ICT news

• How Did TVs Get So Cheap?

  08-01-2026 16:25 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  A 50-inch TV that would have set you back $1,100 at Best Buy during Black Friday 2001 now costs less than $200, and the price per area-pixel -- a metric accounting for both screen size and resolution -- has dropped by more than 90% over the past 25 years. The story behind this decline is largely one of liquid crystal display technology maturing from a niche product to a mass-manufactured commodity.
  LCDs represented just 5% of the TV market in 2004; by 2018, they commanded more than 95%. The larg
  
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• Researchers Beam Power From a Moving Airplane

  13-01-2026 11:00 via mobile.slashdot.org
  Researchers from the startup Overview Energy have successfully demonstrated beaming power from a moving airplane to the ground using near-infrared light. It marks the first step toward space-based solar power satellites that could someday transmit energy from orbit to existing solar farms on Earth. IEEE Spectrum reports: Overview's test transferred only a sprinkling of power, but it did it with the same components and techniques that the company plans to send to space. "Not only is it the first
  
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• You Can Now Reserve a Hotel Room On the Moon For $250,000

  13-01-2026 08:00 via science.slashdot.org
  A newly founded startup called GRU Space is taking deposits of up to $1 million to eventually build inflatable hotels on the Moon. The bet is that space needs destinations, not just rockets, even if the first customers are essentially early adopters of sci-fi optimism. Ars Technica reports: It sounds crazy, doesn't it? After all, GRU Space had, as of late December when I spoke to founder Skyler Chan, a single full-time employee aside from himself. And Chan, in fact, only recently graduated from
  
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• EPA To Stop Considering Lives Saved By Limiting Air Pollution

  13-01-2026 04:30 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the health benefits of reducing air pollution, using the cost estimates of avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths to justify clean-air rules. Not anymore. Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry
  
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• European Firms Hit Hiring Brakes Over AI and Slowing Growth

  13-01-2026 03:10 via slashdot.org
  European hiring momentum is cooling as slower growth and accelerating AI adoption make both employers and workers more cautious. DW.com reports: [Angelika Reich, leadership adviser at the executive recruitment firm Spencer Stuart] noted how Europe's labor market has "cooled down" and how "fewer job vacancies and a tougher economic climate naturally make employees more cautious about switching jobs." Despite remaining resilient, the 21-member eurozone's labor market is projected to grow more slow
  
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• Viral Chinese App 'Are You Dead?' Checks On Those Who Live Alone

  13-01-2026 02:30 via tech.slashdot.org
  The viral Chinese app Are You Dead? (known as Sileme in Chinese) targets people who live alone by requiring regular check-ins and alerting an emergency contact if the user doesn't respond. It launched in May and is now the most downloaded paid app in China. Cybernews reports: Users need to check in with the app every two days by clicking a large button to confirm that they are alive. Otherwise, the app will inform the user's appointed emergency contact that they may be in trouble, Chinese state-
  
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• Even Linus Torvalds Is Vibe Coding Now

  13-01-2026 01:50 via linux.slashdot.org
  Linus Torvalds has started experimenting with vibe coding, using Google's Antigravity AI to generate parts of a small hobby project called AudioNoise. "In doing so, he has become the highest-profile programmer yet to adopt this rapidly spreading, and often mocked, AI-driven programming," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. Fro the report: [I]t's a trivial program called AudioNoise -- a recent side project focused on digital audio effects and signal processing. He started it after building phy
  
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• Fintech Firm Betterment Confirms Data Breach After Hackers Send Fake $10,000 Crypto Scam Messages

  13-01-2026 01:10 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Betterment, a financial app, sent a sketchy-looking notification on Friday asking users to send $10,000 to Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto wallets and promising to "triple your crypto," according to a thread on Reddit. The Betterment account says in an X thread that this was an "unauthorized message" that was sent via a "third-party system." TechCrunch has since confirmed that an undisclosed number of Betterment's customers have had their personal
  
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• Should AI Agents Be Classified As People?

  13-01-2026 00:30 via slashdot.org
  New submitter sziring writes: Harvard Business Review's IdeaCast podcast interviewed McKinsey CEO Bob Sternfels, where he classified AI agents as people. "I often get asked, 'How big is McKinsey? How many people do you employ?' I now update this almost every month, but my latest answer to you would be 60,000, but it's 40,000 humans and 20,000 agents."This statement looks to be the opening shots of how we as a society need to classify AI agents and whether they will replace human jobs. Did those
  
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• Meta Plans To Cut Around 10% of Employees In Reality Labs Division

  12-01-2026 23:50 via meta.slashdot.org
  Meta plans to cut roughly 10% of staff in its Reality Labs division, with layoffs hitting metaverse-focused teams hardest. Reuters reports: The cuts to Reality Labs, which has roughly 15,000 employees, could be announced as soon as Tuesday and are set to disproportionately affect those in the metaverse unit who work on virtual reality headsets and virtual social networks, the report said. [...] Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who oversees Reality Labs, has called a meeting on Wedn
  
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• Supreme Court Takes Case That Could Strip FCC of Authority To Issue Fines

  12-01-2026 23:10 via yro.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Supreme Court will hear a case that could invalidate the Federal Communications Commission's authority to issue fines against companies regulated by the FCC. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile challenged the FCC's ability to punish them after the commission fined the carriers for selling customer location data without their users' consent. AT&T convinced the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn its fine (PDF), while Veriz
  
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• How Markdown Took Over the World

  12-01-2026 22:25 via it.slashdot.org
  22 years ago, developer and columnist John Gruber released Markdown, a simple plain-text formatting system designed to spare writers the headache of memorizing arcane HTML tags. As technologist Anil Dash writes in a long piece, Markdown has since embedded itself into nearly every corner of modern computing.
  Aaron Swartz, then seventeen years old, served as the beta tester before its quiet March 2004 debut. Google eventually added Markdown support to Docs after more than a decade of user requests
  
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• Microsoft Pulls the Plug On Its Free, Two-Decade-Old Windows Deployment Toolkit

  12-01-2026 21:50 via it.slashdot.org
  Microsoft has abruptly retired the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, a free platform that IT administrators have relied on to deploy Windows operating systems and applications for more than two decades. The retirement, reports the Register, came with "immediate" notice, meaning no more fixes, support, security patches, or updates, and the download packages may be removed from official distribution channels.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Norway Reaches 97% EV Sales as EVs Now Outnumber Diesels On Its Roads

  12-01-2026 21:10 via tech.slashdot.org
  Norway has released its December and full year 2025 automotive sales numbers and the world's leading EV haven has broken records once again. The country had previously targeted an end to fossil car sales in 2025, and it basically got there. From a report: In 2017, Norway set a formal non-binding target to end fossil car sales in the country by 2025 -- a target earlier than any other country in the world by several years. Norway was already well ahead of the world in EV adoption, with about a thi
  
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• China is Geoengineering Deserts With Blue-Green Algae

  12-01-2026 20:32 via slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shares a report: Deserts are hard to reclaim because plants cannot survive on shifting sand, but scientists in northwest China are changing that -- by dropping vast amounts of blue-green algae onto the dry terrain. These specially selected strains of cyanobacteria can survive extreme heat and drought for long periods, according to China Science Daily on Thursday. When rain finally comes, they spring to life, spreading rapidly and forming a tough, biomass-rich crust over the s
  
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• Batman TV Series Premiered 60 Years Ago Today

  12-01-2026 19:45 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  60 years ago today, ABC aired the first episode of its live-action Batman television series, introducing Adam West as the deadpan Caped Crusader in what became a pop culture phenomenon blending high-camp humor and cliffhanger thrills. The mid-season replacement ran for 120 episodes over three seasons before ending in March 1968.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
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• Revolutionary Eye Injection Saved My Sight, Says First-Ever Patient

  12-01-2026 19:06 via science.slashdot.org
  Doctors say they have achieved the previously impossible -- restoring sight and preventing blindness in people with a rare but dangerous eye conditon called hypotony. From a report: Moorfields hospital in London is the world's first dedicated clinic for the disorder and seven out of eight patients given the pioneering treatment have responded to the therapy, a pilot study shows. One of them -- the first-ever -- is Nicki Guy, 47, who is sharing her story exclusively with the BBC.
  She says the res
  
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• Why It Is Difficult To Resize Windows on MacOS 26

  12-01-2026 18:22 via apple.slashdot.org
  The dramatically larger corner radius Apple introduced in macOS 26 Tahoe has pushed the invisible resize hit target for windows mostly outside the window itself -- roughly 75% of the 19Ã--19 pixel clickable area now lies beyond the visible boundary. In previous macOS versions, about 62% of that resize target would fall inside the window corner.
  Apple removed the visible resize grippy-strip from window corners in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in July 2011. The visual indicator had served two purposes
  
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• Exercise is as Effective as Medication in Treating Depression, Study Finds

  12-01-2026 17:41 via science.slashdot.org
  A major new review by the Cochrane collaboration -- an independent network of researchers -- evaluated 73 randomized controlled trials involving about 5,000 people with depression and found that exercise matched the effectiveness of both pharmacological treatments and psychological therapies.
  The biological mechanisms overlap considerably with antidepressants. "Exercise can help improve neurotransmitter function, like serotonin as well as dopamine and endorphins," said Dr. Stephen Mateka, medica
  
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• Apple Partners With Google on Siri Upgrade, Declares Gemini 'Most Capable Foundation'

  12-01-2026 17:05 via apple.slashdot.org
  Apple has struck a multi-year partnership with Google to power a more capable version of Siri using Gemini AI models, ending months of speculation about which company would help the iPhone maker catch up in the generative AI race. In a statement, Apple said it had determined after "careful evaluation" that "Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models."
  The deal comes after Apple delayed its planned Siri AI upgrade last March, acknowledging that the projec
  
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• US President Calls for 10% Credit Card Interest Cap, Banks Push Back

  12-01-2026 16:22 via news.slashdot.org
  President Donald Trump revived a campaign pledge Friday night by calling for a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a proposal that banking groups immediately opposed despite the industry's heavy donations to his 2024 campaign and support for his second-term agenda.
  Trump posted on Truth Social that he hoped the cap would be in place by January 20, one year after he took office, though he did not specify whether it would come through executive action or legislation.
  Americans current
  
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• Cloudflare Threatens Italy Exit After $16.3M Fine For Refusing Piracy Blocks

  12-01-2026 15:42 via tech.slashdot.org
  Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has threatened to withdraw free cybersecurity services from Italy's Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics and potentially exit the country after Italy's telecommunications regulator fined the company approximately 14 million euros for failing to comply with anti-piracy blocking orders. The penalty equals 1% of Cloudflare's global annual revenue but exceeds twice what the company earned from Italy in 2024.
  Prince called Italy's Autorita per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni a
  
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• Streamer Spend To Top $100B For First Time In 2026

  12-01-2026 15:03 via entertainment.slashdot.org
  Streamer spend on content is set to top the $100 billion mark for the first time this year, according to an Ampere Analysis report. From a report: The landmark figure will be met as global streamers "remain the primary driver of growth in content investment," according to Ampere. Spend by the likes of Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, Paramount+ and Apple TV will shoot up 6% this year, helping lead to a 2% increase in overall global content spend, Ampere forecast. The $101 billion figure,
  
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• Linux Hit a New All-Time High for Steam Market Share in December

  12-01-2026 13:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  A year ago the Steam Survey showed a 2.29% marketshare for Linux. Last May it reached 2.69%, its highest level since 2018. November saw another all-time high of 3.2%.
  But December brought a surprise, reports Phoronix:
  Back on the 1st Valve published the Steam Survey results for December 2025 and they put the Linux gaming marketshare at 3.19%, a 0.01% dip from November. But now the December results have been revised... [and] put the Linux marketshare at 3.58%, a 0.38% increase over November. Valv
  
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• Ubisoft Closes Game Studio Where Workers Voted to Unionize Two Weeks Ago

  12-01-2026 09:44 via it.slashdot.org
  Ubisoft announced Wednesday it will close its studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia — two weeks after 74% of its staff voted to unionize.
  This means laying off the 71 people at the studio, reports the gaming news site Aftermath:
  [Communications Workers of America's Canadian affiliate, CWA Canada] said in a statement to Aftermath the union will "pursue every legal recourse to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed in any way." The union said in a news release that
  
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• How Long Does It Take to Fix Linux Kernel Bugs?

  12-01-2026 06:44 via it.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from It's FOSS:Jenny Guanni Qu, a researcher at [VC fund] Pebblebed, analyzed 125,183 bugs from 20 years of Linux kernel development history (on Git). The findings show that the average bug takes 2.1 years to find. [Though the median is 0.7 years, with the average possibly skewed by "outliers" discovered after years of hiding.] The longest-lived bug, a buffer overflow in networking code, went unnoticed for 20.7 years! [But 86.5% of bugs are found within fiv
  
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• Amazon's AI Tool Listed Products from Small Businesses Without Their Knowledge

  12-01-2026 04:09 via slashdot.org
  Bloomberg reports on Amazon listings "automatically generated by an experimental AI tool" for stores that don't sell on Amazon.
  Bloomberg notes that the listings "didn't always correspond to the correct product", leaving the stores to handle the complaints from angry customers:Between the Christmas and New Year holidays, small shop owners and artisans who had found their products listed on Amazon took to social media to compare notes and warn their peers... In interviews, six small shop owners s
  
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• Finnish Startup IXI Plans New Autofocusing Eyeglasses

  12-01-2026 00:29 via tech.slashdot.org
  An anonymous reader shared this report from CNET:
  Finland-based IXI Eyewear has raised more than $40 million from investors, including Amazon, to build glasses with adaptive lenses that could dynamically autofocus based on where the person wearing them is looking. In late 2025, the company said it had developed a glasses prototype that weighs just 22 grams. It includes embedded sensors aimed at the wearer's eyes and liquid crystal lenses that respond accordingly. According to the company, the au
  
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• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says AI Doomerism Has 'Done a Lot of Damage'

  11-01-2026 23:29 via slashdot.org
  Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang "said one of his biggest takeaways from 2025 was 'the battle of narratives' over the future of AI development between those who see doom on the horizon and the optimists," reports Business Insider.
  Huang did acknowledge that "it's too simplistic" to entirely dismiss either side (on a recent episode of the "No Priors" podcast). But "I think we've done a lot of damage with very well-respected people who have painted a doomer narrative, end of the world narrative, science fi
  
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• How Many Years Left Until the Hubble Space Telescope Reenters Earth's Atmosphere?

  11-01-2026 22:29 via science.slashdot.org
  "The clock is ticking" on the Hubble Space Telescope,writes the space news site Daily Galaxy, citing estimates from the unofficial "Hubble Reentry Tracker" site (which uses orbital data from the site space-track.org, created by tech integrator SAIC):While Hubble was initially launched into low Earth orbit at an altitude of around 360 miles, it has since descended to approximately 326 miles, and it continues to fall... "The solar flux levels are currently longer in duration and more elevated than
  
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