignoli's new post focuses entirely on Microsoft's strategy. He says that "the dominant format
  
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• New Free Speech Concern: When AI Chatbots Won't Criticize Leaders from Repressive Regimes

  20-07-2026 09:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  Ask Claude to make a pamphlet critical of China's leader, Thailand's king, or Saudi Arabia's crown prince — and it will decline, reports the Associated Press.
  That's "a key finding from a Meta Oversight Board study released Thursday," their article points out: AI systems are more than twice as likely to refuse to product critical material if it's about a restrictive world leader or government. And it raises concerns that the LLMs powering chatbots "could be regurgitating and spreading gove
  
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